A brief history on the evolution of the culture and tradition of the Sonowal Kacharis

A brief history on the evolution of the culture and tradition of the Sonowal Kacharis.

Initially, the Sonowal kacharis inhabited the northern side of the Brahmaputra valley, advancing eastwards and eventually crossing over at Sadiya and finally populating the southern side. It is claimed that the Sonowal Kacharis had established two kingdoms at Sadiya(situated at present day Tinsukia district of Assam) known as Halali and Hamali. It is not clear how these particular group of people came to be known as Sonowal kacharis. An explanation is that they used to wash gold on the river Subansiri due to which they were popularly called as "sonowal" but this theory is rejected by most of the sonowals. No folk tales or songs of theirs speak of this profession. It is speculated that they were the same group of Kachari people( such as Dimasa, Boro) but later came to be known in different names due to geographical separation, which eventually led to developing different cultures though the core remained same. The eastern branch of these people came to be known as sonowal kacharis due to one or various reasons which are still debated. The Sonowals share close affinity with the Boros and Dimasas in terms of religion, deities, clan structure etc. They claim that they were the same group of people is supported by the fact that many rivers and places in eastern assam and even arunachal are named as Dibang(in Arunachal), Dibru, Dihing, Dikhow, Dimow etc where Di in Dimasa means water.The arrival of the Tai Ahoms and the subsequent battles and power struggles with the Kacharis weakened the social structure of the Sonowals. The Sonowals along with the other tribes most probably had to learn Assamese after the Ahom king made it the official court language later during their rule. Though Assamese was primarily used as the Lingua Franca of the Ahom kingdom, later it engulfed the local languages and gradually took the place of mother tongue of the Sonowals(along with the Cutiyas , Morans etc). The emergence of Shankardeva and the spread of Mahapurushiya Nam Dharma also contributed to the culture loss of the Sonowal kacharis.

The later part of the Ahom rule is a very important factor in shaping the identity of the Sonowals to the present day. The 3 Burmese invasions from 1817-1819 severely affected the Sonowals due to which the later had to spread into many districts losing their identity and language in the process. It is widely known that the Burmese meted out many atrocity on the people during which 2/3 rd of the population of present day Upper Assam was wiped out, which eventually led to the arrival of the British into present day North east India and the signing of the Yandaboo treaty in 1826. Interestingly the place Mancotta, where the 5th IBF was held, is named after a troop of Burmese(Maan) soldiers were killed by members of the Sonowal kachari tribe. In spite of facing many hardships, the Sonowals managed to retain some of their traditions, most importantly their religion, but not their language. It is claimed that some 300-400 words still survives but this claim is without any scientific study. Presently, the Sonowal kacharis have 23 clans, 9 of which have emerged later due to merging of population from Mishings, Ahoms, Daflas etc. The Sonowals presently occupy the districts of Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Dhemaji, Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Golaghat, Sivasagar and Arunachal Pradesh.