WEST GARO HILLS, Meghalaya

Main Attraction: Nokrek National Park

The Nokrek National Park is about 45 kms via Asananggre and Sasatgrefrom Tura, the district headquartersbut just about 2 kms from Tura Peak in West Garo Hills. Nokrek is the highest peak in Garo Hills and has been declared a National Biosphere under the control and management of the state forest department. The peak is teeming with very rare plants and animals deep inside the thick jungle. 

The park is also home to a very rare species of citrus-indica endemic to this place which the locals call me.mangnarang which when literally translated means the ‘orange of the spirits’. This discovery led to the establishment of the National Citrus Gene Sanctuary-cum-Biosphere Reserve at Nokrek which covers an area of about 47 sqkm.

Almost all of the important rivers and streams of the Garo Hills region originates from the Nokrek range, of which the Simsang river known as Someshwari when it enters Bangladesh at Baghmara is the most magnificent and most prominent. Abundant wildlife including herds of wild elephants, animal species like leopard, pangolin, hoolock gibbon, python, hornbill, besides rare orchids abound in the sanctuary.

Brief History

Origin of the name

The name of the West Garo Hills district is derived from the Garo tribe, the predominant inhabitants of the district. The inhabitants of the composite Garo Hills have long been known to outsiders as the Garos. The origin and the meaning of the word ‘Garo‘ are still a matter of conjecture. The name ‘Garo’ is not used by the Garos who, infact, call themselves by the name ‘A.chik’.

According to Major Playfair, the name ‘ Garos’ could have been derived from the name of one division of the tribe, the ‘Gara’ or ‘Ganching’ who live in an area now falls under South Garo Hills District near the Mymensingh District of Bangladesh and with whom the people of Bengal, subsequently the British, first came into contact. In the earliest references in British records, the name ‘Garrow’ was applied to all the native tribes of west of Jaintia Hills including the Khasis.

History

The entire area under Garo Hills was organized as a single administrative district in 1873 in consequence of unsettled conditions prevailing particularly in the hill tracts. When the British took over the administration of Bengal in the middle of the 18th century, they inherited problems that had persisted throughout the administration of the territory adjoining the Garo Hills by tributary Zamindars or landholders under the Mughals. These Zamindars owned markets near the foothills which were regularly frequented by the Garo Highlanders.

Occasionally, their attitude towards the hillmen was such that conflicts, though on minor scales, were inevitable. On the other hand, the Garos, too, were in the habit of sending out raiding parties to the plains and as a punitive measure, the markets would be banned to them. In 1775, the Zamindars of Mechpara and Karaibari in Goalpara launched punitive expeditions and even penetrated into the interior with a view to bringing the whole tribe under their control, but they were unable to stay for more than two or three years. The British sought to bring the situation under control by a series of measures, but during a period of nine years between 1807 and 1817, the Garos made several incursions into the plains in the course of which as many as 157 villages were burnt down and 181 persons were killed, 91 of them in the worst raids of all in 1816, when 150 villages were destroyed.

A change in policy was brought into effect with appointment of David Scott as Magistrate of Rangpur. This illustrious officer would later play a very important part in the events that would ultimately bring the whole of Assam under British rule. Scott imposed the usual punitive measures including an economic blockade but he also saw that the roots of the troubles went deeper than appeared on the surface. He recommended a change in the Regulations that had hitherto guided the administration of the region, proposing that the Garos should be excluded from the control of the Zamindars and be brought under the direct management of the British authorities. 

Bengal Regularion Act was passed on 19th September 1822, and in the words of the Preamble, the objective was “and towards this end recommended that a special plan for the administration of justice, of a kind adapted to their peculiar customs and prejudices, should be arranged and concerted with the headmen and that measures should at the same time be taken for freeing them from any dependence on the Zamindars of the British Provinces. The latter would, however, be paid just compensation.”

Initially, the new provisions affected only the Garos in the area contiguous to Goalpara. In time, however, raids by the tribesmen in the administered areas into British territory in Assam led to the progressive annexation of independence for villages. Till by 1867, a sufficiently large portion of the Garo Hills had come under British rule, and a separate officer was appointed to administer the Hills. In 1866, the Garo Hills was constituted as a separate administrative unit and Lieutenant W.J. Williamson was posted as Assistant Commissioner on 12th July, 1866. 

Tura was established as the administrative headquarters in 1867. In 1867, the Garo Hills became a separate district and Captain Williamson who had by then been promoted was appointed as first Deputy Commissioner of the unified district. Subsequently, the Act of 1869 superseded the Bengal Regulation Act of 1822 in respect of the entire territory bounded on the north and west by the district of Goalpara, on the south by the district of Mymensigh and on the east by the Khasi Hills. It, well within the hills, contributed to the ensuing period of peace which endured for some years. When, however, the British Government proposed a survey of the Garo Hills in 1870, misunderstanding with the independent Garos was inevitable. The operation during the working season of 1870 passed off but, in 1871, the reaction of the Garos was definitely hostile. 

The survey party, prior to commencing its operations, sent two of its field labourers to collect labourers from two villages in the vicinity of Meminram Hills on which it was intended to set up a station. But, the labourers were attacked and seized. One was killed and the other escaped. A punitive expedition could not immediately be mounted because of the approach of the rainy season, but in the following cold season, several columns of soldiers were sent to bring all the remaining independent villages under British subjugation. In December, 1872, the British forces faced the last major resistance from independent Garos at Chisobibra near Rongrenggre where the Garo warriors were killed and brought the entire Garo Hills under British control.