Chakla Roshanabad , a chapter of Tripura’s history willfully sealed in oblivion, researcher Pannalal Roy presents the truth with documentary details

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, July 26, 2024

History of Tripura has been a major casualty of state’s post-merger political cross-currents-so much so that the people, particularly the students of the state remain virtually ignorant of what Tripura was like in its princely past . After the exit of the Marxists from state power in 2018 the new rulers have effected changes in the state’s history and social science syllabus to include milestone dates and events in the post-merger (October 15 1949) era of Tripura . But it is an axiom that we can not build our future, standing at present without knowledge of the past. No one including scholars and educationists seem to be bothered in the least over this ageold lesson.

Princely Tripura’s history contain names of 184 kings but many of them seem to rest in mythology and it is only from the year 1400 AD when king Maha Manikya (1400-1432) had ascended the throne that the factual and documented history of the state had begun. It is from the brief rule of Ratna Manikya (1464-1468) that the era of the Manikyas had begun, followed by a succession of great conquering rulers like Dhanya Manikya (1490-1520) and Bijay Manikya (1532-1563).

The author of the brief 80-page tome “Chakla Roshanabad” , researcher Pannalal Roy has presented with authentic details and documents the history and rule of the plainland ‘Zemindary’ of the Tripura kings encompassing the entire Comilla district, parts of erstwhile Sylhet and Noakhali districts of Bangladesh populated by the Bengali subjects of the Tripura kings. This region had been named ‘Roshanabad’ by the Mughal rulers who had captured Bengal in late sixteenth century. The Tripura kings had estate and revenue rights but no control over the judicial system. The Mughal control had been tightened after the invasion and three-year control of Tripura by the commander of the Bengal ‘Subedar’ of the Mughals Nusrat Fate Jung Bahadur during 1618-1621 under the rule of emperor Jahangir (1605-1627). Tripura’s royal Manikya dynasty had their richest source of revenue from the Bengali subjects of the fertile plainland Zemindary called Chakla Roshanabad.

There was a period of uncertainty with the commencement of the British rule of undivided Bengal in 1757 when the Chakla Roshanabad was about to be confiscated but it was finally the permanent settlement of British governor general Lord Cornwallis in 1793 that had sealed the Tripura royal family’s revenue right over the Zemindary. Besides being the richest revenue provider for the royal family, the Chakla Roshanabad and its people had immensely contributed to the princely rule in different forms. The researcher and author Pannalal Roy has confined his discourse on the origin, growth and evolution of Chakla Roshanabad as a domain of Tripuri royal family. What is however tragic is that at the time of Tripura’s merger with the Indian union the issue of Chakla Roshanabad had not even been referred to although we have it on the authority of authentic sources attributed to royal personages that the matter of keeping Chakla Roshanabad within Tripura had been considered tentatively but was finally given up on demographic considerations.

The third edition of author and researcher Pannalal Roy’s book published by ‘Tripura Darpan’ in a sleek volume is an enlightening book that enriches our knowledge of Tripura’s history. Our policy makers on education would do well to have a deep look at the book for materials to be prescribed for study by students of Tripura’s history, if not the whole book itself.