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Concept
Silchar
Summary
Silchar is a city and the headquarters of the Cachar district of the state of Assam, India. It is second largest city of North Eastern Region after Guwahati in terms of area, population and GDP. It is also administrative capital of Barak Valley division. It is located south east of Guwahati. It was founded by Captain Thomas Fisher in 1832 when he shifted the headquarters of Cachar to Janiganj in Silchar. It earned the moniker "Island of Peace" from Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India. Silchar is the site of the world's first polo club and the first competitive polo match. In 1985, an Air India flight from Kolkata to Silchar became the world's first all-women crew flight. Silchar was a tea town and Cachar club was the meeting point for tea planters.
The name Silchar comes from the two Sylheti words 'shil' and 'char', meaning 'rock' and 'shore/island' respectively. The city was founded in Janiganj-Sadarghat area of the town near the Barak bank which was used as a river port. It is theorised that the locals started calling the area 'Shiler Chor' meaning the rocky shore, which got shortened to 'Silchar', which was in turn adopted and popularised by the British.
Since Silchar was only founded after the introduction of the British in 1832, the pre-colonial history of Silchar can be approximated through the history of the region and nearby areas.
Cachar district, whose headquarters is in Silchar, was ruled by the Tippera dynasty in the 13th century. The initial capital of the kingdom was in Khalangsha in Cachar, which has been identified as Rajghat village in Sonai, 18 km from Silchar. The Tippera eventually moved eastwards to present day Tripura. By the 16th century, Cachar was a part of the Tripura kingdom.
The Tippera kings continued their rule in Barak Valley till mid-16th century, when commander Chilarai of the Koch dynasty defeated the king of Tripura in 1562 in Longai. Longai became the boundary between the Tripura and Koch kingdoms. Bir Chilarai, also known as Shukladhwaja, was the younger brother of the Koch king Naranarayan.
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