Journey
Northeast India — landscapes & cultures
Eight states, more than two hundred languages, and a political history that ran separately from the rest of India until the nineteenth century and is still barely taught outside it. This runs the Brahmaputra valley, the Khasi and Jaintia hills, the eastern Himalaya and the Manipur and Tripura courts, each of which was a state in its own right.
Stops (18)
- Sivasagar · Ahom capital 1699–1788
Sivasagar, the Ahom capital that gives its name to the great tank at its centre, with the Rang Ghar pavilion, the Talatal Ghar and the Shiva Dol on its banks. Six hundred years of one dynasty, in a region whose political history is left out of most accounts of India.
- Tezpur · Bana's Tezpur
Tezpur, with the sixth-century Da Parbatia doorframe — the finest Gupta-style stone carving east of Bihar — and the Bamuni Hills temple ruins. It is where the material evidence for early Kamarupa is concentrated, and it predates the Ahoms by seven hundred years. It is where the material evidence for early Kamarupa is concentrated, and it predates the Ahoms by seven hundred years.
- Hajo · the shared hill
Hajo, where the Hayagriva Madhava temple, the Powa Mecca dargah and Buddhist tradition about the same hill all coexist, and where Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist pilgrims visit within a few hundred metres of each other. Assam's religious geography is layered rather than divided. Assam's religious geography is layered rather than divided, and this hill is the clearest instance of it.
- Dibrugarh · from the 1830s
Dibrugarh, the town the Assam tea industry built, at the head of steam navigation on the Brahmaputra. Its entire nineteenth-century layout is plantation infrastructure — river wharf, rail head, planters' club — and the 1950 earthquake and subsequent floods destroyed much of the original town. The 1950 earthquake and the floods after it destroyed much of the original town.
- Brahmaputra braid & 1950 quake · 1950 and after
The Brahmaputra's braid plain, up to fifteen kilometres wide, carrying one of the heaviest sediment loads of any river. The 1950 earthquake raised its bed, and Assam's land loss to bank erosion since is measured in square kilometres a year rather than in flood heights. Assam's land loss to bank erosion is measured in square kilometres a year rather than in flood heights.
- Majuli · the island
Majuli, the largest island in the valley, whose satras are monasteries, art schools and dispute-resolution bodies at once. It has lost more than half its area since the nineteenth century, and individual satras have been dismantled and rebuilt inland as the bank retreated. Individual satras have been dismantled and rebuilt further inland as the bank retreated.
- Sohra / Cherrapunji · the wettest place
Sohra, called Cherrapunji by the administration, on the Khasi plateau escarpment where the monsoon hits a wall of rock and drops eleven metres of rain a year. The plateau above it is a Khasi matrilineal society, and the villages below the escarpment are reached by living root bridges. The living root bridges below the escarpment are grown rather than built, over decades.
- Nartiang · the Jaintia hills
Nartiang, the Jaintia summer capital, with a Durga temple served by Jaintia priests and the largest collection of standing monoliths in the region — memorial stones raised by matrilineal clans, in use into the nineteenth century. Megalithic practice and Shakta worship in one village. Megalithic practice and Shakta temple worship in one village, both still current.
- Kisama Heritage Village · the Naga heritage village
Kisama, built as a permanent site for the Hornbill Festival, where each of Nagaland's recognised tribes has a morung and a house in its own style. It is an assembled village rather than a lived one, and it is the clearest place to see how many distinct architectures the state contains.
- Khonoma · 1850–1879
Khonoma, an Angami village on a defensible spur that fought British expansion for four decades and held a siege of its stockade in 1879 before negotiating terms rather than surrendering. It is now also known for its own community hunting ban and conserved forest. It is now also known for its own community hunting ban and conserved forest.
- Kangla Fort, Imphal · to 1891
Kangla at Imphal, the Meitei kings' seat, with its own script, its Vaishnava court theology and its martial arts. The Anglo-Manipur War of 1891 ended Manipur's independence; the fort was occupied by the Assam Rifles until 2004 and then returned to the state. Sanamahi worship, the pre-Vaishnava Meitei practice, is still maintained inside the enclosure.
- Loktak Lake · the floating lake
Loktak, the largest freshwater lake in the region, with phumdi — floating mats of vegetation — on it, one of which is the only floating national park in the world and the last habitat of the sangai deer. A hydroelectric barrage has since altered the water regime the phumdi depend on.
- Moirang · 1944
Moirang, a Meitei cultural centre associated with the Lai Haraoba and the Khamba-Thoibi cycle, and the place where the INA flag was first raised on Indian soil in April 1944. Ritual theatre and the eastern front of the Second World War in one small town. Ritual theatre and the eastern front of the Second World War in one small town.
- Neermahal · the Manikya lake palace
Neermahal, built in the middle of Rudrasagar lake in the 1930s for the Manikya ruler of Tripura, half Mughal and half Gothic. Tripura's Manikya dynasty ruled for five centuries and patronised Bengali letters, which is why Rabindranath Tagore's first royal patron was a Tripura king. Rabindranath Tagore's first royal patron was a Manikya king of Tripura.
- Bomdila · the Tawang road
Bomdila, on the road up to Tawang, with its own Gelugpa monastery and a position on the ridge system between the Assam plains and the Tibetan plateau. The Monpa country here was part of the Tibetan monastic and trading world long before it was part of an Indian state. The Monpa country was part of the Tibetan monastic and trading world long before it was Indian.
- Itanagar · from 1972
Itanagar, built as the capital of a territory containing more than twenty-five major languages and no historic administrative centre, beside the Ita fort that gives it its name. Arunachal is the most linguistically diverse state in India and the one with the least written history. Arunachal is the most linguistically diverse state in India and the one with the least written history.
- Sikkim · 1642–1975
Sikkim, a Buddhist kingdom under the Namgyal Chogyals from 1642, a British protectorate from 1890, an Indian protectorate after 1950, and a state of the Union after the referendum of 1975. It is the last territory to be incorporated into India, and the only one incorporated by vote. It is the last territory incorporated into India, and the only one incorporated by a vote.
- Charaideo Moidams · 1228–1826
The vaulted brick burial mounds of Ahom royalty at Charaideo, the dynasty's first capital, inscribed as World Heritage in 2024 — the first cultural property from the Northeast to be listed. Six centuries of one dynasty lie under these hillocks. Six centuries of one dynasty lie under these hillocks, and the vaulted brick chambers inside them were built on a plan the Ahoms brought with them over the Patkai from the Tai world.