Meghalaya MP WR Kharlukhi’s book on political developments in Jaintia Hills released

The book also examines the traditional, social and political institutions that existed before the 18th century.

A book titled, ‘Political Development in the Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya’, authored by Meghalaya Rajya Sabha MP Dr WR Kharlukhi was released in Shillong today.

Dr Kharlukhi’s book, which chronicles the political developments in the Jaintia hills region of Meghalaya in the 19th and 20th centuries, was released by Former Vice Chancellor of Assam University, Professor JB Bhattacharjee.

The book also examines the traditional, social and political institutions that existed before the 18th century.

It also briefly looks at the Jaintia-Anglo relation and the annexation of the Jaintia kingdom in 1835 by the British and the changed position of the existing traditional social and political institutions in their relation with the British authorities.

The book also talks about the awakening of political and social consciousness as a result of external influences and emergence of social organisations, particularly the Jaintia Durbar. The book also has chapters about the movement demanding a separate Hill state and creation of an Autonomous District Council for the Jowai sub-division within the then United Khasi and Jaintia Hills district under Assam.

Author of the book, WR Kharlukhi sharing his thoughts said, “The book of mine is based from 1835 to 1972 in which I dealt with the political developments in the Jaintia Hills, just after the annexation of the Jaintia Raja (King) with the political developments in 1900. I have been dealing with the political development and I did touch also on the adminstrative system of the Jaintia Raja, so that we know the history of the Jaintia kingdom. Ultimately we ended with 1972 when we got our hill state.”

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