Maniram Dutta Baruah, popularly known as Maniram Dewan, was an Assamese nobleman in British India.
21 Facts About Maniram Dewan
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Maniram Dewan was one of the first people to establish tea gardens in Assam.
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Maniram Dewan was popular among the people of Upper Assam as "Kalita Raja".
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Early in his career, Maniram Dewan became a loyal associate of the British East India Company administration under David Scott, the Agent of the Governor General in North East India.
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In 1828, the 22-year-old Maniram Dewan was appointed as a tehsildar and a sheristadar of Rangpur under Scott's deputy Captain John Bryan Neufville.
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Maniram Dewan continued to be an associate of Purandar's son Kameswar Singha and grandson Kandarpeswar Singha.
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Maniram Dewan became a loyal confidante of Purandar Singha, and resigned from the posts of sheristadar and tehsildar, when the King was deposed by the British.
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In 1839, Maniram became the Dewan of the Assam Tea Company at Nazira, drawing a salary of 200 rupees per month.
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Maniram Dewan established his own Cinnamara tea garden at Cinnamara in Jorhat, thus becoming the first Indian Tea Planter to grow tea commercially in Assam.
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Maniram Dewan established another plantation at Selung in Sibsagar.
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Apart from the tea industry, Maniram Dewan ventured into iron smelting, gold procuring and salt production.
12.
Maniram Dewan was involved in the manufacturing of goods like matchlocks, hoes and cutlery.
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Maniram Dewan had faced numerous administrative obstacles in establishing private tea plantations, due to opposition from the competing European tea planters.
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Maniram Dewan protested against the waste of money on frivolous court cases, the unjust taxation system, the unfair pension system and the introduction of opium cultivation.
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Maniram Dewan criticized the discontinuation of the puja at the Kamakhya Temple, which according to him resulted in calamities.
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Maniram Dewan further wrote that the "objectionable treatment" of the Hill Tribes was resulting in constant warfare leading to mutual loss of life and money.
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Maniram Dewan complained against the desecration of the Ahom royal tombs and looting of wealth from these relics.
18.
Maniram Dewan disapproved of the appointment of the Marwaris and the Bengalis as Mouzadars, when a number of Assamese people remained unemployed.
19.
Maniram Dewan remarked that Maniram was "a clever but an untrustworthy and intriguing person".
20.
Maniram Dewan was arrested in Calcutta, detained in Alipur for a few weeks, and then brought to Jorhat.
21.
Maniram Dewan's death was widely mourned in Assam, and several tea garden workers struck work to express their support for the rebellion.