Having recently read Amalendu Guha's historical book "Planter-Raj to Swaraj" , I found a brilliant section that outlines precisely how and why the British bundled the newly formed province of Assam together with the Surma Valley (Sylhet and present day Barak Valley). And if one ever wondered how the cultural and political map of the region today turned out the way it is, the answer lay with a strategic financial decision made by the British over 150 years ago. The union was not one of shared goals and ambition, but one of colonial greed.

This is exactly how and why it happened:

1. "The Why" - A province without a wallet. On the 15 th of February, 1874 the British split "Assam proper" from the Bengal and make as a new Chief Commissioner's Province for the effective administration of the profitable, British-owned tea gardens in the area. The problem, however, was that the new province was "bankrupt". The population (2.4 million), though scattered across vast distances, was relatively sparse thus leading to a negligible revenue and the administration would need a stable financial source to sustain itself.

2. "The How" - The forced merger of Sylhet. In order to overcome this deficiency, the colonial authorities decided to annex the populous and financially stable district of Sylhet (historically and geographically, it formed a part of Bengal) onto the new province of Assam to achieve a semblance of fiscal stability in September, 1874.

3. The "Outrage" - Sacrificing the "Golden Calf." Predictably, the people of Sylhet opposed the forcible annexation from their motherland.

*   The Unity of Hindus and Muslims: On August 10, 1874, the Hindus and Muslims united to form a petition of protest which they submitted to the Viceroy. They dreaded losing their identity and being put under a deficient administration (the British's view) that was perceived to be inherently inferior to their own.
*   Press Outcry: The press also reflected the same indignation. Kristodas Pal, editor of the "Hindoo Patriot", referred to Sylhet as "the golden calf which was being sacrificed for the new idol called the province of Assam." The colonial authorities ignored the public outrage and finalized the merger.

4. The "Result" - The birth of 'Valley-Ism'. The new province of Assam was now a strange mixture of four heterogeneous entities - the primitive hill tribes, the Assamese-speaking Brahmaputra Valley, Goalpara which had characteristics of both, and the Bengali speaking Surma Valley (Sylhet and Cachar). Guha describes the merger as the quintessential colonial maxim of "Divide and Rule" because by uniting a Hindu dominated Brahmaputra Valley and a Muslim dominated Surma Valley, and then subjecting them to resource constraints in a single province, the colonial administration instilled a rivalry which gave rise to "valley-ism".

The 1874 Forced Marriage: The Real Reason Assam and the Surma Valley Were Merged.