Fantry Mein Jaswal & Nepha Wangsa Questions about the ancestry of Arunachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein have periodically surfaced in public discourse. A closer look at the archival records, from British colonial reports of 1825 to rare 1941 photographs held at the British Library in London, offers a far more settled account than the debate suggests. Chowna Mein belongs to a Tai Khamti family whose lineage can be traced to two of the community’s most prominent 20thcentury figures: his paternal grandfather Chow Chali Mein Gohain, a nobleman of considerable means, and his maternal grandfather Chow Kanan Namchoom, a Tai Khamti chief. The two households were joined by marriage, and both men are remembered in the community for their leadership. Central to the debate is the honorific title “Gohain.” Regardless of whether they belonged to the Mein, Namchoom, or other Tai Khamti clans, many members of these families used the title. Thus, Chow Kanan Namchoom’s sons used the names as Chow Khamoon Gohain, the first nominated Member of Parliament from the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) in 1952, and Chow Chandret Gohain(Lok Sabha MP1971 to 1977). Likewise, Chow Chali Gohain’s son, Chow Pook Gohain, a member of the first Agency Council (1969–1972), also used the title “Gohain.” Historians say “Gohain” was never a clan name to begin with, it was the designation attached to the office of Tai Khamti Sadiya Khowa Gohain, an administrative post that is dated to the Ahom period. Given the prestige of the office, Tai Khamtis across all clans adopted the title as a mark of distinction. However, in the 1960s, Chow Khamoon Gohain, the then Tai Khamti Chief and President of the Tai Khamti Singpho Council, urged the community to revert to their original clan surnames instead of using the honorific title “Gohain.” His son adopted the clan surname and wrote his name as Chow Rajingda Namshum, while his brother, Indrajit Namchoom, reverted to the original clan surname by discontinuing the use of the title “Gohain” (Nani Bath, 2022). Beyond these questions, archival photographs preserved at the British Library, London, affirm the family’s place in history. Taken by the then Governor of Assam, Sir Robert Neil Reid, at the Namsai Timber Camp on 27 February 1941, depicts Chow Chali Gohain Khamti and Choganand Khamti, popularly known as Chow Kanan, along with an elephant named Moti and its mahout. The two men were the paternal and maternal grandfathers of Chowna Mein, and the photograph ranks among the rare archival record documenting a family from present-day Arunachal Pradesh. A second photograph taken on the same day shows the residence of Chowsa Khamti, the headman of Mi-in (Mein), which reflects the clan’s social and political prominence in the pre-Independence period. The history of the title “Gohain” among the Tai Khamtis dates back to around 1794. According to A.C. Banerjee (1946), the Tai Khamti chief Chau-mu-ngan-lung, known as Deka Raja, became the first of the community’s leaders to hold the post of Sadiya Khowa Gohain during the reign of Ahom King Gaurinath Singha in 1793–94, after the Tai Khamtis established their authority over the Sadiya frontier. When the British advanced into Upper Assam in 1824–25, they found Sadiya under Tai Khamti administration, and they formally recognised its authority. The Governor-General’s Agent David Scott acknowledged the Tai Khamtis’ position, and Captain Neufville subsequently conferred the title of Sadiya Khowa Gohain on the Tai Khamti chief Chausalan, authorising him to collect poll tax. An agreement signed by David Scott and Chausalan on 15 May 1826 remains as one of the strongest surviving records of British recognition of Tai Khamti authority in Sadiya according to historians. Writing in ‘Topography of Assam’ (1837), John M’Cosh described that “Sadiya is the capital of the Kangti (Khamti) country” a record of the community’s political prominence in the early nineteenth century. British surveyor W. Robinson in 1841 recorded that the Tai Khamtis, after their migration, first settled along the Tengapani river. A later report by Captain St John F. Michell (1883) documented the distribution of Tai Khamti and Singpho settlements before the 1839 uprising across the Tengapani, Noa Dihing, and Buri Dihing valleys. Among the Tai Khamti settlements were Jonorghat, Nairgaon, Sonkam (Chongkham), Palampan, and Kunungaon, while the Singpho settlements included Latao, Latolahgaon, Nepanpani, Nibluang, and Nidongaon. Mufing was identified as a mixed settlement. Michell estimated the combined population at over 5,000. As the British gradually consolidated their authority on the frontier, suspicion of their intentions grew among the Tai Khamtis. Tai Khamti chief Chaupha Planglu began planning to expel the British from Sadiya. The opportunity came in January 1839, when Colonel Adam White summoned Planglu and other chiefs to a durbar to settle a dispute. On 28 January 1839, around 600 Tai Khamti warriors, joined by neighbouring tribes, launched a coordinated assault on the British post at Sadiya. Colonel White, the Gurkha regiment’s Subedar Major, and several others were killed, while the entire cantonment was set ablaze. Political Agent Captain F. Jenkins described the attack as”the boldest attempt yet made” against British authority on the frontier. It remains one of the earliest and most significant uprisings against the British rule in the North-East, nearly two decades before the First War of Indian Independence. Following the 1839 uprising and the unrest that persisted until 1843, the Tai Khamtis were subjected to the same colonial strategy of “Divide and Rule” applied elsewhere in British India. In 1843, Captain Vetch scattered the Tai Khamti population across Sunpura, Tengapani, Demaji, Lakhimpur and Narayanpur in an effort to weaken their political and military influence. Despite this redistribution, most Tai Khamtis remained along the Tengapani River, where they had first settled after migrating into the region. That dispersal explains the question often raised by the younger generationwhy Tai Khamtis are found today in both Arunachal Pradesh and neighbouring Assam. The answer lies inthe archival records of 1843. In independent India, the Tai Khamti community continued to contribute to Arunachal Pradesh’s constitutional and democratic evolution through leaders such as Chow Khamoon
