East
Garo Hills District
Area, Population & Sex Ratio
Geographical Area : 2603.0 Km2
Population in East Garo Hills (Census 2011)
Total Population
Total : 317,618
Male : 161,372
Female : 156,246
Under 6 population
Total : 57064
Male : 28886
Female : 28178
Disabled population
Total disabled population : 2528
In seeing : 1151
In speech : 339
In hearing : 321
In movement : 448
Mental : 269
Rank ( VoiceOfBharat.org Analysis
)
Backwardness : Does not figure in list of 447 backward
districts
Sex Ratio Rank : 405
(Rank one is least sex ratio - Cenus 2001)
HIV Category District : C
(HIV Sentinel Surveillance 2004 - 2006)
Disability : 567 (Census 2001)
Literacy Ratio : 367 (Census 2001)
Minority : Does not figure in MCD

Brief About East Garo Hills District
The almost complete absence of written records prior to the
coming of the British leaves the past history of the Garo very far
fro certain. For the past, we have to depend entirely on their legend
and oral traditions, their folklore and folksongs, and other circumstantial
evidence which are, however, most uncertain and reliable sources
of information.
The Garos’ own traditions relate that they came
originally from Tibet to what is now Cooch Behar, whence they moved
on to Dhubri whose king received them warmly. However, later on,
being afraid of them, he did not allow them to settle permanently.
From there they moved to their neighourhood of Jogighopa where they
remained for about 400 years but they were again forced to leave
the place, driven towards the south by the ruler of that country,
crossed the Brahmaputra on rafts and advanced towards Gauhati, where
they settled at Ka’magre or present Kamakhya Hills and along the
Brahmaputra valley. As the place was infested with tigers, the Garo
relinguished the place and then spread into Habraghat Pargana in
Goalpara. Tradation also tell us while in the neighbourhood of Habraghat
Pargana, the Garo appear to have become rich and prosperous and
the first Garo Kingdom was established, of which the first reigning
price was Abrasen who has his palace and capital at Sambol A’ding,
an isolated hill near the Dakaitdol Village not far from Goalpara
town
Mediaeval Period
With the passage of time in the medieval period,
while the Garos in the hills were still divided into a number of
petty Nokmaships, the plain tracts along the fringes at the foot
of the hills came to be included in the many Zamindari Estates,
which eventually developed into fewer but larger complexes. During
the mediaeval era and the Mughal period, the more important estates
bordering the Garo Hills were Karaibari, Kalimalupara, Mechpara
and Habraghat in Rongpur district, Susang and Sherput in Mymensing
district of Bengal and Bijini in the Eastern Duars.Early records
describe the Garos as being in a state of intermittent conflict
with Zamindars of these large estates.
Modern Period
The contact between the British and the Garos started
towards the close of the 18th Century after the British
East India Company had secured the Diwani of Bengal from the Mughal
Emperor. Consequently, all the estates bordering upon Garo Hills,
which for all practical purposes had been semi-independent were
brought under the control of the British.
Though political control had passed from the Mughals
to the British, the latter, like Mughals, had no desire to control
the Estates or their tributaries directly. The Zamindars were not
disturbed in the internal management of their estates. In fact,
they were entrusted, as they had been by the Mughals, with the responsibility
of keeping the hill Garos in check with help of their retainers.
Thus in the beginning, the intermittent conflict between the Zamindars
and the Garos went on unabated until the situation deteriorated
to the extent that the British were forced to take notice. This
development led ultimately to the annexation of the Garo Hills in
1873. Captain Williamson was the first Deputy Commissioner of the
unified district. The district was bifurcated into two districts
viz. East Garo Hills and West Garo Hills districts in October 1979.
People
Garo is the language of the majority of the people
of the Hills which bear their name. Garo is the only indigenous
tribal language in the Garo Hills that has a growing literature.
The script used is the Roman. Garo has a close affinity to Bodo,
the language of one of the dominant communities of Assam.
Garo society is entirely casteless. A garo society
is matrilineal, and inheritance is through the mother. All children,
as soon as they are born ,belong to their mother’s Ma’Chong, whence
Dalton’s Term "motherhood"
Inheritance of property among the garos is generally
linked with matrimonial relations, and although men may have no
property to pass on, they have an important say in deciding to whom
it should pass. If the nokna is unmarried, as she often is since
selection generally takes place before she get married, the father
will try to get a young man from his own lineage, commonly the son
of his own sister, as the husband of the heiress.
The Garo normally do use many ornaments. The common
ones are string of beads and earring worn both by men and women.
The latter ornaments are considered to be very essentials as they
serve as guarantees of the safe journey of the soul to the other
world, being offered to the spirit Nawang should he try prevent
the soul from going to the land of the dead.
The Garo prefer simple food. They gradually avoid
spiced food, and usually with rice they take boiled meat and vegetables.
They boil this curry quite plainly, adding a kind of alkaline Kalchi
vegetable "salt" to it just as it comes to the boil. It has been
suggested that this practice account for the comparatively low incidence
of gastric ailments in these hills.
Literacy and Educational Standard
The progress of education in earlier times was
very slow, as the administration was mainly concerned with the maintenance
of law and order. The main agency for propagation of education was
therefore the American Baptist Mission, which however, concentrated
its activities only in a few areas where it had established its
Mission Stations. Until 1911, when only 23 people per thousand were
returned as literate, progress was very slow.
Between 1911 and 1951, education in this district
made slight though still insufficient progress. According to the
1951 Census, the percentage of literacy in this district was only
7.3% compared to the All-India average of 16%. An upward trend was
apparent after independence, the most remarkable progress achieved
being in the field of Primary Education. As a result, literacy spread
at a faster rate than in the plains, during the 1951-1961 decade.
The increase in literacy has been due to the rapid
increase in the number of educational institutions.
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