Tirot Sing Day: Honoring a Khasi Hero’s Valiant Sacrifice

Honouring Tirot Sing Day: Remembering Meghalaya’s Brave Freedom Fighter Leader

Tirot Sing Day Is an Important local holiday in Meghalaya State and an occasion to remember the death anniversary of U Tirot Sing Syiem, a brave Khasi chief and an unsung hero of the Indian freedom movement. It is celebrated on July 17 th every year. Tirot Sing was the Syiem (King) of the important state of Nongkhlaw in the Khasi Hills, born in about 1802, and was a constitutional figure with a council of representatives of clans.

His fight against the British East India Company started at the beginning of the 19 th century when the British, which had gained possession of the Brahmaputra and Surma Valleys, tried to construct a strategic path joining these two lands across the Khasi Hills. David Scot, an agent of the British political authorities, arranged with Tirot Sing to be given the duars (gates to Assam) in exchange of control and free trade. Before acting Tirot Sing consulted his durbar (council) and, after reflection, realized that what was likely to occur could help his people.

But the British failed to fulfill their promises soon. Disputes concerning the control of the duars that were promised came up and even more disturbingly, Tirot Sing was being fed information that, the British were consolidating forces based in Guwahati and tributaries of Sylhet which was saying their actual plans of domination and slave taxation. Having discovered this deception, Tirot Sing heroically required the British to clear out of Nongkhlaw. He made bold steps when his demand was not addressed.

On April 4, 1829, Tirot Sing and his Khasi warriors made a dramatic attack on the British garrison at Nongkhlaw and killed the two British officers. This act sparked off the Anglo-Khasi war, a fierce four-year battle. Despite the odds being heavily against him, and armed only with conventional weapons made of iron like swords shields designation’ bows and arrows, Tirot Sing and his men used amazing insurgent guerrilla warfare tactics to launch spoiler attacks on British forces with their complete knowledge of the Khasi rugged terrain.

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He struck fear into the hearts of the British for his constant resistance. He united multiple tribes of Khasi’s into fighting thirty thousand British troops and they all committed to rebellion against colonial encroachment (although he used defensive rather than traditional positional aspects in spite of these odds) to fight the British empire.

I know he was betrayed actually by Khasi kinsmen who sold out to the British giving them Tirot Sing’s hiding place. So in January 1833, Tirot Sing was captured and then shipped out to Dhaka where he was imprisoned. Tirot Sing died on July 17, 1835, in Dhaka prison usually stated as something like a stomach illness.

We have Tirot Sing Day in honor of his uncompromising spirit, his fight for his people’s independence and dignity, his example of resisting foreign domination and his inspiration as a national hero. In Meghalaya he is a symbolic hero of courage and sacrifice and indigenous resistance against colonial nations for all peoples. We lay wreaths at the U Tirot Sing Memorial in Mairang to remember him and the values behind his life.

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