[12] INVISIBLE HANDS: LABOUR AND EVERYDAY LIFE IN MEDIEVAL ASSAM

How to Cite the Article: Lakhya Protim Nirmolia (2026). Invisible Hands: Labour and Everyday Life in Medieval Assam. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research & Reviews, 5(7),128-166. https://doi.org/10.56815/ijmrr.v5i7.2026.128-166

Abstract

Labour and everyday life in medieval Assam, with particular attention to the workers, cultivators, artisans, soldiers, boatmen, fisherfolk, temple servants, women, and servile groups who sustained the region’s political and economic order but rarely appear as central actors in conventional histories. Medieval Assam was not a single uniform society; it included the postKamarupa regional formations, the Chutiya, Kachari, Koch, and Ahom polities, and the expanding religious worlds of temples and sattras. The paper argues that labour in medieval Assam was not merely an economic activity but a foundation of kingship, land control, military organization, ritual authority, and village life. The Ahom system made this especially visible: most adult male subjects owed rotational service to the state in return for access to cultivable land. Yet much labour remained “invisible” because sources such as inscriptions, land grants, and buranjis usually privileged kings, officials, Brahmins, monasteries, and wars. By reading these sources against the grain, this study reconstructs the everyday world of labour in agriculture, craft production, military service, riverine transport, household work, and religious institutions. It also offers a critical review of the limits of available evidence and calls for a more people-centred social history of medieval Assam.