Manipur’s forces were beaten at Khongjom and Imphal was occupied; Tikendrajit and Thangal General were hanged and the kingdom lost its independence.
01The palace and the arrest
Manipur, ruled by the Ningthouja kings and Vaishnava since the 18th century, was an ally of the British but independent. In September 1890 the princes Kulachandra and Tikendrajit, the able commander of the army, drove out their brother Maharaja Surachandra. The British accepted Kulachandra as king but ordered Tikendrajit banished. On 24 March 1891 the Chief Commissioner of Assam, J. W. Quinton, came to Imphal with Gurkha troops to arrest him. The attack on his house failed and fighting spread to the Residency. That night Quinton, the Political Agent Frank Grimwood and three other officers went into the palace to parley, and were put to death there.
02Khongjom and after
The British sent three columns into Manipur in April. On the Tamu road, at Khongjom, a Manipuri force under Major Paona Brajabashi met the column coming from Burma and fought it on the hill of Kheba Ching until most of the defenders were dead; Paona himself fell. Manipur keeps 23 April as Khongjom Day. The columns entered Imphal on 27 April. Tikendrajit and the old Thangal General were tried and hanged in public at Imphal on 13 August 1891, and Kulachandra was transported for life to the Andamans. A boy of a side branch, Churachand Singh, was set on the throne under British control.
The war ended Manipur’s long independence; Bir Tikendrajit and Paona Brajabashi are honoured in Manipur as its first martyrs against British rule.