People and Government                                          

The population of Assam is of varied origin.  Many people are descendants of Mongoloid tribes from the east.  The main language is Assamese.  Bengali is also spoken.  About 60 per cent of the people are Hindus, and 25 per cent are Muslims.  Buddhism is the other major religion.  Almost all of the people live in rural areas.  About 40 per cent of them can read and write.  
Assam has 14 elected members in the Lok Sabha (lower house) and 7 nominated representatives in the Rajya Sabah (upper house) of the Indian national parliament.  The state legislative assembly has 126 members.

The Brahmaputra Valley has fertile, alluvial soil.  Rice is the main food crop.  Bananas, beans, gram (lentils), oranges, peas, and pineapple are also grown.  The 800 tea plantations in Assam produce over half of India's tea, and about 16 per cent of world tea production.  Jute, oilseeds, and sugar cane are also grown in the region.     

Prospectors found oil reserves in Assam in the 1800's.  Digboi became the site of Asia's first oil refinery in 1899.  The Nunmati Refinery, near Gauhati , was erected with Romanian aid in 1961.  It produces aviation fuel, furnace oil, light diesel, and petrol.  There is also an oil refinery at Bongaigon.  Low quality coal is mined, mainly for use on the railways.  Forests cover about a fifth of the state.  They provide essential resources, not just of timber but also resin and tanning material from tree bark.  Bamboo has many uses, especially for paper making.  Traditional handicraft industries, such as weaving and pottery, are also important.     
New industries in the state include the production of cement, fertilizers, and paper.  Coal, dolomite, limestone, and refractories are mined in the state .   

Inland transport is mostly by river, because the Brahmaputra is navigable up to the point at which it enters the state.  A metalled road now runs the length of Assam.  Air routes link Gauhati with Calcutta.  In addition to the airport at Gauhati which has scheduled flights, Assam has airports at Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tezpur, and Silchar.  The old railway connecting Calcutta with Chittagong ran through East Bengal, but it was cut when Pakistan was created in 1947.  A new link runs through West Bengal. 

Assam occupies the long narrow floor of the Brahmaputra Valley.  It is overshadowed by the Himalaya to the north and the Shillong Plateau to the south.       
Most of Assam is low-lying.  On the banks of the Brahmaputra, the Kaziranga Park occupies about 430 square kilometres.  It combines grassland with thorny rattan cane, elephant grass, and evergreen forest as well as areas of swampy ground and extensive ponds and lakes.  Kaziranga became a forest reserve (1908) and later a game sanctuary (1926), in order to save the Indian one-horned rhino, which had been in danger of extinction around 1900.  The present rhino population has grown to more than 1,100, although poachers still kill the animal for its horn.  The park also has bison, elephant, hog deer, hoolock gibbon, sambar, swamp deer, tiger, wild buffalo, and wild pig.  There are otters in the rivers as well as the gavial (long-snouted, fisheating crocodile).     
The Brahmaputra River dominates Assam.  After flowing eastward to the north of the Himalaya, it turns sharply south and then passes through the Assam Valley from east to west before entering Bangladesh.  

The valley floor, even in the shelter of the Shillong Plateau, still receives heavy rainfall during the monsoon season of June to October.  Rainfall varies between about 180 centimetres and 250 centimetres.  Temperatures along the valley rarely drop below 10 °C, the average minimum temperature for January.  Average minimum temperatures rise to 26 °C in July and August.  Average maximum temperatures are 23 °C in January, rising to 32 °C in April and again from June to August.  Total rainfall varies from between 180 centimetres to 250 centimetres, but throughout the valley it is heavily concentrated in the summer monsoon.  On average, less than 4 centimetres fall from November to March.

The ancient kingdom of Kamarupa once covered the present state of Assam.  Pragjyaisha, the capital, was located near Gauhati.  Kamarupa is mentioned as a frontier kingdom and tributary of the Gupta Empire in the Allahabad inscription of Samudra Gupta (A.D. 330-375).  Until the 1200's, the area was ruled by a succession of dynasties, including the Salastamba, the Brahmapala, and the Bhuyan.   

The Ahoms, a Thai-Buddhist tribe from the southeast, arrived in the area in the early 1200's.  They deposed the ruler and established a kingdom with its capital in Sibsagar.  By 1353, the Ahoms controlled a major part of the area, which they renamed Assam.  The Ahoms adopted the language and Hindu religion of the conquered people and ruled Assam for about 500 years.     
A part of the Ahom territory bordered the Mughal Empire.  The attempts of the Mughals to extend their territory into Assam resulted in conflict for several hundred years.  Although the Ahoms temporarily lost control in 1663, they inflicted a crushing defeat on the Mughals in 1671.   

Internal dissension led to the fall of the Ahom kingdom.  In 1771, the British East India Company gave military assistance to the Ahom ruler to quell a revolt.  In return, the Company received commercial privileges. In 1817, the Burmese took advantage of the rivalry between the Ahom chiefs, invaded Assam, and established political control.  The Burmese presence threatened British commercial interests.  In the first Burmese War (1824-1826), the British drove the Burmese out of Assam.  Under the Treaty of Yandabo, the territory was annexed by the East India Company on 24 Feb., 1826.  During the 1800's, many Muslim settlers moved to Assam from Bengal.  The British (United Kingdom) government administered the state from 1858 until 1947. 

India achieved independence in 1947 and Assam became a state of the Indian Union.  The Congress Party dominated politics.  In five of the seven elections held before 1980, the Congress Party won more than 50 per cent of the vote and at least 9 of the 14 seats allocated to the state in the Lok Sabha.  In 1985, a new regional party, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), emerged and defeated the Congress Party in state assembly elections.  In state elections in 1991, the Congress Party was returned to power.  In 1996 elections, the AGP regained power in the state.  The emergence of separatist trends has  unsettled the normal life in Assam.  The United Liberation Forces of Assam (ULFA), an extremist organization, stands for the independence of Assam.  The Bodo movement advocates autonomy for the region inhabited by the Bodos.