ABSTRACT
The Eastern Himalayas and the Patkai mountain range, which form the northern frontier areas of Assam, have hosted numerous pathways connecting Assam with Burma and Southwest China. For centuries, they sustained a complex network of commercial exchange across diverse polities and economies. Local economic, environmental, and political conditions influenced these seasonal flows. Things began to change in the nineteenth century, and the colonial government sustained the commercial networks by political, legal, and economic means until the battles of the Second World War reached Assam. This chapter discusses how the colonial government, despite its powerful bureaucratic structures and military might, resorted to multiple methods to keep these inherited flows of commerce in motion.
