22 SOCIAL SCIENTIST serve the interests of the British administration, replacing the indolent and incapable nobility of the earlier regime.1 Persian was the court language of the Bengal Presidency of which Assam was now an administrative unit. Few of the new recruits in Assam knew English or Persian. Therefore, "in April 1831, the Government of Bengal made Bengali in place of Persian the court language of Assam on the ground that it was very difficult and too costly to have replacement when a Persian scribe was on leave or left the service5 \2 Bengali was actually introduced in 1837. The services of the Bengalees immediately became indispensable in the Anglo-vernacular and vernacular schools, ^since local teachers were not available in adequate numbers, in any case to impart lessons in Bengali which had since become the medium of instruction.'53 It may be mentioned here that Act XXIX of 1837 had provided for the use of the vernacular of a district in the court, but the government allowed the replacement ofAssamese there also. However, the missionary and indigenous schools continued to teach Assamese. The first Assamese journal Arunoday was started by the American Baptist Mission from Sibsagar in 1846.4 The general notion engendered later on that the Bengalees were responsible for this change does not bear historical scrutiny. The need of educating the children of the subordinate Bengali officials in their mother-tongue was obvious and they might have demanded education accordingly though there is no evidence of any organized demand. In those days of British imperial expansion^, the Bengalees as other Indians had little say in determination of policy beyond petitioning the authorities for any right or facility. All power centres in the administrative machinery were filled by Englishmen. To the Company, territory and good trade, consolidated through an efficient administration, were of the greatest importance. Language in Court and School With progress of education following British occupation, the demand for restoration of Assamese as a language of education and courts was natural and was for the first time voiced by Ananda Ram Dhekial Phukan. 5 AJ Moffat Mill, an officer deputed by the Bengal government to report on Assam, also clearly expressed his view in support of the language. Although it was too late to retrace the step,Mill thought that the administration had made a great mistake in directing that all business should be transacted in Bengali which the Assamese had to learn.8 The first ever formal recommendation for introduction of Assamese in the courts, made by Colonel Hughton, the commissioner of Assam Valley was rejected by the Bengal government.7 In the meanwhile, all Assam civil officers were compelled to pass a test in Assamese (just as Bengal officers had to pass in Bengali)thus recognizing the vernacular status ofAssamese: the government, however, showed no inclination to go any further.* By the time the province was reconstituted into a chief commissionership in 1874, memorials from different parts of the Brahmaputra Valley were being presented to the Government of Bengal for introduction of Assamese in the