Since several decades ‘process of state formation’ has been a subject of intensive research among the social scientists. On the basis of their findings and research approaches they have built various ‘state building models’ of different parts of the world. Historians have also tested different non-Indian models of state formation in the Pre-Colonial Indian context with little modification or with localizations. This book, after critically reviewing major discourse on various forms of Pre-Colonial Indian States, identified an alternative model in case of the formation of Koch state of the Tista-Brahmaputra Valley i.e., North Bengal and Lower Assam. There were a few causative factors in the emergence of the Koch state in the early sixteenth century ‘from the autonomous tribal villages’. The dynamics of sociopolitical changes of the state were guided by the ‘economic controlling of culture’ and the trends of ‘power centrality’. Political authority of the state was legitimized by the ‘adopted culture’. Inspite of theoretical nearness with the early states, tangential similarities with Northeast Indian tribal polities and structural resemblance with traditional concept of ancient and pre-colonial Indian kingdoms; the Koch state had certain features which were exceptional in many ways. This book provides new insights into the role of warfare in the state formation, centralization of political power, exploitation of surplus by the state through unusual means, monelization of economy and correlations between the legitimization of power and cultural change of the subjects. This book has every possibility to create interest among the academicians, students, administrators, politicians and general readers on the pre-colonial history of North Bengal and Lower Assam as well as the studies on state formation both Indian and non-Indian context.
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