David R. Syiemlieh

David R. Syiemlieh has spent his career recovering the history of Meghalaya and the North East, and later led the body that selects India’s civil servants. In 2025 he was named for the Padma Shri in the field of literature and education, from Meghalaya ^[1].

A historian of the North East

Syiemlieh was born on 22 January 1953 at Mutrapore, Sibsagar, in Assam ^[2]. He studied history at St Edmund’s College, Shillong, and earned his MPhil and PhD at the North-Eastern Hill University, where he taught for more than thirty years and became pro-vice-chancellor ^[2].

His books include British Administration in Meghalaya (1989), On the Edge of Empire and Layers of History, a collection of essays on the Khasi-Jaintia people ^[2]. He coordinated Meghalaya at Fifty, published for the state’s golden jubilee in 2022 ^[2].

He is credited with finding the date of death of U Tirot Sing, the Khasi chief who resisted British expansion and died as a state prisoner on 17 July 1835. That day is now a state holiday in Meghalaya ^[2].

Public service

He became vice-chancellor of Rajiv Gandhi University in Arunachal Pradesh in 2011, joined the Union Public Service Commission in 2012 and was its chairman from 2017 ^[2].