Deshi or Desi people are an indigenous Muslim community from

Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...

. Deshis are Muslim converts from Koch and

Mech In science fiction, or mechs are giant robots or machines controlled by people, typically depicted as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese (language), Japanese after shortening the English loanword or , but the mean ...

communities. In 2022, the government of Assam gave them recognition as an indigenous community.

Ali Mech Ali Mech was a tribal chief in the 13th century CE, in the region of present-day Assam belonging to the Mech people. He is said to have helped Bakhtiyar Khalji duing his Tibet campaign and converted to Islam under his influence. Biography Ali M ...

is said to be the first person of the community. The group is descended from a set of tribals which were collectively referred to as Koches, who converted to Islam as they were unable to find a favourable position in Hindu society and came to known as the 'Rajbongshi Muslims'.They are homogeneous with the Koch Rajbongshi people and are bi-linguistic speaking both Assamese language and Kamatapuri language. Most other conversions took place during the 16th-century, when the lower-class Koch and Mech people unable to find a respectable position in the newly formed

Koch kingdom The Kamata Kingdom (pron: ˈkʌmətɑ) emerged in western Kamarupa probably when Sandhya, a ruler of Kamarupanagara, moved his capital west to Kamatapur sometime after 1257 CE. Since it originated in the old seat of the Kamarupa kingdom, a ...

(1515 - 1956) switched to Islam.

References

Ethnic groups in Assam {{assam-stub