This paper examines the colonial representation of tribal raids in the Northeast frontier of Indi... more This paper examines the colonial representation of tribal raids in the Northeast frontier of India and argues that, rather than being the ‘lawless and predatory habits of the savage hill tribes’, it was an expression of hill politics. The Kukis raided British territory when they discovered that an extension of the colonial boundary threatened their very existence as an independent state-evading population. It traces how the Kukis re-ethnicized themselves in the hills by evolving a system that is state-repellent, protected by a vast strip of forested jungle around their settlements commonly known as the ‘hunting ground’. It locates the ‘raid’ in the context of the difference in the perception of space and territoriality between the colonial state and indigenous polities. Colonial spatial ideology and its hill-valley binary are seen to play a vital role in animating tension on the frontier. The raid is thus understood as the ultimate weapon of resistance against an established state b...
ABSTRACT This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Nort... more ABSTRACT This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Northeast frontier of India during the First World War. Officially known as the ‘Kuki Operations’, it was considered as part of the Great War. Carried out in isolation from press and public, and shelved in colonial archives, the event remained invisible until today. Yet, it registers a critical case of colonial COIN doctrine where the ‘moral effect’ doctrine was employed without being questioned. It unleashed enormous amount of organized violence, ranging from shoot at sight to indiscriminate burning of villages, wholesale destruction of property and livestock, prevention of cultivation and rebuilding of villages, forced mass displacement in jungles or in ‘concentration camps’, and collective punishment (communal penal labour and payment of compensation) after the war. This paper argues that the theory of ‘minimum force’ and the practicability of the ‘moral effect’ doctrine as applied by the Empire, sit oddly with each other at the frontier, where violence was seen both as a natural and moral orders. Violence as an ‘imperatively necessary’ method to bring order in a disorderly frontier, in the opinion of colonial state, informs and registers Northeast India as geography of violence.
This article examines the way in which an event is remembered by two opposing states. It concerns... more This article examines the way in which an event is remembered by two opposing states. It concerns, partly, with the way in which 'official' monuments came up in public space, and partly, with the process of transformation of social memory with the change in political regime. It takes the case of an 1891 event in Manipur (the Anglo-Manipur War). It will be seen that the erection of a 'national monument' under the colonial regime involved a tedious process of selection, representation, censoring, disagreement, consensus and delay in the interest of Empire. While the Empire was valourised and justified for its intervention, the defeated 'natives' were condemned and silenced as 'rebels' and 'murderers'. The 'natives' remain sick, servile and nostalgic for their memory until independence. With regime change, silence become open and soon dominated the air. The post-colonial Manipur state was in full mode of detoxifying the colonial discourse by condemning the interference and in declaring the 'natives' as 'patriots' and 'freedom fighters'. Memorials and monuments were erected, state-wide commemorations were organised and people socialised around such shared memory of 'resistance' for the purpose of reconstructing a new society.
This paper examines the colonial representation of tribal raids in the Northeast frontier of Indi... more This paper examines the colonial representation of tribal raids in the Northeast frontier of India and argues that, rather than being the ‘lawless and predatory habits of the savage hill tribes’, it was an expression of hill politics. The Kukis raided British territory when they discovered that an extension of the colonial boundary threatened their very existence as an independent state-evading population. It traces how the Kukis re-ethnicized themselves in the hills by evolving a system that is state-repellent, protected by a vast strip of forested jungle around their settlements commonly known as the ‘hunting ground’. It locates the ‘raid’ in the context of the difference in the perception of space and territoriality between the colonial state and indigenous polities. Colonial spatial ideology and its hill-valley binary are seen to play a vital role in animating tension on the frontier. The raid is thus understood as the ultimate weapon of resistance against an established state b...
ABSTRACT This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Nort... more ABSTRACT This paper concerns the lesser known British counterinsurgency (COIN) operations in Northeast frontier of India during the First World War. Officially known as the ‘Kuki Operations’, it was considered as part of the Great War. Carried out in isolation from press and public, and shelved in colonial archives, the event remained invisible until today. Yet, it registers a critical case of colonial COIN doctrine where the ‘moral effect’ doctrine was employed without being questioned. It unleashed enormous amount of organized violence, ranging from shoot at sight to indiscriminate burning of villages, wholesale destruction of property and livestock, prevention of cultivation and rebuilding of villages, forced mass displacement in jungles or in ‘concentration camps’, and collective punishment (communal penal labour and payment of compensation) after the war. This paper argues that the theory of ‘minimum force’ and the practicability of the ‘moral effect’ doctrine as applied by the Empire, sit oddly with each other at the frontier, where violence was seen both as a natural and moral orders. Violence as an ‘imperatively necessary’ method to bring order in a disorderly frontier, in the opinion of colonial state, informs and registers Northeast India as geography of violence.
This article examines the way in which an event is remembered by two opposing states. It concerns... more This article examines the way in which an event is remembered by two opposing states. It concerns, partly, with the way in which 'official' monuments came up in public space, and partly, with the process of transformation of social memory with the change in political regime. It takes the case of an 1891 event in Manipur (the Anglo-Manipur War). It will be seen that the erection of a 'national monument' under the colonial regime involved a tedious process of selection, representation, censoring, disagreement, consensus and delay in the interest of Empire. While the Empire was valourised and justified for its intervention, the defeated 'natives' were condemned and silenced as 'rebels' and 'murderers'. The 'natives' remain sick, servile and nostalgic for their memory until independence. With regime change, silence become open and soon dominated the air. The post-colonial Manipur state was in full mode of detoxifying the colonial discourse by condemning the interference and in declaring the 'natives' as 'patriots' and 'freedom fighters'. Memorials and monuments were erected, state-wide commemorations were organised and people socialised around such shared memory of 'resistance' for the purpose of reconstructing a new society.
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