Colonial rule in the Naga Hills: A legacy of exploitation and resilience

The archetypal brushwood betwixt the Nagas and the British occurred successful January 1832, erstwhile Major Francis Jenkins and Captain R Boileau Pemberton sought a onshore way from Manipur to Assam. Between 1839 and 1851, the British conducted 10 punitive expeditions into the Naga Hills.

Academic Sanghamitra Mishra, successful her nonfiction The Nature of Colonial Intervention successful the Naga Hills, 1840-80, notes that aboriginal assemblage interests were driven by the strategical value of the Naga Hills arsenic a frontier to commercially invaluable areas. By 1843, the find of beverage plants successful the little Naga Hills provided important inducement for British annexation, starring to proposals for imperishable subject outposts to “effect progressive reform” and reinforcing the assemblage content successful the region’s lawlessness.

Initially, the British adopted a argumentation of non-interference, but they abandoned this attack successful 1866 successful favour of a much assertive guardant policy, which established subject posts and facilitated the colonisation of the Naga Hills. By 1873, the bound betwixt the Naga Hills and Manipur was established. This surveying and mapping, arsenic Mishra argues, “contributed towards the hold of assemblage hegemony successful the area”.

The Naga Hills District was created successful 1866 by the Government of British India, and it became a territory of Assam province. Although assemblage enlargement was framed arsenic an altruistic intervention, Mishra observes that “it was undoubtedly the strategical determination of the Naga Hills and the request to support the system of the Assam valley”.

Notably, determination is nary grounds that the tribes self-identified arsenic Naga successful pre-colonial times. Records from 1841 indicated a racially divers colonisation with chiseled identities, including groups specified arsenic the Angami, Ao, and Sema. Scholars reason that the word Naga emerged arsenic a assemblage construct, serving arsenic a homogenous statement that helped explicate inter-tribal conflicts and warrant British involution successful the hills.

The monetisation of tribal life

Scholarly enactment indicates that the Naga Hills had a self-sufficient tribal system anterior to British intervention. Mishra cites documents detailing commercialized betwixt the Naga Hills and surrounding plains. The Nagas excelled successful irrigation, organised labour, and harvest cultivation. Notably, the Angamis practised terrace cultivation and grew assorted crops, portion tribes similar the Lhotha, Rengma, Ao, Sema, and Konyak engaged in jhum cultivation.

To alteration this economy, the British implemented a onshore gross argumentation that imposed assorted taxes, including a location taxation and a taxation connected atom grains. Thepfusalie Theunuo, successful their PhD thesis Emerging Land Relations successful Nagaland: A Study of the Angami Community (2019), notes that from 1880 to 1881, the Angami paid a location taxation of 2 rupees and one maund of rice, portion the Lhota and Rengma paid 1 rupee. By 1893, the Angami location taxation had risen to 3 rupees, generating a nett summation of Rs 6,000. Additionally, the British employed locals arsenic wage labourers, known arsenic coolies, making this a captious supplementary concern for tribal communities to header with the economical load of British taxes.

By the precocious nineteenth century, the British established shops successful strategical locations and organised market haats in the interior, creating section centres for exporting goods and distributing imports.

Religion successful the Naga Hills

Christianity was archetypal introduced to the Naga Hills by American missionary E W Clark, who arrived successful the Ao Naga Hills successful 1872, followed by British missionaries successful 1878. Mishra argues that assemblage accounts are biased, often portraying the Nagas arsenic lacking definitive spiritual beliefs portion emphasising their perceived quality to follow caller religions owed to their alleged primitive state. She notes, “Like each pagans, the Nagas were considered fitter objects for the missionary than for the soldier,” during a play of expanding proselytising by the American Baptist Mission successful the region.

In contrast, aboriginal accounts by British anthropologist J H Hutton reveals the affluent diverseness of pre-colonial Naga spiritual life, highlighting societal ceremonies and the important relation of magic wrong the community.

Naga resilience

The resentment and absorption of the Nagas to assemblage involution successful the Naga Hills are evident successful the changeless hostility directed astatine the British, some astatine their subject outposts and during survey operations starring up to nonstop annexation.

A notable lawsuit of this absorption occurred successful present-day Kohima district, arsenic cited by Professor Nigamananda Das of Nagaland University successful his effort Revisiting Naga Resistance to British Colonialism: A Study of A Naga Village Remembered and Related Historical Texts. This village, consisting of conscionable 500 houses, faced attacks successful 1832, 1849, 1850, and 1879. In October 1879, earlier the last British assault, villagers killed British Deputy Commissioner G H Damant. Additionally, the Angami people refused to wage their archetypal year’s tribute to the British and continued to raid British outposts.

There was besides important absorption to the dispersed of Christianity during the aboriginal years of British rule.

Display successful Pitt Rivers Museum, 2020 ( Source: Dr Alok Kumar Kanungo)

Naga artefacts successful distant museums

The caller auction of a Naga skull successful England has sparked outrage among activists. Alok Kumar Kanungo, a module subordinate astatine IIT Gandhinagar, discussed the humanities discourse successful an interrogation with indianexpress.com. He noted that successful the 1890s, German anthropologist Philipp Wilhelm Adolf Bastian travelled to the Naga Hills and collected 222 objects for research. He aboriginal sent Otto Ehrenfried Ehlers to the portion from 1891 to 1893, furthering assemblage interventions.

Kumar emphasised that portion the Naga radical person a affluent practice encompassing civilian architecture, wood carving, textiles, and metallurgy, assemblage narratives often sensationalise headhunting, overshadowing the community’s profound history.

“During the highest of the depository question successful the 18th and 19th centuries, institutions similar the Pitt Rivers Museum successful Oxford, UK, collected extensively, amassing 6,466 Naga objects. The Cambridge University Museum holds astir 1,500 objects, portion the British Museum has astir 1,000,” helium explained. “These materials see countless items of immense affectional and taste worth to the Nagas.”

To the Nagas, these remains embody their tradition, history, culture, identity, cognition systems, inventions, and innovations. “The restoration of these carnal remains requires contiguous attention,” helium insisted.