Modern practices in North East India : History, culutre, representation 9781138294257, 113829425X, 9781351271349, 1351271342, 9781351271356, 1351271350

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
List of figures
Notes on contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: frames of region and people: practices of knowledge and representations
Part I Region, frontier and state
1 Region formed and imagined: reconsidering temporal, spatial and social context of Kāmarūpa
2 Conquest and the quotidian: violence and the making of Tripura (1760–1793)
3 The arteries of empire: routes, people and mobility in colonial Naga Hills (1850s–1920s)
Part II Knowledge, people and representation
4 Vai phobia to Raj nostalgia: Sahibs, chiefs and commoners in colonial Lushai hills
5 Text, knowledge and representation: reading gender in Sumi marriage practices
6 Orality: analysing its politics within the domains of the Mizo narrative
7 Empire and the making of a narrative: The Ballad of the General and its history as a historical source in colonial Assam
Part III Writing culture, writing politics
8 Of people and their stories: writings in English from India’s Northeast
9 Close encounters of the real kind: the avatars of terror in two Assamese short stories
10 Subdued eloquence: poetics of body movement, time and space
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

MODERN PRACTICES IN NORTH EAST INDIA

This book brings together essays on North East India from across disciplines to explore new understandings of the colonial and contemporary realities of the region. Departing from the usual focus on identity and politics, it offers fresh representations from history, social anthropology, culture, literature, politics, performance and gender. Through the lens of modern practices, the essays in this volume engage with diverse issues, including state-making practices, knowledge production and its politics, history writing, colonialism, role of capital, institutions, changing locations of orality and modernity, production and reception of texts, performances and literatures, social change and memory, violence and gender relations, along with their wider historical, geographical and ideational mappings. In the process, they illustrate how the specificities of the region can become useful sites to interrogate global phenomena and processes – for instance, in what ways ideas and practices of modernity played an important role in framing the region and its people. Further, the volume underlines the complex ways in which the past came to be imagined, produced and contested in the region. With its blend of inter-disciplinary approach, analytical models and perspectives, this book will be useful to scholars, researchers and general readers interested in North East India and those working on history, frontiers and borderlands, gender, cultural studies and literature. Lipokmar Dzüvichü is Assistant Professor, North East India Studies Programme, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He was the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow, Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge (2015–16). His works have been published in journals such as International Review of Social History and Indian Economic and Social History Review. Manjeet Baruah is Assistant Professor, North East India Studies Programme, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His published works include Frontier Cultures: A Social History of Assamese Literature (2012) and Remains of Spring: A Naga Village in the No Man’s Land (translation, with critical introduction, of Jibon Krishna Goswami’s Assamese novel Aoleangar Jui, 2016). He was the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow, King’s India Institute, King’s College London (2016).

MODERN PRACTICES IN NORTH EAST INDIA History, Culture, Representation

Edited by Lipokmar Dzüvichü and Manjeet Baruah

First published 2018 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 selection and editorial matter, Lipokmar Dzüvichü and Manjeet Baruah; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Lipokmar Dzüvichü and Manjeet Baruah to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN: 978-1-138-29425-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-351-27136-3 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For, Apfo and Apfuo —Lipokmar Dzüvichü For, Aita —Manjeet Baruah

CONTENTS

List of figuresix Notes on contributorsx Acknowledgementsxiii

Introduction: frames of region and people: practices of knowledge and representations

1

LIPOKMAR DZÜVICHÜ AND MANJEET BARUAH

PART I

Region, frontier and state

21

  1 Region formed and imagined: reconsidering temporal, spatial and social context of Kāmarūpa23 JAE-EUN SHIN

 2 Conquest and the quotidian: violence and the making of Tripura (1760–1793)56 ANANDAROOP SEN

 3 The arteries of empire: routes, people and mobility in colonial Naga Hills (1850s–1920s)89 LIPOKMAR DZÜVICHÜ

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C ontents

PART II

Knowledge, people and representation

117

 4 Vai phobia to Raj nostalgia: Sahibs, chiefs and commoners in colonial Lushai hills

119

DAVID VUMLALLIAN ZOU

 5 Text, knowledge and representation: reading gender in Sumi marriage practices144 LOVITOLI JIMO

 6 Orality: analysing its politics within the domains of the Mizo narrative172 MARGARET L. PACHUAU

 7 Empire and the making of a narrative: The Ballad of the General and its history as a historical source in colonial Assam195 MANJEET BARUAH

PART III

Writing culture, writing politics

223

  8 Of people and their stories: writings in English from India’s Northeast

225

K. B. VEIO POU

 9 Close encounters of the real kind: the avatars of terror in two Assamese short stories250 AMIT R. BAISHYA

10 Subdued eloquence: poetics of body movement, time and space275 USHAM ROJIO

Bibliography309 Index331

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FIGURES

10.1 Paphal, the tail-devouring serpent-dragon (ouroboros), the symbol of eternity and renewal286 10.2 Malem Paphal, the spread of the ancestral serpent-dragon289 10.3 The floor pattern of the maibi paton dance and lairen mathek jagoi293

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CONTRIBUTORS

Amit R. Baishya is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of Oklahoma, USA. He teaches courses on post-colonial studies, film studies and popular culture. His essays have been published in Interventions, Postcolonial Studies, Himal South Asian and in edited collections. He is currently completing a book manuscript titled Deathworlds. He is also the co-editor, along with Prof. Yasmin Saikia, of Northeast India: A Place of Relations (2017). He translates from Assamese to English. His translation of the Assamese novel Jangam (The Movement) by Debendranath Acharya is forthcoming in October 2017. Manjeet Baruah is Assistant Professor at the North East India Studies Programme, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. His published works include Frontier Cultures: A Social History of Assamese Literature (2012) and Remains of Spring: A Naga Village in the No Man’s Land (translation, with critical introduction, of Jibon Krishna Goswami’s Assamese novel Aoleangar Jui, 2016). He was the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow (2016) King’s India Institute, King’s College London. Lipokmar Dzüvichü is Assistant Professor at the North East India Studies Programme, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. His works have been published in journals such as International Review of Social History and Indian Economic and Social History Review. He was the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellow (2015–2016), Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom. Lovitoli Jimo is Assistant Professor in Gender Studies at the School of Human Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi, India. Her research interests lie in gender in Northeast India, cultural studies, marriage and kinship studies, and consumption culture. Currently, she is working on

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cultural practices, regional identity and global markets in understanding and shaping identity discourse. Margaret L. Pachuau is Professor and Head at the Department of English, Mizoram University, India. Her areas of specialisation include folkloristics, translation and culture studies and children’s literature. K. B. Veio Pou teaches in the Department of English, Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi, India. His areas of interest include oral tradition, cultural studies, English writings from Northeast India, modernist and post-colonial literatures. He is the author of Literary Cultures of India’s Northeast: Naga Writings in English (2015). Usham Rojio is Research Scholar at the Theatre and Performance Studies, School of Arts & Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He is also presently an Associate Editor of the Eastern Quarterly, a journal that critically examines social, political, economic and other key issues of India’s Northeast. He has been working in theatre with renowned directors such as Heisnam Kanhailal and Heisnam Tomba as actor, translator, dramaturge and musician. Some of the plays he has scripted and directed include Chak Kare, Lairik Taklurase Laisu Tambirurase, Hanuba Hanubi Paan Thaba, Wakhalgi Mami, Voice of the Voiceless and Shadows in the Darkness. He took a major role in the production of Henrik Ibsen’s Lady from the Sea for the University Ibsen Theatre Festival in New Delhi, 2012. Jae-Eun Shin is a research collaborator at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, The University of Tokyo, Japan. She has a doctorate from the Department of History, University of Delhi, India. Her area of research includes socio-religious history of eastern India. She is presently working on state formation and identity construction of the early Brahmaputra Valley with special focus on the Naraka legend, its evolution and regional reproduction. Her publications include Change, Continuity, and Complexity: The Mahāvidyās in East Indian Śākta Traditions (2018) and ‘Changing Dynasties, Enduring Genealogy: A Critical Study on the Political Legitimation in Early Medieval Kāmarūpa’, Journal of Ancient Indian History (2011). Anandaroop Sen is Lecturer at the Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He completed his doctorate from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India in 2016. His dissertation looks at entangled histories of colonial law and violence in South Asia, specifically the northeastern frontier of British India. Before joining Cape Town, he taught in the Sociology Department of Presidency University, Kolkata, India.

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David Vumlallian Zou teaches modern history at History Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi, India. He completed his post-graduation at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, and holds a doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom.

xii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In editing this book, we have received the support and contributions of many individuals and institutions. Over the years, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has provided a stimulating academic environment to critically reflect and discuss on a range of issues, ideas and themes. Our regular intellectual engagements with colleagues as well as students in JNU has been especially enriching in thinking through some of the ideas and research concerns pertaining to the region, which are also reflected in the book’s editorial essay. We are grateful to our colleagues at the North East India Studies Programme, JNU, and thank them for their support, as well as for the wonderful interactions and conversations, which have provided interesting insights in understanding the region and its neighbouring areas. In developing this book, we have received the valuable support from Shoma Choudhury at Routledge. We would especially like to thank her for her patience and commitment towards making this book possible. We also acknowledge the anonymous reviewers of the book who gave insightful and critical comments, which further helped us to build on the ideas in the book. Individually, Lipokmar Dzüvichü would like to thank the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, for the Charles Wallace Visiting Fellowship which provided a wonderful opportunity to explore some of the ideas that were crucial in developing the editorial essay to the book. Manjeet Baruah would like to thank the organisers and participants of the conference ‘Resistance and Empire’, held in Lisbon, where parts of his chapter was presented. He would also like to thank the King’s India Institute, King’s College, London, which provided an excellent environment where some of the aspects of the book were worked out. The book has been a collective effort. It took longer than its earlier planned schedule, and we would especially like to thank the contributors for believing in the project and for participating in this exciting effort. Without the support of the contributors, this book would not have been possible. In

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A cknowledgements

our academic pursuit, we have constantly relied on the support and encouragements of our parents and families. We would like to thank them for their love and their presence in our lives. Finally, we would like to thank our friends in different parts of the world who have constantly encouraged us and have contributed to our academic endeavours in various ways.

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INTRODUCTION Frames of region and people: practices of knowledge and representations Lipokmar Dzüvichü and Manjeet Baruah

A geographical label such as ‘North East India’ conveys the idea of a defined physical location and identity in the contemporary times. The general description that subsequently follows underlines the spatial location of the region as a ‘periphery’ within the national territory. Such a notion is further congealed through the cartographic practices of the state, whereby the region is visually portrayed as geographically occupying the fringe of the nation’s mapped space. 1 The idea that the region constitutes the physical margins of the nation state is thus often seen as normative and self-evident. However, such a view is historically flawed as it glosses over the various processes through which such ideas or ‘realities’ of spatial location were produced. It also does not take into consideration the complex ways in which societies and polities in the region encountered, contested and adapted themselves to shifting structures of economies, politics and culture. Over the course of the last two centuries, ‘North East’ has come to imply different things to different regimes and people at different points of time. This has resulted in the region and its inhabitants being ‘imagined’ and constructed in a variety of ways. The ideational construction of the region has largely been a product of the encounter and interactions with both the ‘modern’ imperial and the post-colonial states. Although the region had encounters with polities such as the Mughals, the Tibetan or the Burmese, it was the British colonial expansion that marked a defining phase in concretising and framing the political and cartographic contours of what came to be viewed as the ‘North East’. But the framing was as much mediated by a variety of people and societies in the region who responded to the policies of the colonial and post-colonial states in multiple ways. What is notable is that it was also during the nineteenth century that another term that denoted a

1

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British Indian frontier came to be used, namely the ‘North West Frontier’ of British India. The reality behind both the terms was the construction of two colonial political geographies at the two geographical extremities of British India. 2 One of the critical questions that arise from the above is how does one characterise this range of transformations which eventually saw the emergence as well as framing of the region, both as a category and as lived realities? A closer study of the processes highlights how through much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ideas, constructs or practices of ‘modern’ have played an instrumental role in the making of the region. This was evident not only in state-making practices, but also in how societies negotiated and engaged with the historical changes that came about during the period. In other words, though the state was generally seen as the ‘legitimate’ bearer of modernity, societies too articulated new meanings and imaginations by creatively engaging with such ‘modern’ ideas and practices. This can be seen as fundamentally linked to the nature of historical context itself, that is, the new forms of global geographical mappings, flows of capital and orders that the region became a part of. But this postulation leads to questions such as what comprised the modern, and what were its features? For example, as some studies have pointed out, the notion of ‘progress’ became a key point in the unfolding of events that were crucial in the making of the region, and its socio-cultural, economic or political worlds. But progress also entailed other distinct elements, such as violence. 3 Thus, between progress and violence, how does one historically locate the role of actors or nature of events and outcomes? Further, the notion of modernisation even today continues to be presented as a rationale for numerous actions, whether in terms of political economy, identity making or cultural practices. Does it then mean that the ‘problems’ or meanings of modernity and modernisation continue to be inherent to the nature of social relations and in the ways in which societies grapple and engage with such ‘realities’? In that case, does it further re-produce the binary characterisation of the region as a ‘backward’ space inhabited by societies which are still in ‘transition’ from their traditions into modernity? But in turn, does it also lead to enterprises of ‘saving’ cultures, thereby often leading to ‘inventions’ of cultural forms or practices in the name of ‘indigeneity’? 4 Through different subjects of enquiry, the chapters in the book engage with some of these questions. They explore how areas such as knowledge production, state policies, role of capital, violence, relations of gender, or political and social-cultural relations, etc., bear the multiple or contradictory imprints of the ideas and practices of modernity. Through such frames of analysis, the chapters seek to provide new insights on the region and its complexities. Scholarships have increasingly underlined that modernity is 2

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not essentially a universal uniform phenomenon. 5 However, the concept or forms deemed ‘modern’ also inevitably figure in attempts to explain various socio-political and economic realities as well as the production of geographies around the world in the last few centuries. 6 In fact, the ambivalences in the practices of ‘modern’ have been an important aspect of enquiry. Thus, such works highlight that binaries such as tradition vs. modern, or progress vs. primitive, etc., are often inadequate to explain the relations through which realities or experiences themselves unfolded. In this regard, a common point of investigation that runs through the chapters is their focus on practices. 7 Thus, ideologies and knowledge production, state making, politics of social relations and memory, genres of writing, forms of performances or relations of gender have been studied as a range of socio-political, economic and cultural practices that illustrate the complex connections between ideas and concrete realities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As such, the book is also an attempt to explore how such approaches can become important ways of revisiting the question of the modern, and how or why its imprints continue to influence discourses, articulations and actions in the region. The book thereby also tries to underline how modernity can also denote both ‘a contentious theoretical terrain and contending analytical arena’. 8

Regimes of knowledge, framing a region Historically, the making of the ‘North East’ as a region emerged from imperial power centres such as Calcutta, London and Delhi. It was from these imperial metropoles that the idea of the region as a periphery located at the edges of empire began to develop. Colonial officials, surveyors, anthropologists, travellers, missionaries and ethnographers, etc., became crucial agents in this enterprise. 9 In fact, such discourses also represented the region as ‘periphery’ to ‘civilisation’, insular and lawless, and located in ‘nature’ as opposed to ‘culture’. 10 The production of such discourses was closely linked to the intellectual influences of European Enlightenment. In turn, these intellectual enterprises also became imperial ideological tools to legitimise conquest and governance of the region. 11 Thus, colonial knowledge and state-making practices began to gradually transform the territory into ‘legible’ parts of the empire, 12 and in the process defining and inventing a fixed reality about the region as a ‘frontier’. The ebb and flow of empire building, and subsequently the trajectories of the post-colonial nation state, further came to determine the ‘shifting “historic position” ’ 13 of the region from a ‘frontier’ to a ‘borderland’. These developments were also closely linked to the way capital intruded into and re-shaped the region, often in conjunction with state practices. For example, throughout this period, making 3

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of resource frontiers, ‘Inner Lines’, classifications such as ‘administered’ or ‘excluded’ territories, or approaches such as ‘geo-strategic’ significance and governance were frequently influenced by the nature and role of capital. 14 If production of territory through knowledge practices was intrinsic in the efforts of the colonial state to govern the ‘frontier’, under the new Indian nation state a range of studies on the societies and histories of the ‘peripheral’ region began to be produced. The studies were closely linked to the Indian state’s efforts to generate knowledge on the societies located in the ‘periphery’, which would in turn inform government policies of ‘development’. In the process, ‘integrating’ the land and people into the national space emerged as an important enterprise. As a result, a diverse set of ideas and persuasions came to construct and represent the region and its inhabitants in policy making and academic writings. 15 These studies ranged from ideas where the people and societies were characterised as nothing more than cultures frozen in time, to a focus on ‘insurgency’ or ‘identity movements’ that challenged the national order, and that how the way to resolve those ‘threats’ was through a policy of ‘development’ and political representation in the ‘mainstream’. 16 Many of these studies were based on primordialist understanding of the societies, and therefore in their understandings of trajectories of ‘progress’, they often drew upon colonial frameworks either uncritically or as unproblematic categories. 17 As such, an underlying aspect of these studies was the notion of progress of the modern state, whether colonial or post-colonial, as the harbinger in transforming the ‘primitive’ or ‘backward’ societies of the region. In fact, the concept of ‘lineage’ to ‘state’ became an important scale of measuring societies in ideas of historical progress. 18 The approaches of these studies were also often influenced by ‘national frames’. As a result, their analysis of issues either enframed the region as part of the ‘Indic civilisation’ or evaluated its history and culture in such reference, thereby locating the region in the conceptual framework of the nation state and its ideas of nation. 19 In the process, these studies not only reinforced the insular approach to the region as ‘remote’ or ‘isolated’ periphery, but also shaped the making of durable ideas of thinking as well as governing the region. 20 Alternately, these ideas and policies also significantly shaped the representation and understanding of the (post-)colonial state as a progressive, benevolent and modernising state.

Ideas of space, exploring social realities The above approaches, premised mainly on the layered relations between state and knowledge practices, constituted some of the dominant trends of enframing the region. However, there have been other studies as well which tried to reconsider and challenge some of these existing frameworks. 4

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For example, one such approach was that of the ‘shatter zone’. 21 What the term shatter zone implied was a region with its socio-cultural and historical processes that were shaped by the dominant neighbouring paradigms. However, these processes, though operating within the region, themselves lacked any paradigmatic formation due to their location at the interstice of the dominant paradigms. This ‘lack’ was characterised as intrinsic to the nature of the region. The approach, however, did not develop into important studies on the region in the course of the twentieth century. Yet, by the 1970s, the imprints of the idea of shatter zone interestingly entered into one of the emerging bodies of historical and socio-cultural analysis of the region, namely a few studies premised on class relations. 22 In these studies, the relation between understandings of shatter zone and that of class formation/relation became evident in some of their engagements with debates such as feudalism or middle-class formation in the region. For example, in this regard, a key set of terms deployed in the case of Assam was ‘semi tribal–semi feudal’ to explain the socio-cultural realities of the past, or of the present. The processes of social relations, which these terms signified, were located in the nature of interaction between history and geography. This interaction included the geographical location and nature of the region, the mobilities across, and the challenges they posed to the development of classic social categories such as peasants, tribes, class, etc. In other words, what was shown was that the ‘intermediate’ or ‘fluid’ nature of social categories was a structural manifestation of the historical geography itself. Since the 1960s, there also emerged a body of works, which studied categories such as peasants and labour from the perspective of impact of capital, and the role of the state, whether colonial or post-colonial. 23 These works highlighted how the making of peasant or labour economy in the region since the nineteenth century was part of the wider global economic and colonial state building networks. The relation between capital and state was part of producing and governing a geo-strategic and ‘resource frontier’. A point which these works emphasised was how colonial capital articulated itself through existing as well as new forms of socio-cultural relations, while the state participated in the process through strategies of governance (such as land, labour and resource policies) in the name of ‘modernisation’, ‘development’ and taming an ‘ungoverned’ frontier. What also ensued from these processes or relations were the implications for the societies and ecologies, and how they not only resisted but also became intricately connected to the violence of capital. In a twist of times, similar processes and relations between capital and state could be observed in some of the contemporary policies such as the ‘Look East’ or the ‘Act East’ policies of the Indian state. While in the colonial context, this relation between capital and state constituted an intrinsic part of administering an ‘ungoverned’ frontier, what 5

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remains to be seen are the implications of these policies on the political and economic geography of the region in the contemporary context. 24 In the recent times, a small but growing number of studies have begun to explore new analytical frames of understanding the region from the perspective of space. For instance, scholars have drawn our attention to the importance of ‘borderland space’. 25 The borderland approach tried to transcend both the paradigms of frontier and nation. Rather than taking the state produced spatial boundaries as given, they argued how knowledge, geography and politics are intertwined and illustrated the ways in which indigenous spaces were contested and eventually enclosed by the colonial and postcolonial states in the region. The fixing of borders, as their works argued, however did not necessarily end the mobile practices of people and their networks in the region. Instead, it took on new forms and meanings, which were often seen as detrimental to the colonial or the post-colonial state’s territorial orders. 26 The borderland approach also argued that these networks of mobilities were themselves part of everyday and historical nature of the social world of the region. It’s the lens of the colonial or post-colonial nation states that prevented seeing this reality about the societies of the region. This reality of the region, it argued, could be captured through the term ‘borderland’. The term did not denote a boundary or a frontier, but a space both social and historical, which is best understood as an example of the limits of state or national cartographies. Taking a spatial view of society and polity, another important field of enquiry has been the concept of ‘zomia’. 27 The concept tries to understand the complex nature of spatial relations with regard to uplands or highlands as opposed to river valleys. It argues that the singular distinction of uplands or highlands from valleys is evident in their strategies of ‘state-evading practices’. These strategies, in turn, affected several aspects of social organisation, such as use of orality in place of written culture, republican polity in place of monarchies and shifting agriculture in place of sedentary farming. These mechanisms of social organisation allowed for mobility rather than being tied to land and to fixed contours of history. Although the concept of zomia borrowed upon earlier works on ‘highland’ polities, 28 it also nevertheless marked conceptual departures from such earlier works by highlighting how spatial locations affected the socio-cultural and political choices that societies made in constituting themselves. In the process, the concept allows one to re-examine the colonial construction of ‘highland’ as ‘savage’ space vis-à-vis the valley, including the significance of this spatial construction in the post-colonial period. However, it is important to point out that while ‘zomia’ as a conceptual framework has laid out new grounds to study ‘highland’ societies, an analysis of the socio-historical particularities of different ‘highland’ societies such as in the North East highlights that such 6

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framing tends to overlook the complex nuances of the societies, which in turn also suggests the empirical limitations of the concept. While the above approaches offered new perspectives of understanding the region, an important question that also emerged from these approaches was whether these ‘borderland spaces’ are historical products or essential socio-spatial realities, and also how such spaces relate to the various politics of nation making in the region. 29 More recently, ‘connected history’ as an approach has highlighted new ways of understanding the region’s history and culture. 30 These studies underlined the limits of the bounded and fixed spatial frameworks based on given colonial or post-colonial state boundaries. In turn, they highlighted how the meanings of the past and of the present could be more meaningfully located in the inter-relations that processes within the region had with those without. Their works pointed out the importance of studying the region in terms of how economies, cultures or polities were connected through networks of trade, people and ideas. For example, some of these historical networks not only spanned between Yunnan, Tibet, Bengal and Burma comprising significant overland routes and passes, 31 but also through the Bay of Bengal, closely connecting the region to the networks of the Indian Ocean. 32 The impact of these networks on the processes of culture and identity making 33 were evident not only in the pre-colonial period, but also in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that is, the very moment when this ‘isolated’, ‘primitive’ fringe was ‘discovered’ and began to be ‘developed’ by modernising state systems.

Modernity’s ‘fringe’? The idea that identities are primeval, a view which predominated identity discourses in the region, however glosses over other complex and nuanced historical trajectories. A growing body of writings on identity and culture has shown how the making of modern forms of identities evolved through complex processes, and was historically mediated through forms of various agencies such as religion, education, print culture, technology, gender, ecology or even riots. 34 To highlight only one instance, the role of the colonial state and the Christian missionaries in ushering ‘modernisation’ among the societies of the region, and in the process, leading to the formation of national identities, were noted in earlier studies too. 35 Yet, recent works have pointed out how societies themselves exercised their agency in this process of transformation and reclaimed or appropriated ‘modern’ ideas or technologies, but towards different formulations of their ‘self’. These studies illustrate how the institutional and discursive apparatuses put in place by the colonial state and the missionaries to construct a ‘frontier’ 36 were recast into instruments of nation making by the people. 7

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Thus, for example, education and print culture were appropriated to claim a place in the universality of modernity and progress through the construct of nation. Therefore, in contrast to the colonial or missionary projections of ‘frontier’ as comprising of disparate anthropological social groups located in the geographical ‘peripheries’ of modernity, there was now the consolidation of national identities as historical entities, located in the contemporaneity of the times as nations of the world. In fact, in the process, societies themselves underwent a transformation in self-representation, wherein the past and the present was increasingly consolidated into standardised narratives of nation. Such narratives of nation also encompassed ideas of space or homeland, that is, there was now the production of new concepts of political and socio-cultural geographies in contrast to that of colonial ‘frontier’. 37 Genres of narrative too became important tools to articulate alternative forms of social and political-spatial imaginations. Thereby, in this range of studies, aspects of society and culture, such as religion, orality or visual culture came to occupy new meanings. Challenging the rather dry and jaded historical and political perception of the region as one of modernity’s fringe caught in internecine turmoil, some of these studies reconstructed how societies appropriated new forms of knowledge, technology and cultural objects in the context of their historical locations. 38 Thus, for example, if visual practices constituted an important tool of the empire in making subjects and territories visible to a metropolitan audience, they also alternately became tools or mediums for the colonial and post-colonial societies to articulate their various experiences and dynamic worldviews. Practices of photography or cinema thus became attempts at re-imagining and re-positioning oneself in a wider cosmopolitan context of the world. Even existing socio-cultural mediums such as orality became new tools to articulate its sense of time and space. Thus, myths or folktales were no longer about the ‘time immemorial’ but about colonial expeditions, political movements and the changing contours of identity. Religious practices, revivalisms and millenarialisms became new modes of attempting re-configurations of the ideas of political geography. These developments, as the studies show, were fundamental interventions not only in how the societies of the region tried to represent themselves, but also in their selfunderstandings of concrete historical and socio-political locations. In the recent times, the agency of societies and individuals in articulating locations in such realities of time and space came to be explored in an emerging body of biographies and memoirs too. 39 In addition, a growing body of work has tried to explore the important aspect of gender relations pertaining to the region. Focusing on the colonial and the post-colonial period, this body of work has drawn attention to the significant role that women have historically played while engaging with institutions of state, capital, 8

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indigenous structures and multiple forms of politics. 40 In the process, these studies foreground the role of gender in analysing the agency of women and how their experiences and engagements have redefined ideas of self, space and relations of power in the region. The themes discussed above constitute just some of the broad contours of studies that have engaged various scholars working on North East India. The assessment as such, is only illustrative and not a comprehensive review of the works produced on the region. Today, there is an increasing emphasis to take into account the region’s wider geographical relations with global networks of capital and the changing forms of mobility. It also points out that institutional and discursive interventions have played a significant role in the production and understanding of ‘frontiers’ or ‘peripheries’. At the same time, there is also an emphasis on how such productions of ‘frontiers’ or ‘peripheries’ are challenged by people as part of articulating alternative modes of self-representations and self-assertions. Moreover, the resilience of societies and their engagements with the violence of capital are other important aspects of study. In this regard, the chapters in this book not only engage with existing bodies of work, but also critically outline new avenues of inquiry. Besides, the chapters in a way also seek to complement the growing number of scholarly works which draw upon new conceptual approaches while formulating new perspectives on the region. One of the aspects that the chapters bring out in their respective analysis is how production of region, knowledge, and socio-cultural or political practices are closely inter-related processes, and how such inter-relations in turn produce modes of representation of the past and of the present.

The organisation of the book The book is an attempt to generate possible reflections and discussions by focusing on some of the critical issues pertaining to North East India. Through specific case studies, the chapters cover fields such as history, literary studies, social anthropology and performance studies. The book is divided into three sections: (a) region, frontier and state; (b) knowledge, people and representation; and (c) writing culture, writing politics. The concerns of each chapter are distinctive, and as such, they convey the views of the contributors on their specific research areas. But a perspective, which runs through all the three sections, is that region is a complex and dynamic process, which continues to articulate itself in multiple forms. What the chapters in the three sections also underline is the politics behind these multiple forms of articulations and representations, and their connections to wider global developments pertaining to the past or the present. Thus, the chapters complement one another in locating the region and people in the 9

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wider political and intellectual contexts of the times, especially since the nineteenth century. This in turn brings in the dimension of the ‘modern’ and its relations to experiences, ideas and a range of practices. The first section engages with both the discursive and institutional construct of a region in the colonial times, including how pre-colonial constructs in this regard came to be interpreted or transformed during this period. Further, the chapters in this section highlight how state making in the region have not been isolated instances, but closely connected to wider processes of history, circulation and space beyond the region. Such wider connections have played key roles in the articulations of the idea of the region as well. In the chapter, ‘Region formed and imagined: reconsidering temporal, spatial and social context of Kāmarūpa’, Jae-Eun Shin draws our attention to the complex historical problem of conceptualising region(s). Taking the specific case of Kāmarūpa, Shin traces the processes through which ‘the region has been imagined in the dominant historiography of Assam’ since the early twentieth century. This historical process of Kāmarūpa as the ancient past of Assam is examined through its temporal, spatial and social contexts. In the chapter, Shin also considers the function and purpose of Sanskrit records in the socio-political context of early medieval east India and, in doing so, seeks to give alternative perspectives on the ‘controversial issues on Kāmarūpa history’ with regard to twentieth century historiography on the subject. One of the points Shin highlights is the relation between nature of sources and the politics of historiography in the representation and interpretation of the past from one’s location in the present. In Chapter 2, ‘Conquest and the quotidian: forms of violence and the making of Tripura (1760–1793)’, Anandaroop Sen examines how violence becomes an important trope through which the British entered and created the territorial frame of Tippera. Focusing on the quotidian and the foundational forms of colonial violence, Sen argues how it was through these violent ‘events’ that Tippera acquired a state legibility. In other words, British colonial state not only used violence in the production of territory, but also used the language of violence to legitimise their intervention and rule. In his analysis, Sen further argues how violent episodes shaped ‘the historical production of Tippera as revenue unit’. It is through the practices of violence that, ‘the idea of calculability enters the language of conquest.’ Colonial practices of violence were also attendant to the nature of governing the frontier. In this regard, the everyday anxieties of colonial frontier officials came to shape and characterise the British culture of governance in the region. The stringent policing of the frontier, and ‘the violence of that policing’, eventually ‘mutated into a language of settlement’. In the process, in Tippera, colonial rule came to be marked by ‘a governance of exceptionalism that mutated into frontiers’. 10

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In the chapter, ‘The arteries of empire: routes, people and mobility in colonial Naga Hills (1850s–1920s),’ Lipokmar Dzüvichü examines the contexts and the different moments in which modern infrastructural projects were used to justify imperial agendas. The study underlines the strategies by which access routes extended the physical reach and control of the colonial state, and the various interactions that ensued along the land routes in the Naga Hills. Roads, as such, became a powerful instrument of colonial territorial practices and came to be closely associated with the exercise of state power over the hills. In turn, the making of ‘modern’ roads also came to be closely linked with the emergence of a coercive labour and fiscal regime in the hills. While colonial roads sought to forge new linkages, and allowed mobility of the coercive colonial apparatus, it also put new pressures on the movement and mobility of people and commodities in the frontier. Dzüvichü’s work highlights some of these limits and possibilities as well as the challenges and opportunities, which the imperial road-making endeavours opened for the state and its subjects. There were various ways in which communities reacted to the colonial forms of transport and control over mobility. In the process, the chapter shows how imperial road-building enterprises was mediated and shaped through contestation, negotiation and appropriation by various people and groups in the Naga Hills. The second section of the book engages with the various experiences of the societies as a result of colonial encounter. Some of the socio-cultural practices that constitute societies and their relations to forms of power, and how these practices have provided material and discursive dimensions to the understandings of the region and its societies from different political positions are also discussed in this section. In the chapter, ‘Vai phobia to Raj nostalgia: Sahibs, chiefs and commoners in colonial Lushai hills’, David Vumlallian Zou examines the encounter between the British sahib and the indigenous Lushai chiefs and the implications of this interaction in the Lushai hills. Zou traces the significance of this contact and the subsequent making of the British as sahib in the course of colonial interaction with the hill society. The growth of British prestige and the changing relationship between the British and the Lushais was shaped by a related transformation in local political conditions. This was a result of the colonial policy of ‘indirect rule’. As a result, the dread of the British vai and the resentment of colonial occupation was virtually forgotten by the hill chiefs (lals). Instead, in a twist of irony, the Lushai chiefs’ power increased through the colonial project of indirect rule. In the course of rule, all the chiefs ‘eventually became loyal collaborators of colonial rule under the administrator sahib’. Such a distinct relationship with the Raj would stand in stark contrast with the perceived apathy of the Indian state during moments of crisis in the Lushai hills. It was in their post-colonial miseries, argues Zou, that the 11

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Mizos sought consolation in Raj nostalgia and memories of British paternalism. ‘Raj nostalgia’ for formerly colonised subjects such as the Mizos eventually constituted a form of resistance against ‘majoritarian domination and hegemony of the postcolonial state’. In the chapter, ‘Orality: analysing its politics within the domains of the Mizo narrative’, Margaret L. Pachuau focuses on the location of Mizo oral culture vis-à-vis the Mizo written culture. This location is addressed in terms of shift from the oral to the written in the making of Mizo modernity since the twentieth century, and its historical and cultural implications. Pachuau argues that orality and writing are not merely two modes of textual articulations. Rather, they pertain to two different understandings and practices of social reality, and therefore the place that each occupy in their respective realities. In this regard, it is pointed out that the pre-colonial/pre-Christian Mizo reality was one of orality, and that it was consciously replaced by the Mizos with the reality of the written text as part of their colonial/Christian experience. As a result, what it entailed was either a systemic removal of the oral understanding of social reality, or the appropriate recasting of the oral forms (such as songs) into structures that the written modes allowed. This, according to Pachuau, raises two questions. First, if colonial modernity was a process of encountering and indigenisation of modernity, then could the presence of the past (i.e. orality in her example) in only its form but devoid of its content exist as sites of meaningful indigenisation; or could they only exist as sites of encounter and loss of the past? Second, if in the process of this loss, Mizo modernity was a conscious participant, then what are its implications in the wider understanding of the post-colonial writing back to the empire? In the chapter, ‘Text, knowledge and representation: reading gender in Sumi marriage practices’, Lovitoli Jimo probes from a feminist perspective the relation between narratives of gift exchange as part of customary marriage practices and the actual reality of the process. In reality, Jimo argues, gift exchange is a reciprocal process between the families of the groom and the bride, with the newlywed couple becoming the eventual repository of the material objects in order to set up their new home. However, in both the social or customary narrative on the exchange of gift as well as in the academic discourses in this regard, Jimo highlights how the actual reality of the process is misrepresented. In either case, the narratives highlight that while gift moves from the groom’s family to the bride’s family, the bride moves in reverse. Thus, women come to exist as ‘objects’ in exchange in the marriage practice. Jimo locates the reason behind this anomaly between the reality and its representation in two different though inter-related factors. While on the one hand the misrecognition, Jimo argues, is engineered by the patriarchal narrative, which in turn gets 12

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perpetuated by the patriarchy itself. On the other hand, the anomaly in the academic discourses emerged from the colonial (mis)representation of the process of gift exchange, and because it fitted into the customary misrecognition already present in the society, it acquired its legitimacy and continuance. Jimo shows how the ‘modernity’ of knowledge production and the already existing marginality of women’s location in the society arrived at a peculiar connection. In the chapter, ‘Empire and the making of a narrative: The Ballad of the General and its history as a historical source in colonial Assam’, Manjeet Baruah engages with a nineteenth century ‘folk’ Assamese ballad Barphukanar Geet (The Ballad of the General) dealing with Burmese and British imperialisms of early nineteenth century. Baruah tries to show how the ballad became an important ‘source’ in the project of constructing Assamese nationalism in the early twentieth century, and how this process cannot be dis-entangled from the actual existence of the ballad as a ‘written’ text through much of the twentieth century. In other words, the emergence of the ballad as an important historical ‘source’ in the twentieth century was closely connected to the very nature of its textual existence. In turn, this influenced the use of the text to denote peasant or national consciousness, depending on the location of the historian in debates on imperialism and identity making. The chapter further argues that the given nature of the ‘source’ raises important methodological questions too vis-à-vis its use to interpret the past. One such methodological aspect that the essay explores is reading the ballad in terms of history of literature, and what such an approach can highlight about nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century history and historians of Assam. The third section of the book engages with the acts of writing the region and culture, and how such acts of writing are shaped by the vicissitudes of region formation. The chapters underline the fact that acts of writing and producing a text, whether literary or performance, while being rooted in the processes of the region, have also been attempts to re-articulate new possibilities of understanding cultures of the region. In the chapter, ‘Of people and their stories: writings in English from India’s northeast’, K. B. Veio Pou deals with English writings from North East India. An important point, which Pou highlights, is that the English language as the medium of literary articulation is peculiarly placed vis-à-vis the history and culture of the region. This peculiarity, for example, is explored in the field of ‘writing orality’. Pou also argues that the historical self, which literary articulations in the English language seek to represent, is a manifestation of the wider context of borrowings, recastings and inventions in culture, a process which is still unfolding. Further, Pou shows that the fact of literary exploration of the ‘periphery’ taking place through the English 13

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language, that is, through a language which is at once global, national and local, produces complex literary practices, including the challenges of literary representation. In the chapter, ‘Close encounters of the real kind: the avatars of terror in two Assamese short stories’, Amit R. Baishya poses the question whether Assamese literature, especially the genre of short story, can have its limits in representing the contemporary experience of violence in Assam. He argues that literature, like other mediums of engagement or articulation of social reality, exists within the frames of symbolic orders, which constitutes the scope or method of such engagements or articulations. Therefore, the ability of literature to engage or articulate reality depends on the existence of the symbolic order itself. Once that symbolic order breaks down in the face of reality, induced by the actions of the contemporary state, the limits are set for literature to represent the reality too. The symbolic order, he highlights, is the worldview, which is premised on the unwritten social contract, which in turn frames perspectives through which reality is perceived. When the experience of reality can no longer be framed through these perspectives, that is, reality undergoes a breakdown, the symbolic order arrives at its limit to represent reality. A reading of Baishya’s chapter raises the important question whether the genre of short story, which became the marker of the practice of literary modernity in the late nineteenth century, has today reached the limit of representation. In the chapter, ‘Subdued eloquence: poetics of body movement, time and space’, Usham Rojio highlights how an ‘organic’ reality persists as the underlying continuum and shapes the making of an identity and its cultural productions. Taking the example of Meitei performance traditions, the chapter explores how organic reality is comprised of a worldview and practices, which encompasses the socio-political, historical and spatial aspects of a people. In the process, there comes to exist no distinction between the lived reality of the people and its aesthetic articulation. Rojio argues that it was this underlying aspect in the aesthetics of Meitei performance traditions, and its resilience in the course of the twentieth century, which was ignored or misrepresented in the various forms of Sanskritic or Indian nationalist appropriations of the traditions during the period. An important point the chapter makes is that the meta-narrative of the performative traditions cannot be the Sanskritic aesthetics or the idea of Indian culture. On the contrary, the meta-narrative is the underlying Meitei organic unity, while elements of the Sanskritic field or that of idea of India, including aspects of the ‘modern’, exist as borrowings at different historical moments, which nevertheless merge into the basic organicity underlying the tradition.

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Notes 1 David Vumlallian Zou and M. Satish Kumar, ‘Mapping a Colonial Borderland: Objectifying the Geo-Body of India’s Northeast’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 70, no. 1 (2011), pp. 141–170; David Ludden, ‘Where Is Assam? Using Geographical History to Locate Current Social Realities’, in CNISEAS Papers, Guwahati: OKD Institute of Social Change, 2004; for a general discussion on the nature and role of colonial cartographic practices, see Ian J. Barrow, Making History, Drawing Territory: British Mapping in India, 1756–1905, New Delhi: Oxford University Press. 2 In a recent work, Thomas Simpson has pointed out the importance of a comparative analysis of the North West Frontier and North East frontier of British India. See Thomas Simpson, ‘Bordering and Frontier-Making in Nineteenth Century British India’, The Historical Journal, vol. 58, no. 2 (2015), p. 515; for a discussion on the North West Frontier of British India, also see, Magnus Marsden and Benjamin D. Hopkins, Fragments of the Afghan Frontier, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. 3 Tezenlo Thong, Progress and Its Impact on the Nagas: A Clash of Worldviews, London: Routledge, 2013. 4 Meenaxi Barkakati-Ruscheweyh, ‘Performing Identity: The Transformation of a Tangsa Festival in Assam, Northeast India’, Asian Ethnology, vol. 72, no. 2 (2013), pp. 241–258; Arkotong Longkumer, ‘ “As Our Ancestors Once Lived”: Representation, Performance, and Constructing a National Culture amongst the Nagas of India’, Himalaya, vol. 35, no. 1 (July 2015), pp. 51–64. 5 For instance, Miles Ogborn argues that with regard to modernity, ‘there is certainly no agreed upon definition. Its periodisations, geographies, characteristics and promise all remain elusive.’ See, Miles Ogborn, Spaces of Modernity: London’s Geographies, 1680–1780, New York and London: Guilford Press, 1998, p. 2. 6 For some important interventions on the complex nature and questions of modernity, see Timothy Mitchel (ed.), Questions of Modernity, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996; Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996; Fernando Coronil, Magical State: Nature, Money and Modernity in Venezuela, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997; Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994; Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008; Manu Goswami, Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004. 7 For a recent work on how study of ‘practices’ can provide new ways of understanding culture, including modernity, see Partha Chatterjee, Tapati Guha-Thakurta and Boddhisattva Kar (eds.), New Cultural Histories of India: Materiality and Practices, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015. 8 See, Saurabh Dube, ‘Introduction: Colonialism, Modernity, Colonial Modernities’, Nepanthla: Views from the South, vol. 3, no. 2 (2002), pp. 197–219.

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9 For a critical study on the agencies of missionaries, officials, travellers, etc., see Andrew J. May, ‘ “To Lay Down the Frontier of an Empire”: Circumscribing Identity in Northeast India’, Studies in History, vol. 32, no. 1 (2016), pp. 5–20; for some writings by missionaries and travellers who imagined the ‘wild periphery’, also see Mary Mead Clark, A Corner in India, Guwahati: Christian Literature Centre, 1978 (1907); and Francis Kingdom Ward, Assam Adventure, London: The Travel Book Club, 1942. 10 For example, see Andrew Gray, ‘The British in Nagaland: The Anthropology and their Legacy’, in The Naga Nation and Its Struggle Against Genocide, Copenhagen: IWGIA, Document 56, 1986, pp. 37–66; Jelle J. P. Wouters, ‘Reconfiguring Colonial Ethnography: The British Gaze over India’s North-East’, in T. B. Subba (ed.), North-East India: A Handbook of Indian Anthropology, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2012, pp. 99–121. 11 For instance, the works by colonial officials such as Alexander Mackenzie, Edward Gait and Robert Reid highlight how the region as an ‘ungoverned’ frontier needed to be brought within the colonial apparatus. This colonial necessity was represented in the language of ‘modernity’ and ‘progress’. See Alexander Mackenzie, The North East Frontier of India, New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2008 (1884); Robert Reid, History of Frontier Areas Bordering on Assam, Guwahati: Bhabani Books, 2013 (1942); Edward Gait, A History of Assam, Guwahati: Lawyers Book Stall, 1996 (1926). For a general discussion on empire, enlightenment ideas and governance, also see Ranajit Guha, A Rule of Property for Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of Permanent Settlement, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1982 (1963); and Nicholas B. Dirks, The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. 12 In order to exercise its power over disparate population and territories centralising state seeks to make society ‘legible’ through practices such as census, enumeration, cartography and infrastructural enterprises. See, James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Conditions Have Failed, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. 13 Zou and Kumar, ‘Mapping a Colonial Borderland’, p. 143. 14 For example, on how capital operated through administrative arrangement such as the Inner Line, see Boddhisattva Kar, ‘When Was the Postcolonial: A History of Policing Impossible Lines’, in Sanjib Baruah (ed.), Beyond Counterinsurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 49–79. 15 For example, see Verrier Elwin, A Philosophy for NEFA, Shillong: North East Frontier Agency, 1959; Nari Rustomji, Imperilled Frontiers: India’s North-Eastern Borderlands, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984; on the complex process of state building project that unfolded in the post-­ colonial ‘north east frontier’, see Berenice Guyot-Rechard, ‘Nation Building or State-Making? India’s North-East Frontier and the Ambiguities of Nehruvian Developmentalism, 1950–1959’, Contemporary South Asia, vol. 21, no. 1 (2013), pp. 22–37. Also see, Berenice Guyot-Rechard, Shadow States: India, China and the Himalayas, 1910–1962, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 16 For instance, see, Elwin, A Philosophy for NEFA; Rakshat Puri, ‘Towards Security in the North-East: Transportation and Nationalism’, in K. Suresh Singh (ed.), Tribal Situation in India, Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced

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18 19

20

21

22

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Study, 1972, pp. 98–109; Pannalal Dasgupta (ed.), A Common Perspective for North East India, Calcutta: 1967. For example, S. K. Bhuyan’s writing according to David Syiemlieh ‘was a curious mixture of nationalistic sentiments and an acceptance of British rule’. See David R. Syiemlieh, ‘History Writing on North East India: Periodization, Varieties, Concerns’, in Bharati Ray (ed.), Different Types of History, Vol. XIV, Part 4, New Delhi: Pearson Longman, 2009, pp. 229–243; also see, S. K. Bhuyan, Anglo-Assamese Relations, 1771–1826, Gauhati: Lawyer’s Book Stall, 1949/1974; H. K. Barpujari, Problem of the Hill Tribes North-East Frontier, Vol. I, Gauhati: Lawyer’s Book Stall, 1970; ibid., Vol. II, Shillong: NEHU, 1976; ibid., Vol. III, Gauhati: Spectrum, 1981. For example, see Surajit Sinha, Tribal Polities and State Systems in PreColonial Eastern and North Eastern India, Calcutta and New Delhi: K.P. Bagchi & Co., 1964. For example, see, Suniti Kumar Chatterji, The Place of Assam in the History and Civilisation of India, Banikanta Kakati Memorial Lectures, 1954, Gauhati: Department of Publication, University of Gauhati, 1970; Verrier Elwin, Nagaland, Shillong: Research Department, Advisers Secretariat, 1961; for a general discussion on the relations of nation state with that of historical reconstruction, see Prasenjit Duara, Rescuing History From the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. For instance, some of the residual categories through which North East India continues to be perceived today includes the banal representation of an ‘isolated’ and ‘landlocked’ region; as a ‘sensitive region’; an economically ‘underdeveloped’ area; a ‘rebel country’; apart from perceiving the region as ‘ungovernable areas’ whereby the ‘unruly’ population can be disciplined only through repressive exceptional laws such as AFPSA. For example, see Sanjib Baruah, Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of North East India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005. For example, see Bernard S. Cohn, ‘Regions Subjective and Objective: Their Relation to the Study of Modern Indian History and Society’, in An Anthropologist Among Historians and Other Essays, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987, pp. 100–135; also see Thomas H. Holdich, ‘North Eastern-Frontier of India’, The Journal of the Royal Society of the Arts, vol. LX, no. 3092 (February 23, 1912), pp. 379–389. For example, see Amalendu Guha, Medieval and Early Colonial Assam: Society, Polity, Economy, Guwahati: Anwesha, 2014 (1991); Amalendu Guha, ‘Great Nationalism, Little Nationalism and Problem of Integration: A Tentative View’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 14, no. 7/8, Annual Number: Class and Caste in India (February 1979), pp. 455–458. For example, see Amalendu Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam, 1826–1947, New Delhi: Tulika, 2006 (1977); Arupjyoti Saikia, A Century of Protest: Peasant Politics in Assam Since 1900, New Delhi: Routledge, 2013; Rana P. Behal, One Hundred Years of Servitude: The Political Economy of Tea Plantations in Colonial Assam, New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2014. Sanjib Baruah, Between South and Southeast Asia: Northeast India and the Look East Policy, CENISEAS Papers number 4, Guwahati: Centre for Northeast India, South and Southeast Asia Studies, 2004; Rakhee Bhattacharya,

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26

27

28 29

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Northeastern India and Its Neighbours: Negotiating Security and Development, New Delhi: Routledge, 2014; on the relations between resources, society and the operations of multi-national corporations in the region, also see Bengt G. Karlsson, Unruly Hills: Nature and Nation in India’s Northeast, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan and Social Science Press, 2011. David Ludden, ‘The First Boundary of Bangladesh on Sylhet’s Northern Frontiers’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, vol. 48, no. 1 (June 2003), pp. 1–54; Willem Van Schendel, The Bengal Borderlands: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia, London: Anthem Press, 2005; Philippe Ramirez, People of the Margins: Across Ethnic Boundaries in North East India, Guwahati: Spectrum, 2014; an early work which looked at the concept of borderland in the global context was, Willem Van Schendel and Michel Baud, ‘Toward a Comparative History of Borderlands’, Journal of World History, vol. 8, no. 2 (1997), pp. 211–242; on the idea of ‘borderworld’, see Mandy Sadan, Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Borderworlds of Burma, London: Oxford University Press/ British Academy, 2013. Ludden, ‘The First Boundary’; Schendel, The Bengal Borderland. For an important study on the paradoxical nature of borderlands, especially on the African context, see A. I. Asiwaju and Paul Nugent (eds.), African Boundaries: Barriers, Conduits, and Opportunities, New York: Printer Publishers, 1996. For example, see James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2010 (2009); for an account on the colonial construction and representation of ‘state-evading people’ in North East India, see Jangkhomang Guite, ‘Colonialism and Its Unruly? – The Colonial State and Kuki Raids in Nineteenth Century Northeast India’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 48, no. 5 (2014), pp. 1188–1232. For example, Edmund Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure, London: London School of Economics, 1954. For example, see Sanghamitra Misra, Becoming a Borderland: The Politics of Space and Identity in Colonial Northeastern India, New Delhi: Routledge, 2011; Manjeet Baruah, ‘Assamese Language, Narrative and the Making of North East Frontier of India: Beyond Regional Indian Literary Studies’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 47, no. 2 (March 2013), pp. 652–681. For example, see Indrani Chatterji, Forgotten Friends: Monks, Marriages, and Memories of North East India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013; Sayeeda Yasmin Saikia, ‘Connected Histories’, Seminar, 640, December, 2012, www.india-seminar.com/2012/640/640_yasmin_saikia.htm; for an important work on the concept of ‘connected history’, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes Towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 31, no. 3, Special Issue (July 1997), pp. 735–762. Gunnel Cederlöf further shows in her work how, until the early nineteenth century, networks of trade and markets had connected Bengal with Yunnan (China) overland through Assam (Patkai Pass), Manipur (Imole Pass) and Arakan. This vibrant history of networks and corridors, as Cederlöf argues, is ‘in stark contrast to today’s image of north-east India as a frontier and a geographical dead end’. See Gunnel Cederlöf, Founding an Empire on

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35 36

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India’s North-Eastern Frontiers, 1780–1840: Climate, Commerce, Polity, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 30; also see, Toni Huber and Stuart Blackburn (eds.), Origins and Migrations in Extended Eastern Himalayas, Leiden and Boston: BRILL, 2012. Rila Mukherjee writes how land and river routes connected northern Burma, Tibet, upland northeast India, central Asia, Shan states and Yunan areas to the Bay. This region, thus constituted important links and provided access into the interior and beyond. See Rila Mukherjee (ed.), Pelagic Passageways: The Northern Bay of Bengal before Colonialism, New Delhi: Primus Books, 2011, pp. 2–8; for a discussion on Yunnan and its connections to the neighbouring regions in the global trading networks, also see Bin Yang, ‘Horses, Silver and cowries: Yunnan in Global Perspective’, Journal of World History, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 2004), pp. 281–322. For example, see Stuart Blackburn, ‘Memories of Migration: Notes on Legends and Beads in Arunachal Pradesh, India’, European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, vols. 25/26 (2003/2004), pp. 15–60. Joy L. K. Pachuau, Being Mizo: Identity and Belonging in Northeast India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014; John Thomas, Evangelising the Nation: Religion and the Formation of Naga Political Identity, New Delhi: Routledge, 2015; Tiplut Nongbri, Development, Masculinity and Christianity: Essays and Verses from India’s North East, Shimla: IIAS, 2014; Makiko Kimura, The Nellie Massacre of 1983: The Agency of Rioters, New Delhi: Sage, 2013; Thong, Progress and its Impact on the Nagas. Tilottama Misra, Literature and Society in Assam: A Study of the Assamese Renaissance, 1826–1926, New Delhi: Omsons, 1987. For an interesting study on how the early missionaries constructed its understanding of ‘frontier’, see Andrew J. May, Welsh Missionaries and British Imperialism: The Empire of Clouds in North East India, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012. For example, see Jayeeta Sharma, Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011; Sayeeda Yasmin Saikia, Fragmented Memories: Struggling to be Tai-Ahom in India, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004; Arkotong Longkumer, Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging: The Heraka Movement in Northeast India, London: Continuum, 2010; Arambam Noni and Kangujam Sanatomba (eds.), Colonialism and Resistance: Society and State in Manipur, New Delhi: Routledge, 2016; Swargajyoti Gohain, ‘Embattled Frontiers and Emerging Spaces: Transformation of the Tawang Border’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. LII, no. 15, (April 2017), pp. 87–94. For example, see Joy L. K. Pachuau and Willem Van Schendel, Camera as Witness: A Social History of Mizoram, Northeast India, New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2015; Bobeeta Sarma, The Moving Image and Assamese Culture: Joymoti, Jyotiprasad Agarwalla, and Assamese Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014; Stuart Blackburn, Himalayan Tribal Tales: Oral Tradition and Culture in the Apatani Valley, Leiden: BRILL, 2008. For example, see Pieter Steyn, Zapuphizo: Voice of the Nagas, London: Routledge, 2010 (2002); Temsula Ao, Once Upon a Life: Burnt Curries and Bloody Rags, a Memoir, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2013. Such memoirs have also been an important genre in the different languages of the region. For

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example, see Kaberi Kachari Rajkonwar, Issa Anissa Swotteu Kisu Katha (Though Hesitant, A Few Things that I Have to Say), Guwahati: Alibat, 2013. 0 For example, see Tiplut Nongbri, Gender, Matriliny, Entrepreneurship: 4 The Khasis of North East India, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2008; Rakhee Kalita Moral, Living and Partly Living: Politics of Freedom and the Women of United Liberation Front of Assam, NMML Occasional Paper Series, History and Society No. 31, New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 2013; Hemjyoti Medhi, ‘Tribe, Caste, Nation, Gender: Chandraprabha Saikiani’s Presidential Address to the First Assam Kachari Mahila Sanmilan (1930)’, Summerhill: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies Review Journal, vol. XX, no. 1 (Summer 2014), pp. 33–41; Romy Barooah, ‘Transformations in Trade and the Constitution of Gender and rank in Northeast India’, American Ethnologist, vol. 27, no. 2 (May 2000), pp. 371–399.

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Part I REGION, FRONTIER AND STATE

1 REGION FORMED AND IMAGINED Reconsidering temporal, spatial and social context of Kāmarūpa Jae-Eun Shin

Defining Kāmarūpa: regional history and history of region The only common point that can be found among numerous definitions of a region is perhaps ‘a spatial unit distinct from the space that surrounds it’. 1 However, a spatial unit is neither a self-evident nor a natural-given entity. From a historical point of view, the emergence of a region has a long gestation period through which political, economic, socio-cultural and ideological elements were intricately connected and congealed in a particular pattern. The formation of a region would never see its end. It is rather an ongoing process which proceeds with innumerable variations and deviations. To this day, the division of a larger region into smaller ones continues in different parts of India on the basis of distinctive regional identities and political demands for autonomy. The extent of a region is, therefore, by no means the same all through the history, and its boundary has constantly changed in the midst of hegemonic conflicts and negotiations. Being historically determined, a region is not a solid entity but a fluid process of configuration. The idea of a region, by contrast, is the more concrete articulation of the identity as a region. Emphasising its importance, Schwartzberg, who is renowned for his A Historical Atlas of South Asia, defines a region as ‘a perceived segment of time-space continuum differentiated from others on the basis of one or more defining characteristics’. 2 A perceived region is not necessarily coterminous with an instituted region. It is rather an awareness of subjective space based on a variety of historical, linguistic,

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cultural, socio-structural and environmental factors. 3 The resulting subjective regions, thus, range from a relatively restricted area within an instituted region to a larger territory that might extend far beyond the geographic limits of modern states. 4 At a more fundamental level, the idea of a region provides ‘a basic cosmology or orientation to the world and a focus for one’s affections’ 5 and entails a deep emotional and physical attachment to the region where one belongs or believes to belong. In many cases, it becomes a conceptual device by which a distinct regional identity is constructed; in the initial stage, it is based on some vague awareness of languages, environments, sacred centres, customs, ethnicity and so forth. But later on, as regional consciousness develops, far more defined and solid sets of arguments and justifications are created. 6 Writing a regional history with a distinctive sense of past plays a decisive role in this process. This development does not occur by chance but takes place when certain circumstances and agents are present, that is to say, when regional historians are located at a particular historical juncture and intellectual climate. In South Asia, the exclusive idea of a region has taken concrete shape in the course of the nationalist movement to which many historians committed themselves in various ways. From the late nineteenth century, the inculcation of history emerged as a new and rationalist discipline, and its deployment became an attractive vehicle for new identities and aspirations. 7 It, needless to say, was never a unilinear development. Each region had its own way of recalling the past and a strong sense of history cultivated by a group of regional historians and intellectuals-cum-activists. But the fact remains that there have been common trends or paradigms in regional history writings, albeit divergent historical articulations. Thapar makes three important points in particular: (1) there is the all-too-ready acceptance of the conventional periodisation; (2) certain theories current in earlier historical writing and believed to be almost axiomatic are endorsed; and (3) there is the almost inevitable search for a golden age, often identified as the period to which the currently dominant group traces its roots, and it is described in the growing tints of cultural resurgence. 8 Therefore, regions were often viewed as a given territory bounded by their own border in the early regional history writings. The great achievements of the kings, glories of the dynasties and careers of the distinguished literary or religious figures were grafted onto the temporal and spatial entity which was often ‘retrospectively’ defined. Over the last three decades, however, such a regionalist tendency and some of the underlying assumptions of regional history writings have been questioned and reconsidered with special reference to the making of the regional states, socio-economic structures and cultural patterns in different parts of early India. 9 This recent shift leads us to delineate ‘histories of regions’ rather than ‘regional histories’. As 24

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Sahu underlined, there is a marked difference between them: while regional histories are consumed by a desire to establish the comparative historical precedence, antiquity or uniqueness inspired by regional sentiments and chauvinism, histories of regions are engaged in a dispassionate discerning of processes, structures and the trajectory of the evolution of institutions and traditions across regions. 10 Regrettably, not all the regions have witnessed the paradigm shift in their history writings. Meaningful attempts to understand a region in a larger historical context have been made in some areas including Orissa, Rajasthan, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, whereas conventional dynastic history writings are still dominant in other areas. Besides, not all the epochs of a region draw the same level of scholarly attention. A certain phase is thoroughly interrogated with a new framework, while other phase remains in a timeless capsule of antiquarian studies. The latter is the case for many history writings on Kāmarūpa (or Prāgjyotiṣa-Kāmarūpa). 11 What is Kāmarūpa? The most simplistic and generally shared definition is the ‘earliest kingdom of Assam’ or the ‘ancient past of Assam’. However, the implication of this definition is far more complicated than historical reality. The importance of Kāmarūpa was accentuated by the group of nationalist historians/antiquarians of Assam since the early twentieth century when searching for the past, or more precisely, redefining the past emerged as a fundamental constituent of the making of Assamese identity. Their main concern was to find out a proper place for Assam in the mainstream of Indian history and civilisation. Kāmarūpa became an entrance through which Assam could connect herself with the rest of the subcontinent. It constituted a historical region where ‘there are sacred myths and symbols, held by significant groups within the area, regarding the relationship of people to their past and geographical entity.’ 12 Although considerable progress has been made in the quantitative compilation of textual, epigraphical and archaeological information on the early Brahmaputra Valley, the writings on Kāmarūpa have been mostly limited to a dynastic history, emphasising a unilinear political continuity of the region from the past to the present. Either a number of controversial issues remained unsolved or they were erased conveniently from the dominant history writings on Kāmarūpa which underlined the coherence of language, ethnicity, religion and culture of the region. This coherence, mostly imagined and retrospectively imposed, became the important basis for the exclusive regional identity against neighbouring regions and the political aspiration to justify the dominance of Hindu majority over other minorities. 13 Reconsidering Kāmarūpa never means bypassing the main concerns of the historiography nor using very different source materials. Rather, it involves us asking new sets of questions in order to see the past from a 25

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different perspective and read the relevant sources with a different interpretive strategy. The practice of history, though not historical accounts in a modern sense, was an important instrument for expressing the power of the dominant social group in Kāmarūpa. 14 It includes the royal genealogy, the commemoration of the progenitor, narratives of sacred sites and so forth. What can be discerned from such practices are not purely historical facts, but perceptions and intentions through which various facets of events and memories were reconstructed in a given direction. By considering the function and purpose of Sanskrit records in the socio-political context of early medieval India, one may look at controversial issues of Kāmarūpa history afresh. I will particularly discuss the three points in the temporal, spatial and social context of Kāmarūpa by putting three simple questions: (1) Was Kāmarūpa an ancient kingdom? (2) Was it identical with Prāgjyotiṣa? (3) Was it a part of Āryāvarta? Through this exercise, I will delineate the two different historical processes, that is, the imagination of the region in the modern historiography on the one hand and the formation of the region in the early medieval period on the other.

Reconsidering Kāmarūpa: temporal, spatial and social context Was Kāmarūpa an ancient kingdom? It is not merely a question of time-bracket. Periodisation involves historical assumptions by which certain political, economic, cultural and even religious identity are given to a particular time span. For instance, the conventional three divisions of Indian history, viz. Hindu, Muslim and British period were constructed on the basis of the image of oppressive and static pre-modern India and that of liberated and progressive British India since James Mill’s History of British India (1817). Although the nomenclature has changed into the Ancient, Medieval and Modern period, the underlying assumption remains almost unchanged. It has been, therefore, a controversial issue since the beginning of the modern Indian historiography. 15 Over the last three decades, some of the general historical assumption of the periodisation has been questioned with special reference to the historical transformation of the region outside the Gangetic heartland. Of many attempts to redefine historical changes of India, a major outcome was new conceptualisation of early medieval India; although the time span may differ according to each regional context, the period between the sixth and seventh and the twelfth and thirteenth centuries constitutes an important transitional phase of history which was marked by the expansion of agrarian settlements of brāhmaṇas through land grants, the increased interaction 26

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between Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical social groups and the formation of regional state, caste system and cultic centre. 16 Barring a few works, such a recent consideration has yet to be critically reflected in the history writings on Kāmarūpa. The legacy of generalisation inherited from the colonial historiography, with a few slight modifications, has remained until now. 17 Following the stereotypical periodisation, the history of Assam is divided into the three major phases in general: ancient period (from the pre-historic times to the twelfth century); medieval period (from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the Treaty of Yandabo 1826) and modern period (from 1826 to 1919). 18 The three epochs are a convenient substitute for Hindu, Muslim and British period as the first phase ends with the invasion of Turko-Afghan rulers and the second one with the acquisition of political power of British. While a limited time span is assigned to medieval and modern Assam, a remarkable length of time covering several thousand years is given to its ancient period. It begins with the three legendary figures of the royal genealogy, viz. Naraka (the progenitor of Kāmarūpa), Bhagadatta (the son of Naraka) and Vajradatta (the grandson of Naraka or the younger brother of Bhagadatta). Based on the Epic and Puranic references and inscriptional records, scholars have sought for the historicity of these figures and the considerable antiquity of Kāmarūpa. A critical issue is how one can fill the enormous time gap between the period of legendary ancestors and the reign of Puṣyavarman, the first historical king of Kāmarūpa in the mid-fourth century. According to the Nidhanpur plates dated to the mid-seventh century, the family of Naraka had been the ruler for 3,000 years, and then Puṣyavarman became the lord of the world. 19 Some scholars like Bhattacharya interprets it literally, 20 whereas others make an attempt to rationalise it by claiming the historical presence of many Narakas or even the Naraka dynasty. For example, Choudhury rejects the mythical dimension of Naraka’s birth story and Bhagadatta’s association with Pāṇḍavas in the Mahābhārata. Rather, they are deemed historical personages: the former is assigned to the pre-Buddhistic period and the latter to the first century. For him, there existed not a Naraka, but several Narakas among whom the last one was probably the father of Bhagadatta. The farfetched historicisation leads to the conclusion that Naraka-Bhagadatta was a dynastic title, and there were 24 or 25 kings of Naraka-Bhagadatta line probably including the house of Puṣyavarman in the mid-fourth century. 21 On the other hand, Sarma is of the opinion that there were as many as three monarchs bearing the name Naraka, all of whom ruled in the western region beyond the Brahmaputra. Among them, the last Naraka migrated from Videha and established himself in Prāgjyotiṣa. It happened prior to the traditional Bhagadatta of the Mahābhārata period. 22 Other scholars including Kakati posit different opinions on the date of Naraka ranging between 200 27

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and 500 ce. 23 The historicity of Naraka and his descendants has attracted a great deal of speculation among historians even after the 1990s: Lahiri locates the Bhauma-Naraka dynasty in the first phase of the political history of Kāmarūpa, 24 and a similar argument is still found in Shastri’s work. 25 Notwithstanding these attempts, it is nearly impossible to identify such a legendary figure and to determine his date and genealogy. There is no definite reference to Kāmarūpa in the early/later Vedic literature and the early Buddhist/Jain canonical works. 26 The two Epics are also silent on Kāmarūpa, despite mentioning Prāgjyotiṣa. Kāmarūpa was not included in the 16 mahājanapadas during the time of the Buddha, while Aṅga and Magadha were: the Aṅgas, Magadhas, Puṇḍras and Vaṅgas are mentioned in the Baudhāyana Dharmasūtra (1.2.14–6) dated to the period between the early third and mid-second centuries bce. The Aṅgas and Magadhas lived in eastern and southern Bihar respectively, and the Puṇḍras and the Vaṅgas in northern and southern Bengal, respectively. It is prescribed that a brāhmaṇa must have purification by the performance of punastoma or sarvapṛṣṭhā after visiting their places. 27 The absence of Kāmarūpa in the reference reveals that the area beyond Puṇḍras was not even recognised in the early Brahmanical tradition and the north-eastern region was not within the ambit of Brahmanical culture in the second half of the first millennium bce. It should be remembered in this connection that the north-eastern region was outside the Maurya Empire. Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, the Geography of Ptolemy and other early literary works only speak of economic pursuits of the tribal belt of the north-eastern region: Kauṭilya refers to the commodities originating from various places around the Lauhitya, though the region was still divided into tribal pockets and perhaps no common name till then. The author of the Periplus and Ptolemy knew the Kirātas and other tribes, but had nothing to say about their kingdoms. 28 The first and solid historical reference to Kāmarūpa is found in the Allahabad pillar inscription of Samudragupta in the mid-fourth century. It is categorised as the lands of frontier kings (pratyanta nṛpatis) along with Samataṭa, Ḍavāka, Nepāla and Kartṛpura. The kings of which submitted to the commands of Samudragupta by giving all kinds of tributes and obeying his orders. 29 From this record, it is clear that a certain level of state formation took place in this area before the advent of the Guptas, although its process and scale still remain uncertain. It could be distinguished from other gaṇa-saṅgha type of states since the inscription refers to the countries of the Mālavas, Ārjunāyanas, Yaudheyas, Mādrakas, Prājunas, Sanakānīkas and Kākas in a different category in the same context. 30 One cannot completely rule out the possibility of several simultaneous political powers in different sub-regional levels of north-eastern India around or even before the fourth century. For instance, the archaeological discovery in the Doiyang-Dhansiri 28

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Valley reveals that early state formation in the region may have begun before the second century. Some stone inscriptions assigned to the fourth and fifth centuries refer to the four names of kings who have possibly ruled over this area. 31 The date of the Nagajari-Khanikargaon fragmentary stone inscription is considered to be earlier than that of the Umachal inscription of the Varmans. 32 It is, nevertheless, too early to make any definite conclusion as the archaeological and inscriptional evidences are still limited to date. Furthermore, the absence of large-scale archaeological excavations in the region prevents us from tracing a detailed picture of society in the earlier period. The first ruling dynasty of Kāmarūpa is known as the Varmans founded by Puṣyavarman in the fourth century. This is the beginning of Kāmarūpa history which one can be sure of, on the basis of the historical sources available to date. Therefore, any claims of the existence of ancient Naraka-Bhagadatta or Bhauma-Naraka dynasty prior to the Varmans are historically untenable, albeit politically tenable. The making of the ancient historical narrative of Kāmarūpa including Naraka-Bhagadatta displays a strong tendency to ‘dynasticize’. It is not unique to Assam but ‘evident in most attempts to deal with genealogies found in epigraphs of India’. 33 What such attempts manifest is ‘the practice of rationalising the inscriptions of a number of rulers of uncertain date and lineage into dynastic superstructure, thereby conferring both temporal and genetic relationships on them where the data provide neither’, and further, ‘the even more wide practice of juxtaposing and concatenating short genealogies and grafting them into an impressive whole which is truly greater than the sum of its parts’. 34 To deviate from such assumptions and methods, the lengthy history and mythical genealogy, invariably proclaimed in the inscriptional records of Kāmarūpa, need to be reconsidered in a broader historical context of the early medieval period. The historical process of the period between the sixth and the thirteenth centuries is characterised by an astonishing continuity of autonomous state formation within the foci of regional power. 35 The delineation of the power relations, political conditions and administrative structures in various areas within the Gupta Empire, or zones of influence of the Guptas, demonstrates that the emergence of regional states owed to the diversity and fluidity. Virkus argues thus: The level of state development was regionally different within north and central India. Even in the more highly developed parts of the Gupta Empire, there was no political or administrative uniformity. . . . As most of the new states came into existence in hitherto less developed or backward region, it can not be argued that these newly ascending dynasties established themselves and expanded ‘at the expense’ of the Guptas and thus, these state 29

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formation processes were the cause of the decline of the Gupta empire. Certainly, these developments changed the configuration of power on the sub-continent and led to the establishment of a new order, which was based on the coexistence of several regional political systems of approximately equal importance and strength. But this process can not be adequately described in terms of such as ‘decline’, ‘disintegration’ or ‘decentralization’. 36 Like many other regional states, the formation of Kāmarūpa took place on the outer edge of the Gupta Empire. The power relation between the Varmans of Kāmarūpa and the Guptas is yet to be clearly figured out due to very limited historical evidence. Nevertheless, a close reading of the genealogy of the Varmans, first described in the Dubi and Nidhanpur plates of Bhāskaravarman and Baṇa’s Harṣacarita dated to the early seventh century, proves that it involves a subtle negotiation rather than a simple relation of dominance and subordination. The two inscriptional records begin with the eulogy to Naraka, the progenitor of the kingdom who was born of the contact between Varāha and the Earth. After praising him, the records refer to Bhagadatta and Vajradatta as his son and grandson, respectively. Vajradatta was followed by several other kings after whom Puṣyavarman came to power, and thereafter his lineal descendants up to Bhāskaravarman are eulogised. 37 According to some historians’ view, the Varman rulers asserted themselves by announcing their semi-divine origin when the Gupta power weakened. 38 But the fact that the early kings of Kāmarūpa freely implemented the political model of north India, particularly following that of the Guptas, rather suggests their relative autonomy in the periphery. They adopted the imperial title of the Gupta, and the name of a Gupta king and queen, and performed a horse sacrifice: Surendravarman was called the king of kings (mahārājādirāja) in the Umachal rock inscription of the last quarter of the fifth century. The imperial title was more properly adopted in the mid-sixth century as seen in the Barganga rock inscription, in which Bhūtivarman assumed the titles of ‘paramadaivata paramabhaṭṭāraka mahārājādirāja’ (the staunch worshipper of deities, the supreme lord and the king of kings). 39 This combination of imperial titles had become a formula of the Gupta kings from the mid-fifth century as seen in the Damodarpur plates of Kumaragupta I. 40 Moreover, Bhūtivarman was described as the performer of a horse sacrifice (aśvamedhayājin) in the Barganga inscription. 41 The resemblance between the names of Puṣyavarman’s son, Samudravarman, and daughter-in-law, Dattadevī, on the one hand and those of Gupta emperor Samudragupta and his queen Dattadevī on the other may not be accidental. It was probably a conscious adoption. 30

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Considering their relative political autonomy, the decline of the Guptas seems not to have been a critical cause for the making of a new genealogy of the Varman rulers. The political dimension of their genealogical articulation should be understood in its own regional historical context, especially around the seventh century. During this period, the Varmans reached the zenith of their political power and spatial expansion under Bhāskaravarman. He raised the importance of Kāmarūpa in north Indian politics in various ways by making a political alliance with the king Harṣa, defeating Śaśāṅka and ruling over Karṇasuvarṇa, the capital of the Gauḍas. The Brahmanical ideology such as varṇāśrama-dharma and ārya-dharma was particularly emphasised during his reign. 42 Besides, the agrarian expansion proceeded significantly in outlying areas and the state formation seems to have reached a crucial phase in this period. To take one example, the Nidhanpur plates refer to a renewal of the land-grant made by Bhūtivarman, the great-greatgrandfather of Bhāskaravarman, in Candrapuri viṣaya (district) located in somewhere of present Sylhet district in Bangladesh. It mentions that a marshy land tract adjacent to an existing settlement was given to more than 208 vaidika brāhmaṇas (brāhmaṇas versed in the Vedas) belonging to 56 gotras and different Vedic schools. 43 This assignment implies that the ruling authority possessed the political power to transfer such largescale land in a peripheral area and based on which those brāhmaṇas would make a further agrarian expansion. A large administrative unit called viṣaya was already under the political control of the Varmans by the time of Bhāskaravarman. 44 The viṣaya was probably governed by the subordinate rulers, viz. the sāmantas of the Varmans. The sāmantas were conferred with functional titles and had military and civil functions to perform in addition to the payment of tribute and homage to the king. 45 These facts prove the development of Kāmarūpa as a monarchical state with political apparatus comparable to other contemporary regional kingdoms in early medieval northern India. In this historical context, a sacred genealogy, suitable for Bhāskaravarman, the great ruler, was formulated (or re-formulated) and then became a fixed formula for the praśasti (eulogy) of the Mlecchas and the Pālas in the following period, though several important changes in the way connecting their present with the past were made. 46 Such a practice was fairly common to many regional, sub-regional and local dynasties in the Post-Gupta period. They sought political validation and there was a rush for the fabrication of genealogies providing the Sūryavaṃśa or Candravaṃśa origin of the dynasties. This is evident from the genealogies of the Rajput kings; even more interesting is the case of the Gonds of central India associated with the Candella kings who claimed Candravaṃśī status. 47 The curious origin myths of early medieval ruling lineages across the country point to the ‘emergence of 31

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a common political culture’. 48 The peculiar aspect of the Varman’s genealogy is that they adopted neither Sūryavaṁśa nor Candravaṁśa, the two representative kṣatriya genealogies in that period. Instead, they chose Naraka, a notorious demon who was killed by Kṛṣṇa in the Mahābhārata as their progenitor. It alludes to the indigenous origin of the Varmans, though they became supporters of the Brahmanical religion in the later period. 49 But the fact remains that Naraka was not simply represented as a demon in the genealogy but as an embodiment of complexity, that is the son of Viṣṇu as well as the father of Bhagadatta. In other words, he stood between a Brahmanical deity and a great war hero. Although his relations with both the figures remained highly dubious in the textual tradition, 50 they had important political implications in the post-Gupta context. The making of Naraka involved distinct strategies for political legitimation of the peripheral political power. The presence of Viṣṇu in the form of Varāha in the genealogy suggests the Varmans’ attempt to make a symbolic connection with northern India, or otherwise imitate the legitimation policy based on Vaiṣṇava creed already prevalent in the area. While the close association with Varāha is assumed for the Gupta kings by some scholars, 51 it is more apparent in the case of some of their subordinates and inheritors including the rulers of Eran and the later Guptas in Magadha. 52 The Vaiṣṇava brāhmaṇas seemed to play an important role in this process, and their influence culminated in the making of the extensive narrative of Naraka and goddess Kāmākhyā of the Kālikāpurāṇa in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was, according to Hazra, the Puranic Vaiṣṇava who first tried to bring the non-Aryan inhabitants of Kāmarūpa into their fold by giving it out to be originally a place of Viṣṇu-worship and Vaiṣṇava āgamas and also by fabricating a story that Naraka was born of the Earth by Viṣṇu in his boar incarnation. 53 Moreover, the Varmans integrated Naraka, Bhagadatta and Vajradatta into an imagined unilineal lineage, thereby conferring a new temporal dimension on their history. In their articulation, the history of Kāmarūpa goes back to the cosmological time when Varāha had saved the Earth and the latter had given birth to Naraka, passes through the Epic time when Bhagadatta participated in Bhārata war and continues with the great Varman kings. All of them had been the predecessors who legitimised the position of Bhāskaravarman. Thus, Naraka was not merely represented as a demon but a great ruler of the Earth: he was called ‘all powerful on the earth being the king of kings’ (narakaḥ kṣitau kṣitibhujānrājādhirājo vibhuḥ) and ‘the chief of rulers of the earth’ (pārthiva-vṛndārako). 54 The genealogy beginning with Naraka and the Epic heroes were deployed effectively during the reign of Bhāskaravarman. Firstly, it ensured his identity as a great king born in a family with the renowned ancestors when he 32

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sought for a political alliance with the king Harṣa. 55 Secondly, it impressed Hiuen Tsang, a Chinese monk who visited Kāmarūpa in the early seventh century. The monk recorded that Bhāskaravarman belonged to the old line of Nārāyaṇadeva and the sovereignty over the country was transmitted in the Varman family for 1,000 generations. 56 Thirdly, it legitimised Bhāskaravarman’s rule by apparently mentioning that he has ‘the power of splendour (prabhāvaśakti) exhibited by the elevation of the rank obtained through the succession of the son of Vasumatī’, 57 that is Naraka, the son of the Earth. Given those pieces of evidence, the mythical genealogy cannot be deemed as a reliable record of the past per se but an ideological device for the present, legitimising the existing political power. Here, ‘legitimation is an effective means of integration and integration, as an essential prerequisite of state formation, is based on legitimation.’ 58 To sum up, the ancient past of Kāmarupa prior to the Varmans still remains uncertain. None of the dates assigned to the legendary ancestors of the kingdom are historically tenable. Searching for a precise date of any figures in the legends is impossible since the purpose of Epic literature is not concerned with a chronological sequence of events. What is of significance for the historians, particularly in the context of Indian history, is ‘to understand the historical function of the Epic rather than to limit our exploration to its historicity’. 59 Kāmarūpa was one of the early medieval regional kingdoms, though it may have originated from local political powers before the fourth century. A more critical question on the history of Kāmarūpa is when and why a hoary antiquity of the kingdom was created and accepted. The answer lies not only in the imagination of the nationalist historians of Assam in the twentieth century but also in the historical process and political requirement of the Varmans in the early medieval period. The ancient Kāmarūpa has been invoked repeatedly, surely with different forms, implications and intentions.

Was Kāmarūpa identical with Prāgjyotiṣa? The second question is about the spatial context of Kāmarūpa. It is not only a matter of drawing boundaries of the kingdom or identifying names of places, because the making of the region includes varying perceptions of the space which do not always coincide with the actual geography. The extent of Kāmarūpa, one of the controversial subjects for a long time, is reappraised from different perspectives, and the futility of projecting any fixed boundary on Kāmarūpa is also argued by some historians. Recent epigraphic studies show that the epicentre of political power in Kāmarūpa seems to have been shifting, and the sphere of its political influence was by no means static throughout the period between the fifth and twelfth centuries. 60 33

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Nonetheless, the spatial perceptions of Kāmarūpa have yet been adequately considered. This issue entails its own complexities since the scale of the kingdom was defined retrospectively by the colonial and nationalist historians in the early twentieth century and imposed constantly on the understanding of the modern state of Assam. One of the underlying assumptions is that Prāgjyotiṣa, a mythical kingdom of the Epics, corresponded to Kāmarūpa, and Prāgjyotiṣa-Kāmarūpa occupied a vast territory of which present Assam is a major part. A unilinear continuity is applied to not alone the temporal context of Kāmarūpa but its spatial context. Different terms, ‘Prāgjyotiṣa’, ‘Kāmarūpa’ and ‘ancient Assam’ (or recently ‘early Assam’), have been used as synonyms in many works on the historical geography of the region. This tendency is evident in Ancient Geography of India written by Borooah in 1877, continues in the works of 1950s–1990s and remains in some of the very recent studies. 61 The toponymic identification has been of the great interest of these works. As Kar has noted, identification of the experienced spaces of the colony with the scripted territories of ancient traditions formed a major genre of much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Indological writings. Besides, the toponymic identification was considered a major, almost foundational, step towards constructing an authentic history of India and its region. 62 In Assam, this process began in 1871 when Cunningham ascertained that ‘Kia-mo-leu-po’ mentioned in Hiuen Tsang’s account was ‘Kāmarūpa’, the kingdom of Bhāskaravarman, and equated it with modern Assam. For him, ‘Kāmarūpa’ is the Sanskrit name of Assam, and its extent is defined as the whole valley of the Brahmaputra River, or modern Assam, together with Koch Behar and Bhutan.’ 63 This is, however, a proposition unsupported by either contemporary historical records or etymological explanation. It is noteworthy that Prāgjyotiṣa, a kingdom of legendary figures of the Mahābhārata, is not included in Cunningham’s spatial identification of Kāmarūpa. It is probably due to his dismissive attitude to the geographical information found in Sanskrit literary sources. Unlike other Indologists, he hardly regarded them as reliable as foreign accounts. A few historians having a sensible approach to textual references are also cautious about identifying Prāgjyotiṣa as Kāmarūpa, whereas some nationalist historians of Assam continue to believe that the two different entities are same, almost invariably. Their geographical identification of Prāgjyotiṣa is often based on partial readings of texts and arbitrary interpretations. In 1908, Bhattacharyya expressed his astonishment thus: ‘it is remarkable that the name Kāmarūpa does not occur in the Mahābhārata. Bhagadatta is [only] described as the ruler of Prāgjyotiṣa’. 64 Considering the fact that the name Kāmarūpa is nowhere mentioned in an early literature including the Vedic corpus, the 34

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early Buddhist/Jain works and the Arthaśāstra, it is not surprising that the Epic is silent on Kāmarūpa. Its absence is deemed ‘remarkable’ because some scholars take the ancient presence of Kāmarūpa for granted. Locating Prāgjyotiṣa in the ancient geographical map of the Brahmaputra Valley has gone through a more complicated process. Before going into the further discussion, it is necessary to clear up the confusion over the names. What is mentioned the Mahābhārata is not Kāmarūpa but Prāgjyotiṣa. The Epic references to the latter are indeed perplexing. It is described as the great citadel where the demon Naraka called Bhauma used to live, but its location is not defined at all. 65 At the same time, Prāgjyotiṣa is considered to be the kingdom of Bhagadatta, a mighty warrior who joined the Kaurava side against Pāṇḍavas in the Bhārata war. He is often called ‘prāgjyotiṣādhipa’ (the lord of Prāgjyotiṣa). The Mahābhārata gives scattered references to his army and abode as follows: 1 Bhagadatta, accompanied by his army comprising the Cīnas, the Kirātas and other warriors, went to fight in aid of Duryodhana; 2 he attended rājasūya (the great sacrifice performed at the coronation) of Yudhiṣṭhira with the mlecchas living along the sea coast (mlecchaiḥ sāgarānūpavāsibhiḥ); 3 he was called a dweller on the eastern sea-shore (pūrvasāgaravāsin); 4 he had his abode in the mountain (śailālaya); and 5 he was the lord of the mountain (parvatādhipa). 66 By combining these fragments of information, Pargiter portrayed Prāgjyotiṣa as ‘a great kingdom with a vast territory’ in the geographical map of ancient eastern India. 67 For him, Prāgjyotiṣa must have included the country along with both sides of the Brahmaputra from the Himalayas down to Tippera, that is the modern districts of Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Golapara, Rangpur, Bogra, Maimensingh, Dacca, Tippera and part of Pabna, and also probably part of the eastern part of Nepal. 68 Despite a considerable progress in compiling quantitative geographical information, his view proposed in 1897 has been followed for more than 100 years from the work of Gait to the recent writings, without any serious reconsideration or amendment. 69 However, there is a critical difference; while Pargiter differentiated Prāgjyotiṣa, the ancient kingdom of Bhagadatta, from Kāmarūpa, a medieval kingdom in eastern India, 70 most of his followers equated these two different entities. Prāgjyotiṣa is deemed Kāmarūpa or vice versa. 35

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It should be noted that the Mahābhārata contains another set of references to Prāgjyotiṣa, which indicates its alternative location. In the section describing digvijaya (the conquest of the quarters/regions) of the four Pāṇḍava brothers, Bhīma is said to set out the east and conquer many places such as Kosala, Ayodhyā, Malla, Kāśi, Matsya, Malaya, Vatsa, Niṣāda, Videha, Vaṅga and Tāmralipti. He finally reached the Lauhitya (Brahmaputra) and compelled the mleccha kings and dwellers of the sea coast. 71 Bhagadatta and his kingdom Prāgjyotiṣa are conspicuously absent from this reference. On the other hand, Arjuna is said to fight with the powers in the northern division including Bhagadatta, the king of Prāgjyotiṣa. 72 The northern division called ‘Udīcya or Uttarāpatha comprising the region between the eastern Punjab and the Oxus in the north-west as well as the entire Himalayan region’. 73 In another section of the Epic, it is mentioned that Bhagadatta came to the court of Yudhiṣṭhira on the occasion of his rājasūya with yavanas to give presents including fast-moving horses of excellent breed, jewelled ornaments and a sword with a hilt of pure ivory. 74 The term yavana has been used in early Indian history to refer to a Greek or another foreigner usually associated with the north-western region. Furthermore, the Aśvamedhikaparvan of the Mahābhārata says how Arjuna fought first with the king of Trigarta in Jalandhar region of Punjab, next with king Vajradatta of Prāgjyotiṣa and then with the Saindhavas of the Lower Indus Valley. 75 These descriptions seem to indicate the possible affiliation of Bhagadatta and Vajradatta to the north-western India and locate Prāgjyotiṣa in the region, especially the Punjab-Sind area. They also remind us about the Rāmāyaṇa’s reference to Prāgjyotiṣapura which describes it as the mythical citadel of Naraka located on the Varāha Mountain in the west. 76 Some scholars including M. C. Majumdar and K. V. Athavale, thus, placed Prāgjyotiṣa in the north-western region, although this proposition has been strongly opposed by many historians of Assam. 77 The possibility of an alternative location of Prāgjyotiṣa scarcely ever provoked meaningful discussions in the historical study on Kāmarūpa. The scholars preoccupied with the belief that Assam had been ‘one unified space in different names’ preclude any further interpretations of the sources. This trend of history writing is not so unique to Assam. As Saikia has noted, it was copied from the colonial model that had already narrativised a linear story for India subcontinent in the early nineteenth century. Here, the underlying assumption that Assam was one unified space, culture and society allowed for the interchangeable use of terms such as Prāgyotiṣa, Kāmarūpa, Kamata and Assam to refer to a single kingdom, a kingdom that was prominent under these various names at different periods of time. 78 It is, therefore, not surprising that the Rāmāyaṇa reference to Prāgjyotiṣa in the western direction is deemed to be a ‘definite mistake’ in one of the well-known compilation of early inscriptions of 36

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Assam. 79 If Prāgjyotiṣa might have comprised ‘the hilly areas beyond the present Arunachal and to the eastern slopes of the Kashmir hills’ as Sarma claimed, 80 it must have been one of the largest empires in early India. Needless to say, one has never heard of such a vast kingdom in the Himalayan terrain from any other historical source. A lot of confusion about the location of Prāgjyotiṣa cannot be attributed to the ambiguous accounts of the Epics. Rather, the main problem is the direction of the query. The Epics are not always concerned with actual geographical spaces, and names of sacred sites and legendary places are often reproduced or duplicated in a regional context. The fact that certain Shāhi kings of Gilgit region flourishing about the eighth century also claimed their line of descent from Bhagadatta demonstrates the appropriation of Prāgjyotiṣa legends in a regional geopolitical context in the early medieval period. 81 A similar appropriation continued even in the recent history of Assam: the Rajas of Rāni and Dimarua claimed a connection with Bhagadatta and the usurper Bharath Singh who was set up by the Moamarias at Rangpur during Gaurinath Singha’s disastrous reign called himself a descendant of Bhagadatta. 82 Given this, locating the Epic kingdom only in the Brahmaputra Valley is highly questionable. The location of Bhagadatta’s kingdom remains uncertain; it can be anywhere or nowhere. What is more important to historians is not to define where Prāgjyotiṣa was, but to understand how it was brought to or imposed upon Kāmarūpa and how the spatial continuity has been imagined in the course of time. For tracing this process, it is necessary to examine the relevant data in a chronological frame which ‘requires the material to be viewed with a specificity of time and involves comparisons in geographical terms between materials from different periods’. 83 Contrary to some historians’ presupposition that Prāgjyotiṣa and Kāmarūpa both refer to same geopolitical entity since the ancient time, the account mentioning the two names side by side is found only in the fifth century. To my knowledge, the first literary evidence is Kālidāsa’s Raghuvaṁśa, which describes Kāmarūpa as the last country to be subdued by Raghu in his northern expedition. It is said that when Raghu crossed over the Lauhitya, the king of Prāgjyotiṣa (prāgjyotiṣeśvara) began to tremble along with the black aloe trees, which were used as the tying-posts for his elephants. In the following verses, the king of Prāgjyotiṣa is mentioned as the lord of Kāmarūpa twice (īśaḥ kāmarūpāṇām and kāmarūpeśvara). 84 It is worth noting that Prāgjyotiṣa was recognised as a kingdom beyond the Lauhitya, the old name of the Brahmaputra, but nonetheless, it was categorised as one of the countries in the north, not the east. This fact makes us doubt whether the description of Prāgjyotiṣa was based on actual geographical knowledge. Although some scholars posit that the boundary of Kāmarūpa extended up to the Himalayas in the north in that 37

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period, 85 it is an utterly literal interpretation. The modern concept of fixed territory cannot be applied to such an early state. What can be assumed at the most is that the line between the places imagined and experienced seems to have blurred in the description of Kāmarūpa in the Raghuvaṁśa, thereby juxtaposing two different spatial contexts in the poetic expression. In the inscriptional records of the Varmans, the two words, Prāgjyotiṣa and Kāmarūpa, came to be used almost interchangeably. The king Puṣyavarman was called the lord of Prāgjyotiṣa (prāgjyotiṣendrapuṣyavarmmā) in the seal attached to the Dubi plates and the Nalanda clay seals. 86 The kingdom was also called Kāmarūpa in the Nidhanpur plates. 87 In the Harṣacarita of Bāṇa, Bhāskaravarman was described as the lord of Prāgjyotiṣa (prāgjyotiṣeśvara) as well as Kāmarūpa (kāmarūpādhipati). 88 Considering the historical context of the seventh century Kāmarūpa, especially during the reign of Bhāskaravarman when the Varmans was ascending to one of the important powers in north India, it appears that they projected Kāmarūpa on a larger geopolitical map by combining it with Prāgjyotiṣa, the Epic kingdom. In other words, Prāgjyotiṣa was retrieved from the ancient Epic past by the aspirant local kingship to overcome its peripherality. An elusive mythical space was brought into the actual geography of Kāmarūpa. But the fact remains that Prāgjyotiṣa was not described in association with their legendary ancestors including Naraka and Bhagadatta in the records of the Varmans. The epithet, prāgjyotiṣendra was wielded by Puṣyavarman and Bhāskaravarman only. The incorporation of Prāgjyotiṣa into Kāmarūpa proceeded in a different way in the following period. All the inscriptional records issued in the reign of the Mlecchas, the period between the early eighth and the late tenth centuries, kept silent on the Varman rulers including Bhāskaravarman and his lineage. Instead, the Mlecchas traced their origin back to the Epic heroes directly with a view to gaining their own political legitimacy. 89 Vanamālavarman in the midninth century was called the great king of kings who belonged to the family of the lords of Prāgjyotiṣa (prāgjyotiṣādhipānvaya) in the seal attached to the Tezpur plates. 90 Subsequently, his praśasti in the Tezpur plates mentions that Bhagadatta attained the illustrious position of the monarch of Prāgjyotiṣa where he worshipped Śiva with a penance and all politeness. Śiva gave the lordship over Prāgjyotiṣa to him and his future descendants. 91 Bhagadatta’s association with Prāgjyotiṣa was probably appropriated from the Mahābhārata, but with a strategic modification of his religious affiliation. Bhagadatta, who was rather close to Viṣṇu in the Epic, turned into a Śaiva, and Prāgjyotiṣa became a place for Śiva worship in the praśasti, as the Mlecchas, his supposed descendants, were the well-known devotees of Śiva. In this way, the Mlecchas proclaimed their legitimate political power over the region. 38

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Prāgjyotiṣa was, however, redefined in the Uttarbarbil and the Nowgong plates dated to the last quarter of the ninth century. Both record that Naraka, the conqueror of Kāmarūpa (jitakāmarūpa), used to live in a city (pura) named Prāgjyotiṣa in Kāmarūpa. 92 This short reference has several important implications: (1) Naraka was deemed an outsider; (2) Prāgjyotiṣa was a city and Kāmarūpa was a kingdom and (3) Prāgjyotiṣa was perceived as the city of Naraka, not the kingdom of Bhagadatta. The two words, Prāgjyotiṣa and Kāmarūpa, were not used interchangeably in both the records. The Kālikāpurāṇa also distinguishes between the two: Prāgjyotiṣa as a city (pura) and Kāmarūpa as a country (deśa). The city is said to have been situated in the midst of Kāmarūpa where Kāmākhyā was the presiding deity. 93 Moreover, it is noteworthy that the inscriptional records of the Mlecchas underlined the regional affiliation of Naraka, whereas those of Varmans claimed his universal kingship. The increased importance of regional factors is also seen in other inscriptional records of the Mlecchas. 94 Naraka’s association with Prāgjyotiṣa became a regular feature of the praśastis of the Pālas, the last dynasty of Kāmarūpa in the end of tenth and the late twelfth centuries. Prāgjyotiṣa was called ‘the best of the cities’, ‘the abode of wealth [Lakṣmī]’ and ‘the capital city (rājadhānī)’, which could vie with the city of gods, whose high ramparts were touched by the ‘waves of the eastern sea (pūrvābdhi)’. 95 At the same time, Prāgjyotiṣa also denoted the kingdom ruled by the Pālas: the Bargaon plates clearly mention that [the king Ratnapāla] used to reside in the city named Durjjayā in the country of Prāgjyotiṣa (prāgjyotiṣeṣu durjjayākhyapura). 96 Here, Durjjayā was the name of the capital city of the kingdom. Some of the Pāla kings like Indrapāla, Gopālavarman and Dharmapāla were called the ruler of Prāgjyotiṣa (prāgjyotiṣādhipati) in the inscriptional records belonging to the period between the mid-eleventh and mid-twelfth centuries. 97 It is conspicuous that the name Kāmarūpa scarcely appeared in these records. The Pālas seems to have placed more emphasis on a prolonged spatial continuity of the kingdom by adopting Prāgjyotiṣa as the name of their sovereign space. It constituted a part of the Pālas’ strategy for validating their political power, which was far more complicated than that of previous dynasties. 98 They took up various epithets, titles and legends from different sources and made a composite model of kingship: for example, their family name, pāla, was apparently adopted from the Pālas of Bengal and even they suffixed varman to their names to emphasise their association with the Varman rulers. Accordingly, Brahmapāla was also called Brahmapālavarmadeva. The Pāla kings of Kāmarūpa assumed the title of paramadaivata paramabhaṭṭāraka mahārājādirāja (the imperial title of the Guptas), śri-vārāha (the one who can trace his origin to Varāha) and prāgjyotiṣādhipati (the ruler of Prāgjyotiṣā). These three became a regular 39

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feature of the records of the Pālas, particularly in the latter phase of their reign. 99 Prāgjyotiṣa was finally perceived as the name of the country or the region itself. The Kamauli plates of Vaidyadeva dated to the mid-twelfth century clearly mentions ‘Kāmarūpa maṇḍala in Prāgjyotiṣa bhukti’. 100 Here, the bhukti or the province of Prāgjyotiṣa forming a part of the Pāla empire of Bengal and Bihar at the time comprised more than one maṇḍala and that Kāmarūpa, probably roughly presents Kamrup district of Assam, was one of them. 101 From these pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that Kāmarūpa was not necessarily synonymous with Prāgjyotiṣa and that the implications of each name have undergone many changes throughout the period between the fifth and twelfth centuries. The antiquity of Prāgjyotiṣa gained a considerable importance in defining the region during the last phase of Kāmarūpa history. As to the spatial extent of Kāmarūpa, it is futile to project any fixed boundary on it. The sphere of its political influence constantly changed, and the kingdom itself never constituted a single entity. In the Kālikāpurāṇa, Kāmarūpa was defined as a region extending from the Karatoyā in the west up to that place in the east Gaṅgā, where goddess Lalitakāntā resided. 102 The location of Lalitakāntā is roughly identified with the hill-streams Sandhyā, which is not far from present Guwahati. 103 At the same time, the Kālikā gives us a different reference elsewhere that Kāmarūpa was triangular in shape and also 100 yojanas in length from the Karatoyā to Dikkaravāsinī and thirty yojanas in breadth from the north to the south. It was black in colour and interspersed with innumerable hills and hundreds of rivers. 104 Scholars identify Dikkaravāsinī with goddess Tāmreśvarī and locate her abode in Sadiya. 105 It is deemed the eastern limit of Kāmarūpa. And this supposition is supported by the reference of the sixteenth century Yoginītantra describing the eastern limit of Kāmarūpa as the abode of Dikkaravāsinī. 106 Based on these textual references, the so-called traditional boundary of Kāmarūpa is postulated. 107 However, no inscriptional and material evidence confirms this conjecture. In my opinion, the two different accounts of the extent of Kāmarūpa rather suggest that divergent spatial perceptions of the region may have coexisted side by side in a given historical context. As the Kālikāpurāṇa describes, Kāmarūpa covered the area between the Karatoyā to the west and Lalitakāntā to the east, but its eastern border was again defined as Dikkaravāsinī. Which one was the eastern end of Kāmarūpa? The narrative of Naraka in the Kālikāpurāṇa gives us an answer: after killing Ghaṭaka, the king of Kirātas, Naraka was asked to annihilate the Kirātas up to the abode of goddess Dikkaravāsinī. He, thus, drove away the fleeing ones but protected those who submitted. The Kirātas settled in the region beginning with the boundary from the east of goddess Lalitakāntā and extending up 40

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to the sea coast. 108 On the other hand, the land towards the west from the abode of Lalitakāntā up to the river Karatoyā is said to be the dwelling-place of Kāmākhyā (kāmākhyānilaya) and an idealised Brahmanical kingdom. It is described thus: by evicting the Kirāras from this region, many brāhmaṇas well versed in the Vedas and Śāstras and people belonging to the sanātana varṇa (eternal four varṇa order) were settled there. Viṣṇu settled sages and made this tract of land fit for constant Vedic study and donations. Therefore, the country of Kāmarūpa became renowned. 109 The contrast between the area from Lalitakāntā to Dikkaravāsinī and that from the Karatoyā to Lalitakāntā is clear. The former was perceived as the place in which the Kirātas dwelt, while the latter denoted the place where brāhmaṇas, sages and people of the varṇa order lived in. In other words, the former represented the realm of the tribal non-sedentary society, covering a vast area in the middle and upper Brahmaputra Valley, and the latter that of the Brahmanical sedentary society, occupying a small part of the region, probably limited to the present city of Guwahati and its environs. Both the areas were deemed Kāmarūpa. Such different spatial views may reflect the partial expansion of sedentary agriculture and brāhmaṇa settlements and the slow diffusion of Brahmanical influence. It was probably due to ‘low density of population in isolated rural settlements and a strong tribal substratum in the region’. 110 It is worth noting that pīṭha (the abode of a goddess) signified the extent of Kāmarūpa, that is Lalitakāntā pīṭha and Dikkaravāsinī pīṭha. The sacred territoriality of goddess constituted the spatial cognition of the region and it became a significant symbol of the regional identity in the course of time. 111

Was Kāmarūpa a part of Āryāvarta? Despite a great diversity observed within the region since the early phase of its history, some historians have imposed a cohesive identity on the society of Kāmarūpa. Especially, the Aryan identity draws our attention because it still remains in the dominant historiography of the early Brahmaputra Valley, whereas other professional historians tend to distance themselves from it. 112 Historical writings and textbooks of Assam often begin with a simple assertion that Kāmarūpa (more frequently, Prāgjyotiṣa) had been a part of the land of the Aryans (āryāvarta). It was the way to contest colonial views on Assamese history, which almost always emphasised its underdeveloped and exotic character as the periphery, and also the way to connect it intimately with the mainland Indian civilisation. Yet it is ironic that the Aryan discourse in Assam, filled with the nationalistic sentiment in the early twentieth century, was a distorted extension of the colonial racial theory of eastern India constructed by Pargiter. As early as 41

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1897, he posited that Prāgjyotiṣa was a famous ancient kingdom mentioned in the Mahābhārata, and Kāmarūpa was established in the medieval period when Prāgjyotiṣa was forced to retreat to the eastern side of the Brahmaputra. The both were deemed Mongolian kingdoms. 113 Afterwards, he identified three races, namely, the Alias, the Mānavas and the Saudyumnas, as the chief constituent of Indian tradition. He continued to underline the marginal position of the early kingdom of the Brahmaputra Valley by emphasising its Mongolian affiliation. For him, Prāgjyotiṣa was nowhere connected with any of these races and seems to have been founded by an invasion of Mongolians from the north-east, though the tradition is silent about this outlying development. 114 Surprisingly enough, the nationalist historians, who made ceaseless efforts to overcome the colonial perception of Assam, have carried the baggage of the nineteenth-century paradigm of the racial discourse. Based on Pargiter’s assumption that the Aikshakus of Ayodhya and the Janakas of Videha were not Aryans but Dravidians, Barua posits Prāgjyotiṣa as a Dravidian kingdom because Naraka was believed to be a prince of Janaka. Some other facts such as the yoni worship of Kāmākhyā temple and Naraka’s designation as asura are considered to be the evidence for Prāgjyotiṣa of the Dravidian origin. 115 Notwithstanding, he could not ignore the prevalent theory of the Aryan, thereby combining two different origins in a very arbitrary way; it is claimed that though Naraka had the Dravidian origin, he was brought up in the Aryan culture to be a kṣatriya, well versed in the Vedas and devoted to the duties of the twice-born. 116 The kings of the Naraka line are, therefore, considered to be the Aryans. It is an ingenious amalgamation of two elements far apart, with which both the great Dravidians, believed to have built the Indus civilisation, and the supreme Aryans, deemed to be the founder of Vedic civilisation, became the progenitors of Assam! The racial framework posited by Pargiter was not challenged but continued to remain in the historiography of the 1950s with a critical modification. Choudhury replaces the Mongolian kingdoms with the Aryan kingdoms by arguing the absurdity to suppose a purely Mongolian domination of Assam during the early period. The rule of Kirātas, according to him, did not amount to more than the foundation of a small principality. The first political rule founded by Naraka must have been an Aryan kingdom. 117 His firm stand on the Aryan dominance over Kāmarūpa is in stark contrast to Chatterji’s opinion of the Hindunised Indo-Mongoloid or Kirāta empire of Kāmarūpa. 118 This contrast demonstrates different historical views on the early Brahmaputra Valley between the scholars of Assam and those of Bengal. Looking into the issue more carefully, it is noteworthy that the Aryans whom Choudhury considered the traditional rulers of Kāmarūpa are not the Vedic Aryans but the Alpine Aryans (or the non-Vedic Aryans), the idea 42

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of which emerged in the linguistic discussion on the two waves of Aryans in the late nineteenth century. 119 They are believed to have come earlier than the Vedic Aryans and become the ancestors of the non-Mongoloid brachycephales of eastern India, speaking languages of the outer band including Bihari, Oriya, Bengali and Assamese. 120 In this theory, the linguistic difference between Punjab and eastern India is only sought to be explained on the basis of the Aryan migrations, completely discarding the idea of sociocultural interactions among different social groups in a prolonged historical process. Although it is purely conjectural which cannot be confirmed by any material evidence, it still strengthens some historians’ belief in the ancient Aryan kingdom in Assam. 121 The problem that there are no traces of the Vedic Aryans in the early Brahmaputra Valley is solved arbitrarily by the imagined presence of the Alpine/non-Vedic Aryans of the region. Subsequently, the Aryan blood is injected into the ancient rulers: the terms such as asura (demon, the epithet of Naraka) and mleccha (barbarian, the title of the second ruling dynasty of Kāmarūpa) are explained on the ground that they were neither the pure Aryans nor the Mongoloids, but the Alpine Aryans. 122 This is an attempt to include the remote past of Assam in the great narrative of the Aryans while excluding other ethnic groups from the regional political process. The historical assumption obsessed with Aryanism leads to a number of misinterpretations of sources and their contexts. For instance, Śālastambha, the first king of the Mlecchas who obtained the political power in the early eighth century after the Varmans, was called mlecchādhinātha. 123 Bhattacharya interprets the term as ‘a ruler over mlecchas’ rather than ‘a ruler of mlecchas’. 124 The underlying assumption here is that the mlecchas, the outsiders of the Brahmanical social norm and contesters of the caste ideology, should not have had a political power over Kāmarūpa, and they had to be ruled by the king of Aryan origin, viz. the descendant of the Varmans. If so, why they were called mlecchas? An absurd answer is that Śālastambha was a Buddhist from the Nālanda region. 125 However, Buddhists are never found to be called mlecchas in other historical sources of early India. No inscriptional records of the Mlecchas refer to their Buddhist affiliation or their descent from the Varman rulers. Others seek to find the Aryan origin of the ruling dynasties of Kāmarūpa on the basis of the linguistic feature. According to Lahiri, the word Aryan refers not to a race but to Sanskrit-speaking people. That Kāmarūpa dynasties were Sanskrit-speaking is evident from the fact that the language in which the epigraphs are incised is Sanskrit and the influence of Sanskrit remained predominant and structured Assamese language. 126 43

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Considering the linguistic situation that Sanskrit had already ceased to be the first language of the people, including brāhmaṇas even at the time of the Mahābhāṣya of Patañjali (about 100 bce), 127 her interpretation is far too simplistic. Besides, the fact that the inscriptional records of Kāmarūpa were written in Sanskrit never means this language was spoken there. It is all the more implausible that Sanskrit was a language of daily use in peripheral areas. The employment of Sanskrit in official records and literary texts rather indicates to ‘the conformity to, or even unconscious internalisation of, the Brahminical norm’. 128 From a close reading of inscriptional and textual sources, it is apparent that the dynamic political situation of Kāmarūpa cannot be explained on the ground of predominance of a particular social group or a specific language. The Hanyunthal plates of Harjaravarman, one of the earliest epigraphic records of the Mlecchas, dated to the mid-ninth century mention: ‘therefore, Oh Pārthiva! Your future descendants will, for this reason, be called mlecchas’. 129 It may suggest that a story was fabricated by the brāhmaṇas at the court to explain away their aboriginal origin, albeit the contents of the story were unknown due to the corroded portion. Whatever ethnic identity the Mlecchas had, they also sought for their political validation from the lineage of Naraka. The term pārthiva appeared in the record means a progeny of Pṛthivī, which suggests that the king, who is addressed here, belonged to Naraka family, or more precisely, he was supposed to belong to the family. 130 It is not rare to find such upward social mobility among the groups with ambiguous origins in Indian history. In many tribal areas, local chiefs often sought to change their ritual status through improvement of their political status. Their effort usually followed the kṣatriya model of regional rāja, and this type of social change is called ‘Kṣatriyaisation’. 131 In the case of Kāmarūpa, the model including various status symbols and political apparatus had been firmly established in the reign of Bhāskaravarman, and it was consciously modified and selectively adopted by the Mlecchas. This process is apparently noticed in their praśastis. Besides, the story of the mlecchas associated with Jalpīśa (a form of Śiva) reveals how the kṣatriya status was retrospectively claimed on the basis of Paraśurāma legend. The Kālikāpurāṇa says that Śiva showed to Vetāla and Bhairava his own unique liṅga named Jalpīśa at a place located in the north-western direction of Kāmarūpa. Meanwhile, some kṣatriyas out of fear from Paraśurāma disguised themselves as the mlecchas and took refuge in Jalpīśa. They perpetually spoke the languages of mlecchas (mlecchavāc), although they had always spoken the languages of the Aryans (āryavāc). Remaining steadfastly devoted to Śiva, they kept hidden the god Jalpīśa; hence they became the gaṇa of Śiva. 132 In this story, their supposed Aryan identity was accentuated by their imagined past of being Aryan language 44

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speakers. The making of status and identity were probably an ongoing process in Kāmarūpa, and it was far more fluid than we suppose now. This process seems to have resulted in ‘several tribal state formations alongside of a fragmented political system known as bhuyan-raj during the thirteenth century’. 133 The political continuity and disjuncture from the early medieval to the medieval period of the region must be explored with more concrete evidence and proper historical perspectives. Yet such socio-political dynamism is barely noticed even in the latest studies on Kāmarūpa. 134 The endorsement of Aryanism is not only limited to the history writing of the past but also employed for making the regional identity of Assam, especially against the neighbouring region, Bengal. Having firm belief in the ancient ‘Aryanisation’ of the Brahmaputra Valley from the tenth century bce, Barua claims that the Aryan wave extended to Kāmarupa directly from Videha and Magadha long before lower Bengal became either habitable or fit for Aryan occupation. 135 In fact, it is difficult to clarify the term ‘Aryanisation’. If it denotes the migration of light-skinned Aryans who civilised the dark-skinned savages, there is surely no historical evidence on this matter in Kāmarūpa. If it is used for the process of increasing Sanskritic or Brahmanical influence on the region, the evidence doesn’t correspond but rather opposes Barua’s opinion. In Bengal, brāhmaṇas are found to be involved in land transactions recorded in the inscriptional records issued under the Gupta provincial administration in the fifth century. From then on, they acquired a clearer identity, constructed networks and established Brahmanical centres. 136 On the other hand, the number of inscriptions containing actual land grants to brāhmaṇas and their settlements in Kāmarūpa was small even in the post-seventh century. Since the land was not granted on a large scale to brāhmaṇas by any ruler of the Mlecchas and the Pālas, it may be presumed that cultural assimilation was not imposed with any great emphasis on Sanskritisation. 137 The regional identity based on Aryan myth has never been inclusive but exclusive even within the region itself. This exclusivism, often combined with obscure linguistic conjectures and pseudo-scientific explanations of biological heredity, manifests itself in the following way: The settlement of the Alpines in eastern India and Assam is supported not only by the presence of brachycephalic leptorrhine features among the higher classes but also by the fact that in these areas the Austric and Dravidian speech were long superseded by the Aryan speech of the Alpines. 138 It, therefore, admits only privileged castes and dominant language speakers as the mainstay of the Aryans. The racial doctrine turns into a socio-cultural 45

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ideology supporting the internal hierarchy of superior and inferior within the region and a specific religious creed filled with its imagined historicity. While the term ‘Aryan’ came to be synonymous with ‘Hindu’ from the 1950s, Kāmarūpa, the supposed Aryan kingdom, constituted ‘Hindu civilized ancient Assam’. Several factors, including acute socio-religious conflicts amongst different social groups, contributed to accentuating Hindu identity of the region. Especially, the influx of Bangladesh immigrants and Hindu-Muslim confrontation saw the major turn in 1946, and the communal situation became tenser than anything previously experienced. 139 The great anxiety against the increasing number of Muslims has often led to the excessive glorification of Hindu past of Assam. It was not only limited to historical writings but also found in religious, literary and archaeological works. 140 Such an ahistorical assumption forms the basis for the present political aspiration to establish Hindu dominance over other social and religious communities. 141 According to Chatterjee’s insightful observation, in nationalist discourse historical views often developed ‘from past-as-it-might-have-been’ via ‘past-as-it-should-have-been’ to ‘past-as-it-will-be’. 142 This tendency was becoming obvious at a regional level including Assam. For instance, when BJP has devised the long-term strategies to draw Assam into the cultural orbit of Hindutva family in 2002, a new discourse claiming Assam as part of Mahābhārata family emerged as a consequence. 143 More recently, a grand plan to reassert the Hindu roots of the northeast states is afoot as the BJP-led government is preparing to map a new Hindu pilgrimage circuit by linking ancient temples and other places in the region that are mentioned in mythology. 144 It is highly regrettable that the Assamese middle class, by and large, has been ‘a tireless advocate of Aryan myth or Hindu ethos, and a section of it has used it for a century to look down upon and browbeat different ethnic groups of Indo-Mongoloid strain to bolster their socio-cultural and political hegemony.’ 145 And the historical interpretations of Kāmarūpa often amount to religious provocation in the guise of academism. They may draw Assam to the mainstream of India but will never leave any room for its own history.

Conclusion The main conclusion to be drawn from the reconsideration of the temporal, spatial and social context of Kāmarūpa is that the definite history prior to the Varmans still remains uncertain. The first and solid historical evidence in which Kāmarūpa appeared as a peripheral kingdom under the Gupta influence belongs to the fourth century. None of the dates assigned to the legendary ancestors in the ancient time are historically tenable. The antiquity 46

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of Kāmarūpa was created in the form of royal genealogy as an effective means of political legitimation by the Varmans around the seventh century when the state formation reached a crucial point. The genealogy became a formula for the praśastis of the following dynasties of Kāmarūpa and the distant past has been invoked repeatedly with different forms, purposes and implications. At the same time, the Varmans began to project Kāmarūpa on a larger geopolitical map by combining it with Prāgjyotiṣa, the mythical kingdom of Naraka and Bhagadatta of the Mahābhārata. The reproduction of legendary places associated with heroes was fairly common to many regional and sub-regional dynasties in the Post-Gupta period. Prāgjyotiṣa gained a considerable importance in defining the region during the latter phase of the Pālas, especially after the mid-eleventh century. They placed more emphasis on a prolonged spatial continuity of the kingdom by adopting Prāgjyotiṣa, instead of Kāmarūpa, as the name of their sovereign space. As a result, the elusive mythical space was retrieved from the Epic to the history and the line between the places imagined and experienced was blurred. The dynamic socio-political situation of Kāmarūpa cannot be explained on the ground of predominance of the Aryans. The race has to be viewed as socially constructed and historically contingent. The upward social mobility among the groups with ambiguous origins were widely found in many tribal areas. In Kāmarūpa, the model including various status symbols and political apparatus had been firmly established in the seventh century and was consciously modified and selectively adopted by the Mlecchas and the Pālas. The making of identity was an ongoing process and far more fluid than we suppose now. There is no primordial Aryans, but their historical appropriations.

Acknowledgements Some parts of this chapter were presented at the Conference on ‘Region Formation in Contemporary South Asia’ held at University of Delhi, 25th– 27th November 2009, and the Conference on ‘State and Society in Northeast India’ organised by North-east India Studies Program, Jawaharlal Nehru University, 26th–28th February 2014. I am grateful to Professors K. M. Shrimali and Kumkum Roy, and other participants, including Sanjay K. Singh, for their valuable comments at those occasions. My special thanks go to Manjeet Baruah, who encouraged me to write this chapter, and Ryosuke Furui for his critical remarks on the early medieval history in general and the inscriptional evidence of Kāmarūpa in particular, as well as his generous help in procuring many materials. 47

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Notes 1 J. Beaujeu-Garnier, Methods and Perspective in Geography, trans. Jennifer Bray, London and New York: Longman, 1976, pp. 79–81. 2 Joseph E. Schwartzberg, ‘Prolegomena to the Study of South Asian Regions and Regionalism’, in R.I. Crane (ed.), Regions and Regionalism in South Asian Studies: An Exploratory Study, Durham, NC: Duke University, 1967, p. 93. 3 Bernard S. Cohn, ‘Regions Subjective and Objective: Their Relation to the Study of Modern Indian History and Society’, in Bernard S. Cohn, An Anthropologist Among the Historians and Other Essays, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 100–135. 4 In the case of Rajasthan, it is well argued by Deryck O. Lodrick, ‘Rajasthan as a Region: Myth or Reality?’ in K. Schomer et al. (eds.), The Idea of Rajasthan: Explorations in Regional Identity, vol. 1, New Delhi: Manohar, 2001, pp. 24–33. 5 Anne Feldhaus, ‘Religions Geography and the Multiplicity of Regions in Maharashtra’, in R. Vora and A. Feldhaus (eds.), Region, Culture and Politics in India, New Delhi: Manohar, 2006, p. 190. 6 Regarding the development of regions and regional consciousness in South Asia, see Crane (ed.), Regions and Regionalism in South Asian Studies; Richard G. Fox (ed.), Realm and Region in Traditional India, New Delhi: Vikas, 1977; David E. Sopher (ed.), An Exploration of India: Geographical Perspectives on Society and Culture, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980; Paul Wallace (ed.), Region and Nation in India, New Delhi: Oxford and IBH, 1985. 7 Prachi Deshpande, ‘Writing Regional Consciousness: Maratha History and Regional Identity in Modern Maharashtra’, in Vora and Feldhaus (eds.), Region, Culture and Politics in India, New Delhi: Manohar, 2006, p. 85. 8 Romila Thapar, ‘The Scope and Significance of Regional History’, in Romila Thapar, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1978, p. 319. 9 Some important works include B.M. Morrison, Political Centres and Cultural Regions in Early Bengal, New Delhi: Rawat, 1980; Hermann Kulke, Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia, New Delhi: Manohar, 1993; K. Chakravarti, Religious Process: The Purāṇas and the Making of a Regional Tradition, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001; C. Talbot, Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region and Identity in Medieval Andhra, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; N. Sinha Kapur, State Formation in Rajasthan: Mewar During the Seventh-Fifteenth Centuries, New Delhi: Manohar, 2002; K. Veluthat, The Early Medieval in South India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009; R. Gurukkal, Social Formations of Early South India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010; B.P. Sahu, The Changing Gaze: Regions and the Constructions of Early India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013. For the historiography of the important shift of regional history writings since the 1990s, see B.P. Sahu, ‘Writings Alternative Histories: Case of Early India’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 51, no. 18 (2016), pp. 30–36. 10 Sahu, The Changing Gaze, p. 4.

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11 Many scholars have taken Kāmarūpa to be synonymous with Prāgjyotiṣa and combined the two different words without hesitation. I will revisit the problem of this nomenclature in the following discussions. 12 Cohn, ‘Regions Subjective and Objective’, p. 102. 13 I have argued this issue elsewhere. For a critical review of the historiography of Kāmarūpa, see J.E. Shin, ‘Searching for Kāmarūpa: Historiography of the Early Brahmaputra Valley in Colonial and Post-Colonial period’, Puravritta: Journal of the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Government of West Bengal, vol. 1 (2016), pp. 115–132. 14 The common assumption that India lacks historical writings and consciousness before the colonial encounter has been seriously questioned by several historians. The volume edited by Aquil and Chatterjee contains a number of articles exploring different vernacular contexts and traditions of historical productions in pre-modern India. See R. Aquil and P. Chatterjee (eds.), History in the Vernacular, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008. One of the most important contributions is the recent work of Thapar. She carefully scrutinised a wide range of ancient Indian texts from the Vedic corpus to the variety of chronicles and interpreted them not as sources for historical data but many ways of historical thinking and articulation. See Romila Thapar, The Past Before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2013. 15 R.S. Sharma, ‘Problem of Transition From Ancient to Medieval in Indian History’, The Indian Historical Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (1974), pp. 1–9; Romila Thapar, ‘Interpretations of Ancient Indian History’, in Romila Thapar, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1978, pp. 1–22. 16 B.D. Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994, pp. 1–37; B.D. and Chattopadhyaya ‘State and Economy in North India: Fourth Century to Twelfth Century’, in R. Thapar (ed.), Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1995, pp. 309–337. 17 For critical remarks on this matter, see Mignonette Momin, ‘Generalization in Constructing Histories of Northeast India’, Proceedings of North East India History Association 24th Session, 2003, pp. 32–42. 18 A representative example includes H.K. Barpujari (ed.), The Comprehensive History of Assam, 5 vols., Guwahati: Publication Board, Assam, 1990–1994. 19 M.M. Sharma (ed.), Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, Gauhati: Gauhati University, 1978, p. 41, v.7. 20 P.N. Bhattacharya, ‘Sir Edward Gaits’ History of Assam’, Indian Historical Quarterly, vol. 3, no. 4 (1927), p. 845. 21 P.C. Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam to the Twelfth Century, Guwahati: Spectrum, 1987 (rpt. originally published in 1959), pp. 121–127. 22 Dimbeswar Sarma (ed.), Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, Gauhati: Publication Board, Assam, 1981, pp. 95–96. 23 Banikanta Kakati, The Mother Goddess Kamakhya, Guwahati: Publication Board, Assam, 2003 (rpt. originally published in 1948), p. 29. 24 Nayanjot Lahiri, Pre-Ahom Assam: Studies in the Inscriptions of Assam between the Fifth and the Thirteenth Centuries AD, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoaharlal, 1991, pp. 62–66.

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25 Ajay Mitra Shastri, Ancient North-East India, Prāgjyotiṣa, New Delhi: Aryan, 2002, p. 45. 26 For sensible remarks on early textual evidences which are wrongly supposed to refer to Kāmarūpa, see Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, pp. 1–4. 27 Patrick Olivelle, Dharmasūtras: The Law Codes of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana and Vasiṣṭha: Annotated Text and Translation, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000, pp. 198–199. 28 Chitrarekha Gupta, ‘Trade and Markets of North-Eastern India: The Ancient Period’, in J.P. Singh and G. Sengupta (eds.), Archaeology of NorthEastern India, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1991, pp. 281–286. 29 D.C. Sircar, Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilization: From the Sixth Century B.C. to the Sixth Century A.D., vol. 1, New Delhi: Asian Humanities Press, 1986 (rpt.), p. 265, l. 22. 30 Chitrarekha Gupta, ‘Evolution of Agrarian Society in Kāmarūpa in Early Medieval India’, Indian Historical Review, vol. 19, no. 1–2 (1992–1993), pp. 2–3. 31 Nirode Boruah, Early Assam: State Formation, Political Centre, Cultural Zones, Guwahati: Spectrum, 2007, pp. 84–91. 32 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 305. 33 Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India, p. 58. 34 David P. Heinge, ‘Some Phantom Dynasties of Early and Medieval India: Epigraphic Evidence and the Abhorrence of a Vacuum’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (1975), p. 526. 35 Hermann Kulke, ‘Hindu Medieval Regional Kingdoms (600–1526 ce)’, in Kunt A. Jacobsen et al. (eds.), Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, vol. 4, Leiden: Brill, 2012, p. 58. 36 Fred Virkus, Politische Strukturen im Guptareich (330–550 n. Chr.), Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz-Verlag, 2004, pp. 252–266. 37 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, pp. 10–19; pp. 40–49. 38 Gupta, ‘Evolution of Agrarian Society in Kāmarūpa in Early Medieval India’, p. 4. 39 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 5. 40 Sircar, Select Inscriptions, vol. 1, pp. 290 ff. 41 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 5. 42 Ibid., p. 42, Nidhanpur plates l. 35; l. 37. 43 For the contents of the donation, see P.N. Bhattacharya, ‘Nidhanpur Copper Plates of Bhāskaravarman’, Epigraphia Indica, vol. 12 (1913–1914), pp. 65–79; P.N. Bhattacharya, ‘A Third Lost Plate of the Nidhanpur Plates of Bhāskaravarman’, Epigraphia Indica, vol. 19 (1927–1928), pp. 245–250. As to the names of brāhmaṇa donees in the plates, see Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, pp. 76–81. 44 According to the Barganga rock inscription assigned to the sixth century, an āśrama was constructed by the viṣayāmātya Avaguna to secure the longevity of Bhūtivarman, the reigning king. Viṣayāmātya was a Minister either under the viṣayapati or a Minister directly under the king, who was in charge of one of the viṣayas. See Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, pp. 5, 9. 45 Mignonette Momin, ‘Urbanization in the Brahmaputra Valley circa ad 600–1200’, in Jai Prakash Singh and Gautam Sengupta (eds.), Archaeology of North-Eastern India, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1991, p. 264.

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46 J.E. Shin, ‘Changing Dynasties, Enduring Genealogy: A Critical Study on the Political Legitimation in Early Medieval Kāmarūpa’, Journal of Ancient Indian History, vol. 27 (2011), pp. 177–183. 47 Romila Thapar, ‘Social Mobility in Ancient India with Special Reference to Elite Groups’, in Romila Thapar, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1978, pp. 119–120. 48 Sahu, ‘Writings Alternative Histories: Case of Early India’, p. 32. 49 R.C. Majumdar, The History and Culture of Indian People: The Classical Age, vol. 3. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1962 (2nd edn.), p. 88. 50 Viṣṇu, Naraka and Bhagadatta are scarcely related to each other in the Mahābhārata. For more details, see Shin, ‘Changing Dynasties, Enduring Genealogy’, pp. 174–176. 51 Viṣṇu in his boar incarnation was a significant deity of the Guptas. One of the earliest Gupta images of Varāha is represented in the famous rock relief at Udayagiri in the beginning of the fifth century. Willis makes a broad assertion that the king’s intimacy with Viṣṇu sanctioned his position as cakravartin and paramabhāgavata and confirmed his possession of the earth that he had ‘rescued’ through war and conquest. See Michael Willis, The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual: Temples and the Establishment of the Gods, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 164. 52 A magnificent image of Varāha was set up by Dhanyaviṣṇu in the fifth century. He was born in a brāhmaṇa family of the Maitrāyaṇīya who ruled over the region of Eran in the fourth generation. Another image of Varāha was found at Aphsad in Gaya which was probably erected together with a Viṣṇu temple by Ādityasena (ca. 650–675) of the later Gupta family. See Heinrich von Stietencron, ‘Political Aspects of Indian Religious Art’, in Heinrich von Stietencron, Hindu Myth and Hindu History, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005, p. 21. 53 R.C. Hazra, Studies in the Upapurāṇas vol. 2: Śākta and Non-Sectarian Upapurāṇas, Calcutta: Sanskrit College, 1963, pp. 232–233. 54 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 11, Dubi plates, v. 2; p. 41, Nidhanpur plates, v. 4. 55 E.B. Cowell and F.W. Thomas (tr.), The Harṣa-carita of Bāṇa, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993 (rpt. originally published in 1897), pp. 216–217. 56 Samuel Beal (tr.), Si-Yu-Ki, Buddhist Records of the Western World: Translated From the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang (A.D.629), New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1994 (rpt. originally published in 1884), pt. 2, p. 196. 57 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 43, Nidhanpur plates, ll. 47–48. 58 Kulke, ‘Hindu Medieval Regional Kingdoms (600–1526 ce)’, p. 56. 59 Romila Thapar, ‘The Historian and the Epic’, in Romila Thapar, Cultural Pasts: Essays in Early Indian History, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 614. 60 Lahiri, Pre-Ahom Assam, pp.  73, 79–81, 86; Nirode Boruah, Historical Geography of Early Assam, Guwahati: DVS Publishers, 2010, pp. 40–41, 43–53. 61 See B.K. Barua, Early Geography of Assam, Nowgong: K. K. Boruah, 1952; Anundoram Borooah, Ancient Geography of India, Gauhati: Publication Board, Assam, 1971 (rpt. originally published in 1877); Ichhimuddin Sakar, Aspects of Historical Geography of Prāgjyotiṣa-Kāmarūpa (Ancient

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Assam), Calcutta: Naya Prakash, 1992; Boruah, Historical Geography of Early Assam. 62 Bodhisattva Kar, ‘What Is in a Name? Politics of Spatial Imagination in Colonial Assam’, CENISEAS Papers 5, Guwahati: Omeo Kumar Das Institute of Social Change and Development, 2004, p. 1; Bodhisattva Kar, ‘Incredible Stories in the Time of Credible Histories: Colonial Assam and Traditional Vernacular Geographies’, in R. Aquil and P. Chatterjee (eds.), History in the Vernacular, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008, p. 296. 63 Alexander Cunningham, The Ancient Geography of India, New Delhi: Low Price Publications, 2006 (rpt. originally published in 1871), p. 422. 64 P.N. Bhattacharya, Mr. Gait’s History of Assam: A Critical Study, Reprinted From the Hindusthan Review 1907, Allahabad: The Indian Press, 1908, p. 3. 65 V.S. Sukthankar et al. (eds.), Mahābhārata: Critical Edition, 24 vols. With Harivaṃśa, Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1933–1971, Udyogaparvan 47.74–79; 128.44–45. 66 Sukthankar et al. (eds.), Mahābhārata, Udyogaparvan 19.15; Sabhāparvan 31.9–10; Udyogaparvan 4.11; Strīparvan 23.10; Droṇaparvan, 28.10 respectively. 67 F.E. Pargiter (ed. and tr.), The Markandeya Purāṇa, New Delhi: Sri Satguru, 2009 (rpt. originally published in 1904), p. 328. 68 F.E. Pargiter, ‘Ancient Countries in Eastern India’, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 66, no. 1 (1897), p. 106. 69 See Edward Gait, A History of Assam, Guwahati: Spectrum, 2011 (rpt. originally published in 1905), pp. 10–11; N.N. Vasu, The Social History of Kāmarūpa, 3 vols., New Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1998 (rpt. originally in 1922), p. 134; P.N. Bhattacharya (ed.), Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, Rangpur: Rangpur Sahitya Parishat, 1931, p. 2, note; Bahadur Rai K.L. Barua, Early History of Kāmarūpa: From the Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century, Gauhati: Lawyers Book Stall, 1966 (2nd edn.), pp. 2–3; B.K. Barua, A Cultural History of Assam (Early Period), Gauhati: Satya Ranjan Dev, 1986 (rpt. originally 1951), pp. 10–11. A similar argument is still found in very recent works. See Shastri, Ancient North-East India, Prāgjyotiṣa, pp. 18–19; S.L. Baruah, A Comprehensive History of Assam, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 2002, p. 74. 70 Pargiter, ‘Ancient Countries in Eastern India’, p. 108. 71 Sukthankar et al. (eds.), Mahābhārata, Sabhāparvan 26.1–27; 27.26–27. 72 Ibid., Sabhāparvan 23.18–25. 73 D.C. Sircar, ‘Prāgjyotisha-Kāmarūpa’, in H.K. Barpujari (ed.), Comprehensive History of Assam, vol. 1, Guwahati: Publication Board, Assam, 2007 (rpt.), p. 61. 74 Sukthankar et al. (eds.), Mahābhārata, Sabhāparvan 47.12–14. 75 Ibid., Aśvamedhikaparvan 74.1–2. 76 H.P. Shastri (ed.), The Ramayana of Valmiki, London: Shanti Sadan, 1976 (rpt.), vol. 2, Kishkindhākāṇḍa 280. 77 For more details, see Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam, pp. 36–38. 78 See Yasmin Saikia, Assam and India: Fragmented Memories, Cultural Identity and the Tai-Ahom Struggle, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005, p. 71. 79 Sarma, Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, p. 16.

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80 Ibid., p. 16. 81 For the relevant inscriptional evidence, see N.P. Chakravarti, ‘Hatun Rock Inscription of Patoladeva’, Epigraphia Indica, (rpt. originally published in 1953–1954), vol. 30 (1987), pp. 227–228. 82 Gait, A History of Assam, p. 32. 83 B.D. Chattopadhyaya, A Survey of Historical Geography of Ancient India, New Delhi: ICHR, 1984, p. 38. 84 C.R. Devadhar (ed.), Raghuvaṃśa of Kālidāsa, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985, 4.81–84. 85 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 0.21. 86 Ibid., p. 33, l.2; p. 35, ll.1–2. 87 Ibid., p. 43, ll.44–45. 88 Cowell and Thomas (tr.), The Harṣa-carita of Bāṇa, p. 119. 89 For more details on the Mlecchas’ genealogy and its political implication, see Shin, ‘Changing Dynasties, Enduring Genealogy’, p. 179. 90 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 96. 91 Ibid., p. 97, vv. 5–6. 92 Ibid., pp. 129–130, v. 5; p. 144, v. 5. 93 Biswanarayan Shastri (ed. and tr.), Kālikāpurāṇa, 3 vols., New Delhi: Nag, 1992, 38.100. 94 Most records begin with the adoration to the Lauhitya, i.e. the Brahmaputra. See Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p.  96, Tezpur plates, v. 1; p. 116, Parbatiya plates, v. 1 p. 129, Uttarbarbil plates, v. 2. Also, non-Sanskrit names for places, rivers, etc. are prominent in their records and these are in sharp contrast to the Sanskritic names often used in the inscriptions of the Varman dynasty. 95 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p.  155, Bargaon plates, v. 5; p. 181, Gauhati plates, v. 5; p. 209, Gachtal plates, v. 8 respectively. Besides, Khanamukh plates of Dharmapāla also refer to Prāgjyotiṣa as the city of Naraka, see Ibid., p. 226, v. 2. 96 Ibid., p. 158, l. 40. 97 Ibid., p. 183, Gauhati plates, l. 33; p. 212, Gachtal plates, l. 60; p. 228, Khanamukh plates, l. 26 p. 259, Puspabhadra plates, l. 16. 98 As to the political legitimation of the Pālas and its strategy, see Shin, ‘Changing Dynasties, Enduring Genealogy’, pp. 180–181. 99 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 183, Gauhati plates, ll. 33–35; p. 212, Gachtal plates, ll. 60–62; p. 228, Khanamukh plates, ll. 26–28 p. 259, Puspabhadra plates, ll. 16–18. 100 Ibid., p. 280, ll. 48–49. 101 Sircar, ‘Prāgjyotisha-Kāmarūpa’, p. 70. 102 Shastri (ed. and tr.), Kālikāpurāṇa, 38.118. 103 D.C. Sircar, The Śākta Pīṭhas, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1998 (rpt. originally published in 1948), p. 17, fn. 104 Shastri (ed. and tr.), Kālikāpurāṇa, 51.76–77. Here, yojana is a measure of distance, sometimes regarded as equal to four or five English miles. But the distance varies according to traditions. 105 Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam, p. 420; Sircar, The Śākta Pīṭhas, p. 64. 106 The Yoginītantra mentions the four boundaries of Kāmarūpa: (1) Mount Kāñchana in Nepāla; (2) the confluence of the Brahmaputra; (3) the

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Karatoyā and (4) Dikkaravāsinī apparently in the north, south, west and east. See Biswanarayan Shastri (ed.), Yoginītantra, New Delhi: Bharatiya Vidya Prakashan, I.11.16–17. 107 Sircar, ‘Prāgjyotisha-Kāmarūpa’, pp. 63–64. 108 Shastri (ed. and tr.), Kālikāpurāṇa, 38.113–127. 109 Ibid., 38.128–130. 110 Gupta, ‘Evolution of Agrarian Society in Kāmarūpa in Early Medieval India’, p. 9. 111 As to the making of the Śākta sacred landscape of Kāmarūpa and the importance of a regional goddess cult of Kāmākhyā, see J.E. Shin, ‘Yoni, Yoginīs and Mahāvidyās: Feminine Divinities from Early Medieval Kāmarūpa to Medieval Koch Behar’, Studies in History, vol. 26, no. 1 (2010), pp. 1–29 and idem, ‘Śākta Pīṭhas: The Making of Sacred Landscape and Religious Nexus in the Early Medieval Eastern India’, in S. Ghosh et al. (eds.), Revisiting Early India (Essays in Honour of D.C. Sircar), Kolkata: R. N. Bhattacharya, 2013, pp. 179–202. 112 For a critical survey of the notion of the Aryans and its application to Indian history, see Thomas R. Trautmann, Aryans and British India: New Perspectives on Indian Pasts, New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2004 (rpt.) and Romila Thapar, The Aryan: Recasting Constructs, Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective, 2008. 113 Pargiter, ‘Ancient Countries in Eastern India’, pp. 111–112. 114 Pargiter, Ancient Indian Historical Tradition, p. 202. 115 See Barua, Early History of Kāmarūpa, p. 19. A similar argument is also found in Vasu, The Social History of Kāmarūpa, vol. 1, p. 122. 116 Barua, Early History of Kāmarūpa, p. 20. 117 Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam, pp. 5, 112, 121. 118 S.K. Chatterji, Kirāta-Jana-Kṛti, The Indo-Mongoloids: Their Contribution to the History and Culture of India, Calcutta: Asiatic Society, 1951, pp. 90–91. 119 Some of early Indologists including Hoernle and Grierson considered two different migrations of the Aryans that the first band settled in Punjab, and the second, skirting around the Indus, perhaps settled in the Banas valley. From here there was a movement both along the northern slopes of Vindhyas to Bihar and also into Doāb. See Thapar, The Aryan: Recasting Constructs, p. 106, fn. 11. 120 Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam, p. 95. 121 Dimbeswar Sarma is one of the strong advocates of the Alpine Aryan theory. See his Kāmarūpaśāsanāvalī, pp. 141–143. 122 Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam, p. 98. 123 See Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 156, Bargaon plates, v. 9. 124 Bhattacharya, ‘Sir Edward Gaits’ History of Assam’, p. 845. 125 Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam, p. 194. 126 Lahiri, Pre-Ahom Assam, pp. 65, 38. 127 Madhav M. Deshpande, Sociolinguistic Attitudes in India: A Historical Reconstruction, Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, 1979, 7. 13. 128 Ryosuke Furui ‘The Rural World of an Agricultural Text: A Study on the Kṛṣiparāśara’, Studies in History, vol. 21, no. 2 (2005), p. 153. 129 Sharma, Inscriptions of Ancient Assam, p. 90, v. 2.

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30 Shin, ‘Changing Dynasties, Enduring Genealogy’, p. 180. 1 131 As to this socio-political process observed in early medieval India, see Kulke, Kings and Cults: State Formation and Legitimation in India and Southeast Asia, pp. 82–92. 132 Shastri (ed. and tr.), Kālikāpurāṇa, 76.1; 76.29–31. For the further details about the story and religious customs of mlecchas, Śaiva worship in particular, see J.E. Shin, ‘Redefining Divine Presence: A Study of Hidden  Liṅgas in the mid-Brahmaputra Valley’, in O. Bopearachchi and S. Ghosh (eds.), Indian History and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Professor B.D. Chattopadhyaya, New Delhi: Primus Books (forthcoming). 133 Amalendu Guha, Medieval and Early Colonial Assam: Society, Polity, Economy, Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi, 1991, p. 82. 134 For instance, Boruah makes a point that the kingship of Kāmarūpa was no doubt hereditary, and therefore there is no possibility of a succession from the outside of the line. See Boruah, Early Assam: State Formation, Political Centre, Cultural Zones, p. 36. 135 Barua, Early History of Kāmarūpa, preface, p. 1. 136 Ryosuke Furui, ‘Brāhmaṇas in Early Medieval Bengal: Construction of Their Identity, Networks and Authority’, Indian Historical Review, vol. 40, no. 2 (2013), pp. 223–245. 137 Gupta, ‘Evolution of Agrarian Society in Kāmarūpa’, p. 18. 138 Choudhury, The History of the Civilization of the People of Assam, p. 96. 139 Makiko Kimura, The Nellie Massacre of 1983: Agency of Rioters, New Delhi: Sage, 2013, p. 43. 140 See S.K. Bhuyan, Studies in the Literature of Assam, New Delhi: R. Kumar Omsons, 1956, p. 1; Maheswar Neog, Śaṅkaradeva and His Times: Early History of the Vaiṣṇava Faith and Movement in Assam, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985 (rpt.), p. 378; N.D. Choudhury, Historical Archeology of Central Assam (From Earliest Time to 12th Century A.D., New Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1985, p. 260. 141 For instance, Shastri maintains in 2002 that ‘Hinduisation’ assimilated tribal people and their socio-religious persuasions as they were and refrained from snapping their link with their past, while ‘Christiaisation’ adopted the policy of converting them to an entirely different religion and made the new converts completely strangers to their lifestyle and system of beliefs. See Shastri, Ancient North-East India, Prāgjyotiṣa, p. 14. 142 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 3. 143 See ‘Lost Treasure of Assam’, Assam Tribune, 13 August 2002. 144 See ‘Remapping Northeast’, The Indian Express, 12 January 2015. 145 Hiren Gohain, ‘Positions on Assam History’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 45, no. 8 (2010), p. 38.

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2 CONQUEST AND THE QUOTIDIAN Violence and the making of Tripura (1760–1793) Anandaroop Sen

This chapter probes the forms and functions of violence in early English East India Company governance and the specific ways in which such violence produced state geographies. 1 Within this framework of violence and territory, 2 I follow the traffic between an autonomous kingdom at the eastern frontiers of Company holdings (uplands or ‘independent Tippera’), and its neighbouring lowland, the British district of Tippera, formed in the late eighteenth century. The apportionment of the proper name Tippera 3 between a British district and a princely state, I argue, was made possible through a particular combination of violence and settlement. This dynamic allowed a certain territory of Tippera to be birthed. 4 It produced the landscape of Tippera and outlined its relationship to and location within the Bengal agrarian complex. In 1854, a formal boundary between the British district of Tippera and the Princely state was drawn. 5 It de facto became, as William Wilson Hunter would later proclaim, an ‘imperial frontier’ of the Bengal agrarian. 6 The article maps the genealogy of this incision. The distinction between a princely state and a British district has organised the possible pasts and futures of the state of Tripura as it exists in the Indian nation state today. In other words, it arranges the written histories of this region. The princely state or the uplands, through the violence of partition, is now a part of the Indian Union, while the British district known as Comilla is in Bangladesh. Within what has become the state of Tripura, there are lines that separate a larger tribal area known as the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council from the western plains. Instead of coming together under a larger category like that of the ‘Naga’ or ‘Mizo’, people here have retained 56

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distinct ethnic categories, but cohered around a broader tribal identity vis-à-vis the Bengali domination of executive powers (from the late 1970s under the Communist Party of India Marxists). The political formation of the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), among others, has articulated this strand for the last decade or so. The recent disturbances in Agartala where the IPFT clashed with the state police demanding separate statehood for the tribal region is the latest chapter in a long and protracted struggle loosely based on a Tripura tribal identity. 7 These pitched battles around newer boundaries have often obscured the historical question of how in the first place the princely state of Tippera or Tripura, now the state within the Indian union, came to be organised as a distinct spatial unit separated from its neighbouring regions. There has been hardly any inquiry around the provenance of this sequestration. 8 This neatness, legitimated violently through national histories, has surprisingly engendered very few enquiries regarding the history of this separation. Yet when one starts reading the colonial settlement of this region such ‘partitioned’ histories slacken: the two histories of a British district and the princely state are called forth simultaneously. The separate histories of hill and plains, the agrarian and it’s purported outside, refuse to stay divorced and insulated. The essay looks at the practices of colonial violence and settlement that produced such dualities. The chapter has two broad parts. Each relates to a specific form of violence. The first explores a violence of conquest. This is a form of violence I associate with the early Company State. 9 Focusing on the years 1760–1761, and drawing on East India Company (EIC) Records called the ‘Committee of New Lands’, I discuss the conquest of Tippera, the ramifications of this conquest in the early years of Company territorial politics and ideas of debt forged through it, marking the landscape of Tippera and Chittagong. I conclude by looking at the framing role of conquest violence in the historiography of colonialism. The second part of the chapter shifts from the violence of conquest to more quotidian forms. Here I locate certain violent practices identified by the Company State as ‘dacoity’. I connect these practices to the history of a larger field of ‘resistance’ in the late-eighteenth-century Bengal. By focusing on one moment of possible conflict initiated by the Tippera raj within this larger map of resistance, I draw out the ways in which the landscape of Tippera was altered. I use this event to close a gap that appears to exist between the military and revenue archives of the late-eighteenth- and earlynineteenth-century northeast frontier. I argue that at the very moment when the policing of the frontier was tightening, this violence mutated into a language of settlement. I draw on Rahul Govind’s work where he contends that the precise moment of colonial conquest was also the time 57

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when it was articulated in a language of calculation and settlement. 10 In other words, through a particular moment in Tippera’s early colonial history, I explore the simultaneity of violence and settlement.

‘A debtor on our books’ It had been less than a year since Chittagong was granted as jagir to the East India Company. Mir Qasim, in one his first acts as the Naib Subhadar of Bengal had, after ‘much intrigue’, 11 allocated Chittagong to the East India Company. Tippera was caught at the cusp of this momentous change. 12 If the Battle of Palashi (1757) marked the definitive conquest of Bengal, Mir Qasim’s short but tumultuous reign and deteriorating relationship with an expanding Company charted its future paths. How did the kingdom of Tippera get caught in this maelstrom? In 1760, Muhammad Reza Khan, the future Naib Nazim and Naib Diwanof Bengal was still a faujdar 13 at the backwaters of Chittagong. 14 In his capacity as faujdar he had ordered an expedition into Tippera in 1760. The king of Tippera, Krishna Manikya, perhaps taking advantage of the tumult at the seat of power in Murshidabad, had stopped remitting revenue to the faujdar. 15 This was not atypical. If Chittagong languished at the fringes of the Mughal Empire, the kingdom of Tippera was even more distant. It had flitted in and out of the Mughal state vision, depending on its ability to negotiate the Mughal military establishment. This irregular visibility in state geographies has been interpreted in agrarian histories Bengal as distance. Ratnalekha Ray, in her meticulous work, while discussing the typologies of landholders in Bengal under the Nawabs, described the Tippera kingdom as, ‘outside the Mughal territory’. 16 Many a battle had shaded this sense of outside. Through the eighteenth century, the Kingdom had been increasingly pushed into its highlands – the Tippera Hills – while the lowland zamindari remained a strip of land known as the Chakla Roshnabad. 17 Perhaps in keeping with tradition and sensing an opening, Krishna Manikya in 1760, had stopped remittance of revenue. Reza Khan, responding to such recalcitrance, sent an expedition under his dewan Ram Mohan. In the meantime, after Chittagong had been granted to the Company, a council of four headed by Harry Verelst, was formed to administer Chittagong. Verelst was in Chittagong by 1761, meeting Reza Khan, discussing the details of the province. The Company had been wary. They had faced stiff resistance in Midnapore and Burdwan, over the transfer, 18 but Reza Khan seemed pliant. In a very short period, Reza Khan would strike up a ‘friendship’ with Harry Verelst. Henry Vansittart, the head of the Select Committee in Calcutta, would consider him as an important ally. 19 58

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In his discussions with Khan after he arrived in Chittagong, Verelst came to know of the expedition to Tippera. Among other things it was brought to light that Reza Khan had slapped a ‘two anna cess’ on Chittagong, on account of this expedition. Buoyed by the possibility of new acquisition in Tippera, Verelst wrote to the Company, suggesting ‘the conquest of Tippera initiated by Reza Khan would be a valuable acquisition for the Company.’ 20 In a letter to Henry Vansittart at Fort William, dated 3rd January 1761, he wrote: We entered the province of Chittagong on the 1st of January after fatiguing marches, owing to the badness of the roads which obliged us to take our course round about, since our arrival here we find the Duan is still in Tippera with an army making a conquest of that province, to defray the expense of which Mohomed Razah Cawn has levied a tax of two annas on the rents of all lands in Chittagong district, subsequent to the grant of sunnud, that is since the 1st of October 1760. As the expenses of this expedition has been maintained by the country since it was made over to the Company, we have thought it prudent to order the Duan in future to obey only such orders as he may receive from us . . . in the meantime, we beg to have to recommend approbation from the nabob of Mursodavad (sic) to such proceedings as many tend to the conquest of Tippera, as it will be a valuable acquisition to the Honorable masters and maintained at a small expense. [Emphasis mine] 21 Note the small matter of the ‘two anna rent on all lands in Chittagong district’. This would become a contentious issue in the immediate future. In an eleven-point list of demands presented to Mir Qasim by the Company, shortly before his political demise after the Battle of Buxar (1764), the issue ‘two anna rent’ was included. 22 The matter, baldly stated, was one of sovereignty. With the grant of jagir of Chittagong, the Company interpreted the ‘two annacess’ as a breach of sovereignty. They demanded restitution. Even at this early stage, barely a day after Verelst had reached Sitakund in Chittagong; in one of his first letters to Fort William, he penned it clearly. Reza Khan’s dewan Ram Mohan was ordered with a confidence that perhaps belied the relative recent origin of the acquisition: ‘we have thought it prudent to order the Duan in future to obey only such orders as he may receive from us.’ 23 Any levy on Chittagong lands was now the Company’s business. Technically, this tax, the Company claimed, was levied after the grant of sunnud for Chittagong; that is after the 1st of October 1760. With the passing of the sunnud there was a passing of sovereignty. Therefore, the Company had a right to restitution. 59

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On the other hand, there was the business of Tippera, a possible new acquisition, ripe in its potential. Fort William was more than happy to encourage Verelst. Vansittart gave him the green signal. A force was to be sent. Randolph Marriott, a member of the recently constituted Chittagong Council, would march in behind the troops and enquire into the revenue possibility. But the landscape of Tippera, even before the success of the Company’s military campaign, was inserted into a relationship of debt. Vereslt was clear about this. In one of the letters to Fort William he wrote: ‘The expedition to Tippera will stand debtor on our books . . . some part has already been reimbursed us, and hope soon to have the whole of it repaid with every other charge that may occur in subduing that country. [Emphasis mine]’ 24 Even before the actual conquest could ensue, Tippera was already identified as ‘debtor on our books’. The landscapes of Chittagong and Tippera were thus meshed. A grant of jagir for one opened up the route for the conquest of the other. In the strange entanglements of history, the ‘two anna cess’ levied on the lands of Chittagong sutured the futures of Chittagong and Tippera. 25 The expedition to Tippera, this early roll in the die of colonial conquests, would get intimately linked to the downfall of Mir Qasim and the battle of Buxar (1764), in other words, to the heart of Bengal and Company politics. The conquest of this small kingdom hidden in the sylvan depths of the eastern forest would leave its own forgotten mark on the centrality of Bengal politics. This was one should bear in mind, after the Company had actually extracted an amount from Krishna Manikya, the king of Tippera, for the ‘expenses of the troop’. Randolph Marriot, in the initial settlement he had drawn up, made sure of this. While reporting to Vansittart on the matter, Verelst wrote, Mr. Marriott informs us that the rajah being incapable at present to pay our demands on him, he thought it prudent to take Kissbundy’s for the amount of the expenses of our expedition, and charges of the troops under the Duan of Mahmud Raza Cawn’s charged the Honourable Company in Raza’s account current as well as for his revenues. [Emphasis mine] 26 Krishna Manikya had to pay on several accounts. This is where the idea of calculability emerges from the language of conquest. This emergence can be read in the universal sign of being in debt to conquest. As David Graeber 27 points out, the first thing that strikes one about debt is its flexibility, its lack

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of any precise definition and its protean utility in legitimating conquest. 28 The ambiguity of the concept imbues it with terrifying power. Debt masks violence. To describe the particularity of violence, to rebuild the broken and buried links between conquest and settlement, one learns the language of debt. The elegance of Graeber’s insight is seductive. In his introduction of the problematic, he ponders on the ‘illogical’ sequence of ‘third-world debt’. In one of the many fables and fantasies of debt, the aggressors pay compensation as partial exculpation of the aggression. German repatriation, Iraqi compensation to Kuwait fit this ‘logical’ bill. Yet historically with regard to colonialism, debt seems to have been based entirely on a reversal of this ‘ethical-political’ model. This reversal brings home the power of conquest and its constitutive role in colonialism. The conquest of Tippera had managed to worm its way into the immediate future of Bengal and Company politics. The way it did so provides clues to the mobility of the landscape of Tippera. In the 1790s, in the throes of Permanent Settlement, 29 the proper name Tippera would be apportioned between two spatial and political units: British district formed out of many cobbled lands from different parts of Bengal (Dhaka, Mymensingh, Sylhet, Noakhali) and a native princely state in the Hills. The king of Tippera would be a zamindar in the lowlands of estate ChaklaRoshnabad in district Tippera, and a chief in the uplands nominally denoted as Independent Tippera. Before this colonial landscape operation, Tippera moved in and out of the Mughal State’s grasp. The relationship between the upland and lowland depended on this ability to do so. In fact, even in these early years of 1761, if one is to believe a Bengali historian of Tippera from the nineteenth century, Krishna Manikya had been waiting for his enemies, perched on a fort in the hills, allied with hundreds of ‘Kuki’ hillmen, with several hundred infantries and two canons until a treacherous general, much like Palashi one could chime, rendered all resistance useless. Krishna Manikya had to surrender to the British forces without a shot being fired. Kailash Chandra Singha, the said historian, usually meticulous in his citations, does not provide the source of this version. ‘According to legend’ he writes, ‘Bakshi (the traitor and a general of Krishna Manikya’s army) had been bribed by Lieutenant Mathew.’ 30 The contemporary East India Company English language records recount, perhaps unsurprisingly, a very different story. Lieutenant John Mathews, who led the Company troops to Tippera, wrote in one of his many letters to Henry Verelst, ‘the country seems to rejoice at my coming into the country for we are getting plenty of provisions.’ 31 Krishna Mankiya, if one is to believe Mathews, sharing this general ‘gaiety’ iterated

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that the British were his ‘friends’. In a letter, Mathews describing Krishna Manikya’s visit to his camp, wrote: I saluted him with gun salutes on his entry and departure, he says he is the true raja of this country but for these 20 years past, has been so much harassed with dacoits and several others demanding tribute from him, that had no right to it, that he initially gave over the thoughts of living in a peaceable manner and has lived in one jungle or the other. But now that once in his life or for the future he shall have the pleasure of living happy under the English to whom he says he will pay the proper tribute, with utmost satisfaction, he says Mohomad Raza Cawn, or any other black man remained suba of these provinces he would have never have to come to any agreement with them as their word or Honor could not be trusted, I mentioned to him the revenues this province was indebted to Chittagong. [Emphasis mine] 32 Rejoicing or having the ‘pleasure of living happily under the English’ had its cost. Lieutenant Mathews amidst this ‘happy’ resolution of affairs did not forget to remind Krishna Manikya the geography of debt. In the next section, we follow Mathews in his march to Tippera. This tracking specifies the details of the conquest and places the Tippera polity in relation to its immediate pre-colonial world.

The logistics of a conquest: a journey in time Reza Khan’s dewan had led the expedition to Tippera. It was only later that the East India Company, propelled by the prospect of new acquisition through the ‘gift’ of their jagir, marched into Tippera. By the time Verelst had reached Chittagong in 1761, news of the expedition had been trickling in. In one of his letters to Vansittart, Verelst wrote: That by a letter we received from the Duan in Tipperay he had obliged the Rajah to take to the mountains and had got possession of every fort in his country, we are now to acquaint you that as soon as our people marched from hence the duan threw up the command of the Army then employed there, On which they all disbanded. We immediately directed Mr. Mathews to proceed as fast as possible to prevent the rajah from being able to collect his troops together at the same time we sent him a reinforcement of fifty sepoys and six hundred bearers? 33 62

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The force under Lieutenant Mathews of ‘200 sepoys and 2 guns’ 34 had already been ordered to march to Tippera. The fact that the dewan’s troop had been disbanded pressed home a sense of urgency, lest the Raja should regroup from the hills. Mathews was asked to expedite his march. A reinforcement of ‘fifty sepoys’ was rushed in. Mathews had set forth from Sitakund, to Mirshorai ultimately meeting Krishna Manikya at Nurngar, the capital at that point in time, where Krishna Manikya ultimately surrendered. On his way, he met a number of people. Some were faceless people providing provisions; others were part of the disbanded troop of the Nawab returning with their ‘plunder’ of bullocks and provisions. Some were zamindars caught in adversarial relationship with the king of Tippera. 35 These furtive figures, barely illuminated by proper names represented various points of authority in the region. One of them was Abdul Razak described by Verelst as the ‘the principal zamindar under the rajah of Tippera’. 36 We will dwell on Razak as he provides a link with the immediate pre-colonial world, parts of which Mathews glimpsed as he moved in with his troops. The presence of Razak had been signalled earlier in Verelst’s letter to Vansittart, when he described his early experiences in Chittagong. Reza Khan, among other things, had transferred to Verelst the family members of Razak. They were kept in ‘ . . . (as) security for the expenses of the expedition.’ [Emphasis mine] 37 Razak appeared to be a link that connected the Company arrival to the nodes of authority in the region. The lowlands of Tippera, Roshnabad, had been the site of conflict between three parties: the local Muslim landlords, the Nawabs of Bengal and the king of Tippera. 38 In the years before this region got caught in the emerging Company politics, conflict between the parties was not unusual. For instance, it had been barely two years since Krishna Manikya had been in possession of the Roshnabad lowlands. Prior to this, he had been harried and harrowed by a local Muslim landlord, Shamsher Ghazi, who had become the lord of Roshnabad. Shamsher Ghazi had risen from humble origins after being adopted by a local landlord. At one point in his meteoric rise, he had forced Krishna Manikya to take refuge in the hills. After years of wandering the forests of the hills, Krishna Manikya had sought help from the Nawab of Bengal. Mir Qasim responded to Krishna Manikya’s call. Krishna Manikya was recognised as the king of Tippera. Shamsher Ghazi was defeated, captured and blown from a cannon. 39 This was the pre-colonial dynamic of the lowlands of Tippera. 63

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Razak had been Ghazi’s close aide. 40 Thus Verelst’s description of him being the ‘principal zamindar under the Rajah of Tippera’ needs to be qualified. Krishna Manikya shared an adversarial relationship with Razak. When the Company moved into the lowlands, he was (if one is to believe Mathews’ letters) preparing to fight Razak and all his aides. With Shamsher Ghazi killed, and Krishna Manikya reinstated, Razak perhaps was in some way subordinated to the Krishna Manikya. Even if he was, the relationship was fraught. Krishna Manikya in his meetings with Lieutenant Mathews would often complain. [This] day the raja’s vakeel waited on me. And seemed much rejoiced at the English troops coming in to the country, he says had the English Nabob of Calcutta sent their forces before into this country the rajah would have readily given up the country, but him and his people were receiving abuses from, Razah Cawn, Ramsuneaar, and the Abdullah Razaq, obliged him to take up arms in the defence of his country and his people. 41 During his travels Mathews would be continuously suspicious of Razzak. In his letters to Verelst, Mathews insisted on the importance of incarcerating Razak on multiple occasions. Apparently, Razak with his aides had plundered the country, oppressing the raiyats. Mathews’ repeated overtures to meet him had been rebuffed with vague promises. One reason for this, emissaries of Razak informed Mathews, was that Razak was afraid of being attacked by Krishna Manikya. Mathews was not convinced. Adding to his mistrust, Razak had apparently gathered around all other zamindars and forbade them from providing resources to the English troops. Exasperated, Mathews wrote to Verelst: Razak is the greatest rascal I have heard. He did all that lay in his power to hinder the country people from bringing in provisions, but the good discipline that has been there in our little army prevented his bad designs, the country people hearing that we paid for every article we took made them flock to our camp in spite of his orders. With everything they had for sale. He likewise sent by night and confined several zamindars and declared that they should not come out and inform of his rouging. 42 Such behaviour and passive resistance to the Company troops further aggravated Mathews. In his letter of complaint, he continued: If this rajah (Krishna Manikya) had any notion of attacking me I might have waited forever. I am certain Abdul Razak nor one of his 64

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men would join me. His writing to you the rajah would attack him is all utterly false. This is my opinion that the country will always be in trouble one part or the other for I think it is out of his power to leave of his old trade of robbing. Was there a scheme said to take him and make him a head shorter it would satisfy the whole country and be much advantage to/of the English (emphasis mine). 43 Razak was one of the many ‘zamindars’ Mathews met en route. Mathews had left Chittagong, travelled to Sitakund and Mosherali, and at each of these places, he negotiated with landlords for provisions. He was not successful everywhere. For instance, at Sitakund, the local landlord refused to provide provisions. Mathews invoked the Company, offered to pay, but to no avail. 44 A zamindar at Fenny named ‘Cawn Singh’, when asked for men, evaded Mathews by saying that he had to gather men to take down a ‘dacoit’ in at Jugdea, a place close to Chittagong. It was through such an assorted landscape Mathews travelled. One perhaps could say that Krishna Manikya embroiled in conflict with zamindars like Razak, very much resembled them. It was the hills, his site of refuge and recovery that perhaps marked a layer of difference. But this difference was very far from the dual territorial units that the Company would carve out: the district of British Tippera and the autonomous kingdom of Tippera. It would be important to note here Indrani Chatterjee’s recent work Forgotten Friends. Chatterjee provides an interesting frame to understand the traffic in this region and locate figures like Abdul Razaq and Tripura raja Krishna Manikya within it. She maps out a ‘monastic geography’ spread from plains of Comilla and Chittagong to the Himalayan foothills. The monastic system is defined as one where there are cultural continuities, a shared code of life, between different Tantric–Buddhist–Saivic–­Vasihnav– Islamic communities spread across this expanse. In this world, Krishna Manikya stands forth as an ‘initiated monastic warrior’. 45 Abdul Razaq is a devoted the underling to Krishna Manikya sharing this monastic cosmos. While there is a point to be made regarding the limits of the colonial archive and the elisions that are produced by it, and Chatterjee makes it persuasively enough, I find it surprising that she isn’t as attentive to the possibilities of fractures and antagonisms within such ‘monastic networks’. For instance, K. C. Singha contends that Razaq was the dewan of the Shamsher Ghazi’s military division. 46 When Ghazi was captured and Krishna Manikya reinstated as the principal zamindar of ChaklaRoshnabad, did Razaq’s loyalty seamlessly translate to Krishna Manikya? Again, during the enforced exile, Krishna Manikya, put on the run by Shamsher Ghazi, took refuge in the forests with the Kukis, and if one is to 65

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believe, K. C. Singha’s Rajmala, Shamsher Ghazi could not parley with the forest Kukis as they responded only to the Tippera royal lineage. Now Singha’s work is based largely on colonial records and in that sense a part of a colonial narrative that Chatterjee is critiquing. Yet within colonial archives there are shards, like Abdul Razaq’s figure that destabilise any neat, frictionless, pre-colonial homogenous models of community and exchange. In fact, these figures alert us to two aspects of studying colonial history: (1) the transformative phenomenon that was the colonialism and the role of conquest in it and (2) the difficulties of thinking of a resistant anti-colonial figure through pure pre-colonial community frames. (One could ask here, how is one to think of violence within monastic networks?) As an expansion of the first point, the next section places the conquest of Tippera within the larger historiography of early modern empire and conquest.

Conundrums of conquest In Indian historiography, the Battle of Palashi (Plassey in English language sources) is regarded as a founding event. 47 The year 1757, when Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-Daula the Nawab of Bengal, is embossed as the beginning: the definitive conquest marking the entry of British colonialism in South Asia. Textbooks on Modern India to recent critical works on ‘Global practices of Power’ 48 find sustenance in this ‘originary’ moment. The British East India Company had of course been in these waters from a much earlier time; yet 1757 is the year when the tide turned decisively. There is certainly a compelling drama in this narrative of the conquest of Bengal; a battle that never took place, intrigues and betrayals that allowed the East India Company to prevail. The figures of rapacious Robert Clive, 49 the avaricious Nabobs, Mir Jaffar, Mir Qasim, the economy of drain, etc. are elements woven around an all too well-known narrative of conquest. Not surprisingly then, 1757 has divided the historiography of colonial conquest. Was the conquest of Bengal as momentous a change as it is made out to be? Or did the Company continue to rule as heirs to the Mughals? 50 What kind of transformation did colonial conquest, or to be specific 1757, set in motion? How is one to understand these transformations? Was the East India Company a state, or was it corporation that ‘stumbled upon an empire’? Was there a larger intellectual field within which Company practices cohered? Or was there an unbridgeable gap, an abyss between the field of colonial practice and the ideologies of empire? Numerous such questions have kept historians of British colonialism deeply occupied for a number of years.

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Productive as this debate has been, it has now reached an analytic deadlock. 51 The lines are clearly divided: one side views the Company State as an extension of the ‘Indian’ fiscal military system, while the other model sees the Company as an entity wholly external to the colony. Following this divide some have tried to map the relationship between the Hyde like British state (weak, non-interventionist) with the Jekyll like Company State (rapacious and conquering). 52 What this conundrum of conquest has sometimes done is to throw the baby out of with the bathwater. The analytic power of conquest, the political element and significance of the act of conquest has taken a backseat to give way to the effects of conquest. This chapter seeks to revive a conversation around the politics of conquest. It thus looks at works that insist on a particular historical quality for the ‘early modern’ without losing sight of the politics of imperialism. It is within such conceptual grid one has to place the conquest of Tippera in 1761. 53 Gunnel Cederlöf’s work helps us to do exactly this. She has emphasised the need to differentiate dissimilar modes of conquest. According to Cederlöf, the land relations in Tippera and the means of conquest were fundamentally different when compared with those of the diwani territories. 54 Diwani was the grant of civil and revenue administration of Bengal to the East India Company by Shah Alam II, after the definitive battle of Buxar of 1764. Cederlöf argues that the diwani territories marked a different form of Company governance when compared to the ‘autonomous kingdoms’. 55 Tippera complicates this picture. It brings both the diwani lands and an autonomous kingdom together in its wake. In fact, the proper name Tippera calls forth a dual history: two that are bound and enmeshed in each other. I have tried to show how through the conquest of Tippera these two histories can be called forth together. In this part of the chapter, we looked at how the territory was being chiselled out through a language of debt and placed within a larger politics of Bengal. In part two, we move to the 1780s. By this time, a British Resident had been put in charge of the collections from the lowlands. This was a decade when quotidian violence lined the Bengal agrarian landscape. If part one looked at practices of violence in a more foundational sense, the next half looks at the realm of the quotidian.

Quotidian violence and Tippera: the protean category of ‘dacoity’ I begin with a discussion on the kinds of violence that appeared ‘more everyday’ in late-eighteenth-century Bengal. This helps us locate a family of violence within which one can place Tippera raja’s last act of resistance. That act of resistance is then taken up to demonstrate how violence and

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settlement worked simultaneously in East India Company governance of this period. The 1780s marked a critical shift in the nature of EIC governance. Jon Wilson and Robert Travers in their studies on forms of governance and ideas of sovereignty, respectively, show how at this juncture, a definitive change was taking place in the way the colony was being imagined and governed. 56 For Travers, this manifested in the steady disappearance and obsolescence of the notion of ‘ancient constitution’ identified with the Mughal rule. New forms of sovereignties with little reference to such ‘ancient constitutions’ underwrote the emerging Company’s governance. Wilson in a similar vein argues for a shift in Company governance from a politics of ‘familiarity’ to one of ‘strangeness’ where abstraction and distance framed governance. It is at the cusp of such transformations one locates an escalation of violence at this point in time. Wilson studying the famous peasant rebellion Dhing of Rangpur, a frontier district in the northern Bengal, identifies this decade as one which witnessed a spurt of violent outbursts, something quite uncommon when compared to the earlier part of the century. 57 The Dhing rebellion was thus paradigmatic; it signalled a breach of familiarity that defined the agrarian world. The ruler-subject relationship was jolted, and the shared and hierarchical understanding of mutuality was broken. Wilson’s reading places violence within a shift in the practice of governance. A shared participatory, albeit hierarchical, world was disintegrating through colonial governance into a regime of abstraction. 58 This is an interesting move away from both Marxist readings of peasant resistance and Ranajit Guha’s argument regarding the definitive alterity of peasant consciousness. 59 Wilson’s argument is helpful in taking stock of changes wrought by colonialism. Along with peasant rebellions such as the Dhing, this period witnessed the rise of what is known as the Fakir Sannyasi rebellion. Feted as the first instance of anti-colonial resistance in Bankim Chandra Chattapadhyay’s novel Anandamath, the violence of these wandering religious men, displaced from their trade routes and control of trade, have often been hailed as early anti-colonial resistance. 60 As Wilson and McLane point out, peasants would often join these wandering men. At times, these bands would seek alliances with big zamindars with varying degrees of success. A third form, though often these three intermingled, was gang robbery or dakaiti. Drawing on Warren Hastings’ report of 1774 on dakaiti, John McLane gives us a broad map within which one can place such collective violence. One source of recruits stemmed from the withdrawal of police powers of the zamindars. 61 The paiks or foots soldiers thus disbanded

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moved into dakaiti. In some instances, cases of lower-caste peasants attacking affluent zamindars were lugged under dakaiti. McLane’s examples, it should be noted, are from West Bengal. How such typologies played out in the eastern frontier district like Tippera needs further research. The District records of Tippera do record a number of affrays generically termed ‘dacoity’, especially in the ChaklaRoshnabad strip. Neighbouring zamindars, often termed ‘dacoits’ would stream into ChaklaRoshnabad and plunder cattle and other provisions. There are multiple examples of such incidents. For instance, Ally Gauzee is a name that appears quite a few times. Ralph Leeke, the Resident of Tippera, wrote to the Dacca chief John Shakespeare in 1780 about Gauzee, a dacoit so notorious in this district as well as yours . . . frequent are the robberies and sometimes murders committed within a short distance from my habitation . . . similar representations have been made to me by the chowdries of several pergunnahs of this district. 62 This depredation nearly sparked a retaliatory measure by the Krishna Manikya. It was after much negotiation Leeke stopped such an affray. Ally Gauzee was a resident of pargana Homnabad, a unit outside Roshnabad and administratively in Dhaka. Ally Gauzee, Leeke remarked, had 700– 800 men at his command. This was in 1780. In two years, Ally Gauzee reappeared. The principal dacoits of Homnabad and their sardar Allyar Gauzee and Muzzaffar Guazzee chowdries of Homnabad . . . are continually plundering the inhabitants of the districts burning their house sand committing the most wanton barbarities. Within this month several villages have been burnt by them and people murdered. They sent parties of 2 to 300 in the day time who drive off cattle into their own districts and sell them there. It will be impossible for me to realize the revenues of the district or even to preserve it from (illegible) unless some measure are speedily adopted to put a stop to these ravages. 63 In fact, Rajdhur Manikya, Krishna Manikya’s nephew, and heir to the throne would be incarcerated for a period on the allegations of being a ‘dacoit’. After the embryonic act of ‘resistance’ of 1782, something we discuss in the following section, Rajdhur Manikya (Krishna Manikya’s nephew and heir)

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in 1787 was charged with allegations of harbouring ‘dacoits’. Subsequently this allegation would alter. No longer a ‘harbourer’, he would be suspected by Ralph Leek, the resident, to be a ‘dacoit’ himself. In a letter to James Irwin Collector of Chittagong, dated 1st November 1783, Ralph Leeke, resident of Tippera, claimed that Rajdhur’s involvement in a recent act of ‘dacoity’ had come to light. This information had come to him almost accidentally from a deposition pertaining to separate event. There were a series of depositions that he had received from recently apprehended ‘dacoits’. These characters had lived close to Comilla (the residence of the Tippera kings in the lowlands), ‘in the talook of Rajdhur’ 64 and were abetted by him to carry out various acts of depredations into other districts. The fact that ‘so numerous and desperate a gang of villains should have remained in the province, uncovered’ 65 was only because they lived a little away from Comilla and were under the protection of Rajdhur, concluded Leeke. Rajdhur being the nephew of the raja few people had the courage to cross him. A year later in another letter to James Irwin, Collector of Chittagong, Leeke set out the details of the misdemeanour. Rajdhur had actively encouraged different ‘gangs’ to reside in his talooks and these characters at different times had ‘received money and effects’. 66 Further proofs were unnecessary. Based on this Rajdhur was sent to Chittagong. The district record goes silent after this. All we know is that Rajdhur was incarcerated for a brief period before being released. In a later document drafted in 1786 by John Buller, British Resident at Comilla after Leeke, Rajdhur’s infraction reappeared. This was a moment charged with a different intensity. The Board of Revenue had received couple of summary complaints against Buller. One was an ‘arzee by the talookdars, ryots and inhabitants of Roshnabad’, 67 the other from Rajdhur Manikya, the zamindar of Tippera. The complaints revolved around alleged additional imposts Buller had slapped on commodities like salt, tobacco and use of unpaid ‘coolie’ labour by his assistant Henry Buller. John Buller denied these allegations. In reply, he wrote a detailed report describing how Rajdhur was a villainous and incompetent man. To bolster his case, he drew upon Ralph Leeke’s older correspondences. Buller’s invectives against Rajdhur had two major themes: (1) Rajdhur was a proven instigator of rebellion. The incident in 1782, the last stand as we will discuss it, was a direct proof of his capability of mischief. (2) Moreover, Chittagong court records had depositions that ‘proved’ him to be a ‘dacoit’. 68 Lauren Benton in a discussion regarding the increasing state legal and political control particularly at the frontiers in the late-eighteenth- and

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early-nineteenth-century India has a useful description of ‘dacoity’. She writes, British used the term dacoity to describe a range of forms of rural violence, including famine looting and gang raids, and even the more extreme forms that became more common in the mid-nineteenth century when whole villages were held and plundered. 69 The generic term dacoity is thus placed within a family of violence. 70 Within it, different forms of violence and disputes could collapse. Thus, we see at one point Krishna Manikya threatening to take revenge on a neighbouring zamindar, while in a few years, his nephew himself was incarcerated under the charge of ‘dacoity’. Yet Tippera’s geography around a frontier engendered other forms of disputes that hovered around ‘dacoity’. For instance, Ralph Leeke, the resident, in a letter to Richard Sumner, Collector of Chittagong on 19th July 1779, wrote, From the continual disputes between the Berma, Muley and others of hill people with either of which I am given to understand the rajah takes part as solicited, or rather as he finds most to his advantage. I have thought it necessary for the security of the province to farm the gauts on the frontier to a man who can be depended upon in Mirza Mahommed – he is responsible – this step vexed the raja who is apprehensive least a knowledge of his possessions in the hills should be obtained-as a consequence he ordered all the joomeas forbidding them on the pain of severe punishment to dispose their cotton, the duties upon which community are collected at these gauts and from which revenues of them chiefly arise but it is using every means to get the chaudries and taluqdars of the province to complaint against me and petition for my removal. 71 The relationship between the residents and the king was fraught, as we will discuss in the next section, but the above quote does something else. It brings the hills into vision. The swidden cultivators or joomeas in the hills, their relationship with the raja, the nodal points through which transactions and disputes in hills were sought to be policed, open up the question of frontier. Upland Tippera produced cotton through people who practiced joom. 72 For very many swidden cultivators of the region, apropos Francis Buchanan the great traveller of this century, the primary produce was cotton. In British parlance joom and cotton production therefore became synonymous. When Ralph Leeke farmed out the ghats to Mirza Mahommed,

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a man he could ‘depend on’, he was de jure and de facto interfering in the cotton trade that passed through these ghats. The rajah’s reaction was a measure of this intrusion. He rallied on two fronts; forbade the joomeas – practitioners of joom – to ‘dispose their cotton’, while simultaneously getting the chaudries and taluqdars of the province to complaint against Leeke. 73 The ghats were important nodal points. Gunnel Cederlöf quite correctly points out in a related but different context the importance of entry-exit points or portals in conceptualising boundaries. She examines how East India Company’s (EIC) search for boundaries ‘misrecognized’ the importance of such portals. The EIC tried to draw lines across territories, while polities of eastern Bengal, like Tippera, were more interested in controlling points rather than lines. Boundary imaginations thus worked with contrasting dimensions in the region. Not only did there appear to be a different sense of territory at work, there were other kinds of violence that hovered around the ambiguous category of dacoity. Akin to dacoities, these were practices of violence that lit up the frontier. It cut channels through which the frontier would participate in legal regimes tailored for the central agrarian sites. In the next section, we look at few of these practices.

The last stand of a kingdom to be: a footnote to a story of conquest In January 1781, Resident Ralph Leeke, the British Resident 74 in Tippera stationed at Comilla (in the lowlands), was swayed by a surge of anxiety. The king of Tippera, Krishna Manikya, had stopped remitting his revenues and was preparing an attack on Leeke’s office. The narrative in this section tries to weave anxiety, violence and territory together. I demonstrate how on the back of a supposed attack by the king of Tippera, the landscape of Tippera was carved. An anxiety surrounding an impending attack allowed the Company government to translate the threat of violence into a normality of settlement. As a punishment for the attack which never actually took place, Tippera was settled, the king incarcerated, and revenue extraction organised. The section follows this story of the making of Tippera. Quotidian anxieties defined British East Indian Company governance. It stemmed, as Jon Wilson has argued, from the ‘quotidian practice of exogenous rule’. This anxiety, Wislon argues, was the product of a peculiarly modern form of governance, something we have already touched upon in the earlier section. While early modern politics in South Asia and Europe was embedded in a sense of hierarchical ‘familiarity’ between the ruler and

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the ruled, the politics of modernity expressed itself through the figure of the ‘stranger’. 75 It produced distance and unfamiliarity. The concomitant experience of rule was therefore anxiety; anxiety with regard to the governance of the unfamiliar. A resolution of this anxiety was to resort to a regime of abstraction, where governance did not recognise any specificity to the ruled subjects, but saw them as ‘strangers’ who could only be accessed through their membership to a generality. Uncertainties born out of contingent historical encounters produced a regime of abstraction. This regime ushered a ‘style of thought’, specifically colonialism’s ‘objectivising style of thought’. 76 The challenge for any historical enterprise is then to account for the emergence of this style. Anxiety is the productive analytical category that allows one to plot this emergence. 77 It will be pertinent to remember here a distinction that Ranajit Guha draws between fear and anxiety. Anxiety for Guha is the more indefinite, pervasive and constitutive aspect of colonialism. Fear allows the heroic, epic rendition of colonialism to flourish, something that the statist bias of history typically picks up. Anxiety on the contrary helps one focus on the contingencies of colonialism. For instance, Lieutenant Mathew’s rendition of the conquest, where the people of Tippera welcomed him with open arms, can be read as this heroic response to fear. Barry Hindess reiterates this distinction between fear and anxiety and urges a reconsideration and theorisation of anxiety as a central constitutive feature of colonialism. 78 The centrality of violence in colonial governance can be thought as a way of responding to this anxiety generated by the colonial encounter. Colonial violence in this sense is an attempt to remove contingencies from historical encounters. Renisa Mawani in her discussions of the contact zones in British Columbia points to this when she writes, No matter how ambiguous and unfounded these apprehensions, the uncertainty and contingency of colonial contacts and their potentially destabilizing effects often engendered illiberal reactions from colonial administrators and bureaucrats, including discipline, force, and violence. 79 If anxiety did indeed generate modern colonial norms of governance, it is in such a productive moment we locate Ralph Leeke’s disquiet. On the 17th of January 1782, Ralph Leeke, apprehending an attack from the Krishna Manikya, wrote to William Molland the Chief of Dacca, The revenue of this district being in considerable arrears and the zamindar having made every preparation to oppose any measures

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that may be taken to compel the payment of them by assembling a number of people most of whom he has been furnished with from the Dacca and Sylhet districts. 80 The raja, allegedly, had been gathering forces for an attack. Leeke requested the Chief of Dacca to issue a perwannah ordering all the zamindars of the neighbouring parganas to either recall whatever (assistance) they had already provided or withhold any help if asked for. Leeke’s anxiety had been heightened by bits of information that had rolled into his office. I am also informed that the zemindari of Turruf who resides upon the hills which join those of Tippera has promised him assistance with some hundred men. . . . Md. Ally of Dunderra has likewise promised his assistance. This man is a notorious dacoit and has frequently plundered the inhabitants of this province. 81 In the 1770s, Mohammad Ally of Dunserrah, a pargana close to Tippera, was identified as a ‘dacoit’. One finds his name in Comilla district records. Then, Krishna Manikya and Mohammad Ally were caught in adversarial roles. The enclosed you will find to be a complaint from the rajah Kishunmonick, addressed to me as Officer commanding a party of the 7th battalion stationed here for the protection of the ­country-during my stay at Chittagong to which I had been called to carry on a prosecution of a court martial against one of the officers whom I had confined for unmilitary conduct sets forth, that Md. Ali Chowdury in one of the pergunnas under Lukypore, had an armed force consisting of 1200 men, entered into pergunnah Tishna dependant on him, had in a hostile manner devastated it, by burning his villages and carrying of his riots, to the amount of 500 which he demanded of me an armed force to join a party which he was sending to retaliate on the district of Md. Ali Choudry. 82 He returned, a recidivist, now in league with Krishna Manikya and his cohorts. The potential violence of ‘dacoits’, a ‘notorious’ one more so, cranked up Leeke’s levels of anxiety. Ralph Leeke, as a countermeasure to the impending attack of the Tripura raja, wanted the assurance of a ‘small detachment’. In hope, he shot letters everywhere: the Chief of Dhaka Richard Sumner, the Chief of Chittagong David Anderson, the President of the

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Committee of Revenue at Fort William, all were duly notified. With each address, the threat became graver. To Sumner he wrote, I have received intelligence (by) who carried my perwannah to bring the rajah to Comilla that he and his people are confined at A’tollah by the order of the rajah. . . . It is certain that every hostile preparation has been made and is now common conversation of every ryot in the province I am therefore apprehensive that most will desert this district and that a total stop will soon be put to the collection of what balance are due from the mofussil. I am very anxious for the arrival of the reinforcement which I hope will not be less than what I have applied for. 83 To David Anderson, after repeating the usual sequence of events he wrote, The rajah has been collecting burkandazees from all quarters and I am assured that not less than 2000 of them at A’tollah exclusive of the hill people and parties that he has stationed at different places in the hills who are prepared to every mischief they can do to the province. These preparations he alleges have been made in consequence of the cookeys, [sic] a savage race of people in the hills having committed outrages upon his subjects in the hills; but it is evident from the measures he has adopted that these are assembled if not to act offensively against the government, to oppose any measures that may be taken to compel the payment of his arrears upon his conviction. [Emphasis mine] 84 If our story of the last stand was reproducing the more conventional lore of Bengal agrarian violence, like the Dhing rebellion and the forays of the ‘dacoits’, the introduction of ‘Kukis’, that ‘savage group’ of people, offers a diversion. A little slit in the agrarian fabric that allows the ‘savage’ to be within the same archives as that of the district – a unit central to the historical and historiographical resilience of the Bengal agrarian. This is what perhaps makes the violence in this place sit a little oddly with other comparisons. The district line could and would morph into slices of the frontier because of the proximity of the ‘savage’ presence to this district. Willem Van Schendel, in his introduction to Francis Buchanan’s travels through Chittagong, Noakhali and Tippera suggest that one reason for Chittagong’s ‘frontier-ness’ was the presence of Arakanese in and around the region. Certain places it appears acquire edges because of the populace

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that swell in or pour out. The presence of ‘Kukis’ do something similar for Tippera. Francis Buchanan in his journey through Chittagong, Noakhali and Tippera came across a multitude of people practicing joom, uncertainly dealing with their contiguity to plough cultivated settled parts. There were Kukis, Arakanese (refugees from Burma), Chakmas, Mrus and a host of other groups Buchanan came across who practiced joom. The practice of joom occurring in close proximity to the settled plains disturbed any stark disjuncture between an agrarian and its outside. Additionally, the populations less amenable to ‘civilization’ found a presence through this practice. The fable of settlement could then flow from the limits of these practices. The grades of population built out of major dislocations (Burmese conquest of Arakan in 1784) and minor but stronger currents of itinerancy; people living in the interstices of the two, were made visible through the practice of joom. In other words, joom decided their visibility on a governance grid. Only through joom were these people and their worlds organised. The Kuki fit in some nebulous recess of this scale. 85 The practice of joom and the presence of Kukis and other ‘savages’ often inflicted (grievous) wounds to the settled articulations of agrarian. The presence of the Kuki within and without the Tippera court, reappearing through early-nineteenth-century court feuds, made these edges sharper. Something was happening to the narration of agrarian violence when the Kuki could, even as a subterfuge, peek through some of its slits. 86 When Krishna Manikya threatened to disturb the revenue circuit, the figure of the Kuki added something unexpected to the frame of agrarian violence. The ‘hill people’ at his command, his affrays with Kukis, were an outside of the Bengal revenue archive that suddenly appears inside it for a moment. The full expression of the interloper ‘savage’ in the precinct of the agrarian modern through the figure of the Kuki would take place in the 1860s. The ‘raids’ would scythe through Tippera, Cachar, Chittagong, by then sites of more settled homes of agrarian. Here their presence is a presage to that future. The Revenue Committee responded to Leeke’s distress. The Chief of Chittagong was ordered to furnish as large a detachment as could be spared and the Chief of Dacca was asked to collect ‘as many sepoys as he can collect together for that purpose’ 87 but added to that was a caveat, As we have addressed the Hon’ble Board on the subject of the Tippera district and wait orders we direct that you do not attempt to apprehend the rajah at present unless guilty of some public disturbance or the force now levying by him should act offensively against you or attempt to plunder the province in which case you 76

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will direct the officer sent with the detachment from Chittagong to attack them and apprehend as many of them as possible as well as the rajah and his nephew. 88 As sudden was the missive of anxiety circulated by Ralph Leeke (though Leeke insisted on the premeditated nature of the raja’s recalcitrance, his efforts to build alliances with neighbouring zamindars, his ruse to cover the enterprise with the excuse of containing the ‘savage Kuki’, etc.) the threat of the last stand transformed into something else: a language of settlement. The Board after quickly absorbing the details of the situation wrote: [O]n the subject of the Tippera District and they have been pleased to direct that it shall be let out in farm for a term of ten years. This order does not extend to the territory within the hills which are to be left to the rajah for whom a provision will also be made. . . . We desire you to inform us if there is any person within the province of Tippera whom you think capable of this trust and if there is that you will send his proposals to us for a term not exceeding five years . . . in case the rajah he should not have made his appearance and you judge you have a sufficient force to establish your authority we direct that you take direct management of the collections immediately into your own hands issuing perwannahs to the chowdries and ryots encouraging them to attend cultivation of their own lands and assuring them of protection. 89 The month passed by. Leeke was still searching for a response from the ‘recalcitrant’ raja. Meanwhile in a letter to David Anderson Committee of Revenue at Fort William, the threat was amplified. The minds of the inhabitants in this part of the district who were moving off their women and effects are in a great degree tilted by the arrival of the detachment but to the next period? Which borders upon A’tollah I am informed most of the ryots have quitted their habitation and are gone to adjacent districts. 90 One has to keep in mind that this was a period in the agrarian land–labour relation that was defined by scarcity. Peasants could flee from an ‘oppressive’ landlord’s precinct. In fact, Wilson in his study of the Rangpur Dhing shows this very link between violence and equity. The threat of peasant labour to flee from zamindars forced a certain politics of acknowledgement, hierarchical, but sustainable, between the ruler and the subject in the 77

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Bengal agrarian in the late eighteenth century. Thus, desertion was perhaps a usual response to possibilities of violence. Leeke continued, [T]he people I have from time to time sent my perwannahs and letters have been stopped for one two three days at different thanahs and chokeys he has established as until permission has been obtained from the nephew (Rajdhur Manikya) for them to proceed not have been allowed to return but by the same permission and both going and coming have been particularly searched but they should have any letters about them. The roads to A’tollah by land have long since been barricaded and as I understand the nephew makes no scruple to declare he will oppose any force that maybe sent to apprehend the rajah or him. 91 The suddenness of the settlement was not surprising. Violence and settlement worked simultaneously. Gunnel Cederlöf in her work on this region points to a gap that exists between the Company revenue and military archives; a lack of conversation between the two produces a strange effect of insulated governance concerns and priorities. When one reads the revenue records there seems to be very little of any military concern and vice versa. For Cederlöf, the Survey of India officials in the early nineteenth century function as bridge between the two. Tippera king’s recalcitrance serves a similar historic function. It brings the two strands of settlement and conquest together. The district records bear testimony to this braiding. Returning to the narrative, the churning set in by Leeke was having its effect. George Thompson a judge of the Dewanny Adalat, the provincial civil court, wrote to William Holland the Chief of Dacca, It is two days since I had the pleasure of receiving your letter wherein you advised me to seize and confine Nyer Chowdry of Toroff, should I find him upon enquiry disposed to join the Rajah of Tippera against Mr. Leeke resident at Comillah as has been represented to you by him . . . I questioned one of his men who was apprehended a few days ago for theft and he assured me that it was really . . . intention to assist the rajah and that he has been assembled an armed force for that purpose upon . . . information and other intelligence which I received I ordered a party of sepoys to seize him as also his son which they effected and they are now here in confinement. The Jamader who commanded the party informs me that he found upwards of one hundred armed men within the walls of this house besides a number who were quartered in the jungle behind it some of the arms are taken and 78

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I am well convinced such a force was not entertained but with some evil intention 92 Nyer Chowdhury was one of the only people to be imprisoned in this entire episode. His capture was oddly a result of an accident. One of his men captured for a theft was asked to report on Nyer Chowdhury’s possible involvement in the Tripura raja’s barricading. The ‘truth’ of the preparations emerged from this ‘thief’. Based on his deposition, the zamindar and his son were incarcerated, while the parallel din of settlement droned around. This prologue, as it were, was a response to the potential violence of the Tippera king. Yet suspended in its potentiality, in the correspondences, this concern about violence was quickly replaced by a conversation about the logistics of settlement. How should the lowlands be settled with? What would be the function and role of the Tippera king in the settlements? Should he be given ‘compensation’? If yes how much? What should be the conditions? Were there enough ‘competent’ men within Tippera to be responsible for settlement? This was the second of the two definitive settlements that the plains of Tippera went through before 1793. The earlier one was in 1776. At the cusp of the Amini Commission, 93 initiated by Warren Hastings, a certain James Douglas Campbell had completed the 1776 settlement. But the 1780s settlement was decisive in the sense that it re-inscribed the relation between native state/hill and plains. Leeke wanted to get the settlement done as quickly as possible. Relegating the rajah’s recalcitrance to the background, Leeke insisted on the incompetence of the Rajah in conducting his affairs of the zamindari. Writing to David Anderson he remarked: The incapacity of the zamindar to improve the district is evident from the long course of years he has been in possession and the small revenue he has paid in proportion to the extent and capabilities . . . it has paid a revenue of 2,20,000 Rs but from the Bengal years 1167, 1760 C.E. (two years after the present zamindar was put in possession) to the year 74 (1167 is 1760) the settlement was from 100000 to 105000 that was not realized. In 74 a neeranna of 33,000 was added by Mr. Charlton then chief of Chittagong. The settlement always fell in arrears – yet the committee of circuit increased it to 55,3000, and there is now a balance of 22000 standing against the district account that settlement besides a claim of 50000 the security has upon it in the year 84 a deduction of 20k was given by order of the board and the settlement was made at 133000 which was continued and realized 79

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till the current year, when proposals were given in Calcutta by the nephew (RajdhurManikya) contrary to the express orders of the rajah at the excessive increase of 35 k which however was forwarded to consent to by the people about him when settlement was made at Dacca. 94 As a conclusion to this brief history of settlement, Leeke suggested that the management of the ‘province should be taken entirely out of his (rajah’s) hands allowing him an annual stipend to be paid monthly from his treasury.’ 95 A few words reiterating the relationship between conquest and settlement would not be out of place here. The military priority of the East India Company, as Cederlöf has pointed out, was to find a link to China through north-eastern Bengal. Sylhet was the point of access of these possible networks imagined by the EIC. There were two major trade routes – one through the Manipur hills the other through the Patkoi pass in Assam. Sylhet played a pivotal role in this military fantasy. The discrepancy between the military and revenue archives has to be understood in such a context. Tippera shared its northern boundaries with Sylhet. A series of complications around settlement in this region would emerge in the early nineteenth century (1820). For this section, I want to draw on Cederlöf’s insights and put it in the late-eighteenth-century context. The gap between the military and the revenue archive, important as the insight is, appears to be a function of the organisation of the archives. Such an organisation often occludes the violence that made the fable of settlement possible. The incident under discussion opens itself to such a reading. A linked issue that needs further historical research is the form of district limits created through such simultaneity. Through the nineteenth-century, districts, the fundamental unit of Bengal agrarian, would flounder around compactness. 96 In case of Tippera, district boundaries mutated into frontiers. By collecting shards of violence or potential violence around the late eighteenth century, certain district formation histories can be tied up to histories of frontiers. A few points emerge from the discussion in this section. First, there is an effect of mirroring of violent practices. ‘Ordinary’ agrarian violence associated with tax evasion, and the foundational violence of the conquest of Tippera, often, becomes difficult to distinguish. Thus, when the raja Krishna Manikya stopped remitting revenues to the Company government Tippera was subject to a coercive settlement. This settlement, effectively, (re)conquered Tripura by eking out its spatial location within an expanding Bengal agrarian frontier. This event was of course undergirded by the way Tippera 80

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had been conquered in 1761 as part of the foundational violence inaugurated through the Battle of Palashi (Plassey). Second, this mirroring reaches its limits when shadows of the ‘savage Kuki’ are cast over the revenue archives of the Bengal agrarian. Such a presence speaks against the logic of incommensurability that seems to organise the historiography of Bengal agrarian. The history of Bengal agrarian has been one of the settled cultivation. The glimpse of ‘savages’ in the world of the settled sully the insularities of this precinct. Third, the simultaneity of settlement and conquest violence points to the larger theoretical point argued by Rahul Govind. In the late eighteenth century when imperial conquest violence was organising its incipient Empires, it was also at the same translating it into discourses of calculation and legibility. 97 This transformation Michel Foucault traces in the new language of classical political economy. 98 In the early Company records, the distance between military and revenue departments gesture towards this. The conquest of Tippera at different levels emphasises the co-constitutive bonds between conquest and settlement. Finally, the links such an incident had with district formation forces us to recalibrate our histories of Districts as fundamental unit of agrarian organisation. The historical production of Tippera as revenue unit places a British District, the site of the agrarian and a princely state in the hills in one complex. This complex is important to reconfigure histories of frontier.

Coda Krishna Manikya and Rajdhar Manikya, his nephew, the two ‘wanted’ men remained at large for a while. In a year (1783), Krishna Manikya would be dead. Rajdhur Manikya, the ‘conniving’ nephew, would be incarcerated on suspicions of harbouring dacoits. Soon the suspicion would crystallise into allegations more profound; Rajdhur was a dacoit himself. Between Krishna Manikya’s death and Rajdhur Manikya’s incarceration, Rani Jahnavi, the princess regent was at the helm of the court. She tried to get her son (Rajdhur Manikya) in line of succession. David Ludden notes, Many people attached to Tripura, Cachar, and Jaintia rajas lived in eastern Nawabi domains, where locals rebuffed Company tax claims by citing their attachments to the rajas. To increase revenue, the Company sought to erase and subordinate claims by all these rajas to land in Company territory. Thus, when the Rani of Tripura asked the Tippera Collector to assist her son’s succession, the Collector obliged, and in return, secured a new boundary at the base of the hills, inducing the Raja to move his capital to 81

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Agartala. The Raja kept private landholdings in Tippera District, but by 1782, his royal authority had officially retreated to mountains east of Comilla. 99 The retreat of royal authority had much to do with the apparent act of defiance put up by the raja. More than the defiance itself, it was what the defiance produced that became crucial. We began the section with Ralph Leeke’s anxiety. It was indeed a productive anxiety that allowed a process of settlement and cleaving to come together. The zamindari was taken khas and separated; the hills produced simultaneously in an idiom of insulation. By 1793 when the zamindari was to be restituted, it was already encoded in a language of difference. 100 The Tripura raja’s last stand would be a beginning in more ways than one.

Notes 1 David Ludden, ‘The First Boundary of Bangladesh on Sylhet’s Northern Frontiers’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 26 June 2003. www. sas.upenn.edu/~dludden/JASB-Boundary.pdf (accessed on 12 September 2012). 2 Stuart Elden, The Birth of Territory, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2013. 3 There were a number of names circulating in this region: Tippera, Hill/ Independent Tippera, ChaklaRoshnabad all associated with certain forms of colonial administrative geographies. It is in 1920 that the hill state assumed the state nomenclature Tripura, the name of the present state in the Indian Union. I will be using Tippera, the colonial designation till the 1920s. It helps one straddle the two worlds of (a) a British district – a stated agrarian site legislatively within the Permanent Settlement and (b) a hill state – the precursor to the state that acceded to the Indian Union in the 1949. 4 Ibid. 5 Anandaroop Sen, ‘Sutured landscapes: The Making of an Imperial Frontier in Tripura’, in Melanie Vandenhelsken, Meenaxi Barkataki-Ruscheweyh and Bengt G. Karlsson (eds.), Geographies of Difference: Identity, Society and Landscape in Northeast India, London & New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 53–72. 6 W.H. Hunter, Statistical Account of the District of Tippera, Vol. VI, p. 356 downloaded from http://dspace.wbpublibnet.gov.in:8080/jspui/ (accessed on 12 September 2013). 7 http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/tripura-section144-gartala-curfew-twipra-land/ (accessed on 23 August 2016). 8 I should qualify this historiographical oversight. Van Schendel’s Bengal Borderlands deal with the politics of territorial division within a frame of partition. My work is to situate such a conversation in a longer history. Willem Van Schendel, Bengal Borderlands: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia, London: Anthem, 2005.

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9 Philip J. Stern, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and Early Modern Foundations of British India, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 10 Rahul Govind, ‘Revenue, rent . . . profit? Early British Imperialism, Political economy and the Search for a Differentia Specifica (inter se)’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 48, no. 2 (2011), pp. 177–213. 11 Warren Hastings had been in secret conversation with Mir Qasim to depose Mir Jaffar, the Nawab of Bengal after Siraj-ud-Daula’s defeat in the Battle of Palashi. Warren Hastings to Governor, no date. Add Mss 29132, f.110 p. 35, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London 12 Abdul Majed Khan, Bengal in Transition: 1757–1775, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 36–41. 13 In the frontier Mughal districts, the officers in charge were known as Faujdars. 14 His relationship had been fraught after Mir Qasim refused to appoint his brother at an important post. Abdul Majed Khan, Bengal in Transition: 1757–1775, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 36–41. 15 Ibid. 16 Ratnalekha Ray, Change in Bengal Agrarian Society: 1760–1850, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1979. 17 J.G. Cummings, Survey and Settlement of the ChaklaRoshnabad Estate in the District of Tippera and Noakhali, 1892–99, Agartala: Tripura State Tribal Research Institute and Museum, Reprint 1997[1899], for a brief history of the Chakla Roshnabad. 18 There had been disturbances in both Midnapore and Burdwan over this grant to the East India Company. The Company had to bring in troops to quell disturbances. The decision to station a body of troops in Chittagong reflected this experience and the anxiety EIC has regarding this new acquisition. 19 The Company was wary of Reza Khan’s reaction to the grant of the Chittagong jagir. It effectively meant the end of the faujadari of Chittagong. It would take a few months before Verelst would take up the faujdari duties but he was keen to get Reza Khan installed as the new faujdar of Tippera where he would disburse the revenue of Tippera to Murshidabad through the East India Company. Verelst sent a letter of recommendation with Khan to Murshidabad hoping to get this done. This was not to be. Mir Qasim did not want any such arrangement and a different faujdar for Tippera was put in place. 20 Majed Khan, Bengal in Transition, p. 39. 21 Bengal Board of Revenue Proceedings, P/98/10, Letter from Harry Verelst, Chief of Council at Chittagong to Henry Vansittart, Fort William dated 3rd January 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 22 Majed Khan, Bengal in Transition, pp. 36–41. 23 Bengal Board of Revenue Proceedings, P/98/10, Letter from Harry Verelst, Chief of Council at Chittagong to Henry Vansittart, Fort William dated 3rd January 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 24 Ibid.

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25 Strictly speaking, this was not new. Chittagong had been a contested site between the Mughal armies, Arakan kingdom and occasionally the Tripura Kings. Ralph Fitch an English traveller in the sixteenth century remarked on the extent of the Tripura kingdom deep into confines of Chittagong. John Horton Ryley, Ralph Fitch, England’s Pioneer to India and Burma: His Companions and Contemporaries, With His Remarkable Narrative Told in His Own Words, London: T. F. Unwin, 1899. 26 Bengal Board of Revenue Proceedings, P/98/10, Letter from Harry Verelst, Chief of Council at Chittagong to Henry Vansittart, Fort William dated 3rd January 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 27 David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years, New York: Melville House, 2011. 28 Ibid., p. 5. 29 Ratnalekha Ray, Change in Bengal Agrarian Society: 1760–1850, New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1979. 30 Translation mine. Kailash Chandra Singha, Rajmala Ba Tripurar IIttibritto, Akhananda, Agartala: Barnamala Prakashani, 1984 Reprint (1897), p. 132. 31 Henry Verelst Collection, F/218, Letter from Lieutenant John Mathews to Henry Vereslt, 28th February 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 32 Henry Verelst Collection, F/218, Lieutenant Mathews to Harry Verelst, 4th March 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 33 Bengal Board of Revenue Proceedings, P/98/10, From Harry Vereslt to Henry Vansittart, Fort William, 6th March 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 34 Ibid. 35 For instance among many others a Portuguese De Barros is described as along with other ‘black jamadar (sic)’ who ‘oppressed the natives of the country’. See Letters dated 21st, 22nd and 28th February 1761, from Lieutenant John Mathews to Harry Verelst, for descriptions of some of these characters. Henry Verelst Collection, F/218, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 36 Ibid. 37 Bengal Board of Revenue Proceedings, P/98/10, From Harry Vereslt to Henry Vansittart, Fort William, 6th March 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 38 For a long-term historical perspective on settlement of this part see Richard Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760, Berkley: University of California Press, 1993. 39 Chandra Singha, Rajmala Ba Tripurar IIttibritto, Akhananda, p.  130. Indrani Chatterjee, Forgotten Friends: Monks, Marriages, and Memories of North-East India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014, p. 84. 40 Kailash Chandra Singha, Rajmalaba Tripurar Itihash, Agartala: Akshar Publications, 2014. Reprint (1897), p. 84.

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41 Henry Verelst Collection, F/218, From Mathews to Vereslt, 4th March 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Henry Verelst Collection, F/218, From Mathews to Vereslt, 25th February 1761, Asian and African Collections (formerly Oriental & India Office Collections), the British Library, London. 45 Chatterjee, Forgotten Friends, p. 84. 46 Chandra Singha, Rajmalaba Tripurar Itihash, p. 84. 47 Partha Chatterjee, ‘Outrage in Calcutta’, in The Black Hole of Empire: History of a Global Practice of Power, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, pp. 1–32. 48 Shekhar Bandhapadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2004. 49 See H. Bowen for a short bio of Robert Clive. www.britishonlinearchives. co.uk/9781851171859.php (Accessed on 12 September 2015). 50 On one side, a set of historians argue for a continuity thesis, the foremost practitioner of such a view would be P.J. Marshall, Bengal – The British Bridgehead: Eastern India 1740–1828, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. There are more Indian historians interestingly, who argue for a ‘rupture’ that as the Company. For a summary of these positions, see C.A. Bayly, ‘British Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance 1750–1820’, in Lawrence Stone (ed.), An Imperial State at War: Britain From 1689–1850, London: Routledge, pp. 322–354. Moving ahead from this debate recent works try to calibrate transformation in different ways. For an appraisal of the idea of sovereignty as it circulated in the early year of the Company, where different figures diverse as Warren Hastings and Edmund Burke shared some notion of Mughal sovereignty, even in its ‘despotic form’, Robert Travers argues that by the end of the eighteenth century such notions of Mughal sovereignty were debunked completely. Robert Travers, Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth Century India, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 51 The divide as I take up is between a set of historians who argue for a continuity thesis, the foremost historian with such a view would be P.J. Marshall, Bengal – The British Bridgehead: Eastern India 1740–1828, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. There are more Indian historians, interestingly, who argue for a ‘rupture’ that as the Company. For a summary of these positions see C.A. Bayly, ‘British Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance 1750–1820’, in Lawrence Stone (ed.), An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689–1850, London: Routledge, pp. 322–354. Moving ahead from this debate recent works try to calibrate transformation in different ways. For an appraisal of the idea of sovereignty as it circulated in the early year of the Company, where different figures diverse as Warren Hastings and Edmund shared some notion of Mughal sovereignty, even in its ‘despotic form’, Robert Travers argues that by the end of the eighteenth century such notions of Mughal sovereignty was debunked completely. Robert Travers, Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth Century India, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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52 As a suggestion to account for the relationship, Bayly identifies two features that the Company state shared with British state: (a) administrative accountancy and (b) ideology of a transcendent law and sovereignty. See John Brewer, Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783, New York: Knopf, 1989, for an elaborate notion of weak metropolitan state. 53 James Lees, ‘Retrenchment, Reform, and Practice of Military Fiscalism in the Early East India Company State’, in Sophus Reinert and Pernille Roge (eds.), Political Economy of the Early Modern, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 54 Gunnel Cederlöff, Founding and Empire in India’s North-Eastern Frontiers 1790–1840: Climate, Commerce, Polity, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 162. 55 Sanghamitra Mishra’s work on the Goalpara District of Assam argues against any stark distinctions between autonomous and Mughal territories. Sanghamitra Mishra, Becoming a Borderland: The Politics of Space and Identity in Colonial North Eastern India, London and New York: Routledge, 2011. 56 Jon E. Wilson, Domination of Strangers: Modern Governance in Eastern India, 1780–1835, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014. 57 Jon E. Wilson, ‘A Thousand Countries to Go: Peasants and Rulers in Late Eighteenth Century Bengal’, Past and Present, vol. 189 (November 2005), pp. 81–109. 58 Wilson argues that otherwise violence was very much a part of the Bengal agrarian world. In a labour deficit scenario, with more land to cultivate than labour available in eighteenth-century Bengal, physical violence was a part of the negotiations between peasants and landlords. Jon E. Wilson, ‘Thousand Countries to Go’. 59 Narhari Kaviraj, A Peasant Uprising in Bengal 1783: The First Formidable Peasant Uprising against the Rule of East India Company, New Delhi: Peoples Publishing House, 1972. Ranajit Guha’s fascinating work in this respect was a reaction against European British Marxist tendencies to treat peasant resistance as ‘pre-political’. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in India, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Also see Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movements in the 19th and 20th Centuries, New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1965. 60 For an interesting treatment of the ‘Fakir Sannyasi’ Rebellion see Atis K. Dasgupta, The Fakir Sannyasi Uprisings, Calcutta: K.P. Bagchi, 1992. Also J.R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship in Eighteenth Century Bengal, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 61 Sudipta Sen, Empire of Free Trade: The East India Company and the Making of the Market Place, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1998. 62 Comilla District Records, Volume 1, Sirajul Islam (ed.) (Letter from Ralph Leeke, Resident of Tippera to John Shakespear, Chief of Dacca, dated 16th May 1780), Dhaka: The Institute of Liberation Bangabandhu and Bangladesh Studies, 2000, p. 34. 63 Comilla District Records, Volume 1, Sirajul Islam (ed.) (Letter from Ralph Leeke, Resident of Tippera, to Alexander Duncansan, Judge of Adawlut at Dacca, dated 19th May 1782), Dhaka: The Institute of Liberation Bangabandhu and Bangladesh Studies, 2000, p. 53.

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64 Ibid. 65 Ibid. 66 Comilla District Records, Volume 1, Sirajul Islam (ed.) (Letter From John Buller, Resident of Tippera to John Stables, President of the Board of Revenue at Calcutta, dated 31st July 1786), p. 137. 67 Ibid., p. 137. 68 Ibid., p. 140. 69 Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Culture: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 150. 70 Most literature on ‘dacoity’ in Bengal focuses on mid-nineteenth century. For another perspective, see Anand Yang’s ‘Bandits and Kings: Moral Authority and Resistance in Early Colonial India’, The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 66, no. 4 (November 2007), pp. 881–896. 71 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (Letter from R. Leeke, Resident at Tippera to Richard Sumner, Collector of Chittagong, dated 19th July 1779), p. 27. 72 David Ludden, ‘The First Boundary of Bangladesh on Sylhet’s Northern Frontiers’, Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengladesh. www.sas.upenn. edu/~dludden/JASB-Boundary.pdf, Gunnel Cederlöf, Founding and Empire on India’s North-Eastern Frontiers, 1790–1840: Climate, Commerce, Polity, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013. 73 Comilla District Records, Volume 1, (Letter from Ralph Leeke, Resident of Tippera to Richard Sumner, Collector of Chittagong, dated 19th July 1779), p. 27. 74 Ralph Leeke was the first Resident of the Tippera, assistant to the Chief at Chittagong, he was effectively resident of the strip known as Chakla Roshnabad. In later descriptions such as of J.G. Cummings, Survey of Chakla Roshnabad, J.E. Webster’s gazetteer, the princely state of Tippera designated the composite of the Raja’s possession in the hills and ChaklaRoshnabad. 75 George Simmel ‘The Stranger’ – ‘Throughout history of economics the stranger appears as the trader, or the trader as the stranger’. www.wattis. org/MEDIA/00413.pdf, p. 1 (Accessed on 12 June 2015). 76 Ibid., p. 12. 77 Ibid. 78 Ranajit Guha, ‘Not at Home in Empire’, Critical Inquiry, vol. 23, no. 3, Front Lines/Border Posts (Spring 1997), pp. 482–493. 79 Renisa Mawani, Colonial Proximities: Cross Racial Encounters and Juridical Truths in British Columbia, 1871–1921, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, p. 14. 80 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (From Ralph Leeke, Resident of Tippera to William Molland, Chief of Dacca, dated 17th January 1782), p. 38. 81 Ibid. 82 Revenue Department Governor-General in Council (Bengal) 4th to 25th July 1775, letter no. 614, West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata. 83 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (From Ralph Leeke to Richard Sumner, dated 18th January 1780), p. 40. 84 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (Letter from Ralph Leeke to Davi Anderson, President, Committee of Revenue at Fort William, dated 19th January 1782), pp. 40–41.

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85 For an interesting alternative reading of the term Kuki outside the purview of English language records and placed within a frame of monastic governance, see Indrani Chatterjee, Forgotten Friends, p. 111. 86 Michael Taussig, My Cocaine Museum, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 87 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (From John Shore and Charles Croftes, Revenue Committee Calcutta to Ralph Leeke, dated 28th January 1782), p. 42. 88 Ibid. 89 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (From John Shore and Charles Croftes, Revenue Committee Calcutta to Ralph Leeke, dated 30th January 1782), p. 43. 90 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (From Ralph Leeke to David Anderson, President, Committee of Revenue at Fort William, dated 4th February 1782), p. 45. 91 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (Letter from Ralph Leeke to David Anderson, President of Committee of Revenue at Fort William, dated 5th February 1782), p. 45. 92 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (Ralph Leeke to William Holland, Chief of Dacca, dated 9th February 1782), p. 45. 93 T.R. Travers, ‘The Real Value of the Lands: The Nawabs, the British and the Land Tax in Eighteenth-Century Bengal’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (July 2004), pp. 517–558. 94 Comilla District Records, Volume 1 (Letter from Ralph Leeke to David Anderson, President, Committee of Revenue at Fort William, dated 17th March 1782), pp. 49–50. 95 Ibid. 96 Bernardo Michael, ‘Making Territory Visible: The Revenue Surveys of Colonial South Asia’, Imago Mundi, vol. 59, no. 1, (2007), pp. 78–95. 97 Mary Poovey, A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998; Genres of Credit Economy: Mediating Value in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Britain, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008. 98 Michel Foucault, Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences, New York: Routledge, 1970, pp. 250–300. 99 Ludden, ‘The First Boundary of Bangladesh’, p. 145. 100 This difference was established in the British courts through a series of litigations over the right to the Tippera throne in the early nineteenth century. This is something I have addressed in my dissertation. Anandaroop Sen, ‘Tales of Territoriality, Practices of Region Making: North Eastern Frontier of Colonial India, c. 1761–1895’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2016.

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3 THE ARTERIES OF EMPIRE Routes, people and mobility in colonial Naga Hills (1850s–1920s) Lipokmar Dzüvichü

Writing to Ashley Eden, Secretary to Government of Bengal, in October 1865, Colonel Henry Hopkinson described the Naga frontier as, ‘a country void of roads, void of supplies, a country of interminable hills, of vast swamps covered with dense forests’. 1 As the new Agent to the Governor General, North East Frontier, Colonel Hopkinson underlined the challenges confronting the British government along the Naga frontier. In his letter to Ashley Eden, Hopkinson further noted that in this ‘ocean of wilderness’, it would be impossible to defend the frontier ‘against a foe for whom hill and swamp and forest are resources rather than obstacles’. 2 In Hopkinson’s assessment, the Naga Hills represented a ‘wild’, inaccessible and hostile landscape beyond the reach of colonial authority. Resolving this enduring ‘absence’ of roads was crucial if colonial officials were to ‘open up’ the hills and push modern ideas of ‘progress’ into the Naga Hills. Accordingly, Hopkinson outlined a policy to be pursued by the political officer of the Naga Hills: ‘He would advance step by step, yearly opening out a good road as he went, never getting in advance of the road, and never in advance of ground he was not sure of, until he reached the very centre of the most thickly populated part of the country.’ 3 This interesting narrative illustrates how the presumed absence of ‘roads’ was seen as an important obstacle for the colonial state in controlling a far-flung and difficult frontier. The ‘lack’ of roads also constituted an important marker in characterising the Naga Hills as a space located outside of ‘civilisation’. A pressing concern for the colonial state was to resolve this ‘tyranny of remoteness’. Making roads, in the view of colonial officials like Hopkinson, would not only ‘open up’ the hills. It would also enable the extension of state presence and domesticate the ‘savage’ frontier. It would also eventually effectuate and ‘improve’

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mobility in the hills, a perceived hallmark of colonial progress, which has hitherto remained static and isolated. This chapter examines the making of the ‘modern’ arteries of empire in the Naga Hills and the various encounters and interactions that ensued along these land routes. A focus on roads could contribute in understanding the contexts and the different moments in which ‘modern’ infrastructure projects were deployed or used to justify imperial agendas. It could also provide us a broader picture on the complex processes through which routes shaped the nature of relationship between the colonial state, territory and societies in the Naga Hills. A focus on routes also reveals how a complex network of paths, trade passes and corridors, etc. have historically facilitated the circulation of people, goods and ideas in the hills. In turn, these processes have long linked the hills with other wider geographies and networks of circulation and exchange practices. Exploring these linkages and connections is crucial to understand other complex processes of diffusion and adaptation of goods and ideas in the hills. Moreover, examining these forms of mobility and connections dispel colonial notion of representing the hills as containing static or immobile societies. 4 While roads constituted powerful and strategic component in colonial territorialising process, it also forged and channelled new forms of mobility and linkages. In the process, it altered or disrupted other existing forms of mobility in the region. Control over mobility and territoriality were hence crucial aspects of imperial road projects. In this enterprise, colonial officials also relied on the role of intermediaries who aided officials to travel across the hills and enforce colonial authority. Road building further constituted violent spaces, which were connected to regimes of forced labour, surveillance and taxation. The making of ‘modern’ roads also created conditions for a variety of actors to travel and move along the hill routes. For instance, labours, traders, soldiers, itinerant groups, etc. travelled to the hill tracts to pursue various interests and enterprise. Along with the movement of people, a range of goods and ideas also circulated through the network of routes. At times, some of the activities, practices and commodities in transit were deemed ‘illegal’ or ‘unlawful’ by the colonial state. This chapter will examine these various forms of travel, mobility and circulation in the hills and how imperial projects – of transport and mobility – were often mediated and shaped through contestation, negotiation and appropriation by the people in the Naga Hills.

Knowing the routes On 8 April 1865, seven people of ‘a Meekir family in Mouzah Rungkang’ were reportedly murdered, including eight badly wounded, ‘by a war party 90

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of Augamee Nagas’. The strength of the ‘war party’ was assumed to be about thirty strong. 5 Reporting on the incident to Colonel Hopkinson, on 21 April 1865, Lieutenant John Gregory, Assistant Commissioner, North Cachar, remarked, ‘I have little doubt that this party as well as the former one came down the Langphor River.’ This route, according to Lieutenant Gregory, had been ‘left open’ following the withdrawal of the Thannah ‘since the Cossyah rebellion’. 6 To prevent any future ‘outrages’ by the Angamis and ‘to reassure the villagers in the neighborhood’, Gregory recommended the setting up of ‘a small stockade and establish a guard at the Langphor Mookh’. He also proposed to enlist ten Cacharie Beldars to be stationed ‘at Keranee to keep the road open between that station and the new guard’. 7 This incident highlights certain important aspects of the limitations and difficulties of policing the Naga frontier by colonial officials. Apart from logistical constraints, knowledge of the hill routes was often limited or unavailable. The lack of information and knowledge of the routes and geography also posed serious problems for frontier officials in manoeuvring military excursions in the frontier. They also underestimated the problems of engaging with a resourceful adversary for whom the topography, rather than a barrier, afforded an important advantage for travel and to engage in other forms of mobile practices. In such a context, earlier colonial attempts to interdict travels between the hills and the plains further appeared impracticable. A series of measures were subsequently proposed by colonial officials, with the intention to control ‘raids’ and ensure ‘order’ along the ‘wild’ frontier. This proceeded by way of creating a surveillance structure and placing significance on knowing the routes. The British initially setup a series of military outposts in the foothills, especially in the vicinity of the duars or passes used by the Nagas during their journeys down to the plains. 8 An enlisted force consisting ‘entirely of hill-men, Cacharies, Kookies, Garas, and Nepalese’ were posted at the outposts. 9 Units from this enlisted force guarded the areas around these passes to check any suspicious ‘raiding’ party from the hills. In this surveillance scheme, a body of twenty ‘Kookie scouts’ was attached to these police posts. The ‘sole duty’ of these Kookies was to scout ‘the jungle round Sumoogoodting and Dhemapore and keeping it and the road between those posts clear of prowling parties of Angamis’. 10 Apart from reconnoitring duty, these ‘Kookie scouts’ were deployed ‘in discovering the various secret passes by which the Angami descend into the plains’. Collecting and producing information on these ‘secret passes’ was strategically crucial as Gregory noted how knowledge on such routes is ‘at present greatly deficient’. 11 It was through these strategies that colonial officials soon learnt how during their trading journeys to the markets in the plains, the Angamis travelled through ‘the passes commanded by the villages of 91

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Sumoogoodting, Setekemah, and Tesepemah’. From the Cacharies, Gregory also learned the existence of ‘at least one “thief’s path” which does not run through any of these villages’. 12 It was in this process of assembling information that some of the frequented routes connecting the hills to the plains gradually became familiar and ‘legible’ to the colonial state. The effort to know the frontier routes was also accompanied by the creation of new administrative structures along important junctions in the frontier. For instance, in November 1866, Samaguting, a military outpost, was constituted as the British administrative headquarters of the newly created Naga Hills district. 13 The selection of Samaguting was a calculated choice. Located at the edge of the foothills, Samaguting sat astride one of the principal trade route between the Nowgong district and the Angami country. 14 From this important station, British authorities began to monitor and orchestrate forays inside the Naga Hills. In the frontier surveillance structure, British officials also formulated a key strategy to monitor travel in the frontier. This scheme was conceived in the form of a ‘pass system’. Introduced in 1867 by Lieutenant Gregory, the DC of the Naga Hills, this scheme made it mandatory for ‘all Angami Nagas visiting the plains of Assam’, to obtain a pass at Samaguting from the DC. 15 In this way, the pass system would enable officials to collect ‘correct’ information on the nature of trade carried on by the Angamis since ‘all trading parties to Assam from the Angami Naga country must pass through Samoogoodting on their way down to the plains.’ Such a system would also aid officials to identify suspected parties involved ‘in cases of outrages’. 16 This documentation system thus sought to keep a track on certain mobile practices along the Naga frontier. In the process, this pass system came to function as an important tool of surveillance and tactic of governance in the frontier. 17 The movement of people between the hills and the plains was further placed under new forms of colonial surveillance with the invention of the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation in 1873. 18 This new regulation not only reinforced the existing pass system. It also put in place strict regulatory measures whereby people travelling down from the hills as well as British subjects moving up from the plains were now prohibited from crossing the ‘inner line’ without a pass. The frontier police posted at the outposts were directed to detain any suspicious person coming without a pass. 19 A ‘register’ was further maintained at the outposts, ‘showing the number of persons who have passed towards the plains’. 20 To ensure tighter working of this scheme, C.A. Elliott, the Chief Commissioner of Assam, suggested that the District Superintendent in the Plains ‘should communicate to the District Superintendent, Naga Hills to see if the number of passes given by him corresponds with the number of Angamis visiting the plains’. 21 Such 92

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documentation practices were then deemed crucial to make the Nagas and their movements more visible to the government. 22 An important strategy of the inner line was also aimed to secure the interest of capital, especially by way of constantly moving the lines. In fact, it was closely bound up in rationalising the drives of global capital along the frontier geographies. 23 The Bengal regulation was thus mobilised by the British to not only reconfigure spatial relations and control access to resources, but also stringently regulate what could go up and come down from the hills. In the process, the inner line changed the meaning of everyday travel and mobility – of people and goods – in the Naga frontier. Colonial surveillance mechanisms along the frontier was however not always workable. In fact, the surveillance system was often ruptured by the Nagas as well as by various other actors operating in the region. Avoiding the military posts, the Nagas often travelled into the plains, to either trade or at times, striking the British plantations and settlements in the plains. 24 Attempts to pursue suspected ‘raiding’ parties often proved futile, since frontier officials often lacked crucial information on the interior hill routes. On one such occasion, the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar reports, the police loaded and followed them up the Asalu road for about two miles, when the Angamis suddenly turned off into a path leading to the left. They then fired in the direction the Angamis had gone and marched back to Asalu. 25 The ability of the Nagas to circumvent the colonial policing apparatus was largely facilitated by the presence of a vibrant network of ‘Naga paths’. Well adapted to local conditions these networks of bridle paths and transvillage tracks connected the hills with Cachar, Sibsagar, Manipur and the eastern region, including Burma. As the District Gazetteer records, these routes were used ‘by groups of tribal immigrants, as well as the traders, warriors and ambassadors’. 26 It is important to point out here that the existence of such networks of pathways and the range of mobile practices stands in stark contrast to the colonial representation of the hills as a remote and inaccessible space. In fact, these complex networks of routes, spread over numerous bridle paths, were often appropriated by the Nagas as escape routes, especially in their encounter with colonial authority. Moreover, it was along these routes that various forms of mobility intersected, which ranged from the everyday travel to practices such as trade, migration, raids, war and invasion, etc. apart from sustaining various agrarian practices. By the 1870s, as the colonial state turned its attention to extend its authority deeper inside the hill areas, it had to often negotiate and work through these networks of paths. 93

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If colonial initiatives such as collecting information on the hill routes and regulating mobility in the frontier through a surveillance structure constituted important strategies to enforce imperial authority along the Naga frontier. British officials were also aware of the fact that protecting the imperial frontier and the economic interest of the raj in the foothills would eventually hinge on securing unrestricted access into the interior hill tracts. Imperial expansion would thus gradually edge forward through a variety of means and practices, one of which involved pushing a policy of ‘modern’ road construction into the hills. For the empire to climb the hills, it required a ‘modern’ foundational space to justify colonial intervention; introducing new ‘modern’ networks of roads provided that crucial rationale.

Making ‘modern’ roads From its inception in 1866, improving infrastructures of mobility around Samaguting came to constitute an important undertaking for colonial officials. Roads were essential for everyday administration as well as facilitating the movement of political officers, armies police, etc. They were required both for the maintenance of colonial ‘order’ and also to advance colonial notion of ‘progress’. Initially, attention was placed on the importance of creating road linkages between Samaguting and Golaghat, the nearest station in the plains. Two means of communication linking Samaguting with Golaghat were subsequently identified: ‘one by water down the River Dhunsiri; the other by a road along its banks’. 27 In pushing forward the scheme, Lieutenant Gregory placed importance on opening the portion of the road, which connected Samaguting to Dimapur, the nearest landing place for laden boats on the Dhunsiri. Thirteen miles in length, this route was considered significant for the administration, especially to bring in ‘stores, heavy baggage’s, & c’. The cost of constructing this road was estimated at the rate of Rs. 100 per mile with labour enlisted from Sibsagar and Nowgong. With abundant timber around the station, Lieutenant Gregory also pushed for bridging the streams on the route. Besides, rest houses or ‘Namghurs’ were planned along the route ‘for the accommodation of guards, dakwallahs, and travelers passing backwards and forwards’. 28 This policy of connectivity was an important element in strengthening colonial presence around the new administrative headquarters. By November 1873, this important Golaghat–Samaguting road was constructed, linking the station headquarter at Samaguting with Assam. 29 In addition, two other roads were planned to connect Dimapur with Cachar, Manipur and Burma. By constructing these access routes, James Johnstone, the Political Agent of Naga Hills was confident that ‘in time Dimapoor might become the 94

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central emporium of commerce between these countries.’ 30 In laying out these new road networks, colonial officials not only underlined the political imperative of establishing a durable communication network and increasing connectivity across frontier geographies. It also set in motion the gradual integration of the Naga Hills into the evolving colonial communication grid in the region. From Samaguting, access routes and linkages began to gradually spread out. In 1873, the Administration Report records the complete repairing of the Samaguting – Hurriojan road. Widened out to eighteen feet, work along this road involved clearing heavy timber and rooting out the tree stumps. Bridges were repaired with adjar, ‘the best wood procurable’. Improving and broadening the hill portion of this road also eased two people to ride abreast for half of the distance. 31 In this emergent infrastructural enterprise, the new bridle path to Piphema was considered as ‘a great gain in every way’. 32 It would not only attract trade and labour, but also allow officials ‘to reach the highlands without much difficulty’. By way of extending this route, it was further intended to connect Sachemah in the Angami country. 33 New colonial roads were thus seen as altering and shrinking the temporal distance between the administrative station and the localities in the hills. In 1874, an important addition to the colonial road system was the 40-mile Samaguting–Kohima bridle path, which was completed and declared open for trade. 34 ‘Well fitted for baggage ponies’, this route was seen as ‘invaluable to traders’. With the completion of this route, the Administration Report of 1874 confidently stated that communication along this part of the hill country was now well opened out. The report further remarked, ‘if sufficient money be sanctioned, all the principal villages will be connected’. 35 The making and extension of new roads slowly and gradually began to draw various localities within the colonial ‘civilising’ agenda. Along these imperial arteries, new forms of ‘modern’ mobility and practices came to be channelled. As a mesh of roads slowly moved up the hills, the landscape in the Naga Hills became crucial sites for transforming and enacting colonial power. For instance, the new roads developed by the colonial state in the Naga Hills came to be represented as ‘political paths’. 36 Government regulations were accordingly laid out for people to follow while travelling along these political paths. Thus, colonial regulation ‘prohibited fighting in “political highways” ’. In 1878, Lt. H. Maxwell, officiating Political officer, Naga Hills, declared that, ‘any interference with people on peaceful errands on the political path between Samaguting and Wokha will be visited with severe punishment.’ 37 Considering the instances of fights and raids committed on the political path, Captain W. J. Williamson, IGP, Assam, stated that ‘the sacredness of this road is a new doctrine which is hardly impressed 95

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on the Angami mind that is the via sacra of the Naga hills.’ 38 ‘A small fine’, remarked Williamson was, ‘the best punishment for their outrage on the via sacra which after all was not of great importance’. 39 Roads, thus, became important sites to ‘discipline’ the natives to colonial forms of ‘order’. It signified and underlined the coming of a new political authority in the hills. Besides, the ‘new doctrine’ associated with the political paths also began to represent and institutionalise political power by introducing penalisation in the everyday consciousness of the Nagas. While colonial ‘civilising’ enterprise characterised the infrastructural expansion, construction of new roads in the Naga Hills was also often the outcome of violent encounters. This was primarily manifested in a series of punitive military expeditions organised by the colonial government against ‘refractory’ Naga villages during the nineteenth century. In fact, many of the roads in the Naga Hills were built during moments of violent conflicts. ‘From 5th to 12th of February, all hands were hard at work opening out the several roads and building bridges over the Tevai, Tising and Dilli rivers’, reported Captain John Butler, the Political Agent of the Naga Hills, in 1875. This road-making exercise was executed during the military campaigns against the Namsang and Borduar Nagas. 40 Sappers and Miners were also deployed in clearing portions of the Samaguting–Dimapur road by ‘blasting the large immovable boulders’ and making the road passable during the Mezoma expedition of 1878. 41 In another instance, the Golaghat–Kohima road was ‘repaired and constructed’ during the Anglo-Naga war of 1879–1880. Sixteen years later, Colonel James Johnstone recall the construction of this road in his book My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills: ‘I began to make this road during the Naga Hills campaign of 1879–1880, and it has been since regularly used’. 42 Punitive expeditions not only facilitated the coercive subjugation of the ‘wild tribes’. It also allowed the colonial state strategic openings to physically expand access and extend the geographical knowledge of the territory. Constructing roads during such turbulent moments also tactically ensured access to new territories, while becoming visible symbols of state penetration and its reach into the hills. The extension of colonial rule into the Angami country after the close of the Anglo-Naga war of 1879–1880 set in motion a series of infrastructural measures in the hills. 43 The making of Kohima as the new British administrative centre of the Naga Hills began to proceed with new vigour. In this initiative, apart from erecting administrate infrastructures, the plan to connect Kohima and making it accessible to other outlying areas through a series of road projects emerged as an important agenda. 44 Originating from Kohima, these roads once built sought to furnish the British a more pervasive web of access into the surrounding areas. Assessing the state of 96

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infrastructural development in the Naga Hills in 1883, Colonel R. C. Low, Deputy Commanding General Transport, excitedly declared that, ‘once completed the whole road from Nichuguard to Kohima will be quite equal to the best of the many excellent hill roads which traverses Kumaon and British Garwal.’ 45 Plans were also framed, which emphasised on keeping important routes open throughout the year. With this intention, a proposed wire suspension bridge over the Doyang on the Kohima–Wokha– Golaghat road sought ‘to keep the route open all the year round’. 46 In 1883–1884, a series of bridle paths were constructed connecting Kohima to various parts of the hills. These routes included Kohima–Chichema– Mao (12 miles), Kohima–Mao (23 miles), Kohima–Jotsoma (6 miles) and Kohima–Themokotsoma–Lazami (7 miles). 47 The making of these new road networks not only suggest the gradual intrusion of the colonial state upon local autonomy and control over access to roads. They also importantly signified the colonial state increasing assertion and control over the road regime in the Naga Hills. By July 1885, the cart road linking Nichugard with Dimapur and Golaghat was reported to be ‘greatly improved’. By extending this cart road up to Kohima, in place of the existing bridle path, E. Stack, the Officiating Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Assam, hoped that it, ‘would be an immense boon to this district’. 48 Improving access routes in the hills was then perceived as an important tool of transformation. With the completion of the Kohima–Khonoma road, R. B. McCabe, DC, Naga Hills, celebrated the fact that ‘the Nagas have completely abandoned their old paths with their steep ascents and descents, and taken to the more level lines laid out by the engineer.’ 49 These ‘civilising’ works were also conceived to take the people beyond their ‘isolated’ villages and familiarise them to the new colonial administrative centre, Kohima. To put into practice this new colonial initiative, inhabitants from the neighbouring areas were now instructed to travel to Kohima to present their complaints and petitions to the DC. In 1887, following a tour in the Ao Naga country, A. E. Porteous, the DC of Naga Hills thus fixed the ‘further hearing of the case’ filed by Nunkum people at Kohima. The rationale was that since ‘no Ao’s had ever hitherto visited Kohima’, such a measure will ‘familiarize the Nunkum people with Kohima and the road thither’. 50 Along with roads, the modern postal network also took shape. Writing about the progress of the postal system in the Naga Hills, McCabe notes, ‘It now takes two days from Golghat to Kohima; a tri-weekly post is maintained with Lozema and Wokha and a weekly one with Manipur.’ 51 Relays of dak runners facilitated the circulation of news, letters, information, etc. to the various localities in the frontier. 52 Moving along the hill routes, the dak runners came to play a crucial role in linking the various social worlds 97

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of the colonial officials. In the process, the dak runners sustained the modern postal system in the hills. They also emerged as a vital communication link between the bureaucratic apparatus operating in the periphery and the imperial metropole. 53 Operating from Kohima, the British Empire began to spread its tentacles further inside the Naga Hills. 54 Every expansion was accompanied by their focus on the development of important networks of communication. This would in turn become nodes and avenues in channelling colonial power and managing its new territory. For instance, in April 1890, A. Porteous, the DC of Naga Hills, expressed his delight on travelling ‘for the first time’ by the new bridle path connecting Wokha to the new British subdivision Mokokchung. Covering a distance of 17 miles, this new bridle path was reported to be ‘in good order’ enabling Porteous to ride ‘comfortably’, while also allowing the ‘coolies’ to travel ‘easily in a few hours what would a year ago meant a good two days march, capable of being done on foot only’. Porteous also planned to develop the important Sanigaon–Wokha route. Strategically, developing this route would provide an, ‘alternative line of communication’ between Golaghat to Kohima, especially during rains. 55 The Mangrung to Mokokchung bridle path, which ‘passes outside the large Ao village of Ungma’, including the Mokokchung–Moriani road were considered to be other important routes for communication and traffic. 56 A primary motive for developing the Mokokchung–Moriani road was to enable the British to fetch supplies and stores from Jorhat to Mokokchung, rather than the existing Golaghat route. 57 Improving access routes were as such tactically oriented to serve and support faster connections into the hills. Besides, with the extension of colonial authority, routes such as the Wokha–Mokokchung route, which was earlier considered ‘insecure’ to travel, were considered a thing of the past, and that military escorts were now deemed ‘quite unnecessary’. 58 Roads then became an important colonial symbol of ‘taming’ a territory, which was otherwise seemingly marked by constant state of anarchy and disorder. It was along these routes that colonial notion of modern governance travelled and was subsequently introduced into the Naga Hills. While colonial communication networks steadily advanced into the hills, constructing roads over the landscape also became important sites for asserting other practices of the modern. In this regard, constructing ‘modern’ roads was seen as dependent on the indispensable role and supervision of the ‘progressive’ colonial officer. Such a view was based on the fundamental belief that Europeans embodied superior reasoning and knowledge skills; it was this perception, which came to be particularly enacted over the hill topography where roads were being built. For instance, in May 1876, P. T. Carnegy, the Political Agent, Naga Hills, reports that ‘the road between 98

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Golaghat–Wokha have not been well executed owing evidently to the unavailable want of European supervision.’ 59 The standard of executing road works were hence measured, judged and depended on the European supervision. On the other hand, the supervision by colonial officials was deemed crucial considering the complications involved in executing road making. For example, in April 1876, J. F. Needham, the Assistant Political Agent, Naga Hills, expressed his anguish at the overseer’s work whose supervision was not considered good and satisfactory while ‘opening [the] new road to Wokha’. 60 Thus, writing on the work carried out by the Assamese ‘Tikadar’ on the Wokha road, Needham reports that, ‘one great fault . . . is that from the beginning to end almost the work has been slurred over’. ‘It has been vilely done’, observed an exasperated Needham. 61 Following this inspection, Needham instructed the Overseer to reduce the ‘tikadars’ contract rates. The Overseer in turn ‘complained bitterly’ against the Assamese and the Goorkha coolies who carried out the work accusing them as ‘useless for road making’. 62 Notwithstanding the doubtful nature of such charges, colonial emphasis on frequent official supervision and rational ideas about techniques of ‘modern’ road making came to influence the way roads were conceived, built and maintained in the hills. Repairs and renovation of roads also became symbols of legitimising political control. It provided the basis to assert that the hills were ‘domesticated’ and no longer ‘wild’. The figure of the district officer travelling and inspecting road repairs, supervision, constructing and maintaining roads in the hill district became a powerful imagery of colonial authority and mobility. For example, Colonel James Johnstone observed that, ‘much of the time of the district officer is taken up in superintending the works’. 63 The indefatigable colonial official travelling and supervising the repairs and road making in the hills constituted an important manifestation of the colonial ‘civilising’ enterprise and as such, were highly approved and commended. ‘In February and March, Mr. Needham made five trips into the Hills to superintend the road work’, reported Carnegy, the Political Agent. These supervisions and inspections, according to Colonel Johnstone, meant that, ‘life was never monotonous’. He further writes, ‘I took long walks, after our morning walk around the hill, to inspect roads and bridges – a very important work’. 64 This periodic practice of physically inspecting infrastructural work was not only an act of transforming the landscape; it also became an important exercise to make the benevolent colonial state visible to the people. The seasonal improvements through the hills also seem to suggest that the territory was now secure and thus on the path of ‘progress’ under the colonial state. Colonial roads in the Naga Hills were, however, not simply imposed or built over an untrodden or trackless landscape. As I have suggested earlier 99

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in this chapter, a network of well-established pathways and tracks connected people and places to other wider geographies. The location and orientation of these diverse routes characterised the nature and forms of mobility in the Naga Hills. 65 Colonial officials often relied on these established routes, apprehensive yet dependent on them, as they penetrated into the hills. The working of these paths baffled colonial officials. For instance, in 1878, R. H. Keatinge, Chief Commissioner of Assam while touring the Naga Hills noted how, ‘every village is a fortress into which the intrusion of strangers is warmly resented and yet the ordinary means of progress is by the Naga paths from village to village’. 66 In the course of the tour, Keatinge also came across a ‘Naga path, which crossed the political path or the high road’. This path, Keatinge writes, ‘led to Keruphima, Mozema and Konoma’. 67 These examples suggest the significance of routes in the everyday life of the Nagas and the forms of mobility and linkages they facilitated. In the process of making ‘modern’ roads, colonial officials often appropriated these existing structures. In fact, the contour of an existing path was often preferred for laying out ‘new’ colonial routes. For instance, a proposed bridle path in the newly occupied Ao country followed traces of a ‘Naga path’. This commenced from Jekum and terminated at the plains of Amguri. 68 In addition, the Naga path from Noagaon (Merangkong) and Assiringia (Nokpu) to the plains was improved and kept free from jungle. 69 These routes generally followed the contours of the landscape. J. P. Mills, the DC of Naga Hills, pointed out that the roads taking the Ao Nagas to, ‘the fields passes near no stream or spring’, and thus avoiding places prone to inundation. 70 ‘Improvements’ over such roads often involved minor widening and hence incurred less expenditure. Colonial officials could however endow on the extension of a bridle path with great progressive value. Celebrating the makeover of the ‘Naga path’ between Golaghat and Kohima, Colonel R. C. Low, Deputy Commanding General Transport, remarked that, prior to 1881 the road was ‘nothing but a goat track’. According to Low, the road is, however, now ‘an excellent road for pack animals during the cold season with several sections of it on a gradient fit for wheels’. 71 Even as the colonial government settled and expanded its control over the territory, the Naga paths continued to form important arteries of connectivity and mobility for the colonial officials. ‘I left Kohima to Sakhabama, mostly by Naga paths’, records H. C. Barnes, Deputy Commissioner of Naga Hills in one of his tour diary. 72 Colonial rule, in that sense, was not simply about control over space and territory, but also contingent on working through existing ideas and technology. It was often through the appropriation of the existing structures that the colonial state could carve out ‘modern’ forms of infrastructural conditions in the hills. The making of roads in 100

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the hills and the physical mobility it enabled were however, as we shall see below, marked by moments of contestation and also contingent on colonial forms of coercion.

Resistance and coerced mobility If roads were seen as instrument of ‘progress’, conversely, they could also become sites for displays of violence or contestation against the state. As physical mobility of colonial officials progressed and access routes extended into the hills, it began to intrude into the everyday life of the Nagas. In turn, the Nagas did not simply step aside to make room for the ‘modern’ roads. This colonial intrusion into their everyday life was contested in a variety of ways. For instance, since road-working parties were often vulnerable to attacks, Captain W. F. Trotter, Personal Assistant to the Chief Commissioner of Assam, advised the DC of Sibsagar, to arrange guards for protecting the working parties along the Golaghat–Samaguting road. ‘See that they come to no grief’, instructed Trotter, ‘and are not cut up by the Nagas’. 73 Police detachments were thus often deployed to secure the roads as well as the men working on the roads to keep lines of communication open. Roads also became sites for targeting colonial troops travelling along the roads. P. T. Carnegy reports of one such incident, which occurred on 29 December 1877, where ‘one escort of 15 men coming from Samaguting to Piphema was attacked on the Government road near the village of Piphepma.’ 74 Besides, attacks on lines of communication were calculated choice adopted by Nagas during moments of conflicts. In December 1877, during an expedition against Mezoma, the Nagas, ‘interrupted communications between Samaguting and Mozema and injured the road’. 75 In another instance in 1878, W. J. Williamson, the IGP, Assam, reported that despite posting detachments of troops and police along the Golaghat and Samaguting road, ‘lines of communication were interrupted, daks cut off, roads were blocked and destroyed in several places, even the road as far as Borpathar, 38 miles from Samaguting was threatened.’ 76 As routes of intrusion and as a visible symbol of colonial power, roads became important sites of contestation and violent encounters in the Naga Hills. On other occasion, Nagas also adopted strategies that were primarily aimed to hinder access and movement of colonial officials into their territory. For instance, the travelling colonial official and his military entourage would often place demands on food articles and other resources during their tours, which were much resented by the Nagas. In one case, an old man of Namsang village indignantly queried Colonel R. G. Woodthorpe, ‘why should we show you water? Why are you here again? Have you no rice in your own village that you travel about to eat?’ 77 Such hostile reactions 101

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meant that getting access to food supply for officials and contingents of troops travelling in the hills constituted a recurrent colonial concern. 78 There are also instances where Nagas would attempt to divert colonial officers from routes, which otherwise allowed access to the villages. A British official reports how, ‘the Nagas would frequently try to mislead us . . . by planting small branches in the path by which they did not wish us to travel, hoping that we should think that it was a disused one.’ 79 It was through these strategies that Nagas frequently sought to oppose colonial access into their territory, while also impeding mobility of the colonial institutional apparatus. Colonial response to these forms of contestation was however met with violent actions. In the process, roads became a site where Nagas were subjected to new forms of political disciplining. This disciplinary measure operated primarily by way of administrative coercion whereby forced labour became a significant feature of colonial rule in the hills. 80 In fact, colonial roads in the Naga Hills were regularly built by mobilising forced labour under the direction of the district officer. This system of sourcing labour from within the hills was largely initiated in the aftermath of the Anglo-Naga war of 1879–1880. Justifying the use of coercion, Major W. E. Chambers categorically remarked that, ‘no rate of pay will induce any man to work as coolly and the only means was by impressments of labour.’ 81 In the colonial rationale, labour could thus be mobilised only through administrative and other punitive pressure. It was through this measure that in May 1881, Major T. B. Michell, Political Officer, Naga Hills, was able to ‘impress many thousands of Naga coolies’ for the Transport Department. 82 In the course of colonial rule, this tactic will be used to continuously extract labour for public works and carrying loads in the Naga Hills. 83 Closely linked with the labour impressment was the gradual operation of a taxation system in the Naga Hills. As early as 1878, Colonel Keatinge, the Chief Commissioner of Assam had argued that, ‘fiscal control . . . is the only hope of effective administration’. By bringing the Naga Hills under the colonial taxation regime, Keatinge was confident that ‘the task of civilizing them will cease to be viewed as a constant drain on the resources of the province.’ 84 It was keeping with this logic that in 1882, after the close of the Anglo-Naga war, colonial officials fixed a house tax at two rupees for the Angamis and one rupee for the Rengmas and the Lothas, respectively. 85 To systematise the tax assessment, a register was proposed which would record the number of adult males in each village. 86 In this fiscal scheme, colonial officials came to view taxation as a measure of control appropriate in condition where imposing order was no longer threatened by hostility. 87 The attempt to bring various subjects within the colonial taxation structure was however not always productive. For instance, colonial officials in 102

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the Naga Hills expressed the difficulty they faced in assessing the Kukis. The reason for this was because, ‘the migratory habits of the Kukis are such that even a list of their villages soon becomes out of date.’ 88 By moving away from the reach of colonial administration, there were thus some inhabitants in the Naga Hills who chose to keep themselves out from the tax collectors rolls. The gradual extension of colonial authority in the hills nevertheless drew more territories within the colonial taxation regime. In 1890, L. W. Shakespear thus confidently stated that the Naga hills revenue paying district extended from the Henema outpost in the south close to the North Cachar hills to the Tamlu post in the north at the corner where the Dikkoo river turns to emerge into the plains, a length of some 250 miles. 89 While colonial officials came to represent the tax-paying Nagas as ‘contributing’ to the government’s administration, the imposition of house tax was also oriented to serve other imperial interest in the hills. In fact, the compulsion to pay the tax began to gradually push many Nagas to work at colonial work sites as well as other sites of capital in the region. 90 The steady flow of labour venturing out to work at colonial road sites thus came to serve an important colonial policy of sourcing coolies from within the hills. Even as some Nagas were gradually drawn into the emergent wage labour market, road-building projects were cited as a reason for enhancing the house tax in the Naga Hills. Thus in 1900, the Commissioner of Assam ordered an increase of the house tax in the Angami hills from two rupees to three rupees, arguing that wages earned by working on the Assam–Burma road had privileged the Angami ‘tribes’ who lived along this route. 91 While some Nagas worked on colonial work sites, there were others who were compelled to carry loads for the colonial officials. Since transportation in the hills was largely confined to foot travel, Naga labour became an indispensable element in the colonial transport system. Naga carriers transported supplies and baggages during colonial tours, travels, military expeditions and other everyday administrative exigencies. 92 Because labour for road works or portering was often ‘unavailable’ or resented by the Nagas, coercive measures were often deployed by district officials to mobilise men to meet their transport demands. 93 While carrying loads for the military columns were enforced under punitive conditions and hence much disliked, coolies accompanying troops were often required to travel over lengthy, distant and unsafe areas. As a counter to this form of enforced work, strategies such as desertion or refusal to carry their load were not uncommon among the Naga labourers. 94 Coerced mobility thus became an essential element of colonial progression in the frontier. By the turn of 103

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the twentieth century, Nagas also began to be used as load carriers in other spaces of conflict in the frontier where imperial interests demanded various punitive military actions. For instance, during the Totok punitive expedition in February 1913, about 700 Semas and 100 Lhota coolies were used as transport carriers. 95 Colonial officials preferred to engage Naga coolies in the military transport columns since they were considered to be skilled and resourceful during expeditions, apart from their ability to navigate through the difficult frontier terrain. 96 Yet, such representation also concealed the harsh conditions under which coolies operated, especially as reports of fatal casualties during colonial expeditions reveals. 97 Apart from carrying loads for the travelling colonial officials and troops to far-flung frontier areas, these Naga labourers will also travel to other wider geographies of war to serve the empire, such as during the First World War. If colonial governing strategies produced a coercive labour relation, there was also a section in the Naga Hills who came to constitute an important element in the colonial governance structure. Appointed by the colonial government after the Anglo-Naga war of 1879–1880, the headman or gaonburra and the dobhashi or interpreter emerged as important intermediaries, especially in collecting revenue and allocating labour demand among the households of a village. 98 In fact, information on the number of revenue paying households in the Naga villages was often assembled through the services of the headmen. The headman was also responsible for organising working parties to maintain and develop colonial road infrastructures. Through the agency of the headmen officials thus sought to ‘rationalise’ colonial administration in the hills by shifting the troublesome task of mobilising labour and tax collection from the colonial administrator to the headman. 99 For his services, the headman was to receive 20 per cent of the revenue collection. 100 In facilitating the colonial administrative apparatus, the dobhashi or interpreter constituted another important institution. As interpreters, they communicated instructions at roadwork sites as well as accompanying the transport columns during military expeditions. 101 They also furnished district officials with news and information in the hills. 102 In the process, these interpreters became an important link in channelling colonial orders in the Naga Hills. By virtue of their location in the colonial system, there were also some intermediaries who would emerge as men of important social standing in the Naga Hills. 103 As instruments of colonial authority, these intermediaries facilitated the colonial administrators to travel and administer its rule in the margins. 104 Through the agency of these intermediaries, the colonial state was able to justify and maintain its coercive infrastructure. In the course of rule, roads and the mobility it enabled became emblematic of the colonial coercive practices, as well as becoming arteries of governing the hills. 104

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People, goods and mobile practices While colonial political obligation defined the nature of travel for administrative and military personnel, there were other forms of mobility, which the routes in the hills also facilitated. In fact, there were various reasons for travel, which the access routes enabled. An important practice of travel in the hills was for the purpose of trade. Travel to the foothill markets were facilitated by well-established routes. For instance, in 1875, John Butler, while at Jaipur, observed that ‘Ninu and several villages in its neighbourhood were all in the habits of visiting the plains through the Borduar pass.’ Apart from this pass, they also travelled down to the markets along ‘a road of their own’. 105 While various commodities were traded and exchanged in the frontier markets, there are instances in which Nagas also began to engage in new specialised commodities of trade. Of this, a commodity, which drew the interest of the Nagas, was the trade in ponies. In 1870, three unladen ponies were brought across the hills from the neighbouring State of Manipur for the first time. W. W. Hunter, the imperial administrator, was surprised that this commercial venture was possible ‘in spite of the badness of the present paths’. Since then, Hunter remarked, ‘several hundred Manipuri ponies have been brought by the same route.’ 106 These circuits of trading networks and exchange were of considerable interest to the colonial officials who placed importance on knowing and collecting information on these transactions. This is particularly evident from the cataloguing and surveillance it maintained on the movement of goods and people in the frontier markets. 107 Keeping a close tab on the flow of commodities was crucial for the purpose of revenue as well as establishing monopoly over crucial resources. Knowledge of these trading goods was also often handy in frontier governance. In fact, colonial officials at times prohibited essential commodities such as salt, from going up the hills by blockading the routes to ensure compliance and ‘good conduct’ from the ‘wild tribes’. While colonial officials monitored the commodities that moved along the frontier routes, a focus on the nature of trade also reveals the complex linkages and circuits of exchange. Of the commodities exchanged, salt was ‘traded in a circular way’. The Konyaks, according to Julian Jacobs, ‘traded salt from their salt wells to the plains and this salt was then brought back into the hills by the Ao’s who might then sell it on to the other Naga groups’. 108 Apart from this, there seems to have been specialisation in specific commodities of trade among certain Naga groups. For instance, the Khonoma traders ‘had more or less a monopoly in cowrie shells for the whole of the Naga area obtaining them from Calcutta’. 109 Angami traders also traded in beads widely, procuring it from places such as Calcutta, Bombay and Burma. 110 The Lothas, on the other hand, imported 105

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cattle from the Plains which were ‘so vital for sacrifices and ceremonial feasts selling them on to the Ao’s and other communities’. 111 Further, the Kalyo Kengyus, according to Jacobs, produced ‘the basic conical red and gold cane hats, which were, traded to the Ao’s, Konyaks, Phoms, and Changs and others’. Besides these, the Konyak village of Wakching, considered as a centre of Naga trading, was ‘the local centre for iron tools’, and in 1936 alone, it was ‘producing doas and chisels for at least 12 villages’. 112 Modern objects or goods such as cloths, threads, needles, matches, sugar, kerosene, umbrellas, etc. also gradually made its way into the Naga Hills. 113 Travelling along old routes as well as new colonial routes, these modern goods gradually became part of the everyday life in the Naga Hills. The variety of goods in transit in turn connected the hills to other trade networks in the frontier as well as to the wider international market. Access roads into the hills also allowed a variety of groups and people to travel in the hills to participate in various enterprises. Mobile groups such as the Nepalese and Kacharis gradually established settlements along the roads, working as herdsmen and cultivators. ‘Near Pherimapani, at the side of the bridle path, I find quite a colony of Gurkhalis has settled’, reported A. Porteous, DC of Naga Hills in 1890. 114 In another occasion, Porteous came across a new settlement of four Kacharis by the roadside on the Merapani, practicing wet cultivation. 115 These instances indicate how itinerant groups or people on the move often carried along with them ideas and practices, and circulated them along the routes they traversed. New settlement patterns and forms of agrarian practices gradually emerged in the Naga Hills even as the Nepalese and Kacharis moved and settled along the hill routes. Besides, there were also others such as the Marwari traders from Rajasthan whose trading networks penetrated the frontier and linked the hills to other larger networks of imperial capital. 116 For instance, in 1872, Colonel Hopkinson reports of kayahs or marwari traders of building substantial golahs at Dimapur and Samaguting. 117 Two years later, Butler writes that these merchants ‘have virtual monopoly over the trade of the place’. 118 In 1890, during a tour, Porteous found two or three Marwari traders in the neighbourhood of Wokha. He was astonished to notice the ‘great competition for the purchase of the cotton which the Lhotas bring down’ by the Wokha road and the other hill paths. 119 While the Marwaris gradually moved in to establish their control and dominate commerce in the region, on the other hand, colonial officials could tap into the substantial resources of the Marwaris to meet various frontier contingencies. During an expedition in April 1913, J. E. Webster, DC of Naga Hills, noted the useful service of ‘Messrs. Todarmal Sodaram of Dimapur’ who provided all the ‘Manipuri rice as was wanted and were most punctual’. 120 These Marwari traders thus operated as crucial suppliers of provisions for 106

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the colonial troops, especially during the military expeditions. Through the numerous outlets of shops, stores and networks of capital, these traders gradually emerged as an indispensable group in the frontier economy. Moreover, their trading practices also linked the frontier communities to other larger sites of global markets and capital. 121 In the Naga Hills, however, not all the goods and people that moved along the routes circulated with the approval of the colonial officials. In fact, the colonial state found the flow of certain goods and practices particularly threatening, which were subsequently deemed ‘illegal’ and prohibited from entering the hills. The circulation of ‘illegal’ firearms was one such example. In the 1860s, colonial officials reported with unease the flow of modern firearms in the Naga Hills. Nagas were reported to procure their guns and ammunitions from Manipur and Cachar. 122 Angami traders would also travel to Calcutta ‘to purchase beads and muskets’. 123 Colonial efforts to prevent firearms from reaching the Nagas were however marked by scepticism. Colonel Hopkinson argued that the ‘shutting up of Assam would be insufficient unless Sylhet and Cachar were equally well closed, even then Manipur would not suffice without British, Burma or the latter without Bangkok’. 124 Attempt to check the ‘illegal’ arms trade was moreover challenging as firearms moved not just through one corridor, but along many tracks and pathways. The bulk of this traffic came through agents in Manipur, Cachar, Assam and Calcutta. One of the measures to control the trade was by issuing arms licences as well as through the enforcement of acts such as the Indian Arms Act of 1860. 125 However, throughout the second half of nineteenth and early twentieth, controlling the ‘illegal’ traffic in firearms remained a perennial colonial concern in the Naga Hills. Firearms will continue to move in and out of the hills along the hill routes, even as Nagas also devised ways to keep guns out of the sight of colonial administrators who counted guns. The circulation of firearms also indicates that the hills were seldom ‘remote’ or ‘isolated’ as was often characterised by colonial officials. Rather the hills were open and accessible for a variety of goods and people, both legal and ‘illegal’, which in turn connected the hills to other wider circuits of global networks and trade. By the 1920s, small ‘unauthorised settlements’ also cropped up along some of the hill routes aimed at providing ‘rest and refreshment’ to travellers. During one of his tours in 1924, J. P. Mills came across a ‘brothel’ at Zubza run by Jankhomo Sema and his wife Dino of Mezoma, ‘for people working on the roads’. 126 Foreigners, according to Mills, exacerbated the plying of such trades by ‘demanding women’ on entering the hills by the cart road. Thus, while colonial roads were seen as instruments of ‘modernity’ and ‘civilisation’, it was these same roads, which brought along other conflicting practices. This was a dilemma which Mills confronted: ‘a metal cart road may be a civilizing influence, but the price in vice and crime that 107

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the Naga pays for such civilization is a heavy one.’ 127 Writing in 1931, J. P. Mills further remarked how ‘the opening up of the cart road to Manipur has undoubtedly led to an increase in prostitution.’ 128 These examples reveal not just the contradictions, but also the predicament, which confronted colonial projects of modernity. While some people saw opportunities by moving themselves closer to the roads, there were others who moved away from the routes to escape colonial practices such as labour impressment and taxation. Having said that, the access routes in the hills opened the possibility for a variety of goods and people to travel and engage in a range of mobile practices. Some of these practices were considered as ‘unlawful’ and a threat to the modern colonial order, while there were others who appropriated the ‘modern’ roads to pursue their various interests as they moved and circulated along the routes.

Conclusion This chapter examined some of the ways in which the colonial state constructed roads and exercised power through its control over routes and territory. In the course of making the ‘modern’ arteries of empire, various encounters and interactions unfolded along these land routes. For the colonial officials, roads not only constituted an important tactic of governance, but they also came to denote a certain envisioning of the modern. Though roads were promoted as a tool to develop and facilitate mobility in an ‘isolated’ frontier, the existence of well-established routes highlighted various linkages and forms of mobility practiced in the hills. Colonial penetration and road construction often came to rely on these existing knowledge and structures. In the process, colonial roads became emblematic of the state’s ability to penetrate territories inhabited by ‘unruly’ subjects. While access routes enabled the penetration of the British raj’s political influence into the hills, the Nagas contested the colonial intrusion through various forms of resistance. As a site of contestation and negotiation, roads gradually emerged as part of a larger scheme of socio-political disciplining and ordering of the landscape. Road building then came to constitute violent spaces, which were connected to regimes of forced labour, surveillance and taxation. In turn, colonial authorities relied on the services of intermediaries such as the headmen and the dobhashi in ensuring compliance from the colonised subject to meet the resource demands of the state. Roads, in this way, served as a conduit in taking the colonial state to the people and in turn taking the people to the state. The new access routes also engendered new forms of travel, mobility and circulation in the hills. While for some it involved coercive journeys in the form of forced labour, there were others who travelled to the hills 108

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to pursue various interests. There were, however, some who moved away from the proximity of the roads and chose to keep themselves out from the state administrative apparatus. Besides, these road networks also took some Nagas away from the hills to serve in the various frontier expeditions and to serve as labourers in the European theatre of war during the First World War. By the early twentieth century, new technologies in the form of telegraphs also climbed the mountain routes, along with rest houses for the travelling colonial entourage. By the 1930s and 1940s, the Naga Hills will witness a different phase of mobility in the form of new political activism unfolding in the hills. Travelling along the hill routes, Naga leaders sought to rally public opinions around the new political imaginations they articulated for the Nagas. The land routes and forms of mobility it enabled will eventually play a crucial role in consolidating this imagination in the Naga Hills.

Notes 1 Foreign and Political Department, National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter, F&PD), Political A. June 1866. Nos. 37–39. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 The tendency to characterise pre-colonial societies in British India as fixed or static is a colonial misconception, as many important studies in recent times have pointed out. These studies show how various forms of mobile practices and circulatory networks characterised pre-colonial societies in South Asia. For instance, see, Claude Markovits, Jacques Pouchepadass and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (eds.), Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia, 1750–1950, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2003; Ravi Ahuja, Pathways of Empire: Circulation, Public Works and Social Space in Colonial Orissa, c. 1780–1914, New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2011; Nitin Sinha, Communication and Colonialism in Eastern India: Bihar, 1760s–1880s, London: Anthem Press, 2013. 5 F&PD – A. December 1866. Nos. 137–140. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Some of these principal outposts located along the Naga frontier included Borpathar, Mohan Dijao, Dimapur, Mahurmukh, Hosang Hajoo, Guilon, Gumaigaju, Gunjong, Baladhan, Jhirighat, Jaipur, Hangrung, Maibung, Asaloo, etc. F&PD – Political A. June 1866. Nos. 37–39; also see L. W. Shakespear, History of the Assam Rifles, Calcutta: Firma KLM, 1989 (1929), p. 9; F&PD – A. December 1866. Nos. 137–140. 9 F&PD – A. December 1866. Nos. 137–140. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Through a notification dated 15 November 1866, the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal sanctioned the creation of the Naga Hills district with

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headquarters at Samaguting. Lieutenant John Gregory was appointed as the first Deputy Commissioner of this new district. See F&PD – A. December 1866. Nos. 137–140; F&PD – A. August 1877, Nos. 120–132. 14 Besides, Samaguting was also considered to be barely one day’s march away from the hostile villages of Rezephemah, Setemah, Phakekremah and Diffomah, whose inhabitants were suspected of raiding the lowlands of Nowgong and North Cachar. See F&PD – A. June 1866. Nos. 37–39; F&PD – A. August 1877. Nos. 120–132. 15 Annual Report of the Administration of the Bengal Presidency for 1867–68, p. 251. 16 Ibid. 17 The Annual Administration Report for 1868–1869, commented on the satisfactory working of the pass system as follows: ‘During the year under review, 3,000 of them took passes to go down to the plains to trade and not one of them committed any sort of offence. It is expected that a large number will also apply for passes this year with the same peaceful intentions.’ See, Annual Report of the Administration of the Bengal Presidency for 1868–69, p. 98. 18 In 1873, the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation empowered the Lieutenant Governor ‘to prescribe a line, to be called “the inner line” in each or any of the districts affected, beyond which no British subject of certain classes of foreign residents can pass without a licence’. The dominant objective of this frontier regulation was to protect the tea plantations and secure other resource-rich areas in the foothills. See, Nagaland State Archives, Kohima (hereafter NSA, K), Inner Line File(s), No. 115, 1875; F&PD – A. May 1875. Nos. 98–100; F&PD – A. November 1875. Nos. 44–45; Proceedings of the Chief Commissioner of Assam, Foreign Department, February 1881, Assam State Archive, Guwahati (hereafter, PCCOA, FD, ASA); also see, Alexander Mackenzie, History of the Relations of the Government with the Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier of Bengal, Calcutta: Home Department Press, 1884, pp. 55–56. 19 For instance, in February 1882, C. A. Elliott, the Chief Commissioner of Assam reports that, ‘the Angami Nagas who come to trade in Lakhimpur show their passes’ at the Baladhan police post. Mackenzie, History of the Relations, pp. 514–516. 20 This Register was to record the following details: date (i.e. date when party reports on its way to the plains); tribe to which party belongs; village from which party came; name of the head of party; number of persons composing party; destination; object of journey; if Angami Nagas, number of passes given at Kohima and copy of particulars given in it; if hill people from North Cachar, number of passes given by head constable; date of return on homeward journey. Ibid. 21 Ibid. 22 For an important work on documentary practices, see, Jane Caplan and John Torpey (eds.), Documenting Individual Identity: The Development of State Practices in the Modern World, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001. 23 For example, see, Boddhisattva Kar, ‘When was the Postcolonial: A History of Policing Impossible Lines’, in Sanjib Baruah (ed.), Beyond Counterinsurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 49–79.

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4 F&PD – A. March 1880, Nos. 331–395 D. 2 25 F&PD – A. August 1877, Nos. 133–177. 26 Gazetteer of India, Nagaland, 1969, p. 129. 27 F&PD – A. December 1866. Nos. 137–140. 28 Ibid. 29 F&PD – A. September 1873, Nos. 219–229. 30 F&PD – A. August 1874, Nos. 273–275. 31 F&PD – A. May 1876, Nos. 101–103. 32 F&PD – A. September 1873, Nos. 219–229. 33 Ibid. 34 F&PD – A. August 1874, Nos. 273–275. 35 Ibid. 36 F&PD – A. October 1878, Nos. 7–51. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid. 39 For instance, an incident is recorded in 1878 where, ‘2 Nerhema villagers were murdered by 2 Jotsoma Village, on the way from Samaguting with salt while on the political path.’ In another instance, the Mozema village was ordered ‘to pay a fine of Rs. 100/- for fighting in the political path’. Ibid. 40 F&PD – A. December 1875, Nos. 91–99. 41 F&PD – A. October 1878, Nos. 7–51. 42 James Johnstone, My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills, London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company Limited, 1896, p. 13. 43 The relation between politics of routes, linkages and colonial expansion especially into the Angami country has been explored in, Lipokmar Dzüvichü, ‘Roads and the Raj: The Politics of Road Building in Colonial Naga Hills, 1860s–1910s’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. L, no. 4 (October–December 2013), pp. 273–294. 44 For instance, a ‘well aligned bridle path from Kohima to Manipur frontier’ was laid out which would connect and open up the two regions. Colonial officials also planned to construct ‘a good and easy path between Kohima and Khonoma’. It also aimed to secure ‘a good means of access from Kohima [to] the Kutcha Naga country and the Cachar frontier’. F&PD – A. September 1882, Nos. 135–137. 45 H&PD. June 1883, Nos. 140–143. 46 Ibid. 47 The estimated amount spent in building these bridle paths were as follows: Kohima–Chichema–Mao (Rs. 9,794); Kohima–Mao (Rs. 12,718); Kohima–Jotsoma (Rs. 2,250); Kohima–Themokotsoma–Lazami, (Rs. 1,250). F&PD, External. A, December 1886, Nos. 39–41. 48 PCCOA, FD, ASA, July 1885. 49 Ibid. 50 F&FD, External. A, November 1887, Nos. 64–66. 51 Ibid. 52 See, Basil Cplestone Allen, Gazetteer of Naga Hills and Manipur, New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 2002 (1905), pp. 58–59. 53 The colonial postal network could however also be appropriated to serve other purposes. In fact, the dak runners could at times engage in activities, which were considered ‘illegal’ by colonial administrators. For instance, in September 1923, J. H. Hutton reported the suspected role of ‘the Ghaspani

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dakrunners of bringing opium for other people’. See, http://himalaya. socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/naga/record/r72465.html (accessed on 26 February 2017). 54 By the early 1900s, a chain of territory had been annexed and brought under colonial control, beginning with Samaguting in 1866, Wokha in 1878, Kohima in 1881, the Ao Naga country in 1889, the Semas and the Eastern Angamis in 1906, etc. 55 Nagaland State Archives, Kohima, Tour Dairy of A. E. Porteous, DC, Naga Hills, 1890, Sl. No. 431 (hereafter, NSA, K, TD) 56 Ibid. 57 In May 1890, Porteus was informed by Mr. Mitchell, the official supervising the road works on the Mokokchang–Moriani road that, ‘work was progressing favourably and the road likely to be ready for traffic early in the rains. Till this road is finished all stores come up from Golaghat. They will thereafter be fetched from Jorhat through Moriani’. Ibid. 58 Porteous confidently declared that the ‘security’ of the route to Mokokchung, which was earlier considered insecure owing to ‘the close proximity of many large independent Sema villages’, was protected and no longer a matter of concern. This, Porteous, stated, ‘was partly due to the settling down of the Sema tribe since my tours in April 1889 and again in October 1889 when several villages were severely dealt with’. Ibid. 59 F&PD – A. May 1876, Nos. 101–103. 60 Ibid., also see The Annual Administration Report of the Naga Hills Political Agency for 1875–76. 61 See, The Annual Administration Report, 1875–76. 62 The Overseer however hoped to recruit 100–200 Cacharies next season replacing the above others. The Nagas were considered as ‘too timid to take to such work especially when going on at a distance from their homes’. Ibid. 63 F&PD – A. August 1874. Nos. 273–275. 64 See, Johnstone, My Experiences, p. 19. 65 For instance, Captain Butler, the Political Agent in the Naga Hills observed that, ‘the paths leading to permanent cultivation . . . are often wide and well made, and sometimes to paths adjoining adjacent villages.’ See, F&PD – A. October 1878, Nos. 7–51. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid. 68 F&PD, External. A, January 1889, Nos. 76–88. 69 Ibid. 70 J. P. Mills, The Ao Nagas, Bombay: OUP, 1973 (1926), p. 128. 71 H&PD, June 1883, Nos. 140–143. 72 Tour Diary of H. C. Barnes, Deputy Commissioner, Naga Hills 1917, Government Record Cell, Nagaland Secretariat, Kohima, Nagaland (hereafter GRC, NS, K). 73 For effective working in the hills, Trotter further requested the DC to suggest, ‘the best plan’ on whether ‘to have parties working at different parts of the road or to have coolies together in one work party’. PCCOA, FD, ASA, October 1878. 74 Ibid.

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75 Ibid. 76 F&PD – A. E. September 1882. Nos. 135–137. 77 F&PD – A. January 1877, Nos. 146–151. 78 Officials were hence keen to assemble information on an array of subjects along the routes they traversed such as the topography, access to water supply, number of villages and its inhabitants, the distance of villages from the routes and the nature of food provisions procurable from the villages along the routes, etc. See, F&PD – A. October 1878. Nos. 7–51; F&PD – A. January 1882. Nos. 86–105. 79 Elwin, The Nagas, pp. 26–27. 80 The use of forced labour regime to build colonial infrastructure, porterage, etc. has been explored in detail in, Lipokmar Dzüvichü, ‘Empire on Their Backs: Coolies in the Eastern Borderland of British Raj’, International Review of Social History, vol. 59, Special Issue 22 (December 2014), pp. 89–112. 81 F&PD – A. August 1880. Nos. 175. 82 PCCOA, FD, ASA, July 1882. 83 PCCOA, FD, ASA, July 1885; By the early twentieth century, impressment came to constitute an important feature in the administration report. For instance, the administration report of the Naga Hills district for 1917–1918, gave the number of impressed coolies as 10,094 in Kohima and 9,139 in Mokokchung. The coolies were impressed to work for the various colonial institutions such as the Assam Rifles, civil police, medical department, PWD, post and telegraphs, etc. See, NSA, K, File No. Gen. B, June 18–19–20-G 56. 84 F&PD – A. October 1878, Nos. 7–51. 85 F&PD – A. January 1882, Nos. 134–137. 86 PCCOA, FD, ASA, July 1882. 87 For instance, a colonial administrator remarked, ‘A savage who pays revenue considers himself a British subject bound to carry out all orders given him, while a savage who does not pay revenue considers himself independent and free to obey orders or not he chooses.’ F&PD, March 1880, Nos. 331–395 D. 88 Assam Secretariat, General Department, Revenue-A. November 1904. Nos. 69–95. 89 L. W. Shakespear, History of the Upper Assam, Upper Burmah and NorthEastern Frontier, London: Palgrave Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1914, p. 227. 90 See, Dzüvichü, ‘Empire on Their Backs’. 91 An estimated cost of Rs. 18,15,643 lakhs was reportedly spent in the Naga Hill section of this Assam–Burma route. In 1895, a large number of Naga labour gangs had been employed on this road project. ‘This tribe’ the Commissioner of Assam thus remarked, ‘has gained more than any other tribe by the money, which has recently been spent in these hills on public works of considerable magnitude, more especially in the villages in close proximity to the main lie of road’. See F&PD, External – B, October 1895, Nos. 152–154; and F&PD, External – A, December 1900, Nos. 24–26; also see, Dzüvichü, ‘Empire on Their Backs’. 92 See Dzüvichü, ‘Empire on Their Backs’.

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93 ‘Some months ago’, writes Major T. B. Michell, Political Officer, Naga Hills, in May 1881, ‘I sent constables with orders to the headmen of Jampi and other villages in its neighbourhood to furnish their quota of labour. The order was not obeyed and we have not received a single coolie from any of those villages.’ Faced with such hostility, Michell sought to send out a strong detachment of troops so as ‘to enforce obedience’. PCCOA, FD, July 1882, ASA. 94 F&PD, External – A, November 1887, Nos. 64–66; ‘We tried to make an early start’, wrote A. Bentick, the Assistant Political Officer in the Abor expedition 1911–1912, but ‘the coolies particularly the Angamis gave any amount of trouble and over an hour was lost in getting clear the camp . . . throughout the day they continued putting down their loads on every possible occasion.’ Nevertheless, ‘the correction administered to the principal offenders last evening had an excellent effect on the Nagas and we got off in good time.’ F&PD, Sec. E, November 1912, Nos. 599–690. 95 PCCOA, PD, ASA, August 1913. 96 Ibid. After negotiating through a steep precipice in the Abor country in 1909, Colonel D. M. Lumsden thus wrote, ‘I was indeed thankful when I saw all our coolies safely over. Only hillmen could have done it with loads on their backs.’ D. M. Lumsden, ‘A Journey in the Abor Country’, The Geographical Society Journal I, vol. 37, no. 6 (June 1911), pp. 621–629. 97 During the march to Chinglong in 1913, the casualty lists included the death of nine coolies, four sepoys, apart from three sepoys and six coolies seriously wounded. PCCOA, PD, ASA, August 1913. 98 F&PD – A. January 1882, Nos. 134–137. Following the proposal by C. A. Elliott, Chief Commissioner of Assam, twenty headmen in the Naga Hills was appointed by Major Michell, the Political Officer in the Naga Hills. Also see Dzüvichü, ‘Roads and the Raj’, pp. 490–491. 99 See Peter Robb, ‘The Colonial State and the Construction of an Indian Identity: An Example on the Northeast Frontier in the 1880s’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 31, no. 2 (1997), p. 261; also see, Tour Diary of K. Cantile, Offg., D.C., Naga Hills, 1919, GRC, NS, K. 100 F&PD – A. January 1882, Nos. 134–137. 101 F&PD – A. May 1873, Nos. 271–274; Tour Diary of Captain A. E. Woods, Officiating DC of the Naga Hills for the Month of May 1893, GRC, NS, K. 102 ‘The first thing in the morning’, writes Lt. C. R. Macgregor, Commanding Detachment 44th regiment, Sylhet Light Infantry at Kohima, ‘a Dobhashi of Kohima came in . . . and reported that the road was panjied and obstructed, and resistance intended.’ F&PD – A. January 1880. Nos. 498–511. 103 Tour Diary of C. R. Pawsey, GRC, NS, K, 1938. 104 In fact, by 1930, the number of dobhashis in Mokukchung subdivision stood as follows: Ao’s-ten; Lothas-four; Semas-four; Changs-three; and Konyaks-one. Piketo Sema has argued that with the gradual incorporation of the Naga ‘tribes’ into the fold of administration, the appointment of new dobhashis for representing tribes having different linguistic groups and regions became increasingly necessary. See Sema, British Policy, pp. 34, 35 105 F&PD – A. December 1875, Nos. 91–99.

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106 William Wilson Hunter, A Statistical Account of Assam, vol. II, London: Trubner and Co., 1879, p. 175; Having ‘obtained a ready sale and good prices’ for the ponies in the plains, John Butler, the Political Agent of Naga Hills remarked that the Nagas of Kohima, Khonoma, Mozemah and Jotsoma ‘are now most eager to enter heartily into this lucrative trade’. F&PD – General A, September 1872. Nos. 34–46. 107 For instance, in 1874–1875, a total of 1,919 Nagas reportedly passed through Samaguting to trade in the plains. Out of this total, ‘1331 took down cash, 26 went with ponies, 32 with bees wax, and 530 with cloths.’ On their return journey, they carried back goods such as salt, iron, beads, and brassware. On the other hand, in 1878–1879, a total of 1,995 persons were recorded to have journeyed from the hills to trade in the plains. Of this, ‘1706 took down Rs. 7943 to buy salt, 207 took Manipur and Naga cloths, and the remainder took 45 ponies.’ Their trading forays took them to Dimapur, Golaghat, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar, Jorhat, Gauhati and Cachar. See, Annual Administration Report For 1874–75, Naga Hills, Calcutta: Foreign Department Press, 1875; Annual Administration Report For 1878–79, Naga Hills, Calcutta: Foreign Department Press, 1879. 108 Julian Jacobs (ed.), The Nagas: The Hill People of Northeast India: Society, Culture and the Colonial Encounter, London: Thames and Hudson, 1990, p. 38. 109 Ibid., p. 39. 110 F&PD – A. September 1882, Nos. 135–137; also see, Jacobs, The Nagas, p. 39; Allen, Gazetteer, pp. 59–60. 111 Jacobs, The Nagas, p. 39. 112 Ibid., pp. 39–40. 113 See J. P. Mills, ‘Effects on the Tribes of the Naga Hills District of Contact With Civilization’, in Census of India, 1931; W. C. Smith, The Ao Naga Tribe of Assam: A Study in Ethnology and Sociology, London: Palgrave Macmillan & Co, 1925. 114 Porteous in another instance, reports of twelve Gurkhali cultivators having settled and built houses along the Kohima–Nichuguard road. Nagaland State Archive (hereafter NSA), Tour Dairy of A. E. Porteous, DC of Naga Hills, 1890, Sl. No. 431. 115 Ibid. 116 For a discussion on the circulation of Marwaris and their long history of circulation and economic engagement in long distance trade and high finance in North India, see, Claude Markovits, ‘Merchant Circulation in South Asia (Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries): The rise of Pan-Indian Merchant Networks’, in Claude Markovits (ed.), Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia, 1750–1950, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2006; 2003. 117 F&PD, Gen – A, July 1872. Nos. 6–7. 118 F&PD, Pol – A, August 1874. Nos. 273–275. 119 NSA, Tour Dairy of A. E. Porteous, DC of Naga Hills, 1890, Sl. No. 431. 120 Other provision for the troops such as, ‘Dal, ghee, atta and other miscellaneous store were obtained through Chunilal of Nazira and the Tamlu contractor at Gileki at reasonable rates. Brick tea was obtained from the Assam Company, and common dust tea can be had in any bazar.’ PCCOA, PD, ASA, August 1913.

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121 For example see, Bodhisattava Kar, ‘Historia Elastica: A Note on the Rubber Hunt in the North–Eastern Frontier of British India’, Indian Historical Review, vol. 36 (June 2009), pp. 131–150. 122 F&PD – A. March 1872. Nos. 79–118. 123 Gertrude M. Godden, ‘Naga and Other Frontier Tribes of North-East India’, The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 27 (1898), pp. 2–51. 124 See, S. K. Barpujari, ‘Firearms Traffic and Use in the Naga Hills in the Nineteenth Century’, Indian Historical Review, Session 32, vol. 2 (Jabalpur 1970), pp. 82–83; F&PD, Pol – A. March 1872. Nos. 79–119. 125 F&PD – A. December 1868. Nos. 140–164. 126 NSA, Tour Diary, J. P. Mills, 1924. 127 Ibid. 128 Mills, ‘Effects on the Tribes of the Naga Hills District of Contact with Civilization’.

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Part II KNOWLEDGE, PEOPLE AND REPRESENTATION

4 VAI PHOBIA TO RAJ NOSTALGIA Sahibs, chiefs and commoners in colonial Lushai hills David Vumlallian Zou

As fallout of the First Anglo-Burmese War, Assam fell into the hands of the East India Company in 1826. Later, British investment in the tea estates of Cachar (Assam) became vulnerable to periodic ‘tribal’ raids for scarce resources such as booty and slaves. To begin with, the British entered the hills of Assam neither as a master race nor as a respected sahib, but as a pale Whiteman in the eyes of the local peoples. Success in establishing the Whiteman’s prestige among the hill chiefs often proved to be an indeterminate or a long drawn-out process. This chapter will focus on the colonial contact between the forces of British sahib and the Lushai lal (chief) of present-day Mizoram from midnineteenth century to mid-twentieth century. The relation between sahibs and lals was mediated by intermediary babus and dobashis. This transaction was complicated by the recruitment of local collaborators often from outside the dominant clans or chiefly lineages – the ‘commoners’. The military prestige of the British sahib was crucial to the domination of the hill chiefs (lals) by the Raj. In the Lushai hills of the mid-nineteenth century, the Raj was hated as a foe (known as ‘Vai’), as well as courted as an ally by some Lushai chiefs who settled on the borders of Bengal and Cachar. As the fortunes of the white sahibs changed in the long term, the fear of the British vai and the bitterness of foreign conquest was gradually forgotten by hill chiefs (lals). The chiefly institution (lal) ironically gained more power though the colonial project of ‘indirect rule’. Following their initial encounter as enemies, the sahib and the lal began to collaborate in the project of indirect rule. But when both figures were dethroned by Indian nationalist

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and Mizo ethnic netas respectively, the local people began to develop nostalgia for the good old days. Memories of the Empire were deployed against the State that soon fell in the hands of ethno-nationalists in post-Independence Assam. As a narrative category, ethnicity has triumphed over social caste, economic class or individual rights in the regional politics of northeast India. Shifting political circumstances had a bearing on how the sahib came to be remembered by the Mizo people in later times of trouble. These factors include the absence of anti-colonial struggle in the Lushai Hills District of Assam, the strong presence of the missionary sahibs (or ‘Zosaps’) and the late advent of democratic politics before 1947. Is it possibly – contrary to post-colonial theory – to indulge in ‘Raj nostalgia’ for formerly colonised subjects? Perhaps yes. The purpose of this piece is to understand how this might have actually happened among the so-called hill tribes of Mizoram in the mid-twentieth century.

The British as valued allies of rival Mizo chiefs Travel accounts of early colonial encounter suggest that the Whiteman was variously perceived as a pale-faced freak, 1 carrier of diseases or as bearer of gifts. During the early colonial encounters, the British adopted the carrotand-stick approach towards the hill tribes. A colonial British commentator described the Northeast frontier policy as ‘a show of force’ which ‘led to love through salutary fear’. 2 In other words, the British heavily depended on the military prestige of the sepoys and the diplomacy of annual gift-giving to local notables, especially the hill chiefs. Primarily seen as a form of corruption within state patronage system, the politics of gift-giving in diplomacy has engaged the interests of scholars from varying backgrounds. 3 The early image of the Whiteman as a gift-giver was an integral part of British frontier diplomacy of ‘rum and rupees’. 4 The Superintendent of Cachar (Assam) gifted a pony worth seventy-one rupees to Kuki chiefs who had never set foot on the plains of Cachar until the present occasion’ [i.e., the spring of 1845], and they evinced a considerable desire to trade with the Bengalees when I pointed out to them the advantages they were likely to reap by exchanging the produce to their Hills for commodities obtainable here. 5 Early frontier officers relied on ‘the wonderful animal magnetism’ 6 of personal influence and personal gifts. They ‘attach much importance to frequent interviews with the Chiefs themselves’ 7 during annual melas.

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The gifts were meant to recruit some friendly chiefs called ‘friendlies’, and military force was applied to the enemies of colonial interests called ‘hostiles’. The British actively sought out friendly chiefs in the borders of Chittagong and Cachar because of the vulnerability of these areas to Lushai raids. Suakpuilala (Sukpilal) Sailo was the first Mizo chief to sign a treaty (1871) of friendship with the British on the Cachar frontier of north Lushai hills, and Chief Rothangpuia Thangluah (Rutton Poia) was a valued ally of the British on the Chittagong frontier of south Lushai hills. Since the mid-nineteenth century, Captain T. H. Lewin cultivated the friendship of Rothangpuia on the Chittagong border as a diplomatic instrument to leverage his personal influence over the interior areas among the independent hill chiefs in the deep south of the Lushai hills. Lewin dashed through southern Lushai hills in 1865 from his base in Chittagong, and projected a paternalist image of the Raj wherever he went by marching barefoot, clad in dhotee and pugree, with no dyspeptic aversion to hill beer. An admirable performer on the fiddle, Captain Lewin, was revealed to the Joomeas as a new and more agreeable species of sahebs, a welcome addition to a hill fireside. 8 Claiming kinship with a legendary Mizo chief, Thangliena (phonetically spelt ‘Tong Loyn’), Tom Lewin himself became a legend of early AngloLushai encounter, and he was known as Thangliena among the Lushai hills, where his memorial stone still stands today beside his old residential site at Demagri (Tlabung) in Mizoram. 9 In north Lushai hills, a good example of gift diplomacy was enacted by Mr. J. Ware Edgar (Cachar’s Deputy Commissioner) during his threemonth tour of the Lushai hills bordering on Cachar District in 1869. Edgar bought their first friendly Lushai chief (Suakpuilala) though gift diplomacy, and confirmed it with a treaty of friendship. The Lushai chief, Sukpuilala, raided the settled villages of Sylhet and the tea estates of Cachar in the late 1860s. The Deputy Commissioner of Cachar was required ‘to conciliate without exciting contempt’ 10 in his dealings with the old Lushai chief, Suakpuilala. Displaying the good humour of an Irishman, Edgar was expected to try the policy of rum and rupees: We had more than faith in the omnipotent rupee. Silver hath charms to soothe the savage breast; and even among the Lushais we doubted not each man had its price, if not in cash, then in clothes, and beads, and gewgaws. 11

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Not before Edgar camped at Lushai Bazaar on the Sonai river for over a month did Suakpuilala, ‘the mysterious old man of the hills’ make his appearance, ‘now for the first time to be gazed on by Europeans – a shrewd, hard-faced old barbarian with gimlet eyes’. 12 The Lushai chief reportedly appreciated ‘the fiery cup of greeting presented to him by his host and poured down his throat by attendant muntries’. 13 Edgar told Suakpuilala that the Sylhet sahibs were very angry and wanted to punish the Lushai chief; but he promised to intercede on behalf of the chief if the latter agrees to a boundary where traders, protected by the chief, would pay fixed fees in return. It was a done deal. Then showers of gifts descended upon the Lushai chief ‘to the delight of his barbaric soul’: 14 a purple coat, a hat of silk, a green pyjama, a necklace of glass buttons and gold beads, and long glass earrings. The British policy at this point of time was to take the Lushai in hand by a special officer . . . He was to lead by love, not govern by salutary fear . . . conciliation is too often the Latin equivalent for rum and rupees. In case of the Lushai, we believe, it eventually involved gifts of green pyjamas. 15 Edgar’s mission to the Lushai hills cost the exchequer about Rs. 15,000, and the Government reportedly ‘never was so liberal before’. 16 But concerns with the image of the Whiteman as a gift-giver persisted as Lushais on the Cachar frontier sent messengers to Manipur to say that white foreigners (Vais) ‘had come into the hills and duly paid tribute to the Lushai Chiefs’. 17 In sharp contrast to the impersonal bureaucratic regimes elsewhere, the personal diplomacy of Edgar painstakingly cultivated paternalist loyalties to specific British administrators, but not to the impersonal administration or the Raj in the abstract sense. In the mid-nineteenth century, riverine haats (marketplaces) were rigorously used as the handmaiden of gift diplomacy in the Lushai hills. Tipai Mukh on the Barak river, Lushai Hat on the Sonai (Tuirial) river, Changsil Bazaar on the Dhalleswar (Tlawng) river were established in 1871, and lasted for about seventeen years. It would appear that almost all economic exchanges in such bazaars were carried out through the medium of barter. In case of Lushai traders, forest resources like crude Indian rubber, ivory and elephant hides were bartered for salt, cloth, iron and rice. 18 During one of his annual tours to the Lushai hills in 1971, J. Ware Edgar tried to impress upon Lushai traders the value to cash in Indian rupee: At first the Lushais took in exchange for their rice, red cloth. . . &c., but our stock of such things was quickly exhausted, and then we persuaded them to take money. But the rupees were not supposed 122

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to be accepted as final payments. They were looked upon as tokens that so much cloth or some particular brass vessel was owed by us to the holder. Some people preferred having their names and the amount due to them written in a book to the trouble and risk of taking away money. Our debts were to be paid on the arrival of our boats. 19 In the mid-nineteenth century, certain Lushai chiefs on the borders of Chittagong and Cachar – notably Chief Rothangpuia and Chief Suakpuilala – saw individual British or Irish British officials as valuable allies in their struggle against rival chiefs in south Lushai hills or in the Chin hills of Upper Burma. Rival hill chiefs rather than the British gift-givers were seen as a threat to their political authority. The tribal attitude of disdainful curiosity during the early encounters with the Whiteman is aptly captured by the Lushai (Mizo) term vai, ‘outsider’. British expeditions of the 1860s and 1870s in the Lushai hills used to be known as ‘Vai lenlai’ (Lorrain 1940: 540). Then the ascending White vais were, as yet, nowhere near the venerated figure of the sahib. Likewise, colonial reports noted that even in the late nineteenth century, the Ao Nagas ‘seemed very much afraid of our white faces, calling out that the “devils” had come’. 20 The transformation of the White or ‘pale’ gift-bearers into paramount sahibs and a corresponding metamorphosis of ‘primitive savages’ into ‘colonial subjects’ is a compelling story in its own right. The British became sahib after the intensification of contact between the hill society and colonial state. The rise of British prestige and the changing perception about colonial agents was produced by a corresponding change in the structure of the local polities following the penetration of the colonial Leviathan. This cognitive shift mirrored the changing relationship between various tribal communities and the colonial regime in what is today northeast India. Dictated by expediency, British frontier policy swung between gift diplomacy and brute force. However inconsistent and contradictory it may be, this practice proved an effective tool of colonial domination and validation. With the exception of the Jaintia-Khasi hills where the colonial state reflected predatory tendencies, the early decades of the British Raj in other parts of the hills may be described as a ‘custodial state’ whose concerns were chiefly limited to law and order in the highlands and the security of British interests in the lowlands. Colonial legal-political institutions in the hill tracts typically included a network of patrolling paths, military posts, armed police, custom-based civil courts and house tax. The nominal house tax levied in most of the hill areas were seen as gestures of political submission: it was tributary token, not a source of revenue. In a sense, the colonial 123

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regime especially in the so-called excluded areas 21 (Naga hills, Lushai hills, North Cachar hills and present Arunachal Pradesh) upheld a patrimonial order of pre-colonial state builders based in the valleys of Assam, Manipur and Tripura. Yet the colonial state was more intrusive than the older political regimes in its ability to enforce its writ even in the interior hills. From the outset, the sahib’s imperial order intervened in the norms of the local society by initiating, among others, the novel idea of state monopoly of violence through the licencing of gun traffic and its subsequent confiscation in the process of putting a stop to headhunting and slave raids.

The British as paternalist Sahibs To study the Sahib and Chief relationship, it is useful to know how and when did the British transformed from a mere Vai (foreigner) into the figure of the honourable Sahib? The Lushai chiefs began to refer to the British officers as ‘Sahib’ 22 or ‘Bara Sahib’ by the last decade of the nineteenth century when the area was conquered and annexed to the British Empire. The Indo-Persian term sahib is pregnant with historical connotations in the colonial context of British Assam. According to Hobson-Jobson, sahib is the title by which, all over India, European gentlemen, and it may be said Europeans generally, are addressed, and spoken of, when no disrespect is intended, by natives. It is also the general title (at least where Hindustani or Persian is used) which is affixed to the name or office of a European, corresponding thus rather to Monsieur than to Mr. . . . the word is equivalent to ‘Master’. 23 But earlier in the mid-nineteenth century, for instance, the Mizos knew the British as Vai, and the Lushai expedition of 1871 was known as ‘Vailenlai’ (meaning ‘the time of foreign invasion’). The naming of the British as Vai in the mid-nineteenth century and as Sahib in the late nineteenth century reflects the expansion of colonial power as well as the domination of the Mizo as colonial subjects. Whereas colonial conquest ultimately relied on military force (sepoys), the legitimacy of colonial dominance depended on the allegiance of the hill chiefs to the ‘indirect rule’ of the Raj. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the combined effect of military conquest and famine relief (dispensed through the riverine haats or markets) was beginning to transform the British vai in Mizo eyes into the British sahib. The prestige of the sahib further increased with the coming of the Welsh missionaries in the Lushai hills.

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Recent scholarship on the Northeast underlines how British paternalism and the ‘politics of philanthropy’ 24 in the form of famine relief added new shades to the sahib saga and the image of the Raj. During the pre-colonial Thingtam famine of 1880–1881, the Lushais imported 18,000 maunds 25 of rice and 2,000 maunds of paddy from Cachar. 26 What products did the Mizos barter in return? They exported to Cachar 1,000 maunds of rubber worth Rs. 40,000. 27 They destroyed entire forests of rubber trees by ‘wasteful methods of tapping’ 28 and ‘bled nearly all the trees to death’. 29 They also used ivory and elephant hide partly to weather the pangs of hunger. Even by the time of the Thingtam famine, elephant population appeared to have been depleted following the establishment of elephant khedas by the British that encroached upon Lushai hunting grounds that bordered on Cachar and Chittagong. 30 Associated with an environmental catastrophe due to bamboo flowering, the first recorded famine called mautam in the Lushai hills took place from 1911 to 1912. The British Raj seized that ‘peculiar privilege’ to legitimise its paternalistic colonial regime among its subject people during the ‘first famine experienced by the Lushais under British Rule’. 31 Missionary relief works and the state’s ‘river depot’ at Demagiri apparently evoked Mizo gratitude. The annual missionary report of the Baptist mission in 1912 reads: Whatever feeling of resentment may have lingered in the hearts of some of those hill people against those who have occupied their country . . . this famine must surely have dispelled it, for there are hundreds who would have starved to death this year but for the kindly help rendered by Government. . . . It has been a peculiar privilege to be living in the Lushai Hills this year. 32 Both the Government and the Church employed wage labour in building houses, road-making, jungle clearing and gardening to earn enough cash to procure rice from the outside market. 33 As the representatives of a custodial state, frontier administrators in colonial Northeast since David Scott (the first commissioner of Assam) rallied behind the twin doctrine of British paternalism and ‘the man on the spot, the man who knew the local conditions and was therefore best able to judge . . . against the policies decided under parliamentary or financial pressure in London’. 34 These officials found themselves at the end of a chain of command that extended from London via Calcutta to Assam. Discretionary powers of individual initiative available in the imperial fringes more than compensated for being far from the bureaucratic rigidity of the metropolitan centres. 35

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As distinct from the India of the Indians, their paternalistic eyes envisioned a special India of the masses ‘entrusted to their care’. While distrusting educated Indians, several frontier officers turned to ethnographic study of their ‘primitive’ subjects, and sincerely stated the case for their tribal people at times against the interests of the Company, the Crown and later the Congress (Indian National Congress). As men of the imperial age, they accepted as axiomatic the idea that British paternalism was an unmixed blessing for their colonial subjects. Ideologically poles apart, orthodox Indian nationalists, to quote Partha Chatterjee, ‘are not, of course, quite so generous in attributing benevolent intentions to the colonial mission’. 36 In late colonial India, the Tribal Question and British paternalism were increasingly thrown into relief by the Government of India Act 1935, which insulated certain ‘excluded areas’ from the control of the nationalist Indian politicians. These tribal areas were to be directly administered by the provincial governor – ‘always British, usually an ICS officer’. 37 The provision of the 1935 Act enjoyed the support of British conservative MPs in the House of Commons. Even Winston Churchill lent his weight to it, saying: I take as much interest in the fortunes of the white people in India as I would in these backward tribes. I feel just as disturbed . . . as the anthropological party represented here . . . about the handing over of the backward areas to a Government they do not trust. 38 Otherwise unconcerned with the fate of their tribal countrymen, the Congress condemned the provisions of the ‘excluded areas’ as a divisive colonial ploy at its Faizpur session in September 1936. In a polemical tract, Verrier Elwin, wedded to tribal life and later a tribal wife, presented in The Aboriginals (1943) a protectionist tribal policy favoured by paternalist British anthropologist-administrators. In contrast, Indian nationalist approach was interventionist, and this was best articulated by G. S. Ghurye, the foremost Indian sociologist. For a saraswat Brahmin nationalist like Ghurye, the tribal was simply a ‘backward Hindu’ – mistakenly described as ‘aborigine’ or ‘aboriginal’. 39 In the Lushai Hills District of British Assam, the colonial state recognised many of the traditional privileges of the hill chiefs (comparable to the ‘native princes’) who were the steel frame of ‘indirect rule’. Gradually, all the tribal chiefs became loyal collaborators of colonial rule under the administrator sahib; but the presence of the missionary sahib was resented by some chiefs. Missionary schools were producing a literate and salaried class of clerks, interpreters, teachers, contractors, etc., who competed against the traditional elites for the leadership of the Mizo society and access to the colonial state. 126

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The Welsh British missionary as Zosaps When Gandhian anti-colonial agitation was spreading in the Assam valley, and when Pandu (Gauhati) was bracing for the 41st session of the Indian National Congress 40 by the end of 1926, a public gathering took place in the Lushai Hills District of British Assam (in present-day Mizoram) to shore up confidence in the white sahib. Not so long ago, the British Company Raj was a foe whose Lushai invasion was remembered with dread as the time of Vai invasion. And only thirty years ago, the Lushai (Mizo) made one last united struggle against the British. But by the 1920s, the calculus of interests dictated that perceptions of friends and foes changed fast. As it were, the enemy of one’s enemy is one’s friend. The departing Raj was once the enemy, but the rising hegemony of the ‘Assamese’ now posed immediate threat to lesser nationalities of the ‘hill areas’. Attitudes to the departing white sahib and the arriving brown sahib were informed by specific conditions of district-level politics beyond the Barak-Brahmaputra valley. This story does not fit neatly into the broad pattern of anti-colonial nationalist struggle. Because this seeming anomaly was directly connected to the post-Independence troubles, there is no good reason for the historian to shy away from it. In October 1926, around 3,000 persons assembled at the Parade Ground of Aizawl to bid farewell to a Welshman, D. E. Jones. He was affectionately called ‘Zosaphluia’. In the Mizo language, the name means the ‘elderly sahib of the Zo or Mizo’. As a term of endearment, this is a Mizo way of calling the missionary ‘our own old [Zo] sahib’ as distinct from other types of colonial sahibs. Jones was not the first Whiteman to have visited the Lushai Hills District. But he was the Whiteman to have resided the longest in that corner of the British Empire. For the best part of his life, Jones made Aizawl town his home. Previously known as Fort Aijal, this colonial site was a military outpost that had grown into district headquarters since the arrival of Mr. Jones thirty years ago. He came here as a pioneer missionary of the Welsh Calvinistic mission. A meeting minute of Presbyterian Synod of the fast-growing local church refers to the elderly Jones as ‘the father of our Mizoram and the Church’. 41 Even in the late 1920s, Jones was already a culture hero in modern Mizo history. The Mizo youth carried Jones in public procession from his mission bungalow to the Parade Ground a mile away. As a traditional token of honour, he was placed in a chair tied to long bamboo poles with flowers. The audience consisted of tribal chiefs as well as commoners, Christian converts as well as non-Christians. 42 Many of the Lushai chiefs who gathered for Jones’ farewell were still non-Christians, including Chief Khamliana who stood out from the rest. 127

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As a boy of twelve, Khamliana Sailo (b. 1859) eye-witnessed the military might of the British who burnt down the villages of his proud grandfather (Chief Savunga) in the early 1870s. 43 His family fought against the British during the Lushai Expedition of 1871, and they suffered heavy losses in this war known by Mizo storytellers as Vai Len Lai (‘the time of foreign invasion’). 44 His grandfather Savunga was at war with his own clansman who collaborated with the British authorities at Chittagong in Bengal. This was Chief Rothangpuia of South Lushai who collaborated with the Bengal authorities in Chittagong. Having frequented the trade fairs at Demagiri 45 and having paid official visit to Fort William (Calcutta), young Khamliana knew something of the power of the British Raj in the plains of Bengal. His family took long to recover from losses of the Lushai Expedition (1871). Almost twenty years later, colonial reports mentioned Khamliana’s chiefdom as one of the ‘five weak villages who joined together for self-protection’. 46 He reportedly broke away from this weak confederation to join a more prestigious league headed by Chief Khalkhama, the son of Chief Suakpuilala who was the only Lushai chief to have befriended the British by a negotiated treaty. Khamliana further improved his personal fortune by forming marriage alliances with two leading chiefly families, namely, those of Rothangpuia (British ally in south Lushai hills) and those of Suakpuilala (British ally in north Lushai hills). He married himself the niece of Rothangpuia, and his sister was given in marriage to the son of Suakpuilala. 47 Khamliana’s connection to the northern chiefs became a source of embarrassment when the sons of Suakpuilala were implicated in the Chengri Valley raids of the 1890s and the subsequent murder of Captain Herbert Brown on the Aizawl-Silchar road. Khamliana pragmatically bet on the British winning the war during the last round of Anglo-Lushai war. He kept aloof from the final uprising of the northern Sailo chiefs 48 against British occupation on 9 September 1890, which resulted in the death of Captain Browne. Khamliana’s brother-in-law (Sailenpui Raja, one of the sons of Suakpuilala) professed to be loyal to their old British allies during the last rising of the Lushai chiefs at the end of the nineteenth century. Khamliana’s brother-in-law claimed that his village was not involved in the general rising of the Lushai chiefs on the question of taxation and forest use. In his deposition in the aftermath of the Chin-Lushai expedition, Sailenpui Raja stated: I took the oath of allegiance to my ma-bap, and had no personal connection to the recent rebellion . . . I sent Khamliana to warn the Sahib, but he could not cross the Dhaleswar river. As soon as the war commenced, I could not retrain my young men. . . . Some

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of them may have attached Aijal, but I was angry with them, I did not ask for details. 49 Being pragmatic, Khamliana was under no illusion about the ability of the Lushai chiefs to provoke and withstand the military might of the British Empire. The sahib had two faces: he was an enemy, but he was an ally and more. Khamliana was destined to become another Suakpuilala or another Rothangpuia – to become the principal power broker between the people of the Lushai hills and the imperial Raj. Unlike Khamliana, most northern Lushai chiefs (especially Khalkam) in the 1890s still expected to halt foreign occupation by destroying a series of military forts connecting Aizawl and Silchar. But British retaliation came fast by issuing an arrest warrant. Before the Political Officer of the North Lushai Hills, Chief Khalkam made this statement why Captain Browne was killed by his men: I took the oath of fealty with Browne Sahib, and he told us then that we should have to pay revenue [house tax]. We did not like this . . . that we should not even be allowed liberty to hunt in the jungles. I lost my head, and resolved to fight. We came definitely to this resolution . . . A meeting was held in my Jolbuk (gust-house). 50 Chief Khalkam and his two associates were detained as political prisoners at Tezpur Jail (Assam) and later taken to Hazaribagh Jail (Bengal). Before serving his time for a year at the jail, Khalkam and one of his co-chiefs ‘committed suicide in the jail latrine by hanging themselves with ropes made by them from pieces of cloth torn from their dhooties’. 51 In his attitude towards the Raj, Khalkam resembled his southern relative (Savunga) than his own father Suakpuilal (Sookpilal) who was the first Lushai chief to enter into a friendly treaty (16 January 1871) with the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar. This became ‘the only Sanad which any Lushai Chief has ever negotiated with the British Government’. 52 For a considerable period, Khamliana maintained a respectable distance between himself and the white sahibs. But the British ‘indirect rule’ turned out to be very light and it was in sync with conservative elements within the Mizo society. Chiefs like Khamliana began to see the chiefly privileges guaranteed by colonial administrators although the missionaries were a suspect in his eyes. He was an enterprising (if not a modernising) Chief, and was quick to grasp resources offered by colonial contact. He became the first Mizo to acquire literacy through missionary instruction; yet he refused to abandon his ancestral Sakhua religion. Being the senior most Chief of the

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Lushai hills, Mr. Khamliana delivered a farewell message to the departing Welshman: We are all by this time glad that the British Government has come into our country. . . . The boundaries of the Chiefs’ territories have been satisfactorily fixed. This had put a stop to much argument between brothers; roads and paths have been constructed to bring us together into closer contact; we have been safeguarded from famine. . . . We are equally grateful to the Welsh Mission for coming here, at their own expense without imposing tax or any form of compulsion [Emphasis added]. 53 Khamliana saw the two major wars fought by the Mizos against the British between 1871 and 1891. Anxious to avoid the fate of his grandfather, Khamliana chose to become the power broker between the British and other Lushai chiefs. In spite of being the scion of a venerable Sailo chiefly lineage, Khamliana reconciled himself to his lot as a subordinate ally of a powerful Crown. Nevertheless, he tried his best to resist cultural conquest by Christian missionaries although British political conquest seemed irreversible. To the delight of the hill chiefs, the ‘indirect rule’ of the British had the ironic effect of strengthening chiefly authority. The interests of the colonisers and chiefs converged in the direction of imperial order and stability. The Chief also acknowledged what British network of roads and paths had done in terms of preventing famines, ending internecine feuds and bringing various Mizo clans ‘into closer contact’. This, of course, opened up new political possibilities by forging new types of solidarities in future. All the same, Khamliana was politically astute enough to see the corrosive influence of Christian conversion (especially of boi slaves) on chiefly privileges and pretentions. Like many Mizo chiefs, he persecuted certain Christian converts to no effect. In 1906, he allegedly threatened to cut off the head of the resident Welsh missionary on the pretext that Jones was ‘a dangerous magician’ 54 responsible for an outburst of religious enthusiasm in many Lushai villages. By degrees, it dawned on this pragmatic Chief that his was a lost cultural battle. In absolute terms, the Christians were still a minority, estimated at less than one-third of the total population of the Lushai Hills District. 55 On the eve of Jones retirement from the Lushai hills, Chief Khamliana wanted to bring about a rapprochement between the two newly divided religious communities of the Lushai hills. He eloquently gave a symbolic expression to this reconciliation by a thoughtful gift to Jones. From beneath his cloak, the Chief produced a broad Mizo knife (khukri). In his autobiography, Jones observed:

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This knife was in its sheath indicating that peace had now been made between Christian and non-Christian and that they were at liberty to live together without fear of persecution. There was certainly a hidden significance in presenting me with such a gift as this. . . . So Chief Khamliana presented me with the very knife that once threatened my life. 56 Eight years after this public speech, chief Khamliana decided to ‘obey Pathian’ (Pathian being the creator deity of pre-colonial Mizo pantheon). In other words, he converted to Christianity. By this time, perhaps Khamliana realised that the battleground for the soul of the Lushai Hills District had shifted from Chief–Church rivalry to the uncharted terrain of traditional chiefs versus modern elites. The upwardly mobile social group of educated elites were best represented by the colonial clerk and the school teacher. Jean and John Comaroff observed in a related African context that Nonconformist missionaries were ‘a dominated faction of a dominant class’ 57 within the imperial world, and they usually shied away from formal political processes. This applies to the Welsh mission that was ‘a breakaway missionary society’ 58 from the London Missionary Society that itself was at some remove from the centre of imperial politics. The Welsh missionary (Zosap in Mizo) and the district-level officer locally called the Bara-sap (the Superintendent) were distinct species that occupied vastly different positions within the colonial hierarchy of power. And social differences remained even when circumstances compelled Zosaps and the Bara-saps (bara-sahibs) to coexist or cooperate within the imperial world of the Raj. To quote Comaroff, [T]here was nothing in Nonconformist Christianity per se that prescribed one contemporary political doctrine above all others . . . they had no collective identity on the institutional terrain of colonial politics. 59 The Welsh mission offered resources and intellectual tools that either the old chief or the new elites could use to their own ends. And unlike the Raj that patronised the chiefs over the commoners, the Welsh Zosap was indeterminate and favoured no particular party. If Mizos from all walks of life missed Jones’ departure from Aizawl, they equally mourned his death at Prestatyn (Wales) in August 1947 on the eve of India’s independence. News of the demise of the pioneer missionary Zosaphluia broke out as the final rites of the transfer of power from British to Indian hands were being performed. The new Superintendent of Lushai

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hills (L. L. Peters) was discussing the implications of the transfer of power for the Lushai hills. And there was a funeral gathering in Aizawl to express colonial nostalgia for the loss of the oldest missionary as much as the loss of ‘the old Lushai’. Reporting about the event for the Liverpool Directors, J. M. Lloyd wrote from Aizawl: On Friday morning a great meeting of sorrow at the departure of the British Government was held at Dawrpui Chapel and many were in tears on the occasion. I believe that it expresses the genuine feelings of many of the people. But these enormous changes have come with bewildering and cruel speed and the Lushais have become the puppets of the great forces which are working in India now. The minorities have certainly had little chance of making any decision or expressing their real desires. I suppose, however, such suffering is the necessary entail of the present transformation. But, for better or worse, the old Lushai has almost completely passed away already as far as I can see. 60 In the scholarly literature, colonial nostalgia is associated with conservative reaction to capitalist restructuring, deluge of modernity, or the loss of world power by former metropoles. 61 But how do we account for the expression of almost comparable nostalgia by the descendants of excolonial subjects in the Lushai hills who steadfastly resisted colonial conquest throughout the nineteenth century? At any rate, pro-British loyalty among powerful sections of late colonial society in north-east India was a social fact. Should historians dismiss this ‘blind loyalty’ to the colonial state and overt resistance to the post-colonial state as an irrational response of politically immature and socially ‘primitive tribes’? Why should small tribal communities in Assam’s hill district worry about democratically elected Congress netas who represented the will of the people, at least in theory? No wonder the new Indian state was more intrusive than the ‘indirect rule’ of the Raj. It ushered in the democratic rule of numbers rather than chiefs and sahibs. The transition generated social strains (perhaps even shocks) on the prevailing social order. Here formation of political association had been illegal as late of 1945, and the Lushai Hills District had little time for initiation into representative institutions. Under these conditions, was mass conversion to a new religion (Christianity) the primary cause of conflict? Or, is this the result of rational calculus of new political realities in post-Independence India? While this is not the place to answer these questions, it suffices to note that graduates of missionary schools became critics of colonial ‘indirect rule’ through the conservative institution of

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chiefdom. The missionaries themselves, however, did not appreciate the manner in which their graduates used the educational resources they have provided in the first place. Nevertheless, the irony of history did not prevent the educated elites (largely Christian) from imagining an endearing image of the missionary as Zosap (meaning the Zo’s own sap or Mizo’s own sahib).

Sahibs, chiefs and commoners By creating a loyal, if tiny, class of new power brokers (literate interpreters) between the ruler and the ruled, the British did not intend to supersede the authority of the chiefs and other traditional elites. That tension grew between the two power centres was different matter. 62 In fact, colonial administrators exerted their influence on local traditional rulers through the dobashis, ‘men of two tongues’. When colonial rule expanded into new areas, the British, as a rule, sought out individuals and institutions associated with the old order. The alien regime deliberately tried to legitimate itself by upholding tribal customary laws and even by the ‘invention of tradition’ through locally dominant informants. Frontier administrators were keen to identify the authority structure of tribal polity. At least two patterns of authority existed in the hills of the Northeast: (a) rule of aristocratic chiefdom that is hereditary, and (b) rule by a council of clan elders representing theoretically equal lineages. 63 In some cases, elements of the two types existed side by side within the same tribe. No wonder colonial administrators in the Khasi hills disagreed whether the office of syiemship was a democratic or an aristocratic institution. The British initially made syiemship an elective office though adult votes, and later decided that it was hereditary. 64 In the Lushai hills, chiefship was widely seen as aristocracy, and therefore, recognised as hereditary by colonial law. So eager was the colonial regime in the Lushai hills to recognise new claims to chiefship that the number of chiefs had gone from sixty to four hundred by the end of the Raj. 65 The earliest dobashis in the Lushai hills were red-coated Bengalis. Thomas Lewin’s note on Lushai vocabulary in 1874 included a relatively recent Mizo word, Korh, defined as ‘a coat; a Bengali; coat-wearing person’. 66 Lewin further remarked that the first red-coated soldiers or police seen by the Lushais in 1861 as ‘Korh-shen’. 67 The career of a Lushai dobashi, Mr. DaraRalte, may allow us a glimpse of the social background of a typical British intermediary. Before the annexation of the Lushai hills, Dara lived in Hmuizawl village from where he occasionally visited Sylhet and Silchar to trade by selling crude Indian rubber. He gradually picked up enough Hindustani to carry out his business transactions. This rubber trader saw a

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new opportunity in 1885 to become a dobashi with growing British engagement with the Lushai hills: The last time I went to Sylhet I stayed for three months and was on my home when I heard at Silchar that the Govt. was in need of two men who could speak Lushai. At that time Lushais were so afraid of the plains people that no one would dare to go to distant village to act as interpreter. 68 Dara seized his chance, took a friend along with him, and went to Silchar. There he stayed for three years as an instructor of the Lushai language to a few British frontier officers. He lost his job after his pupils mastered enough Lushai to dispense with an interpreter. Then he turned back to trade – this time in amber necklaces. On hearing that beads were cheap in Rangoon, he went there straightaway, taking a letter of recommendation from the Cachar sahebs. He was disappointed that necklaces were not as cheap as he had expected. He landed a job in the British police in Burma, where he served for three years. With the annexation of the Lushai hills in 1891, Dara rushed back home with the hope of finding a niche for himself in the new order: I heard that the British Govt. was entering into Lushai. I thought to myself, “If the British Govt. is going into Lushai, there will definitely be some work there for me, and I had better leave this country and get back among my own people where I shall be able to help”. So I left the police and returned, carrying with me a letter in English and Burmese from the authorities. 69 Back in the Lushai hills, Dara worked as a chaprassi at the house of one Betal Ram. At Fort Lunglei, he soon attracted the notice of Captain John Shakespear, the Superintendent of South Lushai Hills. Impressed with his credentials, Shakespear made Dara an interpreter at once. 70 In 1898, Shakespear created more posts for Lushai men like Dara to run his new scheme of Circle Administration in which each Circle had an Interpreter. 71 Similarly, the bulk of administration in the Naga hill was done by Naga dobashis, ‘who were interpreters from the tribal language into the Naga form of Assamese known of all who served in the Naga Hills’. 72 These dobashis settled nearly all village disputes. What they failed to settle was decided on by the magistrates. The settlement of cases was quick, and fair and except in murder cases lawyers were not allowed. No police were allowed in villages and their activities were restricted to roads and towns. Charles Pawsey, Deputy Commissioner of the Naga hills, noted that

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The Dobashis were not well paid but their standing was very high and the competition for appointment was keen. . . . The Interpreters and village headmen were even more picturesque than the ordinary villagers as they were clothed in bright red clothes provided by Government. 73

Responding to majoritarian state with Raj nostalgia The first political party, the Mizo Commoners’ Union was launched on 9 April 1946 under the leadership of the emergent educated Christian middle class. Pachunga, a rich Hmar businessman, became the first president; and a politically shrewd Vanlawma Ralte, the first general secretary. 74 (Here it is instructive to note that the Hmar and Ralte clans did not form part of the dominant Lushai [Sailo] lineage of the pre-colonial political formation). The colonial authorities discouraged any political activity in the Lushai. Vanlawma established contact with influential Congressmen like Gopinath Bordoloi and Rev. J. J. Nicholos Roy of Shillong. 75 Though the Mizo Commoners’ Union remained a party of the Mizo common people, it was renamed the Mizo Union to enlarge its support base by enlisting enlightened and educated chiefs. J. L. Hluna said that ‘the inclusion of the word “commoners” in the newly established party was rejected by the traditional elites for they could never regard themselves as commoners’ (1985: 65). In a communiqué in a church journal, Kristian Tlangau, the Mizo Union expressed regret that the party had been misconstrued in some villages as a breeder of enmity for the chiefs. It claimed to represent ‘the entire Mizo people, inside and outside’ 76 the Lushai hills; and it harnessed a modified Biblical verse for rhetorical effect, ‘A country divided against itself cannot stand.’ 77 After consolidating itself as the ‘true’ representative of Mizo interests, the Mizo Union launched a powerful anti-chief movement. It was a pitched battle between the traditionally powerful chiefs and the nascent educated middle class. In this new game of ‘hill politics’, the loyal Lushai chiefdom was understandably the darling of the colonial state. The Lushai Superintendent rightly expressed concerns that his favourite chiefs may lose out: Now that the British Government is behind their status as Chiefs, we must commence actively to educate them into the responsibilities of leadership. If there is any capacity for rule or leadership in Lushai, it undoubtedly lies in the Chiefly classes. . . . The Chiefs are too ready to grasp without giving service, a characteristic which

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is also very prominent among many of the salaried classes . . . how can the Chiefs continue to stand up to the ever-increasing number of young Lushais with academic experience? (McCall 1949: 247–8) Ultimately the Mizo middle class proved to be too sophisticated for ‘the Chiefly classes’ in playing the new ethnic politics. The Union also rhetorically harped on pan-Mizo unification of co-ethnics in Manipur and the Chin Hills initially to appease its right-wing faction (Mizo Union Council), which was pro-British, pro-Chief and anti-Indian in character. 78 The main body of the Mizo Union was in favour of throwing its lot with a democratic Indian nation state: it was staunchly opposed to the status quo of indirect colonial rule through chiefdom. In this line of thinking, neither the idea of Crown Colony nor an independent tribal state was seen as desirable. A contemporary folk song captured the dominant mood of the middle class: India zawm duh chulalbanna, Independence duh chulallalna. 79 Free translation Joining India means freedom from the chiefs, Independence means perpetuating chiefdom. A memorandum of the Mizo Union in 1947 ‘seeks to represent the case of the Mizo people’ and expressed their concerns for their future without safeguards within the Indian nation state. The Mizo leaders argued for special status, and that they ‘cannot be thrown on a common platform with the rest of India’. 80 The moderate stance of the Mizo Union later came under attack by a more radical Mizo National Famine Front partly due to the incompetence – if not insensitivities – of the new ‘developmental state’ in Assam in its relief efforts during the Mizo famine of 1958. In their postcolonial miseries amidst the perceived indifference of the Indian state, the Mizos sought consolation in Raj nostalgia and memories of British paternalism in similar famine experiences in the past. 81 At the height of Mizo ‘insurgency’, a folk poet groaned under the military might of its new Indian ‘brown masters’ and cherished a fond memory of its former White masters: I dare not contemplate this grief of our land Departed are our civilized white skinned masters Oh, God who succour the poor, I pray thee Set the tottering land on its feet once again. 82 136

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Under the colonial regime, hill areas of the two princely states in the Northeast – Manipur and Tripura – did not enjoy special safeguards of the ‘Excluded or Partially Excluded Areas’. While Hill Tripura was never annexed in the first place, the hill areas of Manipur fell under British administration. In spite of the ‘Kuki (?)Rising’ of 1917–1919, the hill people of Manipur reportedly developed a soft corner for the British raj during the Japanese occupation. E. F. Lydall, the local British officer, said that ‘the local hillmen had throughout been a thorn in the side of the Japanese of whom a preliminary count showed that they captured 70 and killed 95.’ 83 At the time of the transfer of power in 1947, a local bard was inspired to immortalise this momentous event in a folk song. The significance of this composition lies in the fact that they enable us to restore – at least to a limited degree – the mentalité of fringe groups about the British Raj. Here is one such popular Zou folk song in the southern hills of Manipur: I Pu Gandhi Nehru taang bang khang, Independent koipan mu hiam maw? Independent tabangnunuam no, Lungdei Mangkaangte’n London zuanta e, India ei-a hi e. 84 Free translation ’Tis the new dispensation of Gandhi and Nehru, From whom came forth our independence? How delightful it is to be independent! The White Masters, our heart-throbs, 85 have left for London, India is ours. The admiration for anti-imperialist heroes like Gandhi and Nehru significantly does not prevent the tribal bard from expressing his nostalgia for the departure of the mystified British Raj. It is strange that in the chemistry of this folk composition, the sense of being Indian (if not Indian nationalism) is not incompatible with nostalgia for the departing Raj. This cannot be dismissed as an aberration or atypical of popular opinion among the hill people in the Northeast on the eve of India’s Independence. The split between anti-imperialism and nationalism reflects the life-world of a subaltern domain beyond the reach of middle-class mobilisation. Loyalism of the late colonial phase, C. A. Bayly observes, cannot simply be reduced to a function of social class or bribery by the State: ‘Loyalism in the later days of the raj needs to be taken as seriously as Irish, or for that matter Australian loyalism. Thus far it has only embarrassed Indian 137

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historians.’ 86 Loyalist rhetoric, for instance, among southern African tribes was ‘fuelled by different interests and put to different purposes’. 87 Imperial loyalty was a way of securing protection and patronage from the rulers, and it was a strategic instrument of appeal to address a range of local conditions and concerns. In the context of Mizoram, ethnic politics deployed a mild degree of loyalist Raj nostalgia against the pretensions of the State during moments of post-colonial misery. During the days of Mizo troubles, loyalist rhetoric used memories of a bygone Empire against the majoritarian thrusts of the State.

Conclusion During the transfer of power in 1947, the British Raj bequeathed to its nationalist Indian successor elites its colonial estates 88 and ethnic peoples within its territorial boundary mapped by colonial cartography. Within post-colonial India’s federal polity, the Northeast retains a remarkably strong regional identity. The ‘invisibility’ of the region from pan-Indian discourse is both acknowledged and disavowed. Given the perceived apathy of the region to Indian nationalism against British rule, conventional historiography showed little interest in the Northeast, which fitted awkwardly into the totalising narratives of the Nation’s ‘Freedom Struggle’. Even for the Subaltern Project, chiefly cast in terms of anti-colonial resistance, northeast India yielded all too few powder kegs of popular discontent against the Raj. It is a historical irony that small nationalities often fared better under multi-ethnic empires than under nation states. Lurking behind nostalgia for the old British Raj was genuine fear of tribal minorities in the Northeast that their interests might not be fairly represented by the hegemonic ideology of the new nationalist Raj. Ethnic minority leaders of British Assam greeted with mixed feelings the transfer of power from the white sahib to the brown sahib. The anomalous situation of India’s Northeast poses an important problem for South Asian studies: What happens to alternative micro-cultures created out of the colonial encounter when a homogenizing ‘nationalism’ wins out? Here it is desirable to capture the complexities and distinctiveness of an area like the Northeast whose populations experienced a dual domination (and even hostility) of both the colonial state and caste Hindu society. While nationalist historiography loves to cite limited instances of anti-British utterances by a handful of Congress leaders from the Northeast, how shall we account for local interests and sectional passions that defiantly evoke Raj nostalgia? In the monolithic view of the nationalist Indian state, the special safeguards of the tribal hill people under the Raj were obstacles to national 138

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unity and hill–valley unity. But the phenomenon of pro-British and antiIndian feelings cannot be simply dismissed as gratuitous and pathological affirmation of imperial system. The collective ‘tribal’ Mizo (at times contested by individual 89 Mizo citizens) was caught between the rhetoric of a cosmopolitan Empire and a nationalist State. And the post-colonial troubles of the Mizo peoples belatedly turned the pro-imperial white sahib into a kind of anti-colonial symbol against the brown sahib. Hidden behind the veil of pro-British loyalty and Raj nostalgia in India’s Northeast was the resistance of micro-cultures against majoritarian politics of late British Assam and the hegemonic moves of an intrusive State in the postIndependence era. Then as well as now, neither pan-Indian nationalism nor class-based or caste-based movements have any purchase in northeast India. Here visions of politics came to be framed in terms of ‘tribes’ and ethnicity – not in terms of the inalienable rights of the individual citizen. But sacrifice of the idea of citizenship on the altar of ethnicity have tragic consequences.

Notes 1 D.E. Jones, A Missionary’s Autobiography (translated from Welsh into English by J.M. Lloyd), Aizawl: Publisher H. Liansailova, 1998, p. 6. (Revd. D.E. Jones lived in the Lushai hills from 1897 to 1927). 2 Pioneer, 9 April 1870, reproduced in Alexander Mackenzie, History of the Relations of the Government with the Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier of Bengal, Calcutta: Home Department Press, 1884, p. 560. 3 Cf. Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, Trans. W.D. Halls, New York and London, 1990; Matthew Smith Anderson, The Rise of Modern Diplomacy 1450–1919, London and New York, 1993. 4 Observer, 11 February 1971 in Mackenzie, History of the Relations, p. 570. 5 Foreign Department, Political Branch C, Nos. 198–207, From Superintendent of Cachar, to Secy. to the Govt., Fort William, dated 26 April 1845. National Archives of India, New Delhi (hereafter NAI). 6 Pioneer, 22 February 1872 in Mackenzie, p. 575. 7 Observer, 25 February 1871 in Mackenzie, p. 571. 8 Pioneer, 23 April 1873 in Mackenzie, p. 585. 9 John Whitehead, Thanagliena: The Life of T.H. Lewin, Stirlingshire: Kiscadale Publications, 1992, pp. viii & 139. 10 Pioneer, 11 June 1870 in Mackenzie, p. 565. 11 Pioneer, 19 July 1970 in Mackenzie, p. 566. 12 Ibid., p. 567. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., p. 568. 15 Observer, 11 February 1871 in Mackenzie, p. 570. 16 Ibid., p. 567. 17 Ibid. 18 Elly, Military Report, p. 12.

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19 ‘Mr. Edgar’s Notes on his Tour among the Lushais in 1871’, pp. 415–426, in Mackenzie, History of Relations, p. 418. 20 Hattie, ‘In Perils by the Heathen’, pp. 54–58, dated Molung, Assam, 1885 in Narola Rivenburg (ed.), The Star of the Naga Hills: Letters from Rev. Sidney and Hattie Rivenburg, Pioneer Missionaries in Assam, Philadelphia: The Judson Press, 1941, p. 55. 21 The Government of India Act 1935 introduced the ‘Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas’, which were previously known as ‘Backward Tracts’ in the Government of India Act 1919. 22 Foreign Department, 1891, Secret E, Pros. June 1891, Nos. 80–100, Statement of Khalkam Raja, recorded by R.B. McCabe, Political Officer, North Lushai Hills, on 22 November 1890. NAI, New Delhi. 23 Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: The Definitive Glossary of British India, Kate Teltscher (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 [1886]. 24 Sajal Nag, Pied Pipers in North-East India: Bamboo-Flowers, Rat-Famine and the Politics of Philanthropy (1881–2007), New Delhi: Manohar, 2008; Sajal Nag, ‘Bamboo, Rats and Famines: Famine Relief and Perceptions of British Paternalism in the Mizo Hills (India)’, Environment and History, vol. 5 (1999), pp. 245–252. 25 1 maund is equal to 40 kilogrammes. 26 Elly, Military Report, p. 15. 27 Foreign Department, External A, Proceedings, August 1882, No. 89. NAI, New Delhi. 28 Elly, Military Report, p. 12. 29 Reginald Lorrain, Five Years in Unknown Jungle for God and Empire, London: Lakher Pioneer Mission, 1912, p. 17. 30 Ivory was a favourite medium of paying tributes or gifts to plains rajas and even the early British officials. An early evidence of such gift was made in 1855 by the Lushai chief Sukpilal to British official in Cachar. See ‘Bengal Judicial Proceedings, 12 April 1855, Nos. 95–101’ in Mackenzie, History of the Relations, pp. 296–297. 31 J.H. Lorrain ‘Amidst Flowering Bamboos, Rats and Famines, South Lushai Hills, Assam (1912)’, in Annual Reports of Baptist Missionary Society 1901– 1938, Serkawn: Baptist Church of Mizoram, Serkawn, 1993 (Hereafter Annual reports of BMS), p. 85. 32 Annual Reports of BMS 1912, p. 85. 33 Annual Reports of BMS 1912, pp. 90–91. 34 K.M. Pannikkar, Asia and Western Dominance, Mumbai: Somaiya Publication, 1999 [1953], p. 121. 35 Cf. Edith L. Piness, ‘The British Administrator in Burma: A New View’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 14, no. 2 (1983), pp. 372–378. 36 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994, p. 15. 37 Ramachandra Guha, ‘Savaging the Civilised: Verrier Elwin and the Tribal Question in late colonial India’, Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 31, no. 35/37 (1996), pp. 2375–2389; see p. 2375. 38 House of Commons Debates, 22 March 1935, cited in Guha, ‘Savaging the Civilised’, p. 2375.

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39 G.S. Ghurye, The Aborigines – So Called – and their Future, Poona: Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, 1943, pp. 14–21. 40 Amalendu Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam, New Delhi: Tukika Books, 2006, p. 130. 41 ‘Assembly 1927, Resolution No. 37 (a)’, in Mizoram Presbyterian Kohhran Synod Thurel Lak Khawm, vol. I, 1910–1950, Aizawl: Synod Literature & Publication Board, p. 241. 42 Jones, A Missionary’s Autobiography, p. 94. 43 Khamliana was the son of Lalbura, spelt as ‘Lal Gnoora’ or ‘Lal Ngora’ in early colonial records. He was the father of the famous Vanhnuailiana Sailo (meaning ‘the greatest of all under the skies’) who was chief of the Champhai country on the borders of Burma and the Lushai hills. Mackenzie, History of the Relations, pp. 315–316; A.G. McCall, Lushai Chrysalis, London: Luzac & Co., 1949, p. 48; and Lalhmingliani, ‘Khamliana’, in Historical Journal Mizoram, vol. XII (2011), pp. 1–11. 44 J.H. Lorrain, Dictionary of the Lushai Language, Calcutta: The Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1940. 45 Demagiri (Demagri/Tlabung) is on the bank of the Tuipui (Karnaphuli) river in Lungleh District of Mizoram. In the colonial era, Demagiri was the point of departure for river journey by country boat to Rangamati, located 79 miles downstream in Bengal. (O.A. Chambers, Handbook of the Lushai Country, 1899, p. 30; and Mizoram District Gazetters, Aizawl: Government of Mizoram, 1989, p. 370. 46 Foreign Dept., dated Chittagong, 31 December 1888, No. 55, from D.R. Lyall (Commissioner of Chittagong Division) to J. Ware Edgar (Chef Secy. to Government of Bengal). NAI, New Delhi. 47 Foreign Dept., dated Jhalna Cherra, 6 January 1889, No. 81, Translation of Rai Hari Charan Surma Bahadur’s report. NAI, New Delhi. 48 These were the sons of Suakpuilala (Sookpilal), the most prominent chief being Khalkam. 49 Foreign Department, Pros. June 1891, Nos. 80–100, Secret E, State ment of Sailenpui Raja, recorded by R.B. McCabe, Political Officer, North Lushai Hills, on 16 December 1890. NAI, New Delhi. 50 Foreign Department, 1891, Secret E, Pros. June 1891, Nos. 80–100, Statement of Khalkam Raja, recorded by R.B. McCabe, Political Officer, North Lushai Hills, on 22 November 1890. NAI, New Delhi. 51 Foreign Department, 1891 Secret E, October 1891, Nos. 223–232. NAI, New Delhi. 52 McCall, Lushai Chrysalis, p. 46. 53 Jones, A Missionary’s Autobiography, p. 95. 54 Ibid., p. 96. 55 The total population of the Lushai Hills District in 1922 was 98,406 persons, growing at about 2,363 persons per annum. In 1925, the statistics of Christian converts in the district was 34,893. Therefore, the estimated percentage of Mizo Christians in 1925 is 33 per cent. 56 Jones, A Missionary’s Autobiography, pp. 95–96. 57 Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. I, Chicago and London: University of California Press, 1991, p. 305.

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58 Andrew May, Welsh Missionaries and British Imperialism: The Empire of Clouds in North-East India, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2012, p. 28. 59 Jean and John, Of Revelation and Revolution, p. 304. 60 ‘Report From Lloyd to Oliver; dated Aijal 18 August 1947’ (File no. 27,421), NLW-CMA (National Library of Wales – Calvinistic Methodist Archives, Aberystwyth). 61 William Cunningham Bissell, ‘Engaging Colonial Nostalgia’, Cultural Anthropology, vol. 20, no. 2 (2005), pp. 215–248. 62 For instance, stresses in the power equation between the clan chiefs and the lambus (interpreters) were partly responsible for the anti-colonial Kuki rising of 1917–1919. 63 E.R. Leach, ‘The Frontiers of Burma’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 3, no. 1 (1960), pp. 49–68. 64 D.R. Syiemlieh, ‘British Policy Towards the Khasi States’, in J.B. Bhattacharjee (ed.), Studies in the History of North-East India: Essays in Honour of Professor H. K. Barpujari, Shillong: North-Eastern Hill University, 1986, pp. 186–196. 65 McCall, Lushai Chrysalis, p. 245. 66 Captain Thomas Herbert Lewin, Progressive Colloquial Exercises in the Lushai Dialect of the ‘Dzo’ or Kuki Language with Vocabularies and Popular Tales, Calcutta: Calcutta Central Press Company Ltd., 1874, p. viii. 67 Lewin, Progressive Colloquial Exercises, p. viii. 68 MSS-E 61/4 (A.G. McCall Papers) ‘The Doings of Dara, Chief of Pukpui’ (Autobiography), 1890–1891. OIOC (Oriental and India Office Collections), British Library, London. 69 OIOC, British Library, London, MSS-E 61/4. 70 OIOC, British Library, London, MSS Eur E 361/6 1890–91. 71 Sir Robert Reid, History of the Frontier Areas Bordering on Assam from 1883–1941, Shillong: Assam Government Press, 1942, p. 44. 72 ‘The Naga Problem’ (1965) a 14-paged note by Charles Pawsey, p. 5. CSAS (Centre for South Asian Studies), Cambridge. 73 Pawsey Papers, pp. 5 and 6. CSAS Archives, Cambridge. 74 Sajal Nag, Contesting Marginality: Ethnicity, Insurgency and Subnationalism in North-East India, New Delhi: Manohar, 2002, p. 110. 75 R. Vanlawma, Kan Ram Le Kei (My Country and I): Political History of Modern Mizoram, Aizawl: Zoram Printing Press, 1972. 76 R. Vanlawma (1946) ‘The Mizo Union’, Kristian Tlangau Thubelh, June, pp. 5–7. Aizawl Theological College (ATC) Archives, Durtlang (Mizoram). 77 Ibid. 78 Nag, Contesting Marginality, p. 119. 79 Mizo folk songs collected by Thanpuii, Mizo Hla (undated); cited by Sajal Nag (2006: 68). 80 ‘Memorandum submitted to His Majesty’s Government and its Constituent Assembly through the advisory Sub-committee’ by the Mizo Union (dated Aijawl 26 April 1947) in C. Chawngkunga, Important Documents of Mizoram, Aijawl: Art & Culture Department, Government of Mizoram, 1998, pp. 305–313. 81 Nag, ‘Bamboo, Rats and Famines’, pp. 251, 246.

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82 Cited in V. Venkata Rao, et al., A Century of Government and Politics in Northeast India: Mizoram, New Delhi: S. Chand, 1987, p. 270. 83 Administrative Report of Manipur 1943–44, p. 6. Manipur State Archives, Imphal. 84 Unpublished compilation of Zou folk songs by Zou Cultural and Literature Society, registered with the Government of Delhi (mimeograph); originally composed by Mangzathang of Zoveng (in Churachandpur town of Manipur), the song has also been auditioned at All India Radio, Shillong, by Zomi Sangnaupang Pawlpi. 85 While the phrase, ‘Lungdei Mangkaangte’ in the original dialect may also be justifiably translated as ‘esteemed White Lords’, there is good reason to our present rendering as ‘Our heart-throbs, the White Masters’ – given the fact that the sense conveyed in the original is highly emotive, and not at all prosaic. 86 C.A. Bayly, ‘Returning the British to South Asian history: The Limits of Colonial Hegemony’, South Asia, vol. 17, no. 2 (1994), pp. 1–25. See p. 12. 87 Andrew Thompson, ‘The Languages of Loyalism in Southern Africa, c. 1870–1939’, English Historical Review, vol. cxviii, no. 477 (2003), pp. 617–650. See pp. 620–621. 88 Anthony Pagden, ‘Imperialism, Liberalism and the Quest for perpetual Peace’, Daedalus, vol. 134, no. 2 (2005), pp. 46–57. 89 Although the ‘tribal’ Mizo and the ‘modern’ Mizo were born at the same historical moment, the first was a product of imperial ethnology, and the second was a child of colonial modernity. The ‘tribe’ effectively articulated collective claims against ‘caste’ society. Nevertheless, the downside of the tribal Mizo is that this identity gives a free hand to dominant sections within the community to attack the freedom of individual persons (either the individual Mizo or individual non-Mizo citizens) living within the tribal territory. This is a tribal paradox the modern Mizo has to confront in a globalizing world.

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5 TEXT, KNOWLEDGE AND REPRESENTATION Reading gender in Sumi marriage practices* Lovitoli Jimo

The writing about Northeast India as a ‘Cultural Category’ is problematic and needs a close examination. This chapter tries to critically engage with different kinds of texts available on the region through the gendered lens. An attempt is made to understand the materiality of culture in the making of Northeast in general and specificity of community in particular. The chapter examines the process of knowledge production on how certain text gain predominance over the other in course of time. As a result, the politics that is played out, and how it is deeply embedded in patriarchy, becomes evident. This prompts the need to critically engage with gender as an analytic category. Analysing gender here does not only mean men and women, but to see how gender operates in multiple ways; reading gender through the materiality of culture where there is a relation between cultural practices and land with the question of inheritance, customary laws and practices, the rule of marriage and community or clan identity centring around women, her body and her sexuality, conflict and violence and its implications, etc. through which gender is played out. Here, Sumi customs and marriage practices are the point of reference where the exchange of ameh 1 in the marriage alliance has been critically examined, and how gender operates in the way certain text and narratives dominate over others in the process of writing culture. The progress and history of the society are represented and mediated through text; by written words, oral text, images, media, popular culture, etc. Dorothy Smith wrote that ‘texts are the primary medium of power.’ 2 When we look at the works of the colonial administration and Christian

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missionaries in the Northeast Region, we can see that these colonial records in the course of time have contributed to the making of the region’s history and have shaped the very discourse of the region. It became the ideologically structured mode of knowledge production through their own understanding, leaving behind a legacy for the people of the land and region to consume what looked like the ‘authentic’ history. As a result of this internalisation, the way the people of the region think of themselves, about others and the readings of societies is shaped and informed by this body of colonial knowledge. The politics of which information gets reproduced and disseminated is an important question. In terms of colonial records, these were mostly surveys, expeditions and administrative reports, whereas missionary records consisted of education and Church-related matters. Shahid Amin, 3 in another context talks about how in writing history about the peasant, the subalterns do not write but they are written about, and the conventional ways of looking or understanding is to look at extraordinary events in the lives of such people to study them. This then becomes the representation of the society. As a result, it is not the everyday history of the people that is documented, but the extraordinary events that are documented and reported, and it is through these events that the cultural history of the people is looked at, which is problematic. Thus, the question arises as to, how do we get access to that part of knowledge and history which talks about everyday living? Secondly, these documents are written from the perspective of the administrators and missionaries, which looked at the natives as the ‘other’ in relation to them. As a result, there is a need to further pose this questions of where is the voice of the people/natives whose history is in the making, and where is the subject in this history? These are some of the pertinent methodological question which need to be asked to bring back the ‘subject’ in the history of the people and the region and not just look at the region only through the prism of cultural as has been. Ironically, the colonial monographs become the core body of knowledge to look back at the socio-cultural practices, traditional beliefs and societal composition of the people. These monographs were the by-products of the constant movements that the rulers where making in the hills in the process of administration. 4 Thus, how does one ascertain the representation of the people under consideration? Does it represent the voice of the people, or does it represent the understanding of the ‘other’ and their understanding and perception of what the people and the communities are and should be? The subjective reality of the observer and his or her social location and position are an important empirical reality which needs to be questioned while

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making use of these materials. Once the positionality of the researcher/ administrators/anthropologist/ethnographer is ignored, then the subjective reality associated with the materials/resources is left out. Effort has been made to critically look at the socio-cultural representation of the people through different texts like colonial reports and monograph, anthropological writings and theories, vernacular writings, oral history and narratives to look at the materiality of culture and the complexity of how it operates at multiple ways. The problem of establishing certain texts as more ‘authoritative’ and ‘authentic’, and how anthropological texts and theories give legitimacy to those selective texts and validated by the vernacular texts, has been looked at. For this work, both secondary texts as well as primary texts in the form of oral history and narratives are engaged with to understand the materiality of cultural practices; the Sumi marriage practices and the prestations 5 associated with it will be examined through a critical gendered lens.

Using gender as an analytical category To understand the dynamics and complexities of the workings of different society and its people, using gender as a category is imperative. However, one of the difficulty with the term ‘gender’ is that it is equated with women, and any issue that deals with the question of women is now replaced by gender, which seems politically more correct but conceptually problematic. Dorothy Smith 6 writes that, when the voice of the subject of women is missing in framing the ideology of knowledge and cultural production, their experience, interest and ways of knowing the world have not been represented, that is how women are excluded. Both men and women are an integral part in the making of history through participation in different kinds of work and location, but ultimately the subject of women has been excluded, thus reducing women to a marginal voice in the work of systematic knowledge production. She wrote, ‘what men were doing was relevant to men, was written by men about men for men. Men listened and listened to one another.’ This is how tradition is formed, ‘a way of thinking develops in this discourse through the medium of the written and printed words as well as speech.’ 7 Women’s experiences have been excluded or admitted though a special privilege granted to women as individuals and never as representatives of their own sex. She thus argued that when women’s experience and work featured in the making of tradition, culture and history, it has been on terms decided by men because it has been approved by men. In this usage, ‘gender’ does not highlight the inequality or power, nor is it identifying the aggrieved party. 8 Feminist scholars pointed out that the study of women would not only add new subject matter, but would also 146

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force a critical re-examination of the premises and standards of existing scholarly work. Gordon, Buhle and Dye wrote, we are learning that the writing of women into history necessarily involved redefining and enlarging traditional notions of historical significance, to encompass personal, subjective experience as well as public and political activities and such methodologies imply not only a new history of women but also a new history. 9 To use gender as a category of historical analysis, it requires an analysis not only of the relationship between male and female experience in the past, but also of the connection between past history and current historical practice. How does gender work in human social relationships? How does gender give meaning to and perception to the organisation and understanding of historical knowledge? To these question Scott wrote, ‘the answers depends on gender as an analytic category.’ 10 In the context of India’s Northeast Region in general and Sumi tribe in particular, many of the available works have not used gender as an analytical category to understand and problematise the materiality of cultural practices and beliefs The need to draw the relation between land, community, identity, customary practices, rule of inheritance, exchange and transactions and see how gender operates through different ways and means and not just in relation to men and women. Moreover, most of the work on gender deals with the status of women giving a simplistic view but a more nuanced reading is required. Both men and women along with different actors and agency of culture norms and values, rules and laws contribute and take active part in the making of culture, but the critical analyses of gender have been few. Cultural conceptualisation of the category Northeast is much gendered and community specific. The concept of culture organises Northeast region only through customary practices which place men and women in a specific gendered relation, whereas the specifics of everyday practices of different communities tell us that this social organisation has a more complex arrangement. Taking the Sumi tribe as a lens to look at the politics of knowledge production, the idea of gift and exchange is examined, keeping in mind the complexity of using gender as a category in political economy of marriage and transactions. The monograph of J. H. Hutton, The Sema Naga (1921), was the earliest work on the Sumi Naga tribe, and it has been used as a seminal text of reference both by the local people as well as by different scholars to talk about the Sumi society and their culture. While writing about Sumi marriage practices, J. H. Hutton 11 describes Sumi men paying marriage price for the bride. He used the terms ‘marriage price’, ‘bride price’ and 147

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‘dowry’ interchangeably and was not clear about these usages and contexts, which is problematic. Hutton writes about the ‘marriage price’ paid by the groom, but the principles on which it is based are not clearly articulated. Hutton’s vague talk about the marriage price paid by the bridegroom has become a point of contradictions and contestations in the later writings and understanding of Sumi marriage practices in the post-colonial context. 12 The very idea of exchange, the principles on which Sumi marriages are arranged, which is gendered, is missing in the popular narratives. Marriage prestations take place between the two families during marriage alliance, originating from the groom and his family and goes on to the bride’s family. Based on what is received as ameh from the groom’s family, the bride’s family prepares a return gift equivalent to the ameh received for the newlywed couple. This is the foundation on which the new couple set up their home. The question that arises is, why the popular discourse of Sumi marriage talks only about the origin gift/exchange, but not the complete cycle of exchange and reciprocity? Does the hegemonic masculinity imply that the exchange of women is considered as the prerogative of men? Does the patriarchal character of the patrilineal and patrilocal practices have any significance in the discourse on Sumi Marriage prestations and the narratives around it?

Sumi cultural practices, values, rules and norms The Sumi, like other Nagas and most of the tribal society of Northeast India, have a patriarchal structure with patrilineal and patrilocal practices. The descent is traced though the male line, and the family property and land are inherited by men. The Khasi, Garo and Jantia of Meghalaya in Northeast India practice matrilineal and matrilocal residence. Nagas in general and Sumi in particular do not practice joint family, but the newlywed couple establish their new family at the natal village of the groom. Naga customary law is protected by the Indian Constitution under Article 371A, and therefore, these customs are still practiced although they have taken different forms and meanings in recent days. Customary practices which recognise the special needs of the ‘indigenous’ people aim to empower the local population, but it has its own contradictions. There are some sections of the people who misuse these privileges for their own interest, leading to the marginalisation of women and the lowest members of the community. The customary practice of male members inheriting family property has been a subject of much discussion and scrutiny in recent times, where the idea of giving some share to both daughter(s) and son(s) within the acquired property of the parents is taking shape. One of the arguments in relation to the customary practices of male inheritance is that since the 148

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traditional Naga society relies on agriculture, land is very central to the political economy of the society. With patrilineal and patrilocal residence practices where a daughter marries and moves out to the husband’s family or village, it was not feasible to divide agricultural land. Thus, the question of inheritance becomes very central to understand the gender dynamics of the community. Among the Sumi tribe, clan exogamy is the norm, but among certain clans, there is a practice of clan endogamy within different sub-clan. The degree of acceptability of marriage is said to be seventh generation from the father side and fifth generation from the mother side, and cross-cousin marriages exist but are not the norm. 13 However, parallel cousin marriage is not practiced. This governing rule resonates with Irigaray 14 when she writes that ‘the passage into the social order, into the symbolic order, into order as such, is assured by the fact men exchange women among themselves according to the rule known as incest taboo.’ Again, marriage in faraway places and inter-tribal alliances was not preferred. Child marriage did not exist among the Sumi; however, cases of childhood betrothal between the sons and daughters of the chiefs and rich people was observed though only in few cases. The questions that arise are the following: What were the socio-economic and political factors that lead to the practice of both clan endogamy and clan exogamy? Are women central to the practices? Does it relate to the power and control associated with women, her ameh and the politics of exchange? These are some of the question that the chapter will try to look at.

The customary Sumi marriage practices The origin of the Sumi practice of ameh is unknown, but it is said that ameh started when the Sumi left Kezakhonoma in the present-day Phek district in Nagaland and started establishing their own village. Accordingly, the first ameh was said to be given for the marriage of a woman called Khayi. She was the daughter of Hebo and Chisho and the sister of Chishi. 15 The Sumi practices of marriage have elaborate rites, rituals, economics and politics of alliances involved resulting in hierarchy and division between different sections of the society which is one of the characteristic features of the Sumi social structure. One of the principles of marriage among the Sumi is that marriage alliances was arranged among the family of equal status, especially among the chiefs. In a patriarchal society, the working of hypogamy creates many conflicts and tension with the women’s natal family and family of marriage, as there is a system of hereditary chieftainships, purity of bloodline and clan supremacy which becomes a site of subversion. It reflects the advantage of the wife taker over the wife giver, which is reflected in the 149

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popular discourse of Sumi marriage and which is the core of the problem. This leads to the question of, what is the dynamics of marriages and what is the politics of these arrangements? The radical feminist view of the ‘personal is political’ 16 becomes relevant. Marriage, which is the union of two individuals to start a family is the centre of all politics. It is a site where the social class and status of two different groups are staged and contested by the virtue of one being either a wife taker or wife giver, and where the parties concerned garner more status and respect or subjugation, which is not visible but has a hidden text. Marcel Mauss, in his classic book The Gift, writes that the ‘exchanges and contracts take place in the form of presents; in theory these are voluntary, in reality they are given and reciprocated obligatorily.’ 17 He further elaborated that the voluntary character of these total services, which appears free and disinterested, is nevertheless constrained and involves vested interest. Most often such services have taken the form of the gift where the presents generously given are accompanied with a polite fiction, formalism, and social deceit, while obligation and economic self-interest hide behind the cover of social niceties. One of the principles which impose this manifestation on the obligatory forms of exchange is the division of labour in the society. These raise the following questions: What rule of legality and self-interest in societies compels the gift that has been received to be obligatorily reciprocated? What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back? 18 These questions will be examine through the Sumi marriage prestations of ameh practices.

Ameh: how does it work? Mary Douglas in the preface to Mauss book on The Gift wrote that the gift is not only about religion. It is about politics and economics; the political and moral implications. Thus, the theory of the gift is a theory of human solidarity, and the social relations change with changes in the mode of production. 19 She further wrote that Mauss discovered a mechanism by which ‘individual interests combine to make a social system, without engaging in market exchange.’ 20 If we look at Sumi ameh, it was central to the Sumi marriage in the past, which had its implication in the power dynamics among different gender, clan and villages. It had power dynamics which had political, economic and moral implication sanctioned by the society. Ameh was given in a context of public drama and making no secret about it. Just by being visible, the resultant distribution of goods and services was more readily subject to public scrutiny and judgements of fairness and unfairness which was acceptable or not acceptable to the social group. In operating a gift system, people were more aware of what they were doing, as shown 150

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by the sacredness associated with the institutions of giving and the beliefs associated with it. The idea of the gift economy comprises all the associations; the ‘symbolic, interpersonal, and economic’. 21 According to Mauss, 22 ‘generosity is an obligation’ and therefore the political economy of gift and exchange need to be studied carefully because the gift and exchange that take place either in marriage or everyday leads to the creation of obligation, and the breaking of the cycle of obligation once created becomes difficult. The common understanding of ameh is the exchange of gift that is passed from the groom and his family to the bride’s family during marriage. The value of ameh depends on the social status of both the parties involved. But ameh is more complex, and it passed through different hands and leads to the construction of different social relationship and identity. As Douglas has pointed out, the gift, ameh here has not only economics, but also has political and social repercussion as the inability to provide for one’s ameh lead to the restructuring of one’s social position, where the concerned person and his family thereafter becomes obliged to the person who provides for his ameh under the system of bondage called axe 23 in Sumi custom, which is hereditary. Thus the constructed identity created through ameh has many implications. It redefined a person’s status in the Class hierarchy of the Sumi society which is hereditary. Ameh from the groom’s family to the girl’s family was provided mostly in terms of cattle and pigs and other resources. The ground rule of ameh was: it was given to the bride’s parents and in accordance to the ameh received, the bride’s parents prepared a reciprocating gift and present to the newlywed couple on the day of marriage. How does this exchange of give and take happen? What were the ways of reciprocating this exchange and what were the rationales involved? Ameh has both the latent and manifest function and the latent aspect of it is deeply intertwined in the social fabrics of Sumi society with its hereditary rules and gender relations. One of the working principles of this practice was that the reciprocating gifts from the bride’s parents to the bride and the groom had to be equivalent in value to the ameh received. Avi 24 played a crucial value in ameh, because the gift prepared by the bride’s family was in relations to the use or non use of Avi in marriage. There were certain binding gifts which had to be included in the gift if Avi was used in ameh. When we look into the working system of these gifts and exchange, the direction in which these gifts were presented was not one way as has been theorised. Ameh originated from the groom and his parents in the form of cattle and pigs and goes to the bride and her parents, changed its form into ornaments and jewelleries, costumes, shawls and wraparounds, utensils, field tools, saplings for new agricultural cycle and goes to the bride and the groom. Some of the gifts prepared by the bride’s parents such as shawls and wraparound 151

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were distributed to the relatives of both the bride and the groom, but the rest of the gifts received from the bride’s parents and relatives remained with the newlywed couple. The bride’s mother’s brother (maternal Uncle) and father’s sister (paternal Aunt) were important recipients of these return gifts from the bride and the groom as their misgivings were considered as unfavourable for the wellbeing of the newlywed couple. While looking at the workings of gifts in marriage prestations, one important aspect which needs to be highlighted is, it was not only the materials associated with gifts, but also the immaterial gifts such as the prayers and blessings. The bride’s father’s blessing was considered fundamental for procreation, wellbeing and wealth and was thus an essential component of the gift in the whole marriage exchange.

The exchange of ameh during Sumi marriage Unlike in the other parts of the country, joint family is not practiced in Sumi society. This family system of the Sumi has to be kept in mind to understand the working dynamics of ameh. No doubt the newlywed settled in the natal village of the groom, but they established their own separate household, and the resources that they received during their marriage were at their disposal without the interferences and interests of different family members coming in the way. One of the problems in understanding Sumi ameh is that the practice is looked at as the transaction from the groom’s family to the bride’s parents for the marriage, but the other aspect of transactions are left out completely both by the local people in their understandings of ameh, as well as by the scholars on the subject. Here the deeply embedded patriarchy and its stringent understanding of society is visible because the origin gift from the groom and his family to the bride’s family is the only narrative that is recognised. The fact that the bride’s parents are the custodian of the gift and not the ultimate recipient is not recognised and the gift they prepare for the newlywed couple is left out in the larger narrative. As a result, the popular perception is that Sumi women are the object of exchange during marriage through ameh practices. The complete exchange of the gift cycle involved in ameh is not brought out. The time, labour, money and kind invested by the bride’s parents are not considered as part of the narratives of ameh. It is a reflection of the unequal sharing of power in the patriarchal marriage alliance where the status of the bride’s parents as wife giver becomes lower than the groom’s parents by virtue of being a wife taker. This is seen in the ameh narratives where the role and gifts prepared by the bride’s parents are sidelined in the Sumi marriage. The narrative has become the dominant discourse of Sumi marriage despite the fact that there is a contradiction between theory and praxis of 152

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this particular practice, that is, ameh. This leads to the question of how this narrative gained dominance and how it was disseminated. It may be noted that among the Nagas, there was no written history before the advent of colonialism and Christian missionaries and it is through their intervention the ‘Written’ history of the region and the people began. The earliest documented narratives of the tradition and practices of the people are that of the colonial official and ethnographers. As a result, colonial writings constituted an important source of understanding community and their practices although written without real understanding of its workings. Hence, in practice, people did things differently because of the fear of wrath of supernatural forces associated with the practice. But in the passing of word, they picked up the most popular version, and it was passed onto the people, thus leading to the incomplete story being passed around which became the theory of Sumi marriage, but with different practices. Thus the role of wife givers got left out in the dominant narrative. Hosheli Wotsa, a vernacular writer, writes about the practices of Sumi ameh from the unidirectional standpoint, which is problematic and needs to be deconstructed in order to get a full picture of ameh and the working politics of the practices. She focuses on the morality and sexuality aspects of the women as being central to the working and maintenance of a patriarchal family and practices. Wotsa wrote, The rational for taking ameh: there is a reason behind our fore father’s practice of ameh. Some of the reason and explanation are: 1 A woman is worthwhile, valuable, demure and priceless and because of these characteristics, the practice of giving and taking ameh is instituted. A child [read girl child here] is carried for nine months in the mother’s womb and taken care of and nurtured by her for another three years. And therefore, cannot be left forgotten like an object, but is quite valuable, and thus ameh is taken. 2 Ameh is taken with the intention of keeping the relations alive and continued. The bride’s family takes her ameh, which implies that both in her difficulties and joys, they will look out for her. When she is unable to take care of her household and agricultural field, her natal family will take care and support her. 3 Ameh is taken keeping in mind that when a woman marries and becomes a member of another family, and should her husband die, and if she wishes, she can come back to her natal family. Hence, for Sumi women, if her husband dies and if she wishes to, she returns back to her natal family. If she chooses to marry again, ameh is given to the bride’s parents, but according to the custom, the practice of the distribution of azajunlashi among family members will not take place. 153

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However, according to the Sumi customary practices, as long as her husband is alive, she cannot divorce her husband. Should she divorce her husband, she has to pay a fine called kutha kulo (tha: insult: humilation and kulo: pay back) [author’s translation]. 25 She further writes: Who takes the ameh? A woman’s ameh is taken either by her parents or by her brothers. When azajunla meat is killed, it is distributed among all the family members and relatives of the bride. In return, all the relatives who received this meat piece reciprocate with a gift to the bride signifying that they share her joy. After all these rituals and arrangements are done, the bride goes to her husband’s house. But she observes the rituals for three days and does not sleep with her husband for three nights. During those three nights, the husband sleeps in another house. This ­abstention/ restraint from consummation of marriage is performed for a prosperous wedded life. For this reason, a woman who is demure, chaste with high moral values cannot be given free of cost, but she should be used in all her worthiness, and therefore ameh is practiced. (author’s translation) 26 According to this understanding in a patriarchal society, it is the role of the woman to restrain her husband from sexual intercourse with her for three days. If she succeeds, she is considered a woman in a ‘true sense’, and that is why ameh was taken: a value for women who maintain high morality. This narrative revolves around women as commodity; something that can be bought and sold, the rights to give and take over women’s sexuality; the moral values around women sanctioned by patriarchal values through the male gaze over women’s body and her sexuality; and how it can be explored. Furthermore, the influence of Christianity had strengthened this practice where people’s mindsets and worldviews are shaped by unquestioned Christian morality, which focuses on women and their sexuality. First, the care rendered to a woman by her natal family is realised through ameh from the groom and his family when she gets married. This kind of simplistic reading gives the impression that women are being ‘sold’ during marriage and the price paid for, even for future help. The fact that the new household is actually set up by the bride’s family in the form of reciprocating gifts is completely left out. Second is the issue of sexuality of women and their body, where sexual abstinence ritual is seen as a marker of women’s high moral values. The 154

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woman is blamed for the failure of the man to abstain/resist sexual intercourse during the time of the ritual and without high moral values. The immediate question arises as to why a woman gets the blame when both the man and woman are involved in the act and ritual of abstinence for three days after marriage? In a patriarchal society, it is the men who act and the women are the bearers and custodians of the society and the wellbeing of the family, which is clearly seen in these kinds of writings and understandings.

Marriage prestations and Ameh: economics of power The social dynamics represented through culture makes these arrangements possible without any anomaly and become acceptable to the masses as a part of the customs. Ameh is one tradition which plays a binding role in the Sumi marriage. Theoretically, ameh is provided by the groom to the bride’s parents, and it is only after ameh is agreed and provided that the marriage takes place. The ameh depends and differs according to one’s social standing; the higher the social standing, the greater is the ameh. It can be both in terms of cattle and kind. Practically, the dynamics of ameh is more complex as mentioned earlier. ‘It supposes the obligation, on the one hand, to give presents, and on the other, to receive them.’ 27 Thus the very fact that ameh is provided and received also bring in the obligation to give gifts. Hence it is not unidirectionals but it originates from the groom and his family and goes to the bride’s family, changes its form and goes to the newlywed couple. As a result, the ultimate recipient of ameh is the bride and the groom and not the bride’s family as it has been theorised. Unlike other Naga tribes, the ameh among the Sumi is not just a token gesture. It is a power play through marriage alliance. The exchange and transaction are thus not individual, but collective, which impose obligations of exchange and contract upon each other. If we look at the political economy of Sumi marriage, the exchange of gifts starts with ameh, and it continues throughout life and through the exchange of marriage gift the obligation to reciprocate is maintained and remains. Like the Maori law of gift, what imposes obligations in the present received and exchanged is the fact that the thing received is not inactive, and through it, the giver has a hold over the beneficiary, just as being its owner. 28 Among the Sumi through the exchange of marriage gift the obligation to reciprocate remains throughout. By the very fact that something has been received through the daughter’s marriage has the obligation to give back at the marriage of the gift-giver’s daughter, and the cycle continues. 155

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For the ordinary villager, ameh is a minimal but mandatory practice, and if they cannot afford it, they end up creating another social category in the society by becoming a bonded member as aqu-axe, which redefined their very identity and family genealogy in the society. A new set of kinship are created through this practice where not the biological, but the one who provides for the ameh becomes the master and is addressed as apu which means father/master. The parties involved are official entities: clan, kinsmen and families who confront and oppose one another. Again, what they exchange are not solely property and wealth, movable and immovable goods, and things economically useful, but the social obligations. In particular, such exchanges are acts of politeness: feast, rituals, services, alliance through marriage, dances and songs, festivals and fairs, in which economic transaction is only one element, and in which the passing on of wealth is only one feature of a much more general and enduring contract. According to the Sumi customary practices, marriages are divided into four categories, and based on this categorisation, ameh is practiced accordingly. The four categories are amini kimiji xe, ashoghu xe, hatha xe or latha xe and topunasho xe also called aküpüla xe. 29 These categories are based on social hierarchy, except in the fourth category, which is based on community morality. Genealogy of pure blood is central in both amini kimji xe and asoghu xe but in amini kimji xe, the genealogy of women is traced, which reinforced the patriarchal bargain and paradoxes in a society ruled by the male hegemonic masculinity. Before discussing in detail the different marriage categories and their relevance, what follows is a brief description of the folklore and the origin of amini kimiji xe and its practice. The story around the origin of amini kimji xe goes that there was a certain man of Zhimomi (also known as Jimomi) clan 30 called Khumtsa who had a wife Tüghünakha, and the practice of amini kimiji was started by Khumtsa and Tüghünakha of Zhimomi clan through their daughter Shonili. It so happened that they were blessed with many children, and he and his wife used to spread out the mat in the kitchen for their children to sleep. Every night when his children went to sleep, Khumtsa, the father, would go and check the heartbeat of each child. The heartbeat of all the children beat in rhythm whenever he checked on them, but his youngest daughter Shonili’s heart would beat faster like a drum whenever she was sleeping. Having noticed this, the father Khumtsa was worried because he felt that she will face hardship and difficulties in life. Therefore, he gathered all his children and asked them to take particular care of his youngest daughter Shonili and told them that if they fail him, they will answer to him in the land of the death. When it was time for his youngest daughter Shonili to marry, he and his wife prepared an elaborate gift for her; everything was in pairs, and the even made extra wraparound for her with the precious 156

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stone and beads attached to it, which came to be called amini kimiji mini. The idea behind this special preparation during Shonili’s marriage was that during difficult time, she can fall back on the wealth provided by her parents for her survival and wellbeing. It so happened that after her marriage, poverty, hardship and difficult situations fell on her family and that at that time, she was able to use those gifts given by her parents during her marriage for her survival. 31 It is also said that the first marriage alliance in amini kimji xe was between Shonili from Zhimomi clan to a man from Yepthomi clan. It was first practised between the two clans, but through the marriage alliance of Zhimomi and Yepthomi women to other clan, it was spread to other Sumi clans. Thus, the legend behind this amini kimiji is associated with marriage, hierarchy and clan identity centred on the subject of women and the materiality of culture. If we look at folklore, the centrality of the narratives revolves around a certain woman, the love of the father for his daughter; and the bravery and enduring nature and how she fights with her situations to overcome difficult circumstances. The question here is why the narratives revolved around women to talk about the hierarchy, status and ritual purity in marriage? Why is women’s genealogy central in Sumi customary practices where bloodline is very central to the narrative discourse of Sumi marriage and social order? It is important to note that in Sumi marriage practices, the highest category of marriage alliance, that is amini kimiji xe, revolves around women, her genealogy and bloodline.

Marriage rituals and prestation in different marriage category The first category of Sumi marriage, amini kimiji, revolves around stringent rituals and beliefs and the genealogy of women. The mother’s line is traced in this marriage. The ritual of this marriage is such that those women whose mothers married under this category are eligible to marry in this category, but this does not give them automatic privilege or rights. The groom’s family also has to be of equal status and has to perform all the rites and ritual practices to become eligible for this form of marriage. The highest ameh is provided here, and the ornaments and jewelleries, costumes, attires and the entire household items used by the Sumi tribe are given in pairs to the couples. A necklace called Achiku or Achipu, which is most valued by the people, is given to the bride by her parents. Amini kimiji is the wraparound of Sumi women where precious stones and beads used by Sumi are stitched on the wraparound. 32 Among all the Sumi’s wraparound this amini kimiji is the best, the highest and the most 157

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prestigious one. The Kukami (chiefs), the wealthy and those who are perfect themselves all round in the society without any stigma attached in their name and those who have observed all the chine chini (genna) can make this aminiji kimiji for their daughter during her marriage. 33 But again, it is said that the daughter becomes eligible to marry under this category only when her mother has married in amini kimiji xe. As a part of the rituals, the parents of the bride have to give the bride amini kimiji, and along with it, Kiyepu mini. 34 All the wraparounds and shawls, used by the Sumi are given in pairs; the shawls worn by men such as Avikiphi, Aqhumi, Abophi, Tubophi, Ayephi (aphi means shawl) and a special shawl called Asüküdaphi is prepared and given in marriage. The shawl worn by women called Hekütha Qhumi and varieties of wraparound as Lotosü, Tsüghü mini, Abomini, Aghukiyi mini, Litashi, Pulosü, Lahupichikha/Lahumini, ayemini, etc. are given to the daughter on her marriage. Utensil and seedlings of crops and vegetables are given along with the tools used in the field, and piglet, poultry and puppies are given for domestication. It is considered unfortunate to give only one piece without a pair. Other costumes and jewelleries such as akutsu kukha (headgear), tsukoli (earrings made of yellow orchid stem and red dyed goat hair), akusa (armlets), assapu (bangles or wristlets), achixathi, achipula, achighopho, achipa, akichelochi muzulichi and avekha (all these are different varieties of neckpieces), akichelochi (waistband) and ayikusu (metal walking stick) are all given as avina 35 to the daughter during her marriage. 36 When all these items are prepared and given to the bride, it indicates that a lot of money, labour and time were spent by the girl’s parents to put all these things together as well. Even the home uses different varieties of pots and baskets such as asukhu (wooden plate) aqüpu, asuli, akho, amuto, mehri, apighi and ayephu 37 which are prepared and given to the daughter on her marriage. In aminiji kimiji, the Avi has to be killed first, after which the bride’s family starts making the wraparound. The minimum number of Avi provided as ameh in this kind of marriage was sixteen and the maximum was thirty. 38 Besides Avi, animals such as cows and pigs were also provided. Important tools and ornaments used and adorned by men are Azutah (dao), Angu (spear), Avabo (coronet) and Aghacho (hornbill’s feather), 39 Kinissüpha (Cotton earring), Mllüsaxxe (dongo tail), Amulaküxa/Aküxa (sash), Asapu’ (casket), Aminiküda (cowries apron), Aakuhaghih (ivory armlet), Ausükukha (a gauntlet), Asükhih (dao holder), Asükixi (hold strap), Akuxa (a red clothe tied on the shoulder), Azuto (shield), apkhu Kuxa, Aminihu (Bore tusk), Ashighila/Ashitsüghü, etc. 40 were also included in the exchange of ameh. During the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, money was very rare, and sixteen people earned a rupee a day, while a full grown Avi cost ten rupees. When we look at the economy, the payment 158

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of sixteen or thirty Avi as a part of the ameh, involves a huge amount of wealth transaction. Various theme, rules and ideas are contained in this type of economy and customary practices. The spiritual or the supernatural connection with the beliefs and practices is clearly one of the important features that oblige a person to reciprocate the present that has been received. Among the Sumi, Avi is considered to be a totemic animal with human sensitivity. Avi is a totemic and magnificent animal used by the community, and its usages are attached with different meanings and significance. Because of the totemic qualities associated with it, even the rearing of it does not suit everyone. It is also an endangered species and is not easily available today. Thus, when Avi is used either in marriage or other celebrations, all the rituals associated with Avi have to be fulfilled. In marriage alliance, the necklace called achiku, achipula and other related ornaments associated with the use of Avi have to be prepared for the daughter on her marriage. It is thus necessary to see what force impels one to reciprocate the things received, and generally to enter into real contracts. 41 The fear of the supernatural is one factor which impels its practitioners to fulfil all the obligations of exchange and reciprocation. In case all the rituals associated with amini kimiji are observed without any misgivings, it is believed that the couple will have a long and good life. However, if any mistake arises or rituals are incomplete, it is considered as unlucky or bad omen which is linked with the newlywed couple’s longevity, prosperous life and fertility in every sense. For the stringent rituals and beliefs associated with this marriage category, extra care and precautions were taken. Very often though people qualify for this category, they do not marry in amini kimiji xe because the rituals associated with it was kushokutsu (difficult to fulfil) and the severe consequences of its shortcomings. Thus, in amini kimiji xe, the couples who performed this particular marriage were counselled to imbibe perseverance and patience in the way they should lead their life. In amini kimiji marriage, after the ritual of slaughtering gilt, a meal is prepared for the old wise woman who had reached menopause from the clan or village 42 to initiate the first stitching of the beads on Amini kimiji mini. After partaking of the meal, she is the first to prick with the needle to stitch the beads and precious stone on the wraparound, and only after that the stitching of the beads and precious stone proceeds. 43 Amini kimiji wraparound is symbolic with many messages sent across, but it is not meant for wearing or for everyday use. It is kept in the house for people to see till the birth of the first child. It is made solely for marriage alone and is a matter of pride and prestige for the family. 44 After the birth of the first child, if the old woman who stitched the first bead on amini kimiji is still alive, the beads from the amini kimiji are taken out and the wraparound 159

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is given to that particular woman. After that, kiyepu mini is worn. 45 If the first child is a boy, the semi precious stone called achiku is taken out and tied around the boy’s arms with a black thread. In case of a girl, the bead called achipusho is tied on the girl’s knee with a black thread. 46 Again when the daughters grow up and marry the person of the same status and qualify for amini kimiji marriage, a new amini kimiji is made and is given to the daughter on her marriage. 47 When amini kimiji xe takes place, on the day set for the daughter’s marriage, the bride’s parents laid a mat outside their house, and all the items which were being given to the girl were taken out and displayed, along with the girl’s wealth called asana, for the young men and women of the village as well as for the villagers to see. 48 Ashoghu xe, also called allapha xe by some section of the Sumi is the second category of Sumi marriage. Ashoghi mean that everything is perfect and plentiful. It is very similar to amini kimiji xe except that the ammini kimiji is not used in this marriage and purity rituals are not observed by the woman. Here, the minimum avi provided as ameh is ten, and the maximum is sixteen. Most marriages of the well to do families and chiefs are carried out in this category. 49 In this kind of marriage, the families from both sides make an effort to show their wealth to each other and also to the neighbouring villages by distributing large chunks of meat. The feast is given out to the whole village and clan members at the bride’s parent’s house. Even here, the kind of rituals and beliefs observed are such that while going for meeting for ameh, the biggest Avi should lead, followed by the others, and the second biggest should be at the last. A pig is killed and the meat distributed to the relatives of the girl and aloji (field batchers) before the marriage. They in turn give her fresh vegetables and crops, chicken, baskets and pots as a sign of blessing which she takes along with her to her new house. Sometimes, the whole granary is given to the girl by her parents along with other gifts. If Avi is used during marriage, their children can be carried by a shawl called aqümi. 50 When the first child is born, it is the obligation of the girl’s parents to take care and look after her during delivery time, and it is called shi ghu. They nourish her and feed her to be strong to start life, and this tradition is still in practice among the Sumi today. The third category of marriage called Hatha xe or latha xe was mostly practiced by commoners, and even here, ameh was given although only a few cattle, clothes and ornaments were provided. The groom’s family was informed beforehand of the kind of ameh to prepare for, after which during atsa xakutha 51 (engagement day), they negotiated on how much ameh will be provided. If the alliance was between poor families, minimum ameh was provided and so were the reciprocating gifts. Azajunlashi was also 160

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distributed to family and relatives as well. But the departing line is that Avi which is a sign of prestige, honour and fame is not used in ameh. 52 It is also known by another name as moshomogho xe, which means the poor, needy and not well to do. 53 At the bottom rung in the hierarchy of marriages is called Topunashi xe, which is practice in the marriage alliance of a widow, a widower, pregnant woman or a woman with a child. In many instances, it is the marriage between a widower and a widow for the need to take care of children, the house and all the other property. Here, azajunlashi which is central for the announcement of alliance is not given to the relatives, but a token of ameh is provided which can be a cow or a pig called aphi athome. 54 Azajunlashi literally is translated as aza = mother, ju = looked after and lash i = meat for looking after. Thus, azajunlashi is a meat piece for the ways to mother’s beholding. 55 This pig is killed specifically to acknowledge the fact of looking after and taking care of the girl by her mother, and the meat piece is distributed to both the maternal and paternal relatives of the girl although special emphasis is given to the maternal relatives especially the mother’s sisters. From this, the hind limb of the pig is given to the prospective son-in-law. 56 After azajunlashi pig is killed, the marriage alliance is sealed and both the parties cannot ask for more ameh or bargain for lesser ameh. It becomes binding and the breach of the promise of marriage by either party without the cause entails a fine according to the social position of the injured party and along with it, they lost their social relevance in the society as they are considered untrustworthy, which has a serious social stigma attached to their name. Along with the exchange of ameh and the reciprocating gifts from the bride’s parents, there is another wealth called assana, which is gathered by the women themselves preparing for their marriage. Assana, which is also called, tuqhou nhemugha (secret property) is the property of a girl. 57 When a woman is still single and at her parent’s house, she collects resources and keeps as a saving and security for herself in the form of clothes, ornaments and jewelleries, domesticated animals, cash, etc. without the knowledge of her parents. It is displayed to the public along with things, which her parents have arranged for her, one day before her marriage. It is said a woman has full right over her assana. 58 ‘It is a form of marriage torso.’ 59 It is also said that in some cases, a woman with a plenty of assana was preferred because if the man cannot fulfil his ameh obligation to his in-laws, the assana brought by the wife will be used to give back as ameh to her parents. Assana is the wealth of woman which was talked far and wide during the time of her marriage. 60 The legend says that the practice of assana has started through a very poor girl. It is said there was once a young girl with very beautiful hair whose parents were very poor. As she was very poor, she used to worry 161

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about the time of her marriage as her parents did not have anything to give her on her marriage to set a foundation for her life. Despite reaching a marriageable age, she was unable to find a good match. One fine day, on her way to work, she came across an old man making asapu (man’s ornaments for keeping dao which is made of hair and wooden dao hanger). She was happy to see the asapu maker and asked him, how does he make asapu? The man replied that it is made of women’s hair. On hearing that, she secretly cut her long hair and sold it to the asapu maker. There on, she started to save without telling her parents and latter got married using the resources that she gathered as her assana. After that, every woman started keeping assana. In assana, everything used by the people can be included except the cattle and land, which is considered to be equivalent to human life. 61 Looking at assana and the rules of inheriting property, there is a clear working of patriarchal bargains. The customary practice says that women cannot inherit any immovable property such as house and land. Women can inherit movable property and the accepted norms for inheritance are during marriage. At the time of marriage, the family heirloom, such as ornaments and jewelleries which women adorn are given to the bride as a reciprocating gift for ameh. If these jewelleries and ornaments are not passed on to women during marriage, they are claimed by their brothers and other male members and are not given to women. Thus, when one closely examines the rules of inheritance by women, it is very restrictive. They restrict when and how women can inherit, and marriage is the medium through which they can inherit certain restricted property. Women had to conform to the rules and values of the customary to become eligible for that portion of inheritance which is rightfully theirs. Through assana, women can have their own wealth, but it is made public on the day before the marriage when the parents put on display the reciprocating gift they are preparing for their daughter. There is an intricately connected dynamic involved in this kind of display and inheritance. It is multi-layered; at the larger level on the politics of exchange in ameh, the role played by the bride’s family or wife giver is not included in the narratives. At the deeper level, the reciprocating gift prepared by the wife giver is put on display a day before marriage so that the whole village can see. The latent function associated with this display is that through the display one can see whether the reciprocating gift prepared is in equivalence to the ameh provided. If the gift prepared by the bride’s parents does not equate with ameh provided, people talked about how the girl’s parents did not prepare enough gift for their daughter, and that tag is attached to them. Again, at another level, the wealth garnered by the woman before marriage is put on display along with the other gifts prepared by the parents also has its own politics. When both assana and the reciprocating gift prepared by 162

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the parents are put on display, the talk is about women’s wealth, but the larger significance is how the daughter of certain parents was able to garner certain resources and the value associated with the resources. As a result, the whole significance is not about a particular woman as an individual but whose daughter she is. It thus ends up giving more pride to the parents in a society where the social standing is of foremost importance in a community living. Thus, looking at the different customary practices of the society and the workings of it, the question that arise is where is ‘Woman’ in the customary and the marriage practice? Is there a subject called ‘Woman’ in a system which revolves around women? It may be noted that marriage chine (rituals) are observed and maintained from the girl’s family among the Sumi and not from the groom’s family. Ani-angu (father’s sister – mother’s brother), aza-apu (mother’s sister – father’s brother), apeu (bride’s brother), ashopuu (bride’s maid), anisu-u (go-in-between in this case, the father’s sister), aqheshou (the person to lead the way) and akhauqhu kipeu (person who will carry all the gifts and food) are all decided and arranged before the actual marriage takes place, and all these ritualistic relations are made from the bride’s family according to the living tradition.

The purity rituals for amini kimji xe: centrality of women’s body and her sexuality When the feast for ameh kugha (a day set for deciding ameh) is ready, and the marriage alliance is of amini kimiji xe or ashoghu xe a day is set by anisu, where all the cattle for ameh are brought together. Again in amini kimiji xe, when the date for marriage is set, and after azajunla pig is killed and distributed to the bride’s relatives, the groom calls the girl to his parents place and observe a chine chine (genna) called Kichini. For this ritual, the girl is accompanied by her brother and her friend to the boy’s place to perform kichini chine. After reaching the groom’s house, the girl goes and stands at the front balcony/porch of the house, pours the rice-beer from her knee to test her virginity. It is believed that the rice-beer will flow along her shin directly in between her toes if she is a virgin, but if the rice-beer flows down in different direction, she is not a virgin. No matter what the outcome may be, after kichini chine, the next morning, the girl goes back to her parent’s house and comes back on the third day after marriage. 62 The ritual practices associated with this kind of marriage were very severe and stringent and yet very significant in the gendered marriage discourse. First in this marriage, the line is traced through mother. The underlying criteria are the importance attached to women’s linage. The purity ritual has to be performed by woman to prove her chastity/virginity and that she is 163

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worthy of the amini kimiji xe. The important aspect which needs a critical eye is the importance attached to women’s sexuality, her body and morality. It is the woman who has to undergo the purification ceremony before her marriage under this marriage category. The point that arises is why is it the women’s sexuality which is questioned? What is the rationale behind this practice, and how does one validate the virginity/chastity of men and women? On what basis was the women’s chastity judged? There is no logical explanation in questioning and judging the women’s sexuality, but her sexuality, body and morality are central in the practice, which is again controlled by her male counterpart – the society. Here to use Irigaray, 63 it is the circulation of pure chaste women among men, that establishes the operation of society in a patriarchal society. The ritualised passage from woman to mother is accomplished by the breaking of hymen, which is taken on the value of taboo before marriage – the taboo of virginity. Once virginity is lost, women is relegated to the status of use value, and she is removed from the exchange between men which is seen through the ritual purity pressured on women and the belief associated with defying it in this context through the performance of virginity/chastity rituals by the woman.

Gendering politics of genealogy and its dynamics The social structure of the Sumi society reflects the inherent rigid structure in the politics of genealogy associated with the hierarchy of marriage. Marriage is divided into four categories, and there is a strict hierarchal division among the different strata of the society. In the first category of marriage, called amini kimiji xe, the entry and eligibility for this marriage has many restrictions and norms, like the status and the hereditary line. Interestingly, the genealogy of this marriage is traced through the bride’s mother and the eligibility or ineligibility, and privilege is passed through the daughter. This brings in the contradictions and paradoxes of the society. On the one hand, the genealogy of this marriage associated with rituals is linked with a woman and her purity through the test of her virginity, but on the other hand, when one look at the rituals associated with valour and pride, it is performed by men. The other contradiction which is embedded within the deep structure is the question of morality and control of women’s sexuality. The ritual of testing virginity of a woman is performed three days prior to marriage by going to the groom’s house, but the question of men’s virginity and chastity is never questioned. Thus for men, it is given, but for women her virtuosity and worthiness has to be tested. The other aspect is the eligibility of consumption and the latent function of power and identity. Amid all the Sumi’s wraparounds, amini kimiji is the unsurpassed, the highest and the most prestigious one. The gender 164

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genealogy and ritualistic aspects associated with it either becomes a marker of power or a source of restriction for the social actor in her or his consumption power and identity. Here the ‘consumption involves the incorporation of the consumed item into the personal and social identity of the consumer. The integration of consumer goods into the definition of social self arises only when the idea of social obligations is constructed.’ 64 Therefore once it is known that a person is married under amini kimiji xe, it automatically gives out the message of the person having the power of consumption and power which redefines her or his identity in the society. It is thus a representation that ‘interprets itself’ 65 to either having the power to consume or stage power in the social set up through the marriage to certain women and clan. The materiality associated with marriage of the daughter and clan identity is an important aspect with its many beliefs, values and norms. Among the Sumi, while the women of the society do not have any rights of inheritance to property, when it comes to the family ornaments, jewelleries and costumes, these are usually given to the daughter on her marriage, but a thin line is drawn, which gives the daughter the right to deny to inherit those heirlooms. Interestingly, while tracing the history of the jewelleries and ornaments available with the family today, we have to look at the history of women as it is usually passed through the mother to daughter during the daughter’s marriage. The question thus arises, despite women being the preserver of the family ornaments and jewelleries, why is it not given to the daughter after her marriage? Another contradiction in the practices is that among the Sumi, the necklace called achiku is worn both by men and women of the family, and if it is an ancestral ornament, it is not given to the girl but is given to the eldest son as it belongs to the clan and thus has to remain within the family.

Conclusion When one looks at different texts on Sumi, the burden and responsibility of the clan or family status revolves around women. To maintain the status of the male clan or family, it is the women’s genealogy which is important, as the purity of blood and clan identity are central to the identity formation. Women played a central role in staging men’s status and power in the society, but in a patriarchal society, the labour and hard work of women is reflected in men’s social status. Metaphorically speaking, it is the women who sow the seeds, but the fruit of their labour and toil is reaped by men in the form of their status and power, which is validated by written texts and cultural texts. Thus for women, in James Clifford’s words, 66 ‘the personal does not yield to the general without loss.’ 165

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In the politics of ameh practice, the bride’s parents did not gain from ameh economically, but it served to enhance their social status in the society through their reciprocating gifts. There is this misnomer among different Naga community about the Sumi practice of ameh as ‘selling’ of daughter in marriage because the groom and his family have to provide ameh to the brides’ family. But when we look at the economics of this exchange tradition, the practice of giving does not go in one direction, but there is an intersection of the gift where there is a common meeting point; to the bride and groom during marriage. The origin of the gift of ameh is from groom’s family to the bride’s family. By providing ameh by the groom’s family to the bride’s family, they are setting the standard of gift to be prepared for the new couple, thus putting pressure on the bride’s family because there is an unspoken norm which needs to be followed, and the unsaid message is sent across, and the reciprocating gift has to be prepared suitably. When Avi is provided as ameh, the exchange is more to show others how much they can provide and stage their social standing in the society. By involving Avi in a marriage, a person qualifies certain eligibility norms; the privilege to use some specific shawls like avi kiyi phi and ashukuda phi for men, and wraparounds like kiyepu mini for women. Possession of certain goods and wearing of certain clothing signified a particular status allegiance and implied the existence of a group for whom a particular object has a particular meaning. But in writing culture, it is the men’s privilege that is written although the role played by different agencies is made invisible, where gender is played through the written and unwritten scripts and the power these texts exert over its subject. In Rosaldo’s words, 67 because of ‘cultural silence’, the obvious gender role and the significance of women has been left out in the larger production of knowledge. Both the written texts as well as the oral texts give more emphasis on the origin of ameh exchange from the groom, on women centred on morality and sexuality. But it does not talk much about the centrality of the genealogy of women in marriage alliance in the first category of marriage, nor does it talk about how the principle of exchange works, restricting women to inherit or not inherit certain family property. The only way to read gender is to interrogate the materiality of culture and the deep patriarchal structure embedded in these texts. When these texts and practices are looked at in depth through a critical gender lens using ethnographic materials and oral narratives, gender is seen operating in multiple ways; through the customary practices, participation in the exchange of gifts in ameh practice, who is the recipient of gifts, or what is the location of the wife giver and wife taker and whose status is at stake. The cycle of exchange process between the three parties involved in marriage alliance; the groom’s family, bride’s family and the newlywed couple is silenced in 166

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the dominant narratives. The narratives revolve around certain clan, family and village and the gifts of ameh provided by the groom, but if we look at the hidden aspects, it is the bride and her family who also carries a huge responsibility in making and shaping the marriage discourse of the community. The way patriarchal culture and society operates silence women not only through exchange of gifts during marriage, but also through the notion of fertility and prosperity associated with women. The silencing of women is continued through making clan identity the central driving force around these narratives as women marry out of the clan and go to another clan by the virtue of their marriage, and this is known as ‘tradition’. Both women and clan identity are central to the identity discourse, but the male clan discourse takes precedence over women’s identity in the process. Thus, despite women being the ‘subject’ in these narratives, women as a ‘Subject’ get lost or are missed out through the politics of text as articulated by Dorothy Smith, where texts are the primary medium through which power is played out 68 and the colonial text, and the earlier ethnographic text are silent on the subject of women. To use Eric Hobsbawm, the ‘invented traditions’ 69 in this case become a central marker of many identities at stake through the validation given by the written text over oral text, the official reports and historical text over everyday practices and lived experience/ reality where gender is played out every day. To have a critical reading of gender, ‘woman must put herself into the text – as into the world and into history – by her own movement.’ 70 To write. An act which will not only “realize” the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her goods, her pleasure, her organs her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal; it will tear her away from the superegoized structure in which she has always occupied the place reserved for the guilty. 71 Knowledge production representing only a section of society, as men or women, is problematic. One-sided intervention has a danger of leading to complicated misinterpretations and ignoring vital value and practices of the people. It is therefore very important to have an inclusive history and texts in the process of knowledge production, which will eventually lead to a better understanding of the society and the materiality of culture in the critical reading of gender. In the case of Sumi in the construction of culture, the patriarchal ideology does not speak much of the relevance of women or the marginalised section in the making of hegemony but folklore, legends, oral history and everyday living and practices are the witness to the significance and their role in the construction of dominant 167

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identity. It is because the cultural practices see women more in terms of passive object, an object of consumption and not the subject. And therefore, the popular discourse finds itself in the area of ‘cultural silence on this subject’ 72 when it comes to the subject of women in the cultural politics of constructed tradition through written text and the politics of text. Ethnographic materials, oral history, folklore and memories, despite their limitedness when read along with the written texts enrich the knowledge production.

Notes * I would like to thank my guide Prof. Nilika Mehrotra for supporting and guiding me in all my endeavour, my colleagues Rachna Chaudhary and Shubhra Nagalia, and Khekali for their critical comments and valuable insights in writing this chapter. 1 Ameh is the exchange of gifts that takes place between the groom’s family, bride’s family and also the gift prepared by the bride’s family to the bride and groom for setting up a separate household in Sumi Marriage alliance. It can also be seen in relation to marriage prestations practiced by different societies during marriage alliance. 2 Dorothy E. Smith, The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology, Boston: Northeastern University, 1987, p. 17. 3 Shahid Amin, Event, Metaphor, Memory: Chauri Chaura 1922–1992, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. xxi. 4 J. H. Hutton, The Sema Nagas, Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1968 (1921); J. P. Mills, ‘Certain Aspects of Naga Culture’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 56 (1926), pp. 27–35; Verrier Elwin (ed.), The Nagas in the Nineteenth Century, Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1969. 5 ‘Prestations’ is defined by Oxford Dictionary as the act of paying, in money or service what is due by law or customs. Prestations here, refers to the gifts and exchange that takes place during marriage alliances, both material and non-material, validated by tradition and customary practices. 6 Smith, The Éveryday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. 7 Ibid., p. 18. 8 Joan W. Scott, ‘Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis’, The American Historical Review, vol. 91, no. 5 (1986), p. 1056. 9 Ibid., p. 1054. 10 Ibid. 11 J. H. Hutton, The Sema Nagas, Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1968 (1921), pp. 136, 183–187, 239–242. 12 See Lovitoli Jimo, ‘Dynamics of Sumi Ameh: Its Relevance in the Contemporary’, Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu Delhi 1991–2016, Sliver Jubilee Souvenir, New Delhi: SKKD, 2016, pp. 47–50. 13 Sumi Hoho, Sumi Lhoyehaza, Diampur: Sumi Hoho, 2002, p. 45. 14 Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, Trans. Catherine Porter and Carolyn Burke, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, (1977) 1985, p. 170.

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15 Hosheli Wotsa, ‘Sumi Mekhuchu Mekua (Value of Sumi Dowry System)’, in Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu’s 37 session. Mehsho Mheghi eno Sulimi Sutsa. Dimapur: Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu, 1995, p. 15. 16 Hanisch, Carol, ‘The Personal is Political’, 1970, http://google weblight.com/?lite_url=www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP. html&ei=aROsuKwX&lc=en-IN&geid=10&s=1&m=406&ts=14552615 11&sig=ALL1Aj5-4h7HSC9SpvEZ4dbW-CFw062nxQ (accessed on 21 January 2015). http://googleweblight.com/?lite_url=www.carolhanisch.org/ CHwritings/PIP.html&ei=aROsuKwX&lc=enIN&geid=10&s=1&m=40 6&ts=1455261511&sig=ALL1Aj5-4h7HSC9SpvEZ4dbW-CFw062nxQ (accessed on 21 January 2015). 17 Marcel Mauss, The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies, New York: Norton, 2002 (1967), p. 1. 18 Ibid., p. 4. 19 Ibid., p. xiii. 20 Ibid., p. xviii. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., p. 23. 23 Axe, is an obligation/bondage created through marriage and ameh. 24 Mithun or Bos Frontalis is called Avi in Sumi. 25 Hosheli Wotsa, ‘Sumi Mekhuchu Mekua (Value of Sumi Dowry System)’, in Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu’s 37 session. Mehsho Mheghi eno Sulimi Sutsa. Dimapur: Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu, 1995, pp. 15–16. 26 Ibid., p. 16. 27 Mauss, The Gift, pp. 16–17. 28 Ibid., p. 15. 29 Najakhu Yeptho Sema, Sumi Chena Apine (Gennas and festivals of the Semas), Jorhat: Assam Printing Works, 1985, p. 23; V. Hokuto Zhimomi, Sumi Kughuko eno Aqho Aho Kuxu (Genealogy and Socio-Customary Life of Sumi), Dimapur: Modern Press, 1985, p. 27; Hekhevi Achumi, Sütsah Kuthoh, Dimapur: Baptist, akukuhoki qhüsü kithe aheu, 2005, p. 9. 30 For genealogy of Zhimomi clan, see Jimomi Hoho, Jimo Kughko 2015: Apuh-Assü nguagha, ni ju-aje Kumto, Dimapur: Jimomi Hoho, 2015. 31 Based on the interview. Also see Ghovili K. Achumi, The Essence of Sumi Ethnic Traditional and Modern Attire, Dimapur: Kohima Sumi Totimi Hoho, 2011. 32 Hokuto V. Zhimomi, SumiKughuko eno Aqho Aho Kuxu (Genealogy and socio-customary life of Sumi), Dimapur: Modern Press, 1985, p. 26; Hekhevi Achumi, Sütsah Kuthoh, Dimapur: Baptist, akukuhoki qhüsü kithe aheu, 2005, p. 9; Achumi, The Essence, p. 5. 33 Hosheli K. Shohe, Lokivi Kibo, Volume: 3, Dimapur: Women Department, WSBAK, 1993, p. 7. 34 Kiyepu mini means a wraparound called Kiyepu. 35 When Avi is used during marriage, all the ornaments and jewelleries gifted to the daughter on her marriage by her parents is known as Avina. 36 Hosheli K. Shohe, Lokivi Kibo, Volume: 3, Dimapur: Women Department, WSBAK, 1993, p. 7. 37 Aqhupu, Asuli, Akho, Amuto, Mehri, Apighi and Ayephu. All these are different kinds of basket made of bamboo or cane for home and field use.

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38 Zhimomi, SumiKughuko eno Aqho Aho Kuxu (Genealogy and Socio-Customary Life of Sumi), p. 27. 39 Aghacho (Hornbill) Hornbill feathers adorned on Avabo (men’s headgear). Usually three pieces of feathers which is known as Aghacho are put on Avabo. 40 Avitoli G. Zhimo and Kanato Chopy, ‘Some Interesting Cultural Features of the Sumi Tribe’, in Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu Delhi 1991–2016, Sliver Jubilee Souvenir, New Delhi: SKKD, 2016, pp. 55–58; Sumi Totimi Hoho, Sümi: Tuphimini eno anannuqo, Zunheboto: Sumi Totimi Hoho Nagaland, 2013, pp. 26–28. 41 Mauss, The Gift, p. 9. 42 Sumi Totimi Hoho, Sümi: Tuphimini eno anannuqo, Zunheboto, Nagaland, 2013, p. 10. 43 Achumi, The Essence, p. 5. 44 Hosheli K. Shohe, Lokivi Kibo, Volume: 3, Dimapur: Women Department, WSBAK, 1993, p. 7. 45 Totimi Hoho, Sümi: Tuphimini eno anannuqo, p. 10. 46 Achumi, Sütsah Kuthoh, p. 9. 47 See Lovitoli Jimo, ‘Marriage Prestations: The Social Context and Meanings in Sumi Naga Society’, M.phil Dissertation, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, 2007; Lovitoli Jimo, ‘Marriage Prestations and Ame (Bridewealth) in the Sumi Naga Society’, Journal of Indian Anthropologist, vol. 38, no. 2 (2008), pp. 43–60. 48 Zhimomi, Sumi Kughuko eno Aqho Aho Kuxu (Genealogy and Socio-Customary Life of Sumi), p. 29. 49 Zhimomi, SumiKughuko eno Aqho Aho Kuxu (Genealogy and Socio-Customary Lof Sumi), p. 27. 50 Achumi, Sütsah Kuthoh, p. 10. 51 Atsa is words. Xakutha is decided. Thus, it means the formal announcement of the marriage alliance or engagement. 52 Achumi, Sütsah Kuthoh, p. 10. 53 Ibid., p. 27. 54 Aphi athome here implies the symbolic value of the bride (loose translation). 55 Hutton, The Sema Nagas, p. 241. 56 Najakhu Yeptho Sema, Sumi Chena Apine (Gennas and festivals of the Semas), Jorhat: Assam Printing Works, 1985, p. 23. 57 Ilika K. Jimo, ‘Property Rights of Women: A Study of Sumi Naga’, unpublished M.phil dissertation, University of Hyderabad, 2008, p. 77. 58 Zhimomi, SumiKughuko eno Aqho Aho Kuxu, p. 31. 59 Jimo, ‘Property rights of women: A study of Sumi Naga’, p. 78. 60 Vitoli Hoky, ‘Sumi Tuphimini eno Tuna Nanau kiqi’, in Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu’s 37 Session, Mehsho Mheghi eno Sulimi Sutsa, Dimapur: Sumi Kiphimi Kuqhakulu, 1995, p. 20. 61 Zhimomi, SumiKughuko eno Aqho Aho Kuxu, pp. 29–30. 62 Ibid., pp. 28–29. 63 Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One, p. 185. 64 Alfred Gell, ‘Newcomers to the World of Goods: Consumption Among the Murai Gonds’, in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspectives, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988 (1986), p. 112.

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65 James Clifford, ‘On Ethnographic Allegory’, in James Clifford and George E. Marcus (eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, p. 99. 66 Ibid., p. 104. 67 Renato Rosaldo, ‘From the Door of His Tent: The Fieldworker and the Inquisitor’, in James Clifford and George E. Marcus (eds.), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, pp. 77–97. 68 Smith, The Everyday World as Problematic, p. 17. 69 Eric Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 (2000), pp. 1–14. 70 Hélène Cixous, Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’, Signs, vol. 1, no. 4 (1976), p. 875. 71 Ibid., p. 880. 72 Rosaldo, ‘From the Door of His Tent’, p. 82.

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6 ORALITY Analysing its politics within the domains of the Mizo narrative Margaret L. Pachuau

This chapter shall attempt to explore the politics of oral narratives and its subsequent impact in the interpretation of the dynamics of culture and identity within the context of oral tradition in the Mizo. While doing so, it shall base itself on the premise that the interpretation of oral narratives in the Mizo has been based on a paradigm which is wholly dependent on the notion of religion. Colonisation and Christianity have played a significant role in Mizo identity and in this context, oral narratives have been located in a manner that is almost relegated to a semblance of myth or as a mere lore. The notion of orality and the oral tradition has yet to find an ethos that is given serious perspective in Mizo domains. The chapter argues that religion and its power have been significant across the state and that they have thus succeeded in confining oral narratives to the background, almost as an insignificant other. While expounding upon the same, the chapter shall dwell upon the vastness of the oral tradition in the Mizo and it shall expound on certain lores from the oral tradition.

Interpreting the Mizo The notion of the subaltern as well as the subaltern ‘writing back’ has been situated in a different dynamics altogether, as far as the Mizo sensibility is concerned. Through the negation of oral narratives, the ‘writing back’ has taken a different slant altogether. To better understand the centrality of the argument, I shall denote first the dynamics of the state, with regard to topography and the aspect of colonisation. Topography is important because, the area is landlocked, and it was even more so before the advent of the missionaries. In this perspective, it must be stated that colonisation 172

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played a remarkable dynamic in locating and relocating identity parameters in and through oral tradition. As of the present time of writing, Mizoram, which is located in northeast India, has been an essentially Christian state after 1894, which is the year of the advent of the Welsh mission in Mizoram. With the advent of the Welsh missionaries in the then Lushai soil, Christianity has played and has made marked progress in the lives of the Mizos. The transition from the pre-colonial folk dynamics to a postcolonial folk ethos especially in terms of narrative and interpretation, has its bearings in the religion that dominates the state to a significant extent. While locating notions related to identity, the politics of the ‘interpretation’ of orality is significant, and religion becomes key in this perspective. The dynamics of the Foucauldian dimension of ‘power’ as being emitted from everywhere has been significant to an extent, especially with regard to the notion of the colonial missionaries and the inherent element of ‘censorship’ that has been applicable to the Mizo domain of oral tradition, in both song and folklore. Post-colonial theorists and the attempt to often locate and relocate aspects related to whether the subaltern Mizo can ‘speak’ has had a different meaning altogether in the Mizo perspective. If Fanon has written about the notion of alienation and if Ngugi wa thiong’o has centred a majority of his writings on ‘decolonising the mind’, the Mizo in the post colonial, twenty-first century has in many ways ‘refused’ to conform to such debates. The identity of the Mizo has been in a nutshell, a drawing together of a hybrid existence that is still in many ways inherently enigmatic. Oral narratives, whether in the form of song or in lore, were significant to the everyday lives of the Mizo. Whether it was in times of war or in mirth, songs and prose were central. Strangely enough, in today’s society where the state has been regarded to be high in terms of literacy and education, oral texts are neglected or negated to a large extent. In terms of the geographical terrains, Mizoram, also known as Lushai Hills during the British days, is situated between 22″19′ north latitude and 92″16′ and 93″26′ east longitude, covering an area of 21,081 square kilometres, being bounded on the north by the State of Assam and Manipur, on the west by Bangladesh and State of Tripura, on the east and south by Myanmar (Burma) having an international boundary of 710 kilometres long with Myanmar and Bangladesh. The people inhabiting Mizoram were known as Mizos to the outside world as well as to the insiders. The word ‘Mizo’ is a generic term meaning hillmen or highlanders. The Mizos consist of several clans such as Lusei, Hmar, Paihte, Ralte and Pawi. Sailo is the chief’s clan and during the days of the Chieftainship, Sailos ruled most of the villages with a few exceptions. According to Mizo oral lore, the Mizos came from Chhinlung, meaning a ‘covering rock’. The legend goes to say that the Mizo people belonging 173

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to various clans came out of the earth below the stone. In the opinion of some people, Chhinlung is, in fact, a place called ‘Sinlung’ which is situated in Chian bordering the Shan State of Burma. This led to the theory that originally, the Mizos were the residents of Sinlung. Later on, they migrated to India via Burma. The history of the Mizos, could at best be traced to about 500 years. During the fifteenth century, they lived in the hill tracts of Burma with their main villages located in the valley between the ‘Rûn’ and ‘Ṭiau’ rivers. The Ṭiau river is in Burma bordering Mizoram and the Rûn is further inside Burma. The dominant Mizo tribe was the ‘Lushei’, which was relatively prosperous, and the society was an egalitarian one, having no particular chief to rule them. Supremacy among the people belonging to different villages used to be decided by physical fights between the strongest men from the villages. The two would fight hand to hand on the borders of the villages. The villages of the winning man would gain command over the losing village.

Locating Christianity I shall attempt to locate the centrality of Christianity within the context of Mizoram. Christianity, by itself, is best understood as the product of the interaction of a continuing revival movement with the institutional church. This interaction began shortly after Christianity was introduced. Traditional socio-cultural factors have also played a predominant role in examining aspects such as examining the basic causes of the tension between the revivalists and church authorities, as well as the extent of traditional cultural (political, social, religious) values and practices and their influence. The cultural reaction to alien church structures and the manner in which the churches dealt with the situation were central. The term Mizo by itself is enigmatic. It is based on oral tradition, which is reflected back to oral narrative. It is regarded that the facts regarding Mizo identity were written and preserved in a leather scroll at the time of Thlanrawkpa Khuangchawi, but it is believed that the scroll was ‘eaten up by a dog’ because it was made of leather. Due to this belief, Mizo historians and cultural critics have used this notion to explain the difficulty of recovering the past identity of the Mizos. The term Khuangchawi refers to a feast of merit which entails the celebrant’s liberation from traditional restrictions on the architecture of his home, as well as entitling him to the use of particular apparel. It also ensures free access to pialral, the superior abode of the dead, comparable to the Christian concept of heaven. The event in general represents community sharing the good fortune of a member, which is characteristic of Mizo society. Thlanrawkpa Khuangchawi is an important myth depicting the beginning of all things. Attempt has not been made to date Thlanrawkpa 174

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Khuangchawi, but it has been accepted as based on a historical event in antiquity. From the Christian perspective, the event can roughly be compared with certain scattered Biblical events. The great darkness of the event called Thimzing, indicating an enveloping cloud and a solar eclipse caused by a demon called Awk swallowing the sun for seven days and seven nights, may find its parallel in the darkness in Genesis before God created the world. All creatures that assembled and received their particular names at that time may be compared to the creation of humans and other living creatures, as well as Adam’s naming of them. Thlanrawkpa, if transliterated as Thlanruakpa, means ‘a man whose grave was empty’, comparable to the empty tomb of the Gospels. The restoration of life to the animals’ skulls, dry wood and even stones and the transformation of men into different kinds of creatures may reflect the life-giving event of Christ’s resurrection. 1 The repopulation of the world after the Thimzing catastrophe by men and women emerging from a cave with a covering rock signifies Chhinlung from which the Mizos understood themselves to have originated. In keeping with the oral tradition referred to above, V. Lunghnema, 2 basing his argument on what he calls ‘ancestors’ tradition’, developed a hypothesis with regard to the origins of the Mizos, where he argues that God created the heaven and the earth and that the Mizos were amongst the first people whom God created in time immemorial to inhabit the earth. While establishing notions that are related to religion, it must be pointed out that the notion of religion and its association with the concept of power may be taken into consideration here. Foucault 3 has emphatically denoted upon the precepts of the same by arguing, ‘Historically, what exists is the church. Faith, what is that? Religion is a political force.’ To which Voeltzel had replied: It is a political force and that is why it has to be fought. In Latin America, in Spain for example, where it is completely at the service of the right. The church is cash, it is power. But it can be an instrument in struggles through the trends of the left which are developing in certain parts of the church. This is much parallel with the notion of religion and power in the Mizo today. To go back to colonial administration, it must be remembered that the British colonials were focusing upon the creation of an administrative set up, as well as the missionaries who were keen to spread Christianity in the then Lushai Hills became pivotal in terms of nurturing a written format to the Mizo language and literature. A significant amount of the early literature that has been recorded is still available in the form of books, documents and other literary inscriptions and is either preserved in the libraries 175

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and archives or is still available for sale at various outlets across the state. To date these literary works continues to be primal, and thus colonisation has actually come a long way in terms of determining and shaping the parameters that are related to the notion of Mizo identity or even in terms of creating an awareness about the same. The studied observations about the Mizo community, which have been made by the colonial administrators, are still being used for contemporary references and for research as well. There is a decided acceptance in many arenas that the notion of identity as created by the colonisers still remains true to the Mizo. I shall cite here a case in point. Lt. Col. Thomas H. Lewin in his seminal text ‘A Fly on the Wheel or How I helped to govern India’ 4 has denoted certain preoccupations that he had as an administrator with the Lushais. The text is a record and one of the oldest coherently recorded aspects with regards to the Mizos, and he states that in the late nineteenth century (1866–1867), the general opinion was that ‘the Lushais were a murderous looking lot of scoundrels.’ In his references, he denotes that the Lushais had ‘committed a series of forays of the most aggravated character . . . killing several Europeans and carrying off Mary Winchester the little daughter of a planter, with many other British native subjects, into captivity’. 5 Lewin’s legacy has much to convey in terms of the cultural attitude towards the Lushais. It narrates instances of how headhunting was still inherently prevalent amidst the Lushai tribes and of how the Lushais would steal away in the darkness of the night in the jungle and shoot the sentries and scuttle off again in the cover of night. It was a land that was hard upon human existence. Filled with insects and mosquitoes and without proper meals, the colonisers had a difficult time. The typical description here being ‘our clothes were worn threadbare; our boots were in holes; the shanties we lived in were bitterly cold, and the ground on which we lay at night was so hard that sleep was impossible.’ In retrospect he wrote, the Lushai expedition had whitened my head and bought me much ill health; the doctors strongly advised my seeking change of air by a voyage to England . . . but I could not tear myself away from my dear hills where the work had become more and more absorbingly interesting. Evidently, a hypothesis of this nature, has been instrumental in denoting that the colonisers had a distinct image of the Mizos, who were native to the land. Again, it must be noted too that this perspective continues to be held as significant today and that the missionary or the administrator from the West is still regarded to be friend, sympathiser and held thus, in high esteem. However, the fact that the coloniser could be a friend and not 176

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merely the enemy was inherent even in terms of the written documents as it still stands today. In the same text in terms of an afterword, J. Herbert Lorrain, the missionary pioneer writes to Lewin and states that he and his fellow pioneer missionary F. W. Savidge had arrived in the Lushai hills and commented that ‘we know that your love for these wild hill men was very real.’ At their arrival in what he refers to as Fort Aijal, he denoted that, ‘we were able though with difficulty, to make ourselves understood, and from the first the people treated us as their friends. We were unarmed and we trusted the Lushais entirely, and never once found them false to us.’ Also, he stated that Lewin’s influence and impact upon the Lushais was still very relevant. He stated that ‘I do not think that there is a man or woman in all those hills who does not know the name of Thangliena or Luan Sap. It is handed down from father to son and they are never tired of singing your praises.’ 6

Oral narratives While the concept of colonisation has been significant, there must be an inherent comprehension of the fact that the narratives that existed within the pre-colonial domains were inherently intrinsic in shaping and formulating arenas that were pertinent to identity. As indicated earlier, the aspect of the oral narrative within the Mizo cultural as well as literary context has been pivotal. For instance, in terms of a significantly oral perspective, there has been a marked focus upon the centrality of the animal world order in terms of Mizo oral narratives. I shall draw instances from folklore that has been in existence, albeit in oral tradition amongst the Mizos, and go at length to illustrate the notion of identity as it first was illustrated in the Mizo domains. Pre-colonial Mizo sensibility has depicted a world that was replete with the coexistence of animals in the larger arena of reality. It was thus inherently impossible to conceive a world that was bereft of the animal world order in terms of the Mizo domains. Animals were regarded to be equal, if not superior, to human beings. To critically elucidate upon the same, it must be specified that Mizos have been a predominantly tribal community, and as such, a number of aspects have been drawn from animal imagery in their daily lives. To support this argument, I shall illustrate here that oral narratives such as Thailungi, 7 which focuses upon a little girl by the name of Thailungi. She had a stepmother who wanted to sell her to the traders from the Pawih community. All this was to be done so that her stepmother could procure some scrap iron. The tale also reflected upon the ill treatment that was meted out by the stepmother to Thailungi. After a long while, Thailungi’s brother discovered that his sister was missing and decided to find her. After various instances when his stepmother’s plans 177

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offending him away in his search were thwarted, the boy was finally able to break free and so he set out in search of his sister. On the way, he met several people and he kept asking them about the whereabouts of his sister. Finally, what eventually led him to his sister was the fact that he met an old man who was leading a gayal. The question he asked was, Ka pu, can you tell me where my sister Thailungi is? And the man replied, Just follow the gayal that I am leading, and do exactly as he does. If he crouches, you should do likewise. If he stands up, you must stand up too, and if he nibbles grass then you too must do the same. The boy then obediently did as he was told and eventually in this manner, they reached the village of the man who was leading the gayal. On the other hand, there are instances in narratives such as ‘The Monkey and the Tortoise’, 8 where the world in which they exist remain seemingly bereft of human company. It is a world where animals have been increasingly creating a bond with each other. In fact, they lived in a world that was seemingly harmonious. The narrative begins with both the monkey and the tortoise wanting to pluck figs. The tortoise was not very eager because he was apprehensive about plucking the figs as he was unable to climb atop the tree. The monkey on the other hand was very agile. After a while, the monkey suggested to the tortoise, Just bite the end of my tail, and I shall help you climb up. Saying this, the monkey led the tortoise up. After a time, the tortoise even fell off while laughing because he found the entire aspect very amusing. One day, the tortoise invited the monkey to go fishing with him, but the monkey was very reluctant. However, he decided to go along, and as they reached the lake the tortoise began to catch plenty of fish, but the monkey stood by helplessly, and suddenly the tortoise said, Just catch hold of my shell and I will carry you into the water, and in that manner, we will catch plenty of fish. Eventually in the narrative, the monkey died because he could not breathe in the water. The narrative denotes that his body became stiff and frozen, and even then the tortoise could not make out what the matter was. Finally, 178

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he thought that the monkey’s frozen grimace was a smile of pleasure and even tried to give him his share of the fish. As there was no response from the monkey, the tortoise offered, Alright, you can take all the fish, otherwise you might get annoyed later. And thus the narrative ends on that note. Mizo oral literature abounds with such tales. There are various tales where man and animal coexisted in a seeming mutual harmony. This need not be seen as peculiar; rather it may be perceived as a totally natural environment to both man and animal. Amongst the myriad aspects that are related to Mizo oral literature, there are also instances of different personas in humanity. Within the realm of the animal world order, one can deduce that the narrative concerning Chemtatrawta 9 finds a very privileged place in terms of textual narration. Chemtatrawta is actually a person who has been depicted as a young man who sets off on a hunt and in the midst of it he stops to sharpen his dao along the length of the river. The animal imagery becomes rampant from the very outset when it denotes that ‘a prawn bit him on his testicles’. This spurred off a chain reaction in him, and in his anger, he cut off the large bamboo from where the khaum creeper hung. The khaum in turn landed atop the spine of the jungle fowl below and these in turn scattered the nest of the large ants, who in turn bit the testicles of the wild pig, who in turn scattered the wild plantains where the bats nestled. The bat was furious and it flew up the elephant’s trunk. The elephant then destroyed the house of an old woman nearby, and she in turn defecated by the mouth of the village well. Thus, the villagers in anger began to rally in great rage. Ultimately the source of the anger was traced to Chemtatrawta and the prawn that bit him. However, it must be noted that the prawn was very clever, and he took full advantage of the situation and was determined not to be punished. He managed to convince them to put him in the water and very soon he escaped from their clutches. However, these oral tales continue to have a predominant impact upon the post-colonial Mizo sayings that denote that after the prawn glided away to freedom, he swam inside a cave and because the people continued the chase, he was poked about with the leaves of the hnahthial plant. He was prodded and poked about so much that eventually the edges of his mouth became scruffy and grungy. And legend has it that this is the reason why the prawn’s mouth retains such a shape till today. In the narrative of ‘Rimenhawihii’, 10 there is a depiction of a beautiful damsel who has very fine, long, hair, and we are told that some strands of her hair fell into the water, as she was bathing. Unfortunately, a local chief, upon seeing her locks of hair, decided that he wanted to acquire the damsel 179

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and have her for a wife. However, Rimenhawii was married, and her husband Zawlthlia had ensured that no strangers could actually come close to her or to their house. Thus for a long while, the chief’s servants could not enter the house. Eventually, they managed to lure her with the help of an orange, and even as she was captured, she hastily informed the dogs and the fowl in their courtyard on how she was taken captive. Upon returning home her husband queried, ‘O dog, where is my wife?’ and ‘O hen, where is my wife?’ Both of them replied ‘You must follow the strand of thread.’ The husband did so and eventually was able to find his wife. Thus, even in this narrative, animals play a predominantly significant role. In an astounding display of strength and wit, the oral narrative, ‘The War Between the Creatures of the Air and the Creatures of the Land’, 11 discloses the series of adventures between various animals. The narrative began with the adventures of a tortoise who was keeping guard over the egg of a serpent. After a time, a barking deer passed by and invited the tortoise to a high jump competition over the egg of the serpent. The tortoise in turn realised that as he was very slow, it would be foolishness on his part to oblige to such a task, so he declined, especially because he was afraid that he would land on the egg of the serpent, and it would break. The barking deer assured him that he would protect him if such a thing occurred. In yet another tale, ‘Chungleng leh Hnuaileng Indo’ or ‘The War between the Creatures of the Air and the Creatures of the Land’, 12 there is a depiction of a great war between the animals. It all began with the tortoise who was asked to keep guard over the egg of a serpent. Soon he was challenged to a high jump competition to jump over the egg, and he could not refuse the chance. As he was very slow, he could not jump over the egg, and he ended up by landing atop the egg and breaking the egg in the process. At this, he ran amuck and sought refuge amongst his fellow animals, but all the other animals including the barking deer, the bear, wild goat, the elk and the wild pig refused him asylum, for fear of the serpent. Finally, an eagle granted him refuge. After a series of altercations wherein the eagle refused to give up custody of the tortoise, the serpent flew into a rage and declared war between the creatures of the land and the creatures of the air. The battle then went on in full swing, and soon all the various creatures were up in arms against one another in full force. And the war waged on. The tale has an ending that is relevant to nature of the bat. During the war, he had joined the ranks of the creatures of the land for he claimed that he did not even have wings. And thus, he had left the creatures of the air, whose ranks he had originally belonged to. After a time however, the animals gathered together and signed a pact, and very soon they all became friends once again. As the bat had displayed cowardly behaviour during the war, he could not find an ally amongst either land or air creatures, and in great embarrassment, he fled 180

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and hid and did not dare to go out in the light of day. And the story denotes that this is why the bat wanders only in the darkness of the night, to this day. ‘Chawngchili’s’ 13 story is more profound in a way, because it denotes the courtship between a young damsel and a serpent. The relationship was kept a secret from the damsel’s father, and he discovered it only when he realised that his young son was getting thinner despite having packed him a good meal. When questioned, the young boy revealed the love relationship between the serpent and his sister wherein he added that the snake would consume his share of the food. Eventually, the serpent was killed by the father, who later killed his daughter as she refused to give up liaison with the snake. Upon slitting open her stomach the father discovered to his horror that there were many baby snakes inside his daughter. He managed to kill all of these, save one. This lone survivor proved to be a source of great menace for the village, as it gobbled up everything in sight. Ultimately, the villagers managed to slaughter a portion of it, and the tale denotes that all the villagers who consumed the flesh of the same serpent were destroyed, while an old woman became the sole survivor as she was the only one who did not partake of the flesh of the serpent. Thus, Mizo folktales bring out the myriad instances of man–animal relationships in the oral narratives, and it also conveys that there are many beliefs that are rendered especially in terms of habits that remain characteristic to the animal sensibility and the animal world order. Despite this, it remains today that due to the advent of religion, many of these tales have now been relegated as relics of a non-Christian past and thus are referred to merely as tales which have little or no references to the notion of Mizo identity. That many of these tales could actually be documented and used as significant cultural parameters are yet to be considered favourably. Most folklore within the Mizo arena has been located within the backdrop of nature, the animal world order and the world of spirits and the supernatural. Mizo folklore has had an inherently concrete base where, even in terms of the oral dynamics, there had been a coherent established system which denoted its version of the creation of man, the creation of the universe and how various forms of natural and human life came into being. Such narratives which were especially related to the concept of identity were remarkably different from the narratives in the post-colonial era, where Christianity has occupied centrality and has thus managed to relocate beliefs and ethos that had once been associated with Mizo identity.

The politics of orality In the post-colonial ethos, folk narrative still remains significant, and it established decidedly too that Mizo society was and is still an inherently 181

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tribal society. It was one that ostensibly merged in tandem with the natural as well as the supernatural. However, it also seeks to advocate that the tribal dynamics have experienced a vast paradigm shift within the domains of a pre- and post-colonial perspective. This itself is unique in terms of the formation of identity because the culture itself is still predominantly tribal, but it has continued to hold onto an inherently ‘Westernised’ concept of identity. Thus, the concept of Bhabha’s hybridity comes into sharp alignment in this perspective. Largely due to the advent of Christianity and the post-colonial dynamics, especially after 1894, there has been an inherent loss of the status of myths within the Mizo community. Colonisation has brought with it a changing facet to the perspective of identity, and the defining parameters of identity in the decades that follow after the advent of Christianity especially have been honed towards a redefinition of the Mizo identity. It has become a society where there has been an increasing focus upon the nuances of religion and subsequently, in the process there has been the consistent negation of the myths, folk and cultural lores. The projection of identity itself is complex, the Mizos themselves have been regarded to be a race of Mongoloid stock and have come into existence from a large rock emerging out of the Chin-Lushai province known as Chhinlung. That there is hardly any historical or anthropological claim to legitimacy on that perspective remains forgotten many a time. However, it is out of these aspects that identities have been carved and out of these that many lores have been centred upon. In order to elucidate upon the aspect of the complexities of Mizo cultural identity, the chapter shall dwell upon the concept of identity in terms of the pre- as well as post-colonial perspectives. Significantly, in terms of the Mizo cultural parameters, there are arenas where the aspect of myth has in various ways lost its significance or status within the society because of the post-colonial parameters. In the pre-colonial era, myths were significantly a part of the religious system and the status of a person or community depended very much upon the interrelationship between the resonant myth and the individual or culture. In as far as post-colonial Mizo society and identity are concerned, Christianity has played a major role in terms of the formulation of the identity of the post-colonial Mizo. The contrast in terms of identity in the preand post-colonial parameters have been vast because the colonised Mizo domains were previously under a culture that was inherently non-Christian and so subsequently had a different sensibility altogether, whether religious or secular. Identity in the pre-colonial Mizo society was inherently nonChristian, and it was one that existed in affinity with the flora and the fauna around them. There was worship of the flora and the fauna, and beliefs that were inherently related to creation and existence were centred and located around them. Myths within the ambit of a pre-colonial Mizo culture have 182

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had a significant role in terms of the aspect of creation, life as well as death, and Mizo narratives have denoted these inherently. In the history of Mizo myth and folkloristics, there has been coherent representation of these various parameters: for instance, the concept of creation has been portrayed in a manner that is very different from the creation of the post-colonial era. Pre-colonial era has inherently depicted the existence of a world that was bereft of human beings and even the universe. This is in sharp contrast to the post-colonial era where the Christian God becomes sovereign and is solely responsible for the creation of the universe, as well as the first man and woman. Even the creation of the heaven and the earth, the waters of the sea as well as all objects that were of the air and water and land, took legitimate place only with the emergence of the Christian God. This has been reflected in the Bible in the book of Genesis, which is the first book in the Old Testament. The decades that followed 1894 saw a sharp new perspective emerging, and this is especially reflected in the aspect of creation. All other related concepts consistently follow this paradigm. The colonial Mizo began to gradually identify with the image of the Christian precepts of thinking, and fashioned itself within such parameters. However, this was not to state that there were no other paradigms that had had its bearings upon the arena of identity in the pre-colonial domains. The pre-colonial Mizo context was one that was rich in terms of carving out its own niche with regards to identity. It saw the existence of a being (or a god) that was referred to as khuazingnu, and the aspects of creation, including the creation of the earth and the addition of greenery around the earth, were attributed to this being. Myth in this era also depicts that as the earth was very dry, this all-majestic being called khuazingnu would occasionally open the windows of heaven to water the earth. This explained the concept of rainfall and much later on, the same god was credited with the creation of animals and humanity, especially in order to consume the vast produce of the earth. It was also significant to note that within this world order, there was the existence of both men and animals who could communicate with one another, and this especially depicted the centrality of the animal world order within the ambit of the human race. The earth was basically reflected as a land of abundance. However, even within the pre-colonial era, with the passage of time, there grew conflicts among the inhabitants of the earth, and eventually, this gave way to the creation of the chief. The concept of identity formation within the pre-colonial era was significantly inter-linked with that of nature and animals, as well as human beings. This was in sharp contrast to the post-colonial Christian domains where the Christian parameters prevailed in terms of the identity formation, and it reflected upon an era where God deemed that man was supreme in terms of all creation. All the other aspects of creation were 183

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subservient to man, even though man was created last of all. Woman was made to keep man company because it was realised that even as man had vegetation and the animals around him, there was an inherent sense of dissatisfaction around him. This world thus did away with the mythical world of creation in the pre-colonial era, and it was no longer a world where man and animals could communicate with one another, at least verbally. It was only man that had access to the higher order of language. Also, animals were hunted down for food or used as beasts of burden. The book of Leviticus in the Bible denotes passages where God legitimises sanction upon the kind of animals that could be consumed for food and those that clearly could not be. Thus, in the formulation of identity, the Bible became in coherent ways the legitimate parameter within the post-Christian ethos. Significantly, because man and woman were to be consorts to each other, God created woman from man’s rib. Thus, the pre-colonial era, was demystified, and there was a gradual rewriting of the identity politics even in terms of the folkloristic perspective. Adam and Eve thus became the first man and woman within the dynamics of the post-colonial order, and this is the aspect of creation that Mizos currently advocate to. There has been an emerging sense of hybridity, however in various other ways in the identity perspective. Although Mizos advocate to the Christian parameters of creation, the myths have been kept alive in many ways and are told and retold within the dynamics of the folklore perspective. Creation lores have been predominantly different. In the pre-colonial Mizo, it must be emphasised that the creature called khuazingnu 14 played a significant role. However, when she created the universe, there was no mud at all to moisten the earth. The world was filled with rocks, and because of this, there was no greenery or vegetation around the universe. This is again in contrast to the post-colonial perspectives of creation where God reigned supreme and accounted for everything within the universe. There was nothing that was left unaccounted for, and man was not in want or need. Within the domains of khuazingnu, there was also the existence of a huge sea which was known as tuihriam, and this sea was very cold in terms of temperature. It was said that even if a hand was dipped into it, the sea would slice it off. On the other shore of the sea, there was a small amount of mud, and it was said that in order to procure that mud, the various animals would make an attempt every now and then, but because of the coldness of the waters of the sea, they could not even manage to swim halfway across the sea. Thus, they could not get the mud at all. However after some time, a porcupine swam all the way across the sea and managed to get a bit of the mud on his mouth, and finally managed to get back ashore, while his friends cheered him on. The other animals began to wonder as to how they could multiply 184

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the small bit of mud. While they were still debating, the earthworm suggested, ‘If you are ready to listen to me, I know how we can multiply the mud.’ As they promised to do so, the earthworm said, ‘I shall consume the mud and shall throw out the same in the form of excreta, and it will then multiply.’ The other creatures cried, ‘We do not believe you. Perhaps it is only because you want to eat mud.’ The earthworm replied, ‘If it does not happen as I say, then you may break me up in three parts.’ And because he was so daring, the others decided to believe him. Thus the earthworm did as he had suggested, and soon the mud grew to a large amount. All this mud was transferred across the various portions of the universe. This myth is about how mud came to be spread across the earth. Again, in sharp contrast to the Biblical parallels, in as far as the creation of the mountains and the rivers were concerned, it was discovered that even though the mud had been spread to increase a sufficient amount of vegetation on the earth, there were no other structures such as mountains and rivers. However, there was a place called Vanlaiphai that was situated in the midst of the heavens that contained a tall tree known as thingvantawng, or tree that reached the heavens. The inhabitants around the area wanted to destroy the tree, but they were scared that the mud, precious as it was, would be destroyed too. One day, they sent a small bird called Lailen to test whether the earth was dry or not, and the bird flew around and pecked the earth and because it was so light in weight, it failed to make a dent in the earth. The bird then flew back and reported that the earth was dry enough to stand around it and that the tree could be destroyed. Now the inhabitants of the earth gathered together to destroy the tree, and they began to hack away at the tree, but they soon realised that the earth was not at all dry. The increasing dent that was made by their combined weight resulted in the breaking up of the earth into various dimensions, and this in turn created the rivers, the lakes and the mountains. Even with regard to the inception of the first earthquake that occurred in the universe, the Mizo myth denotes that there was a tortoise who carried the earth upon its back, and it was thought that if the tortoise moved, the earth would fall. Thus, if such a thing happened, all the inhabitants of the earth would be killed. To prevent such a calamity, the guardian of the ends of the earth had requested the tortoise to not move away. However, there was a certain creature from the animal world order, who lied to the tortoise and declared ‘the inhabitants of the earth are all dead’, and while saying this, he placed a heap of burning embers of charcoal upon the back of the tortoise. The tortoise was immediately forced to scamper away due to the heat. Thus, the earth began to quake tremendously, and immediately the inhabitants of the earth cried out, ‘Have mercy, we are not yet dead, we are still alive.’ Eventually, when the truth was realised that the inhabitants of the earth were not all dead, 185

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the guardian of the ends of the earth requested the tortoise once more to stay still and to not wander away. Pre-colonial dynamics were also clear with regards to the creation of an afterworld. Death and life were very much a part of humanity, and there were no huge giants as well as ogres and ogresses who lived up to eternity in Mizo myths. Thus, death was a very significant occurrence, and there were two places where the dead could go to after they gave up their human form on earth. These were places that were known as mitthi khua and pialral. It was believed that whoever died would go to either one of these places. However, the latter was actually only a place that warriors of great fame and their families could go to. There was a very significant difference between mitthi khua and pialral, and there cannot be an amalgamation of the two. Thus, such people lived in dire poverty and due to this, they were very weak and emaciated. Within the parameters of this belief, there was a lake that was known as Rih Dil. 15 This lake was regarded to be one of the more significant places where the dead would visit. In fact, this lake was so crucial, that it was regarded that all the dead had to necessarily pass through. In this event there was a plant called mitthi pal that was planted in honour of the dead. There was also a place known as hruai kawn that was erected in honour of the spirit of the dead. Again, in order to commemorate the area and its subsequent interaction with the dead, there were places that were known as mitthi kawtkai (passageway for the dead), and even as the dead were on their way to the rih dil, there was the creation of a place known as lung rah buk. After the dead stepped upon the same rock, they would leave for the abode of the spiritual world. The myth also denoted that the spirits of the dead would be very reluctant to leave the earth where they had dwelt for all time, on a permanent basis. To aid them to bid adieu to the nostalgia of their past lives, there was a mount that was known as hringlang tlang. However, there were two remedies by which the dead would no longer crave to set foot on earth. One was in the guise of a very beautiful flower that was known as hawilopar, and as soon as the dead who were to leave the earth were getting overtly sentimental, fortune would chance that they come across the flower, and upon perception of the same, they would be enchanted by this flower. They would necessarily pluck the flower and adorn themselves with the same and in doing so, they would never want to even give the earth a second glance. This ensured a permanent obliteration of the earth and its inhabitants from their memories. The other remedy was with regard to fresh spring water which was located on top of a mountain, and this water was very tempting and refreshing to perceive. No one that walked about the place could actually resist the water, and once they drank that water they would immediately forget their past and everything else 186

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about the earth. In fact, the obliteration would be so immense that they would long and yearn all the more for the abode of the dead, and they would hasten towards the same. This water is known in Mizo as lungloh tui. This belief along with the other aspects is inherently different from the Christian beliefs because, there is the belief in an afterlife in terms of the latter, but only in the light of salvation and a heaven and hell parameter. All other beliefs are obliterated, and there are references only to salvation and redemption. Folklore has been much more acceptable in terms of colonial and post-colonial dynamics, while the song forms have been predominantly less acceptable. In terms of narrative and genre, another significant aspect of identity has been located in the genre of poetry, and it has had myriad influences over the Mizo dynamics of identity. As Fanon has rightly denoted, 16 the field of force of the colonial situation is marked by two antagonistic poles: the coloniser and the colonised. The prosperity and the privileges of the former are directly based on the exploitation and pauperisation of the other. To maintain this condition, the act of oppression must be constantly reproduced: ‘For it is the settler who has brought the native into existence and who perpetuates his existence. The settler owes the fact of his very existence, that is to say his property, to the colonial system.’ The most characteristic feature of the colonial situation is racism, which underpins ideologically the division of society into ‘human beings’ and ‘natives’ caused by the colonial process of production. The idea expressed thus, has only partially been in tandem with the Mizo dynamics. The notion of identity as depressed or as suppressed is indicated thus: Everyone has felt the contempt implicit in the term “native”, used to designate the inhabitants of a colonized country. The banker, the manufacturer, even the professor in the home country, are not natives of any country: they are not natives at all. The oppressed person, on the other hand, feels himself to be a native; each single event in his life repeats to him that he has not the right to exist. 17 This aspect however, has not found significant mode of assimilation in the Mizo. One of the noteworthy reasons could be that, unlike most cultures the process of colonisation, which initially was based on the economic motivations in most countries, was not purely so in Mizoram. Colonisation had a very different context altogether. In most countries, the concept of the missionaries was seen also as crass exploitation of the native culture and the post-colonial notions leading to the dehumanisation of the oppressed and which would finally lead to the alienation of the colonised have been proved likewise in many aspects. If the notion of oral texts in the Mizo and its politics has to have a more coherent focus, one must go back to 187

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1985, where Gayatri Spivak asked, ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ 18 Spivak also denoted as to how long ‘can we touch the consciousness of the people, even as we investigate their politics? With what voice-consciousness can the subaltern speak?’ Through these questions, as Leela Gandhi 19 succinctly denotes, Spivak places us squarely within the familiar and troublesome field of ‘representation’ and ‘representability’. How can the historian/investigator avoid the inevitable risk of presenting herself as an authoritative representative of subaltern consciousness? Should the intellectual ‘abstain from representation’? Which intellectual is equipped to represent which subaltern class? Is there an ‘unrepresentable subaltern class that can know and speak itself’? And finally, who – if any – are the ‘true’ or ‘representative’ subalterns of history, especially within the frame of reference provided by the imperialist project? All these questions and more are to be asked of the Mizo context as well. Albert Memmi, 20 the Tunisian anti-colonial revolutionary and intellectual, has argued that the colonial aftermath is fundamentally deluded in its hope that the architecture of a new world will magically emerge from the physical ruins of colonialism. Memmi maintains that the triumphant subjects of this aftermath inevitably underestimate the psychologically tenacious hold of the colonial past on the post-colonial present. In his words: And the day oppression ceases, the new man is supposed to emerge before our eyes immediately. Now, I do not like to say so, but I must, since decolonisation has demonstrated it: this is not the way it happens. The colonised lives for a long time before we see that really new man. Memmi’s political pessimism delivers and account of post-coloniality as a historical condition marked by the visible apparatus of freedom and the concealed persistence of unfreedom. If post-coloniality can be described as a condition troubled by the consequences of a self-willed historical amnesia, then the theoretical value of post-colonialism inheres, in part, in its ability to elaborate the forgotten memories of this condition. In other words, the colonial aftermath calls for an ameliorative and therapeutic theory responsive to the task of remembering and recalling the colonial past. The work of this theory may be compared with what Lyotard describes as the psychoanalytic procedure of anamnesis, or analysis – which urges patients ‘to elaborate their current problems by freely associating apparently inconsequential details with past situations – allowing them to uncover hidden meanings in their lives and their behaviour’. In adopting this procedure, post-colonial theory inevitably commits itself to a complex project of historical and psychological ‘recovery’. If its scholarly task inheres in the carefully researched 188

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retrieval of historical detail, it has an equally compelling political obligation to assist the subjects of postcoloniality to live with the gaps and fissures of their condition, and thereby learn to proceed with self-understanding. For all its revolutionary and therapeutic benefits, there are, as Fanon has written, many pitfalls to national consciousness. Foremost among these are uncritical assertions and constructions of cultural essentialism and distinctiveness. Fanon, as Bhabha 21 points out, is far too aware of the dangers of the fixity and fetishism of identities within the calcification of colonial culture to recommend that “roots” be struck in the celebratory romance of the past or by homogenising the history of the present. For Fanon, the entrenched discourse of cultural essentialism merely reiterates and gives legitimacy to the insidious racialisation of thought, which attends the violent logic of colonial rationality. Accordingly, ‘the unconditional affirmation of African culture’ reinstates the prejudices embodied in ‘the unconditional affirmation of European culture’.

Orality and the Mizo Coming back to the Mizo context however, it must be affirmed that the subaltern post-colonial Mizo in this case has spoken well and truly in terms of the location of oral literature. Most Mizo writers including those like Siamkima and K. C. Lalvunga, 22 had in their lifetime denoted the significance of the written word alone. This meant that in their perspective, which eventually went on to shape the literary consciousness of many Mizos, only the written was important and was deemed thus as worthy of recognition as literature, and the oral narratives thus took a decided backseat. As both these pioneers/writers are prescribed at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study, it is but natural that orality has been negated and that their beliefs have shaped the vast consciousness of the Mizo oral ethic. In this aspect, it is thus unfair to wholly blame the missionaries because all of them had been ousted from Mizoram by the year 1966, and have returned only for sporadic visits in the course of time. What remains true, however, is that the colonial legacy that has continued till this day because the conventional Mizo has a decided fetish for the white man and has thus little or no regard for his own roots. Oral folk narratives as well as song tradition has been relegated thus, because even in terms of song, as the Mizos were very fond of singing, the missionaries did not permit the Mizos to go back to traditional songs for fear that they would go back to their non-Christian beliefs. As such, most traditional songs were ‘lost’ in the process, and even 189

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the ones that have been retained are little sung, and even if so, they are done so in a ‘censored’ stance. Most oral narratives are those handed down after much ‘censorship’, and this would also be because of a decided level of intolerance even today for the local tradition. I am using the term censorship here in the context of the notion of a decided suppression and restriction that has been associated with Mizo orality; it does not refer to a state of politically implemented censorship. This aspect of control and predominant editing of orality has come into being with the advent of the missionaries, where much of folklore and most song tradition were obliterated. Folklore was regarded to be less of a ‘threat’ as opposed to the song tradition and because of this, the missionaries in the Southern belt of the Lushai Hills, also helped to compile ‘Serkawn Graded Reader’ (where Pi Nuchhungi, a Mizo lady from the southern belt of Mizoram was assisted by Ms E. M. Chapman, a missionary who had been posted in the area). The said reader is still in use today, in elementary schools and also for reference, and in this regard, it may be mentioned that the said text has not merely been confined to libraries or archives. It comprises folklore from the Mizo, but even the version(s) rendered in the text is intrinsically basic, and it can even be deduced that much of it has been ‘censored’ and that only the fundamental outlines of the stories have been maintained. Most of the song lyrics have been removed in the transition from orality to writing. On the other hand, song has been and still is, a decided threat, and it has been regarded to be almost tantamount to peril for the coloniser missionaries. The Mizos were then and are still a song loving community, and it is regarded that song seems to be almost embedded in their very existence. A pursuit of song tradition, especially the couplets and the triplets of the oral tradition, was perceived to be dangerous ground, because it would symbolise a return to pre-Christian dynamics. This is predominantly because it was believed that pre-Christian sentiments would lure almost immediately, and the community would then slowly but steadily drift back to the old cultural ethos. Till today, this belief holds valid ground, and it has continued to set a sense of insecurity for the Mizos, and the hymn books in the Churches, no matter what the denominations are, are replete with translated hymns and choruses from the original Welsh and English traditions. 23 A majority of the hymns composed by Mizos too are in the mould of the Western tradition, and thus, there is a marked disdain, which is synonymous to a sense of derision in the community when oral tradition, whether in folklore or song tradition is referred to. Even when certain organisations, whether secular or a secular seek to return to the oral tradition which is so intrinsic to the Mizos, a lot of resistance is unearthed, and it is almost as if to say that the cultural ethos is ‘lost’ in the process of translation. Again, there are seemingly liberal stances amidst a decidedly post-colonial sensibility, especially 190

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in terms of attitudes that also come very close to ‘a subaltern speaking generation’, which again, in the Mizo domains, may be closest to the Spivak approach. A decidedly confident mindset in certain sections of the Mizo also reiterate that the community is not merely insular, but unquestionably of a provincial mindset. 24 Stuart Hall’s notion that after colonialism, it is imperative to imagine a new transformation of cultural sensibilities in terms of the coloniser and the colonised, becomes relevant albeit in a rewritten paradigm here. It is as though the Mizo community cannot and do not want to either locate or relocate themselves, ‘beyond the missionaries’, simply because there is a resolute decision within themselves to not do so. Whether this unwavering note has been dictated by the present-day Church or the erstwhile missionaries becomes a case in point. For whatever it takes, yet again, it must be emphasised here that the Bible in its entirety has not laid any emphasis upon a rejection of cultural mores and lores. The interpretation of the scriptures and the construal of the same by the colonisers has only been embedded more deeply even at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Oral narratives are now told and retold with dimensions that are located within the transcultural aspect of colonialism. 25 As Harish Trivedi writes: ‘it may be useful to look at the whole phenomenon as a transaction . . . as an interactive, dialogic, two-way process rather than a simple active-passive one; as a process involving complex negotiation and exchange.’ The arguments of many post-colonial theorists fail to convince many Mizos, primarily on account of their refusal to address adequately the ideological stance between the histories of the subject and those of the histories of subjection. As Leela Gandhi denotes ‘There is a fundamental incommensurability between the predominantly cultural “subordination” of settler culture in Australia, and the predominantly administrative and militaristic subordination of colonised culture of Africa and Asia.’ 26 In the Mizo too, it can be argued that this is the notion through which the West, (which here would include in turn, the Welsh missionaries and the British administration) has asserted its hegemony over a decidedly subaltern community in terms of cultural and oral parameters. If oral narratives are to be conferred a place of honour in the community, it must start from the Mizo mindset. Colonisation did set a significant role by ‘censoring’ orality, but the Mizo must go beyond the colonisers, much afar from the missionaries, to not merely speak, but to write and rewrite and reaffirm a belief and a continuity in oral tradition. Even as colonial dynamics are inherently primary, relevant as they are today, it will not be too farfetched to state that orality is still best regarded to be less of literature and more of myth and mere lore, its literary merit remaining yet to be appreciated. Indeed, as of the moment, oral tradition in the Mizo, is perceived as good enough only to be left at 191

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the hearth or above the fireshelf, its values and rich resources yet predominantly unearthed.

Notes 1 Traditional Mizo creation aspects and beliefs have been based on the notion of oral lore. In this regard, there is an inherent centrality in terms of man as well as animals. Both seemingly exist in harmony and in close association with one another. This legend is the only evidence available concerning the origins of the Mizos. It represents the Mizos understanding of their remote past recorded by the first writers, mostly the Europeans, of the people’s history. 2 From Mizo sprang various races, and not the Mizo emerging from other nations; since the time of creation, the Mizos had been the source of races. In most traditional views and especially in beliefs that are determined by a religious precept, the superiority of the Mizo race is still adhered to. 3 In the same context, Foucault had argued further by stating: ‘Absolutely, it is a superb of the power for itself. Entirely woven through with elements that are imaginary, erotic, effective, corporal, sensual, and so on, it is superb!’ to which Voeltzel replied: ‘Oh yes, it’s superb! I’ve seen what happens in church schools, this continual hypocrisy, those daily lies, this malice that you find in most people of the church. It is detestable, it is something I hate. A somewhat similar sentiment is shared within the Mizo community today. There is an inherent association of power with religion and a striking love–hate relationship exists within the Mizo and the Church dynamics.’ 4 T. H. Lewin, A Fly on the Wheel or How I Helped to Govern India, London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1885 (2007). 5 This of course was at a time when the Lushais could neither read nor write and when the coloniser had ample time to write about the colonised. The colonial attitude towards the native Lushais has been denoted at length in other narratives as well, and often, there are references to a hard and inhospitable land. Some aspects have been referred to from my unpublished post-doctoral research, UGC major research project on ‘Situating Identity in Select Mizo Narratives’, 2008–2011. 6 Lewin was referred to as Thangliena or Luan Sap by the Lushais. These aspects are crucial in terms of narration and also in comprehending the nature of the Mizo sensibility. Lewin’s text is key to the study because, historical and political culture has impacted much in terms of the Mizo psyche. 7 The lesson that has been evidently conveyed here is the significance of the gayal, which was portrayed as different from the rest of humanity that has been represented in the narrative. These are significant instances where man and animal have been put together in the world and where they have assisted each other in seeming comprehension. Translation mine, as denoted in Handpicked Tales From Mizoram, Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2008. 8 This tale is one that is bereft of the presence of human beings, and it also records the fact that there was a time when it was believed that animals could actually speak, just as human beings did. Translation mine, as denoted in Handpicked Tales From Mizoram.

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9 This tale especially denotes aspects that are related to the animal world order and this existence has been inherently in terms of the animals who have been existing in tandem with man. Translation mine, as denoted in Handpicked Tales From Mizoram. 10 Translation mine, as denoted in Handpicked Tales From Mizoram. 11 A majority of the anecdotes that are involved pander to the aspects related to the elements of heroism and chivalry, which are strongly embedded within the Mizo sensibility. Translation mine, as denoted in Handpicked Tales From Mizoram. 12 War is common to tribal societies and tribal culture revelled in this aspect. This tale depicts only animals (as protagonists), as denoted in the title and there is no indication of the presence of human beings in the same. Translation mine, as denoted in Handpicked Tales From Mizoram. 13 Translation mine, as denoted in Folklore From Mizoram, Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2013. 14 Once again, this myth establishes the significance of the role that animals played in the creation of the universe, in sharp contrast to the post-colonial ethos. Translation mine, as denoted in Folklore From Mizoram. 15 Rih Dil is a natural lake which is located in Myanmar. It lies at about three kilometres from Zokhawthar village in Champhai district, which is situated in Mizoram, and is thus located at the Indo-Burma border. The lake is about 1 mile in length and half a mile in width. It has a depth of about 60 feet. The lake has a heart-shaped outline. The name of the lake is derived from a Mizo folktale, which denoted that there was a young girl called Rih-i. Rih-i had a younger sister who was murdered by her father upon the order of their stepmother. Rihi’s sister was resurrected with the help of a spirit. With the same magical spell Rih-i turned herself into a water body that became the lake. Rih Dil or Rih Lake has occupied an important status in the traditional religion of the Mizo people. According to the ancestors of the tribals, it was a corridor to their heaven called Pialral. All souls destined to Pialral must pass through the lake. Due to its cultural importance, it is often said ‘the largest lake in Mizoram is Rih Dil, but is located in Burma.’ 16 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, London: Penguin, 2007, p. 18. Till today, there is an inherent regard for white skin, and an inherent disdain in most Mizos even for India, which they often only grudgingly recognise as their country of origin. 17 Renate Zahar, Frantz Fanon: Colonialism and Alienation Concerning Frantz Fanon’s Political Theory, Delhi: Aakar Books, 2010, p. 19. 18 Gayatri Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak: Reflections of the History of an Idea, New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. 19 Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, p. 2. In the cited page of her text ‘Postcolonial Theory’, most of these arguments, continue to adhere to the framework denoted in the paper, with regards to identity and its notions of cultural hybridity in the Mizo. 20 Albert Memmi, Dominated Man: Notes Towards a Portrait, London: Orion Press, 1968, p. 88. Again, this is inherently true of the scenario in Mizoram, where the death of the colonial or the death of the white influence is yet to be seen. Even with the aspect of globalisation, there is still a decided acknowledgement for the white sensibility.

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21 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, London: Routledge, 1994. Bhabha, in his text has argued about the notion of hybridity in identity, the Mizo today seems to stand at such crossroads, and the onus may not be totally of the Christian missions, as critics like V. L. Zaikima, owner Lengchhawn Press, Aizawl, and social critics, have argued, the Mizo mindset is too insecure and is seemingly set in the belief that cultural identity cannot be recognised legitimately minus the role of the West. 22 Siamkima and Lalvunga, two pioneers in the field of Mizo literature. Siamkima Khawlhring (1938–1992) wrote Zalenna Ram (1986), along with ‘Rihdil leh Mizoram’ ‘Hun hi’ and ‘Bethlehem Dai’. Regarded to be the father of Mizo Literary Criticism, K. C. Lalvunga (1929–1994) was also the first Indian Foreign Service officer amongst Mizos and wrote under the pen name Zikpuii Pa. His works included ‘Kross bulah chuan’, ‘Silverthangi’, ‘Hostel Awmtu’ among others. Both continue to influence and formulate academic opinion and trends till today. 23 Vanneihtluanga, a prominent social critic and author, has denoted that the post-colonial, and especially the twentieth-century, generation has even forgotten the art of storytelling (in the mother tongue), and seem to have no regrets whatsoever in being ignorant about a lack of knowledge about their cultural lores. 24 Lalthanzawna, reaffirms this notion. A graduate from a Biblical seminary and an Elder at Zarkawt Presbyterian Church, Aizawl,his progressive ideologies reiterate the need to rewrite the mind set of the post colonial Mizo. Radical ethics as expressed by him are few and far between especially in a non secular archetype, and his views succeed in situating him as a stalwart thinker in the Mizo paradigm. 25 Drs. Zoramdinthara and Malsawmliana, teaching in the discipline of Mizo Studies and History respectively at undergraduate-level colleges in Mizoram, have affirmed the same. Even at the undergraduate level, on most occasions, there seems to be a rejection of one’s own oral tradition and culture. They reiterate that oral narratives, especially, are left untaught, and even if prescribed in the syllabus, remain largely unappreciated. 26 Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction, New York: Columbia University Press, 1998, p. 170. The term ‘post-colonial theory’ which has been frequently used, like cultural subordination and Western hegemony, is significant in the chapter. However, these terms have been rewritten within the Mizo ethos, and there has been a decided lack of ‘writing back’ on the part of Mizos. This has been in many ways intentional, because an identity, separate from the colonial sensibility, is yet to be appreciated or even ‘legitimately’ envisioned.

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7 EMPIRE AND THE MAKING OF A NARRATIVE The Ballad of the General and its history as a historical source in colonial Assam Manjeet Baruah

The chapter attempts to examine how a nineteenth-century ‘folk’ Assamese ballad Barphukanar Geet (‘The Ballad of the General’) dealing with Burmese and British imperialisms of early nineteenth century, cannot be disentangled from its existence as a ‘written’ text through much of the twentieth century. Further, the emergence of the ballad as an important historical ‘source’ in the twentieth century was closely connected to the very nature of its textual existence. In turn, this influenced the use of the source to denote peasant or national consciousness, depending on the location of the historian in debates on imperialism and popular response to it. The chapter further argues that the given nature of the ‘source’ raises important methodological questions too vis-à-vis its use to interpret the past. One such methodological aspect that the chapter explores is reading the ballad in terms of history of literature, and what such an approach can highlight about the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century history and historians of Assam.

The context of the historical period regarding the events in the ballad The period between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century was epochal in the history of Assam (in the context of the chapter, the term ‘Assam’ is used in reference to colonial ‘Assam Proper’). In 1769, under the leadership of the radical neo-vaishnavite sect of Moamaria, a popular rebellion against the Ahom monarchy began, which lasted nearly half a century. It was an armed rebellion. It has been variously interpreted as a 195

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socio-religious uprising (against the Shakta Ahoms) and as a peasant uprising. 1 There were occasions when the rebels took over the government, forcing the king to leave the capital from time to time. However, the rebels retained the political organisation of the state in terms of the institutions of the King, the Council of Elders as well as the bureaucratic apparatus. The 1770s was also the period when the East India Company (EIC) began to take interest in expanding trading relations with Assam, that is the Ahom kingdom. In 1788, after being forced to escape to Guwahati, driven out by the Moamaria rebels from his capital, the Ahom king Gaurinath Singha sought military aid, first from the salt merchant Rausch and subsequently from the EIC. It was in this context that an expeditionary force under Capt. Thomas Welsh was sent in 1792 in aid of Gaurinath Singha. 2 Eventually, the rebels were defeated and Gaurinath Singha was reinstated on the throne. But as the revolt was a popular one, it continued to erupt in different places even after the EIC forces withdrew in 1794. Before departing, Capt. Welsh struck a trading deal with the king in favour of the EIC and the private European merchants through whom the EIC planned to operate in the region. The period between the 1790s and 1820s was also notable for two other reasons. On the one hand, the period saw the rise in trade between the EIC and Assam. Most of this trade, between Bengal and Assam, was riverine in nature. However, the EIC was also keen to tap into the trade through land routes between the Ahom kingdom and those of Bhutan, Tibet, China and northern Burma. 3 In other words, the expansion of the EIC trade and trading interests was also connected to commercial explorations with Tibet, Bhutan and China. 4 Importantly, this expansion of trade led to the rise of a new wealthy social class of bureaucrat-mercantile intermediaries in Assam. Some of these trading families came to exercise considerable power, especially in the riverine trade. For example, one such family was the Phukan family, with influential members like Haliram Dhekial Phukan. His son Anandaram Dhekial Phukan became the first Assamese Junior Assistant Commissioner under British colonialism, in addition to being a pioneering intellectual. These families also reflected a new development in Assam, namely the relation between Ahom aristocracy and colonial mercantile wealth, in addition to later becoming some of the earliest scions of the emerging Assamese ‘bourgeoisie’. There were two other groups which entered the historical scene of the times as well. One such group were the mercenaries from Bengal called the Burkandaz, or meaning ‘armed guards’. Their role too emanated from their location in both mercantile and military transactions. Their services were solicited by the Ahom government to fight the Moamaria rebels in the latter half of the eighteenth century, as well as by different political families 196

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to pursue their respective interests, besides by traders in their mercantile dealings. 5 The third social group which was gradually emerging into the scene of the times was that of the Marwari traders. By the 1820s, they were already operating in the local trading networks of the region as far as Sadiya in the eastern part of Assam. 6 Interestingly, it was also the time when they were beginning to replace the local trading networks across the hills and the plains. 7 The emergence and consolidation of the above three social groups around the same time is an under-studied aspect of social history of the region. In terms of historical actors of the Ahom polity, the period between the 1780s and 1817 witnessed the consolidation of power in the hands of Puranananda Burhagohain, who was the ‘prime minister’ of the kingdom. Though Ghinai or Badanchandra Barphukan, that is, the ballad’s protagonist and who was the kingdom’s general, was related to him through marriage alliance, they emerged as political rivals. While the Burhagohain was based in Jorhat, the Barphukan was based in Guwahati, that is, two geographically opposite Ahom centres of power. In the years 1815–1817, a series of exchange of letters took place between the Barphukan and David Scott of the EIC. 8 The EIC refused to side with the Barphukan against the Burhagohain. In fact, since the late eighteenth century, the EIC was cautious about Burmese imperialist plans in Assam, Manipur, Sylhet and Chittagong, that is, areas considered the ‘frontiers’ of colonial Bengal. 9 Then came the royal arrest orders, engineered by the Burhagohain, against the Barphukan on the charge of misgovernance. This is also the point at which the ballad’s narration of events opened. Nevertheless, the Barphukan managed to escape to Bengal, from where he went to Burma and acquired military aid from the Burmese king Bodawpaya. The Barphukan entered Assam by the historical Assam–Burma Patkai land route, and became the ‘prime minister’ in 1817. The Burhagohain had died by then. The Barphukan himself was assassinated in 1818. This brought back the Burmese army once again in 1819, and they remained in Assam till 1824–1825. However, it was the events in Chittagong in 1823 which eventually led to the first Anglo-Burmese war in 1824. The EIC launched a three-pronged attack, namely from Assam, Sylhet and Chittagong-Arakan. The EIC won the war, and the Treaty of Yandaboo was signed (1826). 10 As a result of the Treaty, the Ahom kingdom, from being part of the Burmese empire, now became part of the EIC empire. In the region, it probably remained the only instance of transfer of a kingdom between two imperial powers of the times, rather than the EIC conquering the kingdom. Between the 1830s and 1850s, there were a few political insurrections led by members of the Ahom aristocracies against the EIC state. The last of these insurrections was by Moneeram Dutt Borwah Dewan (or Moneeram 197

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Dewan) in 1857 (as part of the Revolt of 1857). He was arrested from Calcutta and was brought back to Jorhat, where he was hanged to death in 1858. Importantly, Dewan’s death marked an end to two processes, one economic and the other political. Economically, he was a member of the aristocracy and a participant in both commerce and revenue farming of the times. Since the early 1840s, along with his stint as the ‘dewan’ of the first tea company of Assam as well as of British India (The Assam Company, estd. 1839), Moneeram Dewan tried to transform himself into a capitalist through investments in the emerging tea industry of Assam. 11 His punishment of death in 1858, despite lack of concrete evidence, has been historically interpreted as also an attempt at eliminating indigenous capitalist competition vis-à-vis the British planters. 12 Politically, his insurrection was one of the last of the rebellions from the aristocracy against British colonialism in Assam. Thereafter, between the 1860s and 1890s, the major rebellions were primarily peasant uprisings against colonial land and taxation policies. 13

The Ballad of the General: plot, characters and events Barphukanar Geet or The Ballad of the General is a text in the Assamese language composed in verse. The ballad was collected from the eastern part of Assam (colonial Lakhimpur district) between 1917 and 1919, that is, a century after the Burmese invasion of 1817. However, its ethnographic or folkloric contexts are unavailable today, a point discussed later. The ballad dealt with the episode of Burmese invasion and rule over the Ahom kingdom between 1817 and 1826. The central character of the ballad was Ghinai or Badanchandra Barphukan, who was the General of the Ahom kingdom. Historians have also generally interpreted the post of Barphukan as one of ‘governor’ of the western part of the kingdom. The Barphukan’s headquarter used to be Guwahati. The Ahom political system was divided between two administrative heads. They were the Barbarua (heading the civilian administration) and the Barphukan (heading the military administration). The Burhagohains were one of the powerful Elders in the Ahom political system. The ballad has generally been interpreted as part of popular narrative attempts at capturing the historical moment outlined above. The narrative was not marked with specific dates, or years. It broadly covered the period of Badanchandra leaving Guwahati, till the time of his assassination, and its aftermath which eventually led to the establishment of British colonialism. The specific years in this regard were between 1817 and 1825. The ballad opened with the issuing of Ahom royal orders to arrest Badanchandra Barphukan. The royal capital was then based in Jorhat 198

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in eastern Assam. However, the Barphukan got the prior information, made possible by his daughter (Pijou Aideo). She was the daughter-inlaw of Puranananda Burhagohain. In fact, that the Burhagohain had conspired the arrest was alluded to in the narrative. Therefore, along with his three sons and his trusted Burkandaz guard (or mercenary from Bengal) Uday Singh, 14 the Barphukan escaped in the cover of the night, setting sail by the Brahmaputra river from Guwahati. 15 He finally managed to reach Calcutta. However, despite his appeals to the EIC government for aid to oust the ‘prime minister’ Burhagohain, the ballad narrated how the EIC decided not to interfere in the affairs of a ‘friendly’ government. The EIC government’s lines in the ballad were, ‘how do we send army to the house of a friend’. 16 The Barphukan was also well received by some of the Mughal officials who were in Bengal, but it was of little political effect. 17 The ballad then described how the Barphukan decided to buy a ship and sailed by sea (Bay of Bengal) to the Burmese capital of Amarapura. However, the actual route from Bengal to Amarapura was not mentioned (given that Amarapura was not a coastal centre). One of the wives of the Burmese king Bodawpaya (spelt in the ballad as Badawpha, i.e., with a Tai inflection) was described as an Ahom princess. 18 When the Barphukan met her, she introduced him to the beauty of the Burmese capital, to the ethics of the royal court and also to the nuances of the Burmese language. The ballad narrated that she was well versed in the Burmese language and court politics. Through her aid, the Barphukan managed to meet king Bodawpaya, and received his commitment of military aid. On his part, the Barphukan promised him untold gifts, including beautiful women with talents of (black) magic, which was a medieval Gangetic metaphor for women of Assam. Notably, the ballad indicated that Bodawpaya’s Ahom wife persuaded him to commit on the military aid because the Burhagohain, through his actions, was upsetting the balance of power of the Ahom royal clans in the Ahom kingdom, that is among her own relatives. Bodawpaya, before sending his troops, sent his spies to explore the Ahom kingdom, and also to report on the condition of its capital Jorhat. Subsequently, through his emissaries, he sent letters to the Burhagohain. 19 The letters conveyed his intent to invade the Ahom kingdom. In the meanwhile, the ‘prime minister’ died. It left the kingdom in disarray. When the Burmese army entered the kingdom through the historic Patkai entry point of Joypur (which, by the end of the nineteenth century, emerged as a major site of tea and minerals), there was little that the Ahom forces could do. At times, they were in short supply of guns and ammunitions. On other occasions, they lacked the will to fight. As a result, the Barphukan, with the help of the Burmese army, took over the reins of power. King Chandrakanta 199

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continued to be on the throne. But the Barphukan became his protector and ‘prime minister’, that is, what the Burhagohain was earlier. The last section of the ballad dealt with the Barphukan’s assassination. It was a plot hatched by the Queen Mother to free her son, the king Chandrakanta, from the clutches of the Barphukan. Because he trusted her (and addressed her as his paternal aunt), the Barphukan had disclosed to her the secret that protected his life, a talisman that he constantly wore, except when taking his morning bath. The Queen Mother, along with the Barbarua, then planned the plot to assassinate him. She called for Roop Singh, a Burkandaz in royal deployment, and instructed him to assassinate the Barphukan during his morning bath. Since Roop Singh was known to the Barphukan, he did not suspect the plot when the former appeared by the river while he was taking bath. Then, with a strike of his sword, Roop Singh beheaded the unsuspecting Barphukan. The ballad narrated that the head was cut off like ‘cutting off the top of a gourd’. 20 Thereafter, the Queen Mother had also ordered that the Barphukan’s three sons be put to death. The three of them were handed over to the executioner (or the sao-dang). Just then, king Chandrakanta came to know of the plot, and intervened to save their lives. He regretted that their father was dead, lamenting that he had died trapped in his own techniques of gaining power. When the news of the Barphukan’s assassination reached the Burmese queen, that is, the Ahom princess, she told Bodawpaya that she would visit her home to see the graveyard that the kingdom had become. The ballad narrated it like a taunt she threw at Bodawpaya. The king then decided to take matters into his hands. He ordered his army to march to the Ahom kingdom, and take frightful revenge on those responsible for assassinating the Barphukan, who was under his protection. 21 Thus, the Burmese army arrived the second time. Unlike the first time when it had arrived along with the Barphukan, now the army came with the design to take over the kingdom through sheer force and to punish the people. It enquired from the Barphukan’s wife about those who were responsible for her husband’s assassination. But in the meanwhile, both Queen Mother and Roop Singh had escaped from Jorhat. The Burmese army then unleashed untold atrocities on the people, and it continued until the coming of the British. After the British takeover of the kingdom, ballad narrated that people became very happy, now that peace and order was finally put in place. The ballad celebrated the coming of the British. But it concluded that in the process the land was no longer Assam either. It had now become a foreign or foreigner’s land (both meanings were implied). The couplet read, ‘It’s no longer Assam desh, it is now Bongal desh. What should not have become, it has become now.’ 22 ‘Bongal’ was the generic term used in the Ahom chronicles when referring to ‘other’/‘foreigner’ from the west beyond both the 200

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kingdom and Koch Behar (including such as the Turks, the Mughals, etc.). As such, in the ballad, the term came to represent the British.

Locating the ballad in history and the framework of ‘peasant literature’ Although the nineteenth-century colonial officials and Assamese print culture remarked on the prevalence of the genre of oral historical ballad as part of peasant culture of the times, the text of Barphukanar Geet existed through most of the twentieth century as a ‘written’ text with little ethnographic cross reference, a point discussed later. Thus, a primary question that the ballad raises is how to delineate history from a ‘folk’ text which today stands displaced from folk context, existing only in a ‘written’ context. Such an approach, the section tries to show, raises questions of methodology, especially regarding use of the text as ‘source’ of writing history. There are three key issues which are explored in this regard. They are (a) the text and its mapping of socio-political and spatial world, (b) the problem of ideology and genre, and (c) locating history. The ballad in the given form demonstrates the mapping of political and cultural geography. Four major political centres find reference in the ballad. They are Jorhat (the Ahom capital), Guwahati (one of the most strategic pre-colonial centres between Bengal and Assam), Calcutta (the headquarters of the East India Company) and Amarapura (the Burmese capital). The ballad not only connects these centres with their respective political importance, but also alludes to some of the riverine, oceanic or land networks through which these four centres were connected. What is equally striking is that these networks come alive as part of the Barphukan’s own journeys to solicit help to oust his opponent, Puranananda Burhagohain. The cultural attributes of the respective centres, especially pertaining to Jorhat and Amarapura, are also referred to. This is especially in terms of notions of court ethics, allusions to use of languages, and landscape. Scholars working on the early colonial period have generally noted how these networks formed part of the political and economic explorations of the period. It included both the EIC and the Burmese state. For example, the historical Patkai land routes connected both trade and politics between Burma and Assam via the Hukawng valley, in addition to these routes forming part of the routes to Tibet and Yunnan. The routes which connected Murshidabad or Rangpur in colonial eastern Bengal to Assam, also in turn were networked to Bhutan and Tibet, in addition to connecting with the above-mentioned Burma and China networks. 23 The fact that these routes were traversed by people of the region as part of their trading and sociopolitical relations were noted by some of the colonial surveyors of the times 201

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too. Further, that the EIC was aware and cautious regarding Burmese imperial ambitions in the region has also been noted by scholars, in addition to being evident from colonial accounts. 24 And the fact that the Burhagohain from Jorhat could get the Barphukan kidnapped in Murshidabad through the Burkandazes and that the Barphukan could pay his way out of this kidnapping and reach Amarapura, while the EIC maintained close records of these details, illustrates the multiple realities of the networks. 25 But what was the source of such imagination of socio-political and cultural geography in the ballad? Though an issue still under-researched, one could argue that the imaginations were a reflection of the historical connections of Assam with the neighbouring areas of Tibet and China, and Burma. These connections were of trade, and of mobility of people, politics, labour, texts, as well as rituals, that is relations which permeated at both ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ levels. 26 The full gamut of these aspects reflected especially in the relations between the historical eastern Assam and the Hukawng valley. Moreover, in the early nineteenth-century context, there was also the large-scale ‘carrying away’ of people by the Burmese army from Assam and their resettlement in different parts of Burma, all the way to Bhamo. 27 In fact, that Bhamo was the estate of one of the royal ladies of the Burmese king who hailed from the Ahom kingdom, and its implications in labour resource, found mention in the contemporary colonial accounts as well. 28 Notably, these resettlements were not only confirmed by the contemporary colonial and Buranji chronicle accounts, but also became part of folklore in Assam. Thus, ‘facts’ of the archive reverberated in forms of folklore practices. Therefore, what the above highlights is that as a nineteenth-or earlytwentieth-century text, whether or not treated as ‘folk’, 29 the textual mapping tried to articulate the peasant of the Assam valley as more than only being about land and revenue. 30 They were shown equipped with their own notions of political and cultural geography. Such notions of space were still different from the cartographic world that colonialism and the making of modern Assam was producing in the course of that century. Further, if the text is understood as ‘folk’ in nature, it could perhaps also highlight how ‘folk geography’ can be studied not for its disassociation, but for its possible associations with institutions such as the state. This could be in contrast to the manner of applying the concept of ‘folk’ for the region (barring exceptions), that is, ‘folk’ studied as an articulation of pre-state or non-state conditions of social reality. If the ballad was a text which articulated the peasantry, then is it possible to understand ‘peasant consciousness’ from the text? This brings one to the second question, namely the problem of ideology and genre vis-à-vis a text which articulates peasantry. In this regard, the specific question through 202

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which one may explore this point is that despite being a historical ballad, did it take an ideological position vis-à-vis the historical actors? The ballad evidently did not follow a consistent line of sympathy for the different historical actors. For example, if in the eyes of his wife, the Barphukan was depicted as the one who was persecuted and assassinated, in the eyes of the Queen Mother, he was depicted as a traitor who brought in the Burmese army to settle an internal dispute within the kingdom, and therefore assassinated. 31 If Puranananda Burhagohain was shown as devious when getting the royal order to arrest the Barphukan, he was also shown as diligent when making plans to counter the Burmese. 32 Similarly, while committing military aid to the Barphukan, the Burmese king and his approach were depicted as benevolent. After all, he had even sent a formal letter to the Burhagohain stating that he intended to invade. Yet, his army was depicted as cruel. As a result, locating a political ideology in the narrative vis-à-vis these actors might be difficult. One of the most telling forms of such duality was perhaps the ballad’s ending. While the British were hailed for ushering in peace and order, the final remark of the ballad was that the process nevertheless transformed Assam into a foreign or foreigner’s land, and that what should not have become, had become the reality. Therefore, it highlights how a text explores the nuanced relations between multiple political actors, and their networks across real space and cultures in the given historical moment. But in the process, does it also allow one to appreciate the text’s own political worldview? In fact, how would one identify the nature of that worldview? In this regard, one may propose two points. First, the ballad evidently tries to capture in its narrative a period of historical transition. What is striking here is that it is not only later ‘modern’ literary writings, 33 or historical scholarships, 34 which referred to the period as one of ‘transition’. The ballad itself, which as a genre predated such scholarship, referred to the period as one of transition. The point is articulated not only in the sequence in the description of events, but also in its various commentaries on developments that the events resulted in. As noted above, the concluding remark on British colonialism, contained in the style of folk narrative technique, was one such example. This aspect corresponds to another historical ballad dealing with articulations of peasant and nineteenth-century history, namely Moneeram Dewanar Geet, centred on the encounter of Moneeram Dewan with British imperialism. 35 In other words, it appears a generic textual feature of the historical ballads of the times. This brings one to second point, namely that of style. For example, everyday socio-economic and cultural life of the people, that is of the peasants, as well as their ritual and religious practices, occur in the narrative through folk narrative techniques. In terms of ritual invocation of blessings from 203

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Hindu deities, or recurring couplets dealing with their socio-economic practices, their food habits, their objects and goods, their crafts, or through the use of agrarian proverbs, the narration of historical developments is infused with characteristics of folk narrative. It is this stylistic dimension which connects the narrative to the varied world of common peasants. For instance, the couplet which opened the plotting of the Barphukan’s assassination was, ‘weavers weave to clothe the world, but they never have enough to clothe themselves.’ 36 Similarly, one of the opening couplets of the ballad was, ‘Mother Saraswati and Goddess Parvati, if I forget the verses, then remind me like needles knitting a bamboo basket.’ 37 At the time when the ballad was collected in the early twentieth century, it was found to be performed/recited by villagers as part of popular entertainment dealing with history and its memory. Thus, possibly the stylistic framework. But in the process, it was also the framework through which the historical developments were made part of peasant life and its form of historical memory. Now with regard to political worldview, a notable stylistic dimension appears to be the probable critique of violence from the peasant perspective. For example, the ballad does highlight how the common agrarian world underwent the traumatic experience of high politics, especially when it had little role to play in the politics itself. But this critique of violence does not get ideologically formulated (or mis-formulated) against any of the actors, or the politics that they represented. In fact, the critique is not even formulated as a ‘popular’ protest against the latter. It only exists in the nature of oral narrative techniques, such as recurring couplets or agrarian proverbs, which laments on the experiences of the common people. That is, it does not exist as part of the plot itself. Therefore, these stylistic arrangements do not make the ideological connect of critiquing the actors or their politics. In this too, the textual parallels with the ballad MoneeramDewanar Geet are evident. Studies on Assam generally note that since the middle of the eighteenth century till the last decades of the twentieth century, though the contexts varied, peasant movements remained a consistent political reality throughout. 38 In that case, how does one explain a situation in which a ‘peasant narrative’ fails to ideologically formulate the peasant critique as integral to the story, despite being located in a historical phase of peasant politics? Or was there a disconnect between text/genre and politics? Studies of peasant resistance has produced a rich body of historical knowledge. 39 In this regard, I would like to touch upon only one aspect, namely exploring the location of the ballad and the problem highlighted above in terms of history of literature. The question here is that though the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries witnessed a series of peasant revolts in Assam, were there ideologically suitable literary frameworks for their political articulations? For example, pre-colonial forms of Ahom chronicles and 204

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neo-vaishnavite writings (both continued into the nineteenth century as well), or the emergence of ‘modern’ literature through the intervention of print culture and the emerging middle class in the course of the nineteenth century, neither of these two processes provided literary frameworks which could ideologically express peasant politics. In fact, it was only towards the second quarter of the twentieth century that such literary frameworks based on notions of ‘class’ came into existence. 40 As a result, despite peasant revolts or use of pamphlets, etc. (in the 1890s) as part of peasant mobilisation, literatures in Assam of the nineteenth and early twentieth century appears to be without the techniques and forms from within to articulate peasantry ideologically. This difference or lag between literary scope and the historical context has been explored in other cases too. 41 As a result, the argument goes, that narratives use techniques or forms which may be anachronistic or inappropriate to what is its intent of articulation. When such an approach is applied in the case of the ballad, the articulation of peasant perspectives and its possible critique of high politics only through stylistic arrangements might become explicable. But the above point could also be linked to a further issue, namely that given narratives per se do not exist in isolation. They are also connected to narrative traditions. In other words, narratives also have their genealogies. Thus, if circulations of historical ballads as a genre of narrative and memory in nineteenth-century Assam was noted both by colonial officials as well as by Assamese intellectuals, how would one trace the history of such a genre that appears to have emerged into scene in Assam during the nineteenth century? What can be pointed out in this regard is that there were two important pre-colonial narrative traditions in Assam which were written centred on, or around, historical developments. They were the Buranji chronicles and the neo-vaishnavite literatures. Both worked with understandings of real time and place, though both also took recourse to respective cosmological times. The chronicles were in prose, listing historical developments of a given period (in the Lakli and/or Saka calendars) that were deemed important by those commissioning them, and written with exactness of words. The neo-vaishnavite literatures were mainly in verse, aimed at propagation of its religious message, although some of its seventeenth-century hagiographies were also in prose. The former is traced to Tai-Shan/Burmese influences, while the latter is traced to Bhakti/ Gangetic influences. 42 During the nineteenth century, there was another distinct literary development in Assam, which nevertheless remained short lived. It was the writing of verse chronicles in Assamese. Verse chronicles as nineteenth-century experiments also distinguished them from chronicle traditions of both Burma and India. The verse chronicles appear as experiments at writing 205

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chronicles but in the narrative frameworks of neo-vaishnavite performance literatures. In other words, it was an experiment in combining two ideologically and textually different narrative traditions. There is very little research on verse chronicles. However, what is notable is that their structure appears similar to nineteenth-century historical ballads such as Barphukanar Geet. The only difference, although a critical one, was that the ballad carried folk narrative features, while the verse chronicles were written, containing references primarily of the state. Further, it is widely acknowledged that the written word and the oral word need not be seen as non-complementary, or as referents of anthropological stages. In other words, they can coexist through their interactions and inter-relations as markers of historical societies. 43 For example, when the Buranji chronicles came to be written in Assamese since the sixteenth century, it created a new language of writing. This was because though not in form (since the Tai-Shan Buranjis already existed), in its language, it clearly drew from the ‘oral’ form of the language as practiced in eastern Assam. Therefore, there are certainly grounds to explore whether oral historical ballads and the verse chronicles as two genres, both dealing with nineteenth-century history, could be treated as literary responses to sociocultural transformations of the times, and their genealogies tracing back to the pre-colonial Ahom chronicles and neo-vaishnavite performance literatures. A characteristic of both these genres (i.e. historical ballads and verse chronicles) was general historical accuracy regarding description of events. Both these genres were premised on the method of performance. And importantly, both the genres as narratives lacked a clear ideological formulation of its intent. The pre-colonial Buranji chronicles or the neovaishnavite literatures, given their respective contexts of production and use, were however ideologically categorical. The point that I am trying to explore is whether the lack of an ideological formulation in the ballad could also be identified as a broader issue of literary history of genres, even extending to the verse chronicles. The reason for the ‘lack’ in these genres was because they were experiments outside their narrative genealogies and were therefore yet to evolve their tools of ideological articulations. They carried in them literary features which belonged to contexts of literary productions different from theirs. 44 Therefore, if peasant perspective and their critique of high politics existed only as stylistic arrangements, it was because the genre of the ballad was without a literary method which could articulate ‘peasant consciousness’, whatever be the understanding of it. This was despite the fact that the ballad was equipped, perhaps due to once again its narrative genealogy, to describe the complex networks of political and cultural geography comprising Bengal, Assam and Burma, of which the peasants too, along with the numerous 206

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historical actors, were part of. Such an approach, however, is different from the interpretation that the peasants were reactionary and not ideological enough for class struggle. 45 It is more about a literary absence emerging from the history of literature, which in turn, conditioned possibilities of articulations when narrating peasants. 46 Now if a text is thus located in history of literature, one can bring in here the third question. What is the historicity of a text which is projected as ‘folk’ in nature, but exists only in the self-reference of its ‘written’ nature? As already pointed out, the available text is the only one of its specimens that appears to have survived till date, and it lacks cross reference to any other version and collectors/interpreters, even if from the time of its collection. In addition, the field notes that Bhuyan took while collecting the ballad are presently untraceable. In other words, though the genre of oral historical ballad was recognised in the nineteenth century as a practiced ‘popular’ genre, and though the ballad Barphukanar Geet belonged to such a genre as one of its types, the available specimen of this type exists only as a written text and generally lacking in details of ethnographic reference. Then what, or how, does such a text speak of history? Or where does one locate history in the text? One may argue here that because the text stands displaced from ‘folk’ to ‘written’ context, it is the method of literary history which can more suitably delineate the historical elements of the text. When examined today, it is through such a method that the text can better ‘speak’. For example, in terms of plot, characters and events, the text could not have predated the nineteenth century. As a genre, it was noted to have belonged to the nineteenth-century peasant culture even during the period. Its literary features had close parallels to other nineteenth-century literary genres, such as the verse chronicles. Further, as a historical ballad, if it drew upon earlier genres to articulate, its very subject matter also appears to have ruptured possibilities of ideological coherences in its attempt to articulate through such de-contextualised generic features borrowed from the past. There was also a striking difference in the social-geographical imaginary of the ballad when compared to that found in ‘modern’ Assamese print culture especially since the third quarter of the nineteenth century. While in the latter, the colonial characterisation of Assam as bounded in the networks of Inner Lines played an important role, 47 the former was free from such influences even at the time of its collection in the second decade of the twentieth century. This was despite ample references to colonialism in the ballad. It once again denotes its distinction as genre from ‘modern’ genres emerging in the nineteenth century. Therefore, what gets highlighted are the multiple historical (though not ethnographic) references that the ballad has pertaining to its generic and 207

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‘popular’ character. In turn, one may argue, its historicity was in its location in a genre that tried to articulate peasants in the course of literature’s nineteenth-century encounter with Burmese and British imperialisms, but was without the means to do so ideologically, just like few other genres of the period. This feature of the text (and of these genres) can perhaps be more plausibly explained in terms of its location in the history of literature. To be noted here is that the historical references of the ballad (and the genres) might not explain its ‘origin’ per se, including whether its origin can only be located in Assam or it entered Assam as part of textual circulations. But the historical references certainly exhibit a few general characteristics of relation between forms of culture, peasants and articulating the colonial encounter. Therefore, perhaps the key questions one needs to ask are what produced the text and the means of its production, rather than questions such as who produced the text and its ideological relation to peasant movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Such questions can shift the focus from these texts as articulations, ‘consciousness’ of peasants, etc. to that of literary articulations of a century, as practiced in Assam, and which took into account the experiences of the peasants. In the process, it also allows locating the ‘author function’ more meaningfully in literature’s encounter with the century of imperialisms, rather than confining to the narrower understanding of ‘author’ per se. 48 But if it is this encounter that speaks to historians in the nature of resulting texts such as the ballad, does it also pose an important question, namely are there grounds to explore if the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century history of peasant movements in Assam, and locating articulating peasants in the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century literary history of Assam can be studied as comprising two different historical trajectories, though peculiarly sharing in the same ‘periodization’ and historical events? Rather than being a product of either trajectory, is it possible to explore if the intersection of the two witnessed the development, even if not the origin, of the historical ballads in colonial Assam?

The ballad becoming a historical source: ‘history’, nation and colonialism From the early twentieth century, the ballad came to be viewed as an important historical source. S. K. Bhuyan, a pioneering scholar of the period, collected the ballad between 1917 and 1919, and eventually published it in 1924. In his Introduction to the ballad, he noted the events of his personal life and professional fieldwork leading to the collection and publication of the ballad. 49 During those years, Bhuyan was also in an advantageous position as he was successively associated with the Kamrup Anusandhan 208

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Samiti (The Assam Research Society, estd. 1912) and the Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies (DHAS, estd. 1928). Before he joined the DHAS as Hon. Deputy Director, he was the Secretary of the Kamrup Anusandhan Samiti, itself an off shoot of the Bengal Literary Association. The objective of both the institutions was to pursue research and publication of materials connected to the historical enquiry of Assam. The publication of the ballad received wide support. For example, important colonial administrator-anthropologists like PRT Gurdon (1925), litterateurs like Padmanath Gohain Baruah (1925) and Lakhminath Bezbaroa (1926), Indologists like Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1925), or historians like Benudhar Sarma widely appreciated the effort, besides highlighting the importance of the text as a historical source. 50 In fact, historical ballads and legends (such as the legend of ‘princess Jaymati’) had become an interest of literary and historical writings during the period. They were treated as texts that reflected the realities of the past. With regard to Barphukanar Geet, what were the specific features which were considered important as historical source? On the one hand, the ballad was treated as a text dating back to the early nineteenth century, composed sometime in the aftermath of the EIC bringing the Ahom kingdom under its control in 1826. There were a couple of reasons provided on the dating. First, the historical accuracy of names, events and places could only have been possible if the ballad was composed closer to the time of the events themselves. Since then, it was argued, the ballad only passed on across generations as composed. 51 Second, the language of the ballad indicated of being untouched by the language of print culture, that is, modern Assamese of the second half of the nineteenth century. Therefore, it once again, highlighted that it belonged to the early nineteenth century. But as indicated in the previous section, the problem of ‘dating’ vis-à-vis the ballad is a more complex relation pertaining to genre, memory and historical context. However, the importance that the ballad came to acquire by the 1920s was not connected to the issue of dating per se. One can identify here two major reasons for its importance. One reason was the heightened significance that historical enquiry came to occupy in the idea of Assamese nationhood since the late nineteenth century. The other reason, for those like S. K. Bhuyan (who by then had emerged as an influential figure in the field of historical studies), appears to be in the genre’s political ‘ambivalence’ on British colonialism (that is, ambivalence on resistance against any colonialism). In other words, it was a curious relation between nationhood and colonialism which was interpreted into the ballad, depending upon the location of historians, that became the reason for the ballad’s importance as a historical ‘source’. 209

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Here is a brief elaboration of the two points. The importance of historical enquiry and the making of Assamese nationhood was evident in most Assamese writings of the late nineteenth century. One of the major periodicals which stood out for promoting such attitude and pursuits was Jonaki (started in 1889). In Jonaki, the reading of the past to construct Assamese nationhood was carried out at multiple levels. For example, it could range from early historical past 52 to neo-vaishnavite past (especially sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). 53 The past could also be in terms of legends, now proposed as evidences of patriotic or national glory from history 54 or in terms of historical anecdotes. 55 And importantly, the past could also be in terms of celebration of language and literature. 56 But what was common to these different endeavours was the importance attached to a study of the past in constructing the idea of the nation. By the early twentieth century, historical enquiry came to be viewed as fundamental to the reconstruction of the past. In fact, the two institutions, namely Kamrup Anusandhan Samiti and the DHAS, came to acquire immense significance as contributors to the cause of understanding the past of the Assamese nation. The former focused on recovery and study of archaeological, epigraphic and ‘ancient’ Sanskritic texts, while the latter focused on the recovery and study of historical manuscript texts. Notably, the aspect of recovery was deemed as important as that of study. 57 The importance of historical enquiry also included the question of methods of such enquiry. In other words, the enquiry had to be ‘scientific’. Though emphasis on ‘scientific’ enquiry can be found in some of the earlier nineteenth-century texts (for example, in the writings of Anandaram Dhekial Phukan during the 1840s and 1850s), it was generally by the latter half of the century that ‘scientific’ enquiry became a widespread criterion while writing. For example, though Haliram Dhekial Phukan’s Assam Buranji (History of Assam, 1829) was possibly the first published history book on Assam written by an Assamese, it was Gunabhiram Barua’s Assam Buranji (History of Assam, 1884) which could be considered the first of the ‘scientific’ history books written by an Assamese. 58 What was ‘scientific’ about Gunabhiram Barua’s book was its understanding that historical interpretation of the past would require marshalling of sources and evaluating the evidences that sources provide to arrive at interpretation. His book, however, was only an early beginning. With regard to works on Assam, possibly a curious culmination of this practice was Edward Gait’s A History of Assam (1906) in terms of applying this approach, though not in terms of perspectives. Gait’s book was also the first monograph of history written by any colonial writer on Assam and its people through the discipline of History. 59 But the approach of ‘scientific’ enquiry of the past was not merely confined to history books alone. Since the 1870s, there was a growing consciousness 210

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that cultural enquiry into the past would as well need to be ‘scientific’ in its method. For example, this was most clearly reflected in the several philological studies of the Assamese language that were published between the 1870s and 1890s. Lakhminath Bezbaroa’s study of Sankaradeva (the sixteenthcentury neo-vaishnavite figure) was another example of it. 60 Even when legends were published, they came under similar scrutiny. For example, when the legend of Jaymati was published in 1892, to substantiate the content of the legend, the author had to clarify on his sources and on the evidences that the sources provided. In fact, he went on to show that the legend was an eighteenth-century event which got grafted upon a seventeenth-century ruler due to misreading of sources. 61 Another notable book in this regard was Anundoram Barooah’s Ancient Geography of India (1877). 62 In other words, recovery and study of the past, and the methods of such enquiry came to occupy an important place in the intellectual circles debating the idea and making of the Assamese nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. What one might also mention here is that these developments were equally linked to one of the contemporary notions of modernity, contextualised as ‘impact’ of Western thought. In that notion, the idea of being a nation came to be viewed as marker of progress and modernity, which in turn, was connected to ‘rational’ approach towards one’s society and ‘rational’ application of the mind in pursuing knowledge. 63 Therefore, the recovery and study of the ballad Barphukanar Geet was part of this overall context of historical enquiry, and of the needs and processes of constructing ideas of nation. It was at such juncture that a figure like S. K. Bhuyan (1892–1964), the historian, entered the frame. Between the 1920s and 1950s, S. K. Bhuyan arguably remained the most influential historian in Assam. His influence was not only due to his erudition, but also because of his control over institutions of historical enquiry in Assam. In fact, he closely worked with the Indian Historical Records Commission, in addition to being associated with the Indian History Congress since its first session in 1935. During the colonial period, what was characteristic of S. K. Bhuyan was that he was deeply nationalist about Assamese nationhood, but he was not anticolonialist. Perhaps Bhuyan himself eloquently put it, when he wrote, I have often been asked what has sustained me in my efforts to accomplish my objects carried on in fair weather and foul. An inner urge to do my bit to my country, in a way congenial to my aptitude and my opportunities, has provided me the mainspring of action. 64 This aspect of his personhood, combined with his influence over institutions, reflected in the nature of his prolific academic output through the 211

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DHAS, an institution as already mentioned he was associated with since inception. During the 1920s to 1940s, Bhuyan worked closely, or rather passionately, with two ‘popular’ texts. They were the ballad of Barphukanar Geet and the legend of Jaymati. Besides these texts, he also collected and published several compiled volumes of Ahom Buranji chronicles with critical introductions. Bhuyan played a major role during the period in promoting the two above texts and the range of chronicles he handled. He argued that they together were (a) some of the most significant literary heritages in the Assamese language, (b) inevitable sources to understand the past of Assam, and (c) markers of national glories, or being national heritages, of Assam. What is notable here is that the ballad Barphukanar Geet was the only text which had any connection to the colonial period. All the other texts he closely handled ranged between the sixteenth and eighteenth century. Thus, arises the question that whether the importance which Bhuyan attached to the ballad was because it performed a dual role, namely it could be projected as a literary heritage of the Assamese nation, but one which was not evidently anti-colonial. In fact, Bhuyan presented the ballad as an example of the developed historical attitude of the Assamese mind and even of the peasants, while also being a rich example of the peasants’ literary creativity. 65 At the same time, he did not fail to underline how the ballad celebrated the coming of the British as harbingers of peace and order. What was striking in this regard was Bhuyan’s criticism of the very same rural/peasant world for being largely unaware of the ‘popular’ legend of Jaymati, and that it was the urban educated world which had to remind the former on the ‘national’ value of the legend. He even wrote a new ballad on Jaymati (Jaymati Upakhyan, 1920) in the neo-vaishnavite model hoping that the legend and its ‘patriotic’ message would thus percolate among the rural/peasant masses. 66 What the point perhaps reflects is Bhuyan’s selective appreciation of the peasants in matters of ‘literature and nationhood’. Further, pertaining to colonialism, there was another oral historical ballad which came to prominence during the period as a subject of study, namely MoneeramDewanar Geet (or the Ballad of Moneeram Dewan). 67 Therefore, returning to Barphukanar Geet, while the theme and the stylistic arrangement around it allowed its interpretation as reflection of the ‘historical attitude’ and ‘literary capacities’ of even the ‘Assamese’ peasant, these were also the very characteristics which appears to have suited Bhuyan’s political personhood, and therefore the limelight he provided the text with as an important historical source. His influence over institutions enabled him to productively pursue the matter. And the fact that it also became part of the general intellectual approach of the times which emphasised historical enquiry of the past as fundamental to the idea and making 212

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of the modern Assamese nation, it helped in legitimising Bhuyan’s pursuit as an important and necessary initiative in the field of ‘historical literatures’. Bhuyan did not fail to highlight that in the idea of literature as national heritage, even the peasants could now be incorporated through the ballad. Thereby, ‘folk’ was made an integral part of the cultural nation, but through a recasting of the spatial and cultural attributes of the ‘folk’. What is also notable is that even when post-1947 contemporary scholars referred to the ballad, they did not transcend the twin aspects that Bhuyan had laid down almost a century ago, namely the ‘historical attitude’ and ‘literary genius’ of peasants and nation. 68 Across the ideological spectrum, these pegs have remained too firm in over a century to be unhinged off the ballad.

Conclusion The foregoing discussion highlights the complex processes behind the making of the ballad. The discussion also foregrounds how the narrative meanings of the ballad existed, or were produced, at multiple levels. There were two aspects pertaining to such multiple meaning productions. One, how meanings got produced as part of peasant cultural practices that were appropriating or drawing upon textual genres, which though allowed it to describe its world, nevertheless put limits on ideologically articulating the peasant experience of imperialism. This was because genres of the past were drawn upon to articulate the nineteenth or early twentieth century experiences. In this regard, it is the textual dimensions such as style, genre, etc., and their possible ruptured relations that are the crucial sites of uncovering the historical meanings of the ballad. Second, a different set of meanings got produced as the ballad was appropriated into the given nationalist context of the early twentieth century. The issue here was not as much whether the nationalist appropriation dismantled the textual structure and the socio-spatial imaginations of the ballad, in order to produce new meanings of space and nation. What emerges is that it was through the very structure of the ballad that these new meanings were produced. Thus, the question that arises is what was the relation between the two processes? In this regard, one may argue that the ballad Barphukanar Geet highlights how the relation between thematic context, stylistic arrangement and political ‘ambivalence’ in the making of the ballad, and the sheer ideological acumen of Bhuyan in posing the relation, provided a peculiar yet enduring historicity to the ballad since the twentieth century. In the process, the textual ruptures that went into the making of the ballad in turn provided for its interpretive and political appropriations as a historical ‘source’. In that sense, was the ballad an ‘invention’ of a narrative in the service of the nation or peasants? 213

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Nevertheless, vis-à-vis such a question, it is equally evident that in terms of both its subject as well as literary making, the ballad was located in the concrete social and textual materiality of the times. In other words, the transformation of the ballad into a historical source drew from the very materiality of the narrative in terms of its textual aspects. The critical intervention herein was that becoming a historical ‘source’ depended on the ‘evidence’ that was looked for or read into the ballad. What it entailed was formulating a meaning of the ballad, and through the process, securing a place for it as a historical source. Formulating a meaning meant producing a ‘peasant consciousness’, which was then incorporated into the ‘national consciousness’. As noted earlier, historians themselves played an important role in such processes. These inter-connections of multiple trajectories comprise fascinating fields of historical enquiry. Though the foregoing analysis primarily concerns tracing the trajectories and their inter-connections regarding a single text, what such an enquiry also illuminates is that as there is history in historical source, there is also history to historical source. In the process, it perhaps not only underlines the importance of relations drawn between the given nature of a source and the choice of approach to explain the source, but also the need to explore such relations in attempts at uncovering the past, including the forms of its representation.

Notes 1 One of the earliest of the indications of the movement as socio-religious uprising appeared in Anandaram Dhekial Phukan’s ‘Brief History of Assam’, 1849. Thereafter, the approach was also applied by Gunabhiran Barua in his Assam Buranji (History of Assam), 1884; and by Ramdas Goswami (Ratneswar Mahanta) in his articles on the rebellion in several issues of the periodical Jonaki in 1892. Edward Gait’s A History of Assam, 1906, is a further elaboration of this perspective. See, Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, ‘Brief History of Assam’ (1849), in Jogendranarayan Bhuyan (ed.), Anandaram Dhekial Phukanar Asomiya Lorar Mitra (Anandaram Dhekial Phukan’s Friend of the Assamese Boy), (2 & 3), Guwahati: ABILAC, 1999, pp. 112–115; Gunabhiram Barua, Assam Buranji (History of Assam), Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2012 (1884); Ramdas Goswami (Ratneswar Mahanta), ‘Moamaria Bidroh’ (Moamaria Rebellion), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Jonaki, 3:4, 296–298; 3:5, 306–308, 3:7, 332–335, 3:8, 351–353, 3:9–10, 379–383, Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2001; Edward Gait, A History of Assam, Guwahati: Lawyers Book Stall, 1996 (1906/1926). For the uprising as a peasant movement, see Amalendu Guha, ‘Peasant Uprising and Feudal Crisis’, in Medieval and Early Colonial Assam, Guwahati: Anwesha, 2015 (1991), pp. 118–167; and Chandan Kumar Sarma, ‘Socio-Economic Structure and Peasant Revolt: The Case of Moamaria Upsurge in Eighteenth Century Assam’, in Indian Anthropologist, vol. 26, no. 2 (December 1996), pp. 33–52.

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2 Mr. Rausch was a Hanoverian salt merchant based in Goalpara, who tried to help Gaurinath Singha with the help of the Burkandaz militias. However, when the Burkandazes turned against Gaurinath, the latter sought the help of EIC on the grounds that they were from Bengal. For details, see Alexander Mackenzie, The North East Frontier of India, New Delhi: Mittal, 2007 (1884), pp. 2–4. 3 Historically, this trade formed part of the Southern Silk Route. Numerous colonial officers had remarked on the issue. One of the earliest of these accounts was Francis Buchanan-Hamilton’s An Account of Assam. See Francis Hamilton, An Account of Assam, Guwahati: Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, 1963 (1809). Buchanan-Hamilton’s account, however, was not based on his own travels or survey of Assam. It was based on what he was informed by those from Assam, Bengal and Manipur whom he encountered, mostly in Goalpara. For interesting accounts on the continued interests of the colonial state even in the early twentieth century, see, E. C. Young, ‘Journey from Yun-nan to Assam’, The Geographical Journal, vol. 30, no. 2 (August 1907), pp. 152–180, and Thomas Holdich, ‘The North Eastern Frontier of India’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 60, no. 3092 (February 1912), pp. 379–392. 4 Heramba Kanta Barpujari, ‘Trade: Internal and External’, in H. K. Barpujari (ed.), The Comprehensive History of Assam, Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2008 (1992), pp. 121–147. 5 For details, see Suryya Kumar Bhuyan (ed.), ‘Introduction’, in Barphukanar Geet (The Ballad of the General), Guwahati: Pragjyotish Granthamela, 1951 (1924), pp. 1–51; Suryya Kumar Bhuyan, Anglo-Assamese Relations: 1771– 1826: A History of the Relations of Assam with the East India Company from 1771 to 1826, Guwahati: Lawyers Book Stall, 1990 (1949); Gunnel Cederlöf, Founding an Empire on India’s North-Eastern Frontier, 1790–1840: Climate, Commerce, Polity, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014. 6 For example, see Lt. R. Wilcox, ‘Memoir of a Survey of Assam and the Neighbouring Countries, executed in 1825-6-7-8’, in Selection of Papers Regarding Hill Tracts Between Assam and Burmah and on Upper Brahmaputra, 1873, pp. 1–82. Also see, ‘Translation of a Petition Presented in Person by Moneeram Dutt Borwah Dewan, on Account of Ghunnokanth Sing Joobaraj and Others’, 1853, in A. J. Moffat Mill, Report on the Province of Assam, Guwahati: Publication Board of Assam, 1984 (1853), pp. 607, 609. Moneeram Dewan’s petition is an important historical document that highlights the location of the aristocracy in the mid-nineteenth century vis-à-vis critique of colonialism. Regarding the spelling of his name, the conventional orthography for his name as used by historians has been followed in the chapter. 7 For example, besides Lt. Wilcox and Moneeram Dewan, ibid., also see Stuart Blackburn, ‘Memories of Migration: Notes on legends and beads in Arunachal Pradesh, India’, in European Bulletin of Himalayan Research, vol. 25/26 (2003/2004), pp. 15–60. Claude Markovits points out how the spatial expansion of the Indian trading networks was closely tied to that of the British Empire. In fact, Indian trading capital played an important role in allowing colonial state to penetrate into local societies not only in the Indian subcontinent, but also in Burma and Southeast Asia. Thus, one could draw upon his argument to explore if the expansion of the Marwari

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trading networks into the region could be seen as reflecting one trend of this overall context. For details, see, Claude Markovits, The Global World of Indian Merchants, 1750–1947: Traders of Sind From Bukhara to Panama, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. However, what is little studied is what forms of trade or ‘capital’ this new trading world replaced in the colonial North-Eastern frontier. The conventional argument has been that the region lacked a history of trading ‘capital’. For example, see Amalendu Guha, Medieval and Early Colonial Assam: Polity, Society, Economy, Guwahati: Anwesha, 2015 (1991). Yet, this contention has been despite well-known illustrations of trade in the Himalayan–Brahmaputra–Patkai axis till the 1870s, that is prior to the operation of the Inner Lines. 8 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, pp. 31–51. 9 For example, see W.F.B. Laurie, Our Burmese Wars and Relations With Burma: Being and Abstract of Military and Political Operations, 1824-2526, and 1852–53, London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1880, pp. 1–22. For a general discussion of the historical context, also see Cederlöf, Founding an Empire on India’s North-Eastern Frontier 1790–1840. Also see, Thant Myint-U, The Making of Modern Burma, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. What is interesting is that Burmese historiography tends to identify this Bengal’s ‘frontier’ as Burma’s western ‘frontier’ of the period. For example, see Thant Myint-U, ibid., pp. 12–20. 10 For a contemporary colonial account of the war, see, Henry Havelock, Memoir of Three Campaigns of Sir Archibald Campbell, Serampore: King’s Depot, 1828. 11 ‘Report on the Operations of the Assam Company in the Southern Division, Nazerah, 1st February. 1843,’ Tr. 146 (h), Asian and African Collection, British Library. 12 For example, see Ranjit Kumar Deva Goswami, ‘Ouponiweshik Amolat Asomiya Budhijivi: Hemchandra Barua’ (Assamese Intellectuals in the Colonial Employment: Hemchandra Barua), in Prabandha, 1973–2015, Guwahati: Lawyer’s Book Stall, (1979/2015), pp. 77–78; Jayeeta Sharma, Empire’s Garden: Assam and the Making of India, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011, pp. 45–48. A similar interpretation can also be found in Benudhar Sarma, ‘Moneeram Dewan’ (1950), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Benudhar Sarmar Rasanavali (Omnibus of Benudhar Sarma’s Writings), Vol. II, Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2014, pp. 947–997. 13 For example, see Rajen Saikia, Social and Economic History of Assam, 1851– 1921, New Delhi: Manohar, 2000. 14 One of the earliest and detailed works on the Burkandazes was Bhuyan’s Anglo-Assamese Relations: 1771–1826. Among recent works, Cederlöf’s Founding an Empire in India’s North Eastern Frontier locates them in a wider context of space, political economy and early EIC imperialism. 15 The historical documents however do not confirm if his three sons Jangi, Piyoli and Numali also escaped with him. 16 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, pp. 64–65. 17 Based on colonial reports, S. K. Bhuyan mentions that from Calcutta, he went to Murshidabad. Initially, through Burkandaz, the Burhagohain (from Jorhat) got the Barphukan kidnaped in Murshidabad. However, the Barphukan managed to pay his way to freedom. Then from Murshidabad, he planned his voyage to Amarapura. For details, see Bhuyan (ed.),

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Barphukanar Geet, pp. 45–46. What is notable is that during the period places such as Rangpur and Murshidabad were important trade centres, as well as part of major trade routes between eastern Bengal and Brahmaputra valley, leading all the way to Bhutan and Tibet. For example, see Francis Hamilton, An Account of Assam, Guwahati: Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, 1963 (1809). 18 Her name is suggested by S. K. Bhuyan as Rangili Aideo. See, Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet. The same is also indicated by Benudhar Sarma. See, Benudhar Sarma, ‘Rangili Konwari’ (Princess Rangili), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Benudhar Sarmar Rasanavali, 1464–1466. However, based on the Buranji chronicles, it is difficult to conclusively ascertain the name. 19 Exchange of emissaries and letters was an important part of political relations in the entire region. For example, see Lakshmi Devi, Ahom-Tribal Relations: A Political Study, Calcutta: Assam Book Depot, 1968. 20 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, pp. 83–84. 21 The Burmese general had written letters to the EIC that the Ahom kingdom was under Burmese protection, and therefore any disturbance in the kingdom needed stabilising Burmese intervention. For details of the letters, see, Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, p. 48. 22 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, p. 89. 23 For example, see Cederlöf, Founding an Empire on India’s North-Eastern Frontier, pp.  162–213. To study such pre-colonial networks of sociospatial relations, Indrani Chatterjee proposes the framework of ‘monastic geographicity’ or inter-connected and overlapping zones of religious territorialities. For example, see Indrani Chatterjee, ‘Adivasis, Tribes and other neo-logisms for erasing pre-colonial pasts: An example from Northeast India’, in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 53, no. 1 (2016), pp. 9–40. Routes of trade that connected the region with the Himalayan, Bengal and Patkai belts was a common matter of enquiry and observation in early nineteenth-century colonial accounts. For example, of the period, one of the comprehensive accounts was William Robinson’s A Descriptive Account of Assam. See William Robinson, A Descriptive Account of Assam, New Delhi: Sanskaran Prakashak, 1975 (1841). 24 For example, Cederlöf, Founding an Empire in India’s North Eastern Frontier. Also see, Capt. R. B. Pemberton, ‘Abstract of the Journal of a Route Travelled by Capt. S. F. Hannay’, in Selection of Papers Regarding Hill Tracts Between Assam and Burmah and on Upper Brahmaputra, Shillong: Bengal Secretariat Press, 1873, pp. 83–109. 25 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, pp. 45–46. 26 For example, see John M’Cosh, Topography of Assam, New Delhi: Logos, 2000 (1837); also see, Sayeeda Yasmin Saikia, In the Meadows of Gold: Telling Tales of the Swargadeos at the Cross Roads of Assam, Guwahati: Spectrum, 1997. For illustrations of such relations maintained during the Ahom period as found in the contemporary chronicles, see Suryya Kumar Bhuyan (ed.), Satsari Buranji (or Collection of Seven Buranjis), Guwahati: Lawyers Book Stall, 1960. 27 For example, see Capt. R. B. Pemberton, ‘Abstract of the Journal’. On the importance of these resettlements and the consequent colonial campaigns against ‘slavery’, see Edmund Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure, London: LSE, 1964, pp. 293–298. The

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idea of ‘slavery’ remained a continued trope of colonial representation of ‘tribes’ of the region. For a general discussion on the problems and politics of such representation of ‘slavery’, see R. Bezbaruah, ‘Dr. Fraser’s Crusade and Bawi Correspondences 1909–23’, in R. Bezbarua, P. Goswami and D. Banerjee (eds.), North East India: Interpreting the Sources of its History, New Delhi: Aryan Books, 2008, pp. 225–247. 28 Pemberton, ‘Abstract of the Journal’; also see, Purnakanta Buragohain, Nine Years Beyond the Patkai (translation of Patkair Sipare Na Basar, 1943, trans. Madan M. Sarma and Sanjib Sahoo), Guwahati: Bhabani, 2015. 29 On the folk structural characteristics of the ballad, also see Prafulladatta Goswami, Folk Literature of Assam, Guwahati: Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies, 2015 (1954), p. 34. 30 For example, Guha, based on the colonial archive, considers peasant politics in Assam between the 1860s and 1890s as comprising primarily about colonial land and revenue regimes. See, Amalendu Guha, Planter Raj to Swaraj: Freedom Struggle and Electoral Politics in Assam, 1826–1947, New Delhi: Tulika, 2014 (1977). 31 What is notable is that the same Queen Mother had earlier sought the aid of the EIC to oust the Burhagohain, that is, to settle an internal matter of the kingdom. The EIC had then refused intervention. See, Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, pp. 20–22. Pertaining to the Burmese invasion, Antrobus, the historian of tea, provided an alternative perspective. He argued that when the Ahom factions went and sought help from the Burmese court, they were only living a historical practice of seeking help from the place of their historical origin, and therefore, not from any ‘foreigners’. For example, see H. A. Antrobus, A History of the Assam Company, 1839–1953, Edinburgh: T and A Constable, 1957, p. 4. 32 Interestingly, this characterisation of the Burhagohain as both devious and diligent is also found in Robinson’s 1841 account of Assam. In fact, Robinson suggested that it was the Burhagohain, who through his political policies, forced upon the Barphukan to bring in the Burmese army. See, Robinson, A Descriptive Account of Assam, pp. 172–182. 33 For example, see Lakhminath Bezbaroa’s historical play Belimar (Sunset), 1915. 34 For example, see Benudhar Sarma, ‘Desh Drohi Kun: Badan ne Purnananda?’ (Who is the Traitor: Badan or Purnananda) (1933), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Benudhar Sarmar Rasanavali, Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, pp. 1491–1499; also see, Cederlöf, Founding an Empire on India’s NorthEastern Frontier. 35 For example, see Benudhar Sarma, ‘Moneeram Dewanar Geet’ (the Ballad of Moneeram Dewan), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Benudhar Sarmar Rasanavali, pp. 1070–1074. 36 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, p. 81. 37 Ibid., p. 52. 38 For example, see Guha, ‘Peasant Uprising and Feudal Crisis’; Arupjyoti Saikia, A Century of Protest: Peasant Politics in Assam Since 1900, New Delhi: Routledge, 2013. 39 For example, see Eric J. Hobsbawm, ‘Peasants and Politics’, Journal of Peasant Studies, vol. 1, no. 1 (1973), pp. 3–22; Ranajit Guha, Elementary

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Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983. 40 For example, see Manjeet Baruah, ‘Space and Community Between the Local and the Global: Two Examples From the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam’, Asian Ethnicity, vol. 14, no. 3 (June 2013), pp. 276–292. 41 For example, see, Louis Althusser, Politics and History: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx, London: New Left Books, 1972; Pierre Macherey, A Theory of Literary Production, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978. 42 For an analysis of how the history of the chronicles was also part of the gradual development of the Ahom polity from mandala to kingdom based structure between fifteenth and eighteenth century, see Saikia, In the Meadows of Gold, pp. 171–218. 43 For example, see, A. K. Ramanujan, ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation’, in Vinay Dharwadker (ed.), The Collected Essays of A. K. Ramanujan, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004 (1999), pp. 113–160; Paula Richman (ed.), Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia, Berkley: University of California Press, 1991. 44 Interestingly, a remark along this line, though not specifically on these genres, can be found in Maheswar Neog’s works. For example, see Maheswar Neog, ‘The Story of Assamese Verse’, in Maheswar Neog (ed.), Sansayan (Anthology), New Delhi:Sahitya Akademi: 2008 (1971), pp. 1–20. 45 Guha, ‘Peasant Uprising and Feudal Crisis’. 46 This also raises the question, given the nature of literary history in Assam, how does one trace ‘peasant consciousness’ in pre-colonial Assam. 47 One of the clear examples is Rajanikanta Bardoloi’s Miri Jiori (The Daughter of the Miris, 1895). The Inner Line and the colonial anthropological discourse of ‘tribes’ played an important role in the plot. In the process, what the novel also exemplified was the struggle, both social and literary, in defining what it meant to be ‘Assamese’ and the geography that the term would encompass. 48 For example, see Michel Foucault, ‘What Is an Author?’ in Aesthetics: Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984, Volume 2, London: Penguin, 2000 (1994), pp. 205–222. 49 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, preface. 50 Ibid., appendix (‘Motamot’ or Opinions). 51 Ibid., pp. 22–33. 52 For example, see Kanak Lal Barua, ‘Aamaar Desar Buranji’ (History of Assam) (1896), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Jonaki, Jorhat: Asam Sahitya Sabha, 2001, 6:1, 673–675. Also see, Jae-Eun Shin, ‘Searching for Kamarupa: Historiography of the Early Brahmaputra Valley in the Colonial and PostColonial Period’, Puravritta, vol. 1 (2016), pp. 115–132. 53 For example, see Lakhminath Bezbarua, ‘Sri Sankaradeva’ (1918), in Lakhminath Tamuli (ed.), Banhi, Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2008, 6:11, 1238–1244. 54 For example, see Ramdas Goswami (Ratneswar Mahanta), ‘Jaymati Konwari aru Langi Gadapani’ (Princess Jaymati and Langi Gadapani) (1892), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Jonaki, 3:11–12, 393–396.

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55 For example, see Gunabhiram Barua, ‘Unwritten Histories’ (1897), in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Jonaki, 8:7, 500–502; 8:8, 514–515, 8:10, 532–533. 56 For example, see Hemchandra Goswami, ‘Asomiya Bhasa’ (Assamese Language) (1892), in Nagen Saikia, (ed.), Jonaki, 3:6, 248–251, 3:8, 347–351. 57 This dimension of historical enquiry into the past and its relation with making of nation emerged in other parts of the region too. For example, it could be seen among the Mizos by the 1930s. For example, see, Joy L. K. Pachuau, Being Mizo: Identity and Belonging in North East India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 82–135. 58 In the Assamese language, the word for ‘history’, or the discipline of History, continued to remain buranji since the nineteenth century. 59 Though Arupjyoti Saikia views Gait’s book as the first ‘scientific’ history book on Assam, it might be more appropriate to locate his book in a process which culminated in his book. See, Arupjyoti Saikia, ‘Gait’s Way: Writing History in the Early Twentieth Century Assam’, in Partha Chatterjee and Raziuddin Aquil (eds.), History in the Vernacular, New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2008, pp. 142–171. A more nuanced treatment of the issue can be found in another of Arupjyoti Saikia’s work. See, Arupjyoti Saikia, ‘History, buranjis and Nation: Suryya Kumar Bhuyan’s Histories in Twentieth Century Assam’, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 45, no. 4 (2008), pp. 473–507. 60 Lakhminath Bezbaroa, Sri Sankaradeva and Sri Madhabadeva, Guwahti: Lawyers Book Stall, 2010 (1914). 61 Ramdas Goswami (Ratneswar Mahanta), ‘Moamaria Bidroh’ (Moamaria Rebellion) (1892) in Nagen Saikia (ed.), Jonaki, 3:7, 333. Though in the subsequent issue, the editor pointed out that Goswami’s contention was incorrect, no supporting evidence was provided. 62 First published in 1877, it was arguably the first modern study of geography by an Assamese. Notably, Barooah was an Indologist, specialising in Sanskrit studies. See, Anundoram Barooah, ‘Ancient Geography of India’, in Works of Anundoram Barooah, Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2007 (1877), pp. 1–94. 63 For example, see Tilottama Misra, Literature and Society in Assam: A Study of the Assamese Renaissance, 1826–1926, Guwahati: Omsons, 1987, pp. 1–21, 100–143. Also, see Saikia, ‘History, buranji and Nation: Suryya Kumar Bhuyan’s Histories in Twentieth Century Assam’. 64 See, Suryya Kumar Bhuyan, Some Literary Reminiscences (a lecture delivered in 1951), Guwahati: Publication Board Assam, 2010, p. 33. 65 Bhuyan (ed.), Barphukanar Geet, pp. 22–33. 66 Suryya Kumar Bhuyan, Jaymati Upakhyan (The Story of Jaymati), Guwahati: Lawyers Book Stall, 1954 (1920), preface, pp. 65–68. 67 An earlier reference to this ballad can be found in Baildon’s account of tea in Assam. For example, see ‘Tea in Assam’, with an appendix, ‘Rural Life amongst the Assamese’, by Samuel Baildon, Calcutta: W. Newman & Co., 1877, Tr. 320 (j), Asian and African Collection, British Library. What it highlights is that these historical ballads had attracted colonial attention at least by the second half of the nineteenth century. 68 For example, see Udayon Misra, ‘Peasant Consciousness as Reflected in the Oral Literature of Assam: A Study of Two Assamese Ballads’, in

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Tilottama Misra (ed.), The Oxford Anthology of Writings from North-East India (Poetry and Prose), New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 164–185. Though not on Barphukanar Geet, Arupjyoti Saikia’s study of another historical ballad Doli Purana is also through the frame of peasant, nation and nationalism. See, Arupjyoti Saikia, ‘Oral Tradition, Nationalism and Assamese Social History’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 49, no. 1 (2012), pp. 37–72.

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Part III WRITING CULTURE, WRITING POLITICS

8 OF PEOPLE AND THEIR STORIES Writings in English from India’s Northeast K. B. Veio Pou

In the recent times, literatures from the Northeastern part of India, particularly those written in English and translations into English, have gained new grounds of recognition from other parts of the country. Up till the end of the last century, however, the writers from the region writing in English were little heard of, let alone been included into the gamut of the literary tradition called Indian writing in English. Nevertheless, by the turn of the new millennium, leading publishing houses began to rush to the region to usher its writers into the limelight. Somehow and suddenly, the long ignored ‘periphery’ of the country became a new commercial hot spot! And interestingly, within a span of a decade, writings in English from the region have earned some recognition by carving out its space among the literatures of the country. Now, one may ask, what has triggered this newfound interest? Since the Northeast 1 has long been under the political scrutiny of post-independent India, anything that surfaces from the region is looked upon with certain curiosity, including its literature. And so, again the question, what makes the subject ‘Northeast’ special that it has to attract much attention? Even though the region is home to many diverse cultural and linguistic groups with their own distinctly rich traditions, it is often looked upon as a homogenous entity despite the different ground reality. Even the term ‘Northeast’ as a frontier was a construct of the British colonial period, but got effectively carried forward by the post-independent India. The term, however, can only be suitable to denote a group of people who make their homes in the geographical area east of West Bengal. And despite some resistances to such blanket terms from few corners, somehow the term 225

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Northeast has taken root in referring to anything for or from the region. Thus, also, the identification of a body of literature called ‘Writings in English from the Northeast’, which may, at best, be treated as a regional literature or ‘a sub-genre in themselves’. 2 But again, it begs the question; do the several writings surfacing from the Northeast have a shared literary history, culture or themes? Or even, do the writings in English truly embody the sentiments of the folk history that the region treasures in, or is it just commercial space for a few who are educated in English medium institutions? Before I proceed further with these pertinent questions, it will be helpful to examine the region, the people, their culture and their recent history so that a comprehensive understanding of the region is arrived at. I have elsewhere asserted that to most people in other parts of the country, the Northeast has long remained a region to be ‘imagined’. 3 Hardly, does it get attention at the national level or public debates except when some sensational issues of blood and violence hit the region. Even media, newspapers or television, rarely cover stories that can be ‘newsworthy’ to the ‘mainstream’ Indians. The little thing that seems to catch the nation’s interest occasionally relates to insurgency, ethnic problems, smuggling/ drugs, underdeveloped infrastructure and inaccessible geography. Thus, the negative images concocted to refer to the region runs high in the minds of most people from the rest of the country. Too little known to Indians of other parts of the country, the Northeast lives only in their imaginations. But much of the people’s ignorance of the region is due to the illrepresentation of region in the knowledge database of the nation; there is hardly any mention of the region’s history and culture in the educational textbooks up till the recent time. Being too less informed of the region, therefore, there is too little understanding. The states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim 4 and Tripura constitute the region called the Northeast of India. The entire land mass constituting the eight states is connected to the rest of the country only by a narrow stretch of land called the Siliguri corridor or the ‘chicken neck’ that lie between Bangladesh and Nepal, while the rest are international boundaries bordering Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Myanmar (Burma) and Nepal. Most of the region used to be once part of the larger ‘undivided’ Assam or the Assam province. 5 Effectively, the Northeast got some positive attention only recently, more prominently after the initiation of the much-hyped Look East Policy in the mid-1990s as India’s policy to engage with ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) countries. Realising that forging a relationship with ASEAN countries would not be possible without the involvement of the Northeastern states, India launched some attractive packages for economic development for the region and even called the Northeast the ‘gateway to 226

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Asia’. 6 Some may assume that it is the geographical isolation that the region has become India’s ‘periphery’, away from the ‘mainland’ where the real politicking is done, but there is much more to be seen. Compounded by the geographical isolation is the inability to find kinship with the rest of the country, which has created further discord: ‘In terms of their physical features, ethnicity, culture, food habits and language, there is closer affinity with the peoples of Southeast Asia than with the population of mainstream India.’ 7 Furthermore, a long period of political indifference or mismanagement by the centre has further alienated the region.

Evolution of English language in the region Though Assamese 8 and Manipuri 9 literatures have flourished in the region for many centuries now, it is the new literature written in English that has caught the imagination of many. Today, different genres of literatures written by writers from the region have found its way into the bookstores of the cities and syllabuses of universities in different parts of the country. The evolution of a literary body called North East Writers Forum (NEWF) 10 too has boosted the recognition of literatures from this part of the country. As mentioned above, the Northeast is populated by diverse people groups speaking various languages. Broadly, more than 400 (four hundred) languages spoken in the region are classified under Indo-Aryan, Austro-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman language groups. While the Austro-Asiatic 11 languge is spoken only by the Khasis and the Jaintias of Meghalaya, the IndoAryan language is mainly spoken in the plains of the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam 12 and the Tibeto-Burman 13 language family engulfs the rest of the languages spoken. Prior to the division of Assam into several states, Assamese was a lingua franca in almost all the Northeastern region. 14 States like Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Nagaland have adopted English as the official language after gaining statehood, since there is no clear common language available among the several tribes speaking different languages. English also shares the status of official language along with Manipuri in Manipur. In other states too, the importance of English is stressed by its use as the medium of instruction in educational institutions. The seed of English language in the region was sown during the colonial period. The expansion of the British Empire towards the Northeastern frontier in the beginning of nineteenth century also threw open many new opportunities, including that of the Christian missions. Though there are also writings which suggest that the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries left an imprint in the region while en route to Tibet in the early seventeenth century, 15 it was only two centuries later that the Christian missions found its root, following the Charter Act of 1813, which allowed them to open 227

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their missions in the region. 16 And while the pace was slow initially in most parts, the missions grew exponentially because the missionaries were also active proponents of education and health-related services. Wherever the missionaries went, they set up educational schools and health care facilities. Besides, ‘[t]he Christian missionaries took the lead in ushering in a print culture by establishing printing presses and bringing out textbooks, book on grammar, and Christian literature and journals in the local languages’ by using the Roman script. 17 Another significant impact was the use of English as the medium of instruction in the mission schools run by the missionaries. In a short span of time, notably, the coming of the Catholic missions and their convent schools took recognisable lead in the field of education, which continues even today. Today, the English language is pursued more vigorously than ever in the Northeast. And when it comes to written literature there is all the more reason to write in English including that of the readership factor too. English automatically becomes the de facto language whenever different people groups from the region gather together. Even though Assamese and Manipuri have much longer literary history than English, their readership is still limited to the Assam valley and the Imphal valley respectively. And since writing is essentially meant to be read, when the readership is less, the scope for growth is limited. Tilottoma Misra cites an example of two creative writers from Arunachal Pradesh, Yeshe Dorje Thongchi and Lummer Dai, who wrote in Assamese, but have now ‘become representatives of a tragic generation of creative writers whose works are no longer read by their own people because they are written in a language that is not “useful” to the new generation’. 18 The new generation of writers from the Northeast has comfortably taken on a language inherited from the mission schools, and being schooled in English medium institutes, reputed colleges and universities, it was also expected of them to find their creativity expressed in the language they were instructed.

Writing as politics In general, most of the writings in English from the region unveils a deep sense of the political undercurrent. In a way, it was expected too, considering the unsettled political problems the people from the region has been engaged with for a long time now. The recent past as well as the present reality of the people has been marred by conflict and violence, ranging from sub-nationalist movements to struggles for greater autonomy to landrelated ethnic conflicts. Through their writings, the writers paint a realistic picture of the predicament of living in conflicting times. In a sense, they 228

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have donned the mental of social responsibility, to speak of the impending problems in the society. However, one may also argue, if this ‘peripheral’ region is already highly exoticised in the minds of the people from the ‘mainland’, to see that many of the writers from the Northeast write of stories that deal with bloodshed may be just an easy way to be trapped in the ‘stereotype’ of the region. But, the fault-line with the non-Northeasterners is not that they see the trouble-torn region, but that they refuse to see beyond it, the other sides of life that exists in the region. Or as Mamang Dai of Arunachal Pradesh and one of the most prolific writers from the region brilliantly puts it: Yes, there is writing about bullets and guns and death and betrayal. It can hardly be otherwise, when we are confronted with changes that bring such terror and anguish. Yet, while the idyllic concept is gone, for many of us the legends and stories are still a wellspring of thought and emotions that are restored in a peculiar blend of myth and memory unique to the region. 19 Along with the historical, political and social problems that the people of the region face, there are also stories that celebrate the people’s tradition and culture and the belief system deep rooted in history, yet closely knitted in present realities. In a lot of ways, these emerging new writers write about themselves as a response to the misunderstanding and misjudgments pronounced upon them since long. It can also be argued that it is also this strong political overtone in their literatures, that classed them apart from the rest Indian writing in English too. In an interesting observation, Prasanta Das, protesting against Jeet Thayil’s omission of the well-known Shillong poets 20 in his anthology 60 Indian Poets (2008), asserts that ‘anthology making is a political act’ and ‘Thayil’s exclusion of these poets is analogous to New Delhi’s neglect of the northeast’ 21 (2008: 19). Not only is the Northeast left out from the socio-economic, political and developmental policies of the nation, but even the literary imaginations of the country ignores the literary traditions of the region. Although the poets of the Northeast, in general, and the Shillong poets, in particular, have made their mark since the 1980s, their poetry has not been widely acknowledged beyond the region. The reason, Das argues, is while the dominant style of Indian English poetry continues to be dominated by ‘the poetics of the Anglo-American world’ where there is a large obsession with ‘symmetry, intellect, irony, and wit’, the Shillong based poets feel closely linked to ‘the political ones like Pablo Neruda, 22 Czeslaw Milosz, 23 Mahmoud Darwish 24 and Yehuda Amichai 25 who by choice or circumstances (or both) voice of the anguish and aspirations of 229

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their land and its people’. This opinion also found support from two leading poets of the region, Robin Ngangom and Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, when they say, The writers from the Northeast differs from his counterpart in the mainland in a significant way. While it may not make him a better writer, living with the menace of the gun he cannot merely indulge in verbal wizardry and woolly aesthetics but perforce master the art of witness. 26 Truly, their ‘art of witness’ is well exemplified in the poems and stories they write. Besides, this difference observed in the literary texts is also a conscious choice for most writers. It is, in a way, their assertion of protest for the near-all absence of Northeast in the imagination of the larger Indian public. The disconcerting relationship that the Northeast has with India since independence continues to hamper peace in the region. Historically, the British policy towards the Northeastern frontier was primarily viewed in economic terms, as was also mostly the colonial policy elsewhere. Though there were series of expeditions to the interiors of the region, they did not result in ‘direct’ rule by British colonial government but rather left the hill tribes ‘very much to themselves’ because ‘the hills were largely unproductive and were even then a financial liability.’ 27 Lord Dalhousie seems to have opposed even the ‘temporary possession’ of the hills because, he says, ‘Our possessions could bring no profit to us, and would be costly to us as it would be unproductive.’ 28 Viewed in those terms, therefore, except for the Assam valley, the British administration was not extended to the hill tracts and left them either as ‘excluded areas’ or ‘partially excluded areas’. Taking that as a cue, the recent history of the region saw an upsurge of several political conflicts with the post-independent India, many of which based their ‘historical’ disconnect with the larger idea of an inclusive India. The long and bitter conflict waged by the Naga nationalists continue till today without a clear solution at hand, and notoriously it remains as ‘one of the world’s least known longest running and bloody armed conflicts’. 29 Then came the Mizo uprising in the 1960s and the sprouting of various insurgencies in Manipur and Assam with demands ranging from greater autonomy to independence. The Indian state responded by adopting various forms of oppressive laws empowering the armed forces deployed in the region, the most notorious among them being the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 (AFSPA), which empowers the Indian security forces deployed in the declared ‘disturbed areas’ to operate with unrestricted powers and even kill at mere suspicion to maintain law and order. 30 Condemning the Act, 230

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Sanjoy Hazarika, a prominent voice from the Northeast, said, ‘The Act is draconian and an object of hatred: it has no place in a nation that calls itself democracy.’ 31 Adoption of such repressive laws only alienated the people of the region even more. Even today, there is always a visible heavy presence of armed forces in most parts of the region. Now, this sentiment of the perplexing relationship with the Indian nation state has found its expression even in writings emerging from Northeast. In a lot of ways, there is feeling of being culturally/politically ‘doubly colonised’, an emotion shared by various writers from different states of the region, because of the aggressive policy adopted by the government of India to integrate the region with the ‘mainstream’, like ‘the vigorous pursuit of the policy of spreading the use of Hindi in NEFA, a policy that went against the so-called Nehru Plan of trusting the ‘natural genius of the people’. 32 Misra further noted that India’s policy was in sharp contrast with that of the preceding British ‘policy of non-interference towards the hill people of the frontier region’, which was also actively adopted even during the times of the powerful Ahom kings of Assam. 33 This fear of cultural annihilation is voiced in the poem ‘The Conquest’ 34 by the Khasi folklorist and poet, Desmond L. Kharmawphlang from Meghalaya: Long ago, the men went beyond the Surma . . . . . . . . . Later came the British With gifts of bullets, blood-money . . . . . . . . . But in the wavering walk of time There came those from the sweltering Plains, From everywhere. The poem essentially sums up the historical interjections in the lives of his people. First, he recreates the peace that prevailed till the British came, but the vacuum left by the British was quickly taken advantage of by those from the ‘plains’, a reference to the Bengalis. The poem, in a direct way, points to the deteriorating powers of the natives from the various invading forces in the state of Meghalaya. Not just in Meghalaya, but in effect, the impact of partition in the region is still yet to be contained. This is also one aspect of the Northeast which has never got the attention it deserved. The migration from Bangladesh following the partition affected the demography of the region, particularly the states bordering it. Today the migrant population has dominated many areas in the Northeast, even leaving the indigenous population in 231

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the state of Tripura to just a little more than a quarter of the population. Of the many conflicts that have marred the region, this issue of migrant–native tension is yet to be settled. Speaking of the plight of his people, Niranjan Chakma from Tripura, laments how ‘the intruders’ have ‘displaced’ his people ‘[f]rom their homeland’ leaving them rudely shocked and speechless: Their words Are yet unspoken Because Their voices Are strangled by The ponderous and Stiffening woe, (‘The Words Will Be Uttered Boldly’) 35 Yet, the poet is hopeful that ‘someday/Their unspoken words/Will be uttered boldly.’ It may be noted here that the Chakmas are scattered in various states and remain a minority wherever they are. Ethnic strife isn’t a topic new to the region which is constituted by numbers of communities struggling to be at ease even in the land of their birth. Given the kind of uncertain present they live in, any rumour can trigger off another conflict. Displacements arising out of these kinds of ethnic clashes have left many a family homeless and without hope of returning to where they were born. Robin S. Ngangom (2006), a gifted poet originally from Manipur who made Shillong his home, laments the pitiable condition in his home state in this poem: First came the scream of the dying in a bad dream, then the radio report, and a newspaper: six shot dead, twenty-five houses razed, sixteen beheaded with hands tied behind their backs inside a church. . . As the days crumble, and the victors and their victims grew in number, I hardened inside my thickening hide, until I lost my tenuous humanity. (‘Native Land’) 36 With the highest numbers of insurgent groups, Manipur is literally turned into a battleground every day, a nightmare for common people caught between the state forces and the underground militants. Under such

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circumstances, the poet has lost all sensitivity to death and sufferings, that he seems to have grown callous: ‘I hardened inside my thickening hide.’ Since the outbreak of the Naga–Kuki conflict in the early 1990s, which left hundreds killed and thousands displaced, the state has been in a volatile situation. And before the wounds of the first conflict healed, the Naga–Meitei and the Kuki–Paite, conflicts quickly followed. With various ethnic groups completely sworn by their identified groups, the state still remained tense. In another poem, ‘The Strange Affair of Robin S. Ngangom’, the poet ridicules the growing idea of ‘patriotism’ that has brought more division, hatred and death than any other agents. In addition to the ethnic conflicts between different communities, Manipur has also seen a sustained effort by several Meitei ‘independentist’ groups to rake up ‘anti-Indian’ sentiments by invoking ‘patriotism’ or by threats which resulted even in the ban of any form of promoting Hindi language, including movies in theatres, sale of CDs, broadcasts on TVs, etc. as a move to stop ‘Indianisation’ in the Imphal valley. One of the distinctive styles of the poets from the Northeast is their use of satire and irony. While there is also the direct and blunt attack on the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the region by various elements, there is also the subtle attack on the corruption and violence that stalks the land in various forms. These poets well understand the critical situations faced at home grounds. While there are issues of negligence and non-governance of their region, the fingers are pointed at not just the governments, central and state, but also to parallel organisations run from the underground. At such times, their poetry is forced to take political overtones in protest against the misshapenness in the society: ‘Their irony is doubled-edged as they rail at others and themselves in the same breath. . . . While they talk of the perils of terrorism, they also talk of the greater peril of lawmen turning terrorists.’ 37 Many of the problems that the people of the region face are also caused by the rising corrupt leaders in politics. With satire as an available weapon, the poets also use it as an instrument to lampoon the homegrown leaders who have taken the whole land and people a ransom in their greed for power and money. The following lines from the poem ‘For Sale’, 38 by Paul Lyngdoh from Meghalaya, have a sardonic political overtone against corruption that has rotted his native land; For sale this battered, autistic land with its lucre-laden earth, our precious minerals, medicinal herbs, rare orchids, and trees and fields and waters, all these, and all else.

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In a similar tune, Monalisa Changkija, a poet from Nagaland, laments the destruction of nature and its resources in the name of development and progress, in this poem: Yes, I’ve seen our rice fields turn into factories and mills our green hills reduced to barren brown our rivers have dried and our once sparkling fish lie dead on sandy banks. It’s no more the Pines I can smell nor hear the Tragopan and the Hornbill. (‘Of A People Unanswered-I’) 39 The situation of the region is, perhaps, rightly put as ‘coexistence of paradoxical worlds such as the folk and the westernised, virgin forests and carchoked streets, ethnic cleansers and the parasites of democracy, ancestral values and flagrant corruption’. 40 To see the sorry state of affairs in many pockets of the region is disheartening. The human action of violence is not just limited to fellow human beings, but have also encroached the domain of the environment. Most of what used to be endless expanse of greeneries and beauty has been reduced to barren lands. Another unsettling issue that continues to affect the politically fractured relationship between the ‘mainstream’ India and the Northeast ‘periphery’ is the ignorance of the racial composition and cultural diversity of the region by the larger population of the country. It becomes clearly visible from the kind of reception that people of the region receive, particularly those with fairer and Mongoloid oriented features, when they move out of their home states. Being referred to as ‘Chinky’ (a derogatory term used to refer to those who have narrow eyes), ‘Oriental’, etc. because of their ‘looks’, or worse still, being asked if they are from ‘China’ or ‘Nepal’ make the Northeasterners feel out of place in different cities of India; somehow, they remain the ‘visible minority’ even in university campuses. 41 It is not new for a Northeasterner even in a metropolitan city like Delhi to be asked, ‘Where is Manipur?’ or ‘Where is Nagaland?’ or ‘Where is Mizoram?’ when they name their place of origin while on the search for jobs, accommodation, etc. While stereotyping may not be uncommon in India, these visual images concocted to refer to a group might connote certain differing implications. These racial labelling of making the Northeastern people feel ‘outsiders’ in their own country will continue to affect the relationship even in the future if not addressed promptly as ‘[t]he battle for the future of 234

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North-east India is also a battle over images.’ 42 The post-colonial constellations of people groups in India need a revisit so that representations can be done by engaging with reality. What has been projected as representations from the region needs a relook, else, the gulf will grow wider and the region becomes more reclusive. This articulation of on ‘Indian identity’ by Cherrie L. Chhangte from Mizoram, speaks volume: Celebrated land of diversity, . . . . . . . . . Make a good topic for the politicians’ speech. Are we as proud of our unity As we are of our diversity? The ‘largest democracy in the world’. Sounds good on paper; not too good . . . . . . . . . Sidelined, side-tracked, side-stepped, A minority in a majority world. I am a curiosity, an ethnic specimen. Politics, history, anthropology, your impressive learning, All unable to answer the fundamental question – ‘what does an Indian look like?’ An Indian looks like me, an Indian is Me. (‘What does an Indian Look Like’) 43 Poetic satire is a favourite tool in articulating the uncomfortable reality of living in the society marred by different undesired happenings. Another poet from Mizoram, Mona Zote, asserts in her celebrated poem ‘What Poetry Means to Ernestina in Peril’ that poetry must have an agenda to speak on however ‘raw’ it might sound and be powerful like ‘the sudden bullet’. 44 The images used by the poets from this region are forceful and disturbing. Nilmani Phookan’s poem ‘What Were We Talking About Just Now?’ is splattered with troubling images like ‘destitute children’, ‘chunk of coal’, ‘gory time’, ‘dead’, ‘[r]eddened with blood’, etc. as the poet tries to ‘remember’ what happened ‘a moment ago’. 45 Phookan, a wellestablished poet from Assam, has craftily woven what it means to live at a time and in a place marred with violence. Of the many conflicts that have scared the region, sub-national movements have not been contained till today. And of the many insurgencies that are active, the protracted Naga problem, also considered the mother of all insurgencies in the region, has long eluded a peaceful solution. But the story of Naga people’s unfortunate encounter with a stronger force has a bloody trail. The initial years of armed struggle against India was marked 235

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by untold misery. The Naga problem has grown to be a classic example of study on political conflict in the Northeast. Prided as one of the biggest armies in the world, the Indian army initially thought the ‘Naga rebels’ were only a small band who can be pinned down in no time. However, it was not to be! On the contrary, the underground movement grew bigger and stronger, and with mass support. The bitterly fought war between the Naga underground army and Indian armed forces adversely affected the Naga society in an irreparable way. Stories have been told so that it will not be forgotten; songs have sung so that the message is carried onward. Easterine Kire from Nagaland remembered the sacrifices of the ‘brave ones’ who died defending the land in her poem ‘Kelhoukevira’ 46 where she used powerful metaphors of the weary land choked by blood of the ‘mighty warriors’: They brought in their dead by night their proud warriors, their mighty warriors the brave beloved of the godly, to rest under the troubled skies and battle-scarred lands. In fiction too, the political movements in different states for separate identities have emerged as a dominant theme. Arguing that literature has a dialectical relation with society, Manjeet Baruah asserts that the (unstable) political experience of the Northeast frontier with India since independence has engendered the genre of political literature in the region. 47 This argument is verifiable by the amount of literatures on political uncertainty in the region. The fictional genres of short stories, novellas and novels have proved to be powerful tool for writers to exercise their concerns about their society. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya’s Assamese classic Iaruingam 48 is an early fictional work that deals with the Naga movement and based on the author’s own experience of serving as a teacher in the Naga Hills in the early years of insurgency. The Naga account of their own struggle also found expressions in Easterine Kire’s Bitter Wormwood 49 and Temsula Ao’s These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone 50 among others. James Dokhuma’s novella The Beloved Bullet 51 is a moving account of the Mizo National Front, formed in 1961, and its conflict with the Indian state, which subsequently left a traumatic impact on the people of Mizoram. Even though insurgency in Assam has waned down in the recent years, the common people are still gripped by the lingering shadows of conflict that threatens to surface at any given time, as is seen in novels like Mitra Phukan’s The Collector’s Wife (2005) and Aruni Kashyap’s The House with a Thousand Stories (2013). In addition, compilation of stories such as Heart of the Matter: 236

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Stories from the North East (2004), 52 Fresh Fictions: Folktales, Plays, Novellas from the North East (2005) 53 and Earth Songs: Stories from Northeast India (2005) 54 included stories from many other writers that deals with violence and conflict, alongside those that talks of culture and tradition.

Writing oral tradition Another prominent theme that is central to the writings from the Northeast is the reliance on the rich oral tradition to supplement the written literature. Oral tradition, simply put, encompasses the complete way of life of the people. It is broadly a tradition that primarily preserves its knowledge system by passing it down from generation to generation through the different forms of stories, songs and verbal instructions. Stories or songs can be in the form of myths, legends or historical origins of the people, often told with encoded meanings which, at times, require interpretation by wise elders of the community. Thus, the importance lies not just in it being something of the past and so to be revered, but also because they are carriers of the people’s history and culture. Having said that, however, this valuable tradition has undergone severe neglect for a long time. For most communities, this negligence or being long ignored has caused a sense of ‘lost’, which may not be recoverable in its full sense. In an interesting observation, Tilottoma Misra said, ‘An intense sense of awareness of the cultural loss and recovery that came with the negotiation with “other” cultures is a recurrent feature of the literatures of the seven north-eastern states.’ 55 This ‘negotiation with “other” cultures’ is a reference to the various contacts which the cultures of the region had with different cultures in the past. Though the Northeast as a frontier region was effectively constructed during the British colonial period, the cultural contacts of the region with the outside world, particularly the Brahmaputra Valley, dates back much before the advent of the colonial masters. The arrival of the Ahoms in the thirteenth century may be mentioned as a point of reference here. 56 The embracing of Hinduism by the king of the tiny Manipuri (Kangleipak) kingdom in Imphal Valley in the early eighteenth century also saw the destruction of the pre-Hindu art and culture, including their original script Meitei Mayek (which was replaced by the Bengali script). The recent efforts to revive the old script can be read as an attempt at recovering the lost past. However, the nineteenth century was a turning point to most people groups in the region, especially the hill communities. From that point onwards, there has been a cultural neglect which continued even after the independence of India. Today, the present generations feel a sense of disconnect with their past, in many ways. And the various writings that have emerged recently speak of this loss. 237

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Lately, there is a noticeable resurgent spirit, especially among the researchers and intellectuals, from the Northeast who have been invigorated to revive and restore the ‘lost’ or ‘forgotten’ culture. One among the ardent exponents of oral tradition is Mamang Dai, a believer in the tradition that has sustained her community’s identity from the ancient of time. For her the myths and the legends just need restoration, and she believes and hopes that memory can play a big role. There in the deep woods, wrapped in nature’s bosom, is the abode of the gods and goddesses, where a recreation of a tranquil world is still possible in the midst of troubles and conflicts. She says, ‘the poetry of the North East is poetry of transformation.’ 57 For her, the rivers, the clouds, the mountains, the rocks, the waters, etc. still have voices as shown in ‘The Voice of the Mountain’ and ‘An Obscure Place’: My voice is sea waves and mountain peaks, in the transfer of symbols . . . . . . . . . I am the breath that opens the mouth of the canyon, the sunlight on the tips of trees; (‘Voice of the Mountain’) 58 And, The history of our race begins with the place of stories. . . . . . . . . . There are mountains. Oh! There are mountains. We climbed every slope. We slept by the river. (‘An Obscure Place’) 59 The imageries used in the poems are all drawn into a kind of a harmony, something that pulls the cosmos together. The past continues to hang on with the present. In other words, the old is not lost but is changed in its appearance, metamorphosed with time like anything else and everywhere else. All we need to do is search our memories or go places, remember and articulate the silence. In a way, it is also this returning to find their ‘lost’ roots as a form of rebellion against the impression that natives or the tribals from this region do not possess a valuable history. This ‘rootedness’ to where one belongs is, according to another poet Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, the ‘chief reason’ for the bonding that is found in the poetry of the Northeast: ‘The roots of their beloved land; the roots of their people’s culture; the roots of their times; and most of all, the roots of the past that

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is “lost” to them, have sunk deep into their psyche.’ 60 The quest for the ‘roots’ leads the poets to revert back to their oral tradition; to revive their age old tradition, which has been left unattended that to a casual observer it looked as though it were dead and long gone. In essence, what we have today of the writings from the Northeast is ‘a subtle conceptual shift’ as they rely on ‘elements from the oral traditions’, says Temsula Ao, and she continues to assert that the emerging trend of going back to their cultural roots help the creative writers to find metaphors with which they speak of themselves. 61 She believes that the synthesis of their past tradition with that of the ‘newfound’ present, tinted with Western influence, has given way to a new form of interest initiated in the Northeast. Burdened by the need to treasure the age old oral tradition, she has taken on an intellectual responsibility to restore that which has long being ignored. Her book of poetry titled Songs from Other Life (2007) is an attempt at synthesising the oral and the written (writing orality) where she re-narrates different Naga folktales in the poetic form – ‘blending the elements of oral tradition with their creative imagination’. 62 And to that extend, her poem ‘The Old Story Teller’ 63 celebrates ‘my proud legacy’ of storytelling, ‘The ones I inherited/From my grandfather’ where ‘each story reinforced/My racial reminiscence’. True to the spirit of oral tradition, the poet believes that the storytelling legacy added to her sense of identification with the generations before her. These efforts of active re-telling and translations perceivable among writers from the region today is also a contribution to recreation of people’s history, which has not been given attention for a long time now. Re-telling them is, in a way, re-living them. For the societies which are primarily in oral tradition, the stories and the songs are also the histories of the people. And yet, the effort to communicate accurately into the written form from what once was only in the oral isn’t an easy task. Often translation fail to retain the poetic style of the oral narrator, thus losing the rich flavour content in the original form. Interestingly, the folklorist Desmond Kharmawphlang offers a rather different dimension in understanding the oral poetry of various communities in the Northeast. He asserts that the development of ‘Ethnopoetics’ in the region is a ‘worthy exercise’ since it has ‘a sensitive template to the concerns of aesthetics and translation, not only from one language to another but also from performance (as in telling and uttering) to print’. 64 (2007: 3). Though Ethnopoetics 65 was first coined by Jerome Rothenberg (1968) to analyse the Native American narratives, it eventually went on to be adopted in studying various narratives of the non-Western and marginal cultures. An example of this can be seen in Kharmawplang’s own translation of Khasi ‘krudksing songs’ (work songs), where he retains

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the ethnic idioms and the performative style of oral culture. The following is called ‘Ari Hoi Hali Bihoi’ (‘A Ploughing Song’): 66 Together, O together, jrup, Pounding rice together, brup, Sticky rice, sticky grain, Together on the aunt’s verandah. The moon is in full glow, The stars also glitter, The duitara pulsates at the hearth, Ari hoi hali. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (Ho i t). Thukthuk the strings sound The poet keeps on singing The marynthing and the maryngod the spinning loom chimes in tune the old deaf woman chews kwai till her heart becomes rusty. The plough scars the earth come and lend your strength let’s plough the paddy field Cut straight the earth columns Hurhur to the right, ti ii to the left Slowly draw to the middle. Similar creative productions are also emerging from different communities in the region. And especially among the tribal communities, the strong ties with oral tradition are experiencing a sort of revival. Among the Mizos, Margaret Zama says, there is a recognition that ‘it is the early chants, songs and narratives that root them in a culture that otherwise would have been lost without record, and is recognised as the cornerstone of their past and present creative output.’ 67 In that effort, active translations of folktales, myths and songs are being undertaken in the recent times. Not just in her poems, but also in her other fictional works, Mamang Dai recreates the magical world of her people and their beliefs in The Legends of Pensam (2006). It was also, in a way, her journey to re-discover the magic of growing up in the mountains where the clouds make their home, where ‘the village heaved with life’ and where anything can happen. Her re-telling of a mythic story called The Sky Queen (2005) is also a celebration of the people’s oral tradition. Among the Nagas, Easterine Kire has been an active proponent of treasuring the traditional knowledge system, or the ‘people

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stories’ as she puts it. Her works like Naga Folktales Retold (2009), Forest Songs (2011), The Log Drummer Boy (2013) and The Dancing Village (2015) celebrate stories which are rooted to the culture of the people. She holds on to the importance of re-telling and recreation of cultural entities and artefacts to recover the loss that the Nagas have experienced for a substantial period now. In her award-winning novel When the River Sleeps (2014), 68 she recreates the realm of the supernatural which has always had a strong hold on the Naga imagination. In a way, the various writings that are surfacing from the region also symbolise a quest in reclaiming the hidden past. Exploring them is also a way of re-discovering the self. There are lots of factors that have led to the erosion of storytelling tradition in the region. And the trend of going back to the root is an assertion of their cultural identity.

Towards an alternative literary discourse (of the Northeast) While this chapter focuses mainly on the politically inclined and the ones rooted to oral tradition, there is no denying that there are lots of pertinent themes emerging from the literatures of the Northeast that demands attention. Essentially, the various writing that has surfaced from the region in the recent times points to the need to understand them as dynamics of a changing society. Whether it’s the overtly political writings or the ones enriched by the age old oral tradition, they are not to be read in isolation from the society. The writers, in this sense, understand the social responsibility of each individual in his or her society. Literature is a byproduct of the society or a response to the functioning of the society. In a lot of ways, the social reality of present instability due to various forms of violence perpetuating the land cannot be ignored with complacency. It has to be dealt with actively. Thus, in responding with sarcasm and irony, the writers speak as witnesses of the misshapenness in the society. For Esther Syiem the literature of conflict from the Northeast, like similar literatures of protest or conflict from other parts of the world, ‘is a defiant gesture that subverts the complacent realities’, and they are ‘voices in the wilderness crying for sensitivity and compassion, and navigating the path beyond mere protest to a discovery of the humane and profound’. 69 And the writers, according to her, are in position of great social responsibility. That, in another way, places the writers at par with the storytellers of the olden times, who were not merely people who tell stories but their telling becomes an important task to shoulder because the stories are the histories in themselves. While the responsibility of storytelling lies in the fact that

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it has to be told with accuracy, the telling is often accompanied by a commentary on why it is told. Since the writings in English in the Northeast arrived late on the scene, it is also important that they be read by contextualising them in the contemporary time. Much of the discourse on the Northeast since India’s independence has been largely dominated by those that have a negative connotation to it, like sub-nationalisms, secessionist movements and unstable ethnic conflicts. Though there is no denying that those things have been part of the reality, it is very inappropriate to define the region with such terms only. However, many still look at the Northeast through such stereotyped prism, thereby perceiving a distorted vision. The writings that have emerged, therefore, are a political protest against such misjudgments pronounced upon the region. Undeniably, however, such kinds of misunderstanding are largely contributed by the absence of the people’s history and culture in the larger ideological and educational establishments of the country. Another area that has caused serious repercussions in the region is India’s over-ambitious plan to ‘integrate’ the ‘peripheral’ Northeast to the ‘mainstream’, culturally as well as linguistically. Though such an attitude was an agenda that was deeply rooted to the empirebuilding strategies of yesteryears and also effectively adopted in India by the colonial masters, ‘the story did not come to an end in the Northeast India with the end of colonialism.’ 70 The overzealous effort to project a united country only created unrest in the region. Even today, the people of the region feel a sense of intimidation by the cultural upsurge of the majoritarian culture, which is largely Hindu in nature. Although less in number, the smaller communities of the region are strongly attached to their culture and tradition. Besides many things that deserve attention, recognition of the Northeasterner’s rootedness to their land and culture is still wanting in the minds of the larger Indian public. Since time immemorial, the oral tradition has been the life and spirit of many communities in the region. Although the advent of Christianity and the colonial enterprise marked a historical departure because the oral became overshadowed by the written, the new literatures from the region somehow show that the two are not necessarily opposed to each other, as was perceived by many. Or as Parag M. Sarma says that ‘the written is an extension and continuation from the oral tradition.’ 71 The emerging literary works from the region attests to this truth. Though their writings are in a language which is not their mother tongue, the form of their writings is true to the oral tradition. For them, the stylistics and intellectual witticism takes a backseat. The metaphors in their writings are sourced from the rich oral tradition of their own communities.

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Unfortunately, however, having been induced by the Western concept of perceiving oral as primitive and written as modern there has been an enormous obliteration to the age-old culture. The introduction of the print culture by the Christian missionaries, through the use of the Roman script, to many of the hill/tribal communities and the shift to embrace the Western form of education even brought about a deterioration in the traditional institutions of learning. Among the Nagas, for example, the morung system of traditional learning was wiped out completely among many of the tribes. Turning to a new faith, thus, was also misunderstood to mean giving up all their cultural practices and abandon tradition in toto. Though the old Naga culture is deeply religious, everything is not opposed to the new religion. Today, however, there is a sense of cultural awakening which has brought about an awareness of a huge cultural loss, a loss that cannot be recovered in full. This consciousness is very much visible in the writings emerging from different states too, especially those societies which are primarily oral in nature. Once upon a time, the adoption of written culture was considered a move away from tradition, but as writers from the Northeast have displayed through their creative works, it doesn’t have to be giving up one to take on the other. Or in other words, they are ‘writing orality’. The conscious effort to recover their long-ignored tradition has engendered a new genre in the literary field. Writing is, in that sense, an evolution to adapt to the changing times. In Orality and Literacy (2002) Walter J. Ong emphasises the inter-relatedness of orality and writing. He opines, ‘Oral expression can exist and mostly has existed without any writing at all, writing never without orality.’ 72 But he also stresses on the essentiality of writing by saying that ‘without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its fuller potentials, cannot produce other beautiful and powerful creations. In this sense, orality needs to produce and is destined to produce writing.’ 73 Orality and writing, thus, supplement each other. It exists alongside each other. If writing helps in creation of beautiful things, the reading of a text oralises it in a performative sense. And, Ong says, they both are ‘necessary for the evolution of consciousness’. 74 The writings of the Northeast need to be understood in such manners. Even though writing has invaded the spaces where orality once held sway, the emerging literatures of the region show that the writing culture and the oral culture coexist in harmony as different entities and not necessarily in conflict. The Northeast writers writing in English has the advantage of a wider audience because of the language factor. What is required from the readers of these literatures is, therefore, an appreciative reading to understand the dynamics of a living society that is engendering a new hope for a region that has long been too little understood.

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Notes 1 Though different terms like, ‘Northeast’, ‘North-East’, ‘North East’, ‘northeast’, ‘north-east’, etc. are used to refer to the region, they all qualify the same. I would prefer the compound word ‘Northeast’ rather than hyphenating it or breaking it into two words. Also, we should note that the expression Northeast India entered the Indian lexicon only after the formation of the North East Council (NEC) in 1971. 2 Mitra Phukan, ‘Writing in English in the North East’, Muse India, no. 48 (MarchApril 2013). www.museindia.com/viewarticle.asp?myr=2013&issid=48& id=4026 (accessed on 10 September 2013). Also see Utpal Borpujari, ‘Recognition for North East writers’, The Times of India (The Crest Edition), February 5, 2011. www.timescrest.com/culture/recognition-for-northeast-writers-4689 (accessed on 10 September 2013). 3 In my earlier work, I’ve pointed out some fault-lines in the perception of the region because many continue to see the Northeast only through the prism of media, which is often highly sensationalised. Hence, the same approach is being applied towards the literatures from the region. For details, see my book Literary Cultures of India’s Northeast: Naga Writings in English, Dimapur: Heritage Publishing House, 2015. 4 Before Sikkim was added as the eighth state of the Northeast in 2003, the seven states of the region used to be called the ‘Seven Sisters’. However, there is still the tendency to use the term Seven Sisters, consciously or unconsciously. Consciously, perhaps, to mark Sikkim out as not geographically/physically congruent with the other seven states and also since it did not, relatively, share a history of turmoil like the other states. Unconsciously, perhaps, because people have grown used to refer to the term Seven Sisters, it stayed on in their vocabulary, like an old habit that die hard! Or perhaps, as in some people’s vocabulary, it has become the ‘brother’ to the sisters. 5 To appease different aspiring people groups’ demand for their homeland, several states were carved out of the undivided Assam. Nagaland was created in 1963 out of the Naga Hills district along with Tuensang–Mon district, Meghalaya was created in 1972 composing of the Garo Hills and Khasi and Jaintia Hills, Mizoram was granted statehood in 1987 out of the Lushai Hills District. In the case of the princely states of Tripura and Manipur, which joined the Indian union in 1949, they remained as Union Territories till 1972 when they were granted the status of full-fledged states. Arunachal Pradesh was earlier known as North East Frontier Area (NEFA) and became a state in 1982. And in the case of Sikkim, the government of India followed a different policy since it was treated as a ‘kingdom’ under India’s protectorate, until it joined the Indian union as a full-fledged state in 1975. 6 But what is not understood again is that the problem of the region is not just economic in nature. The long political instability in the region, a large contribution of which is due to the centre’s callous management of the region, is not allowing the nation’s policy makers to have an easy way out. Over the period of time, the people of the region have somehow grown distrustful of the centre’s interest on them. Even today, there is a deep sense of suspicion in the minds of the larger public in the region whenever agendas for the development is announced by the government. The current government at the centre (NDA) tried to impress the region by saying that

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it’s time now to Act East, and not merely Look East, but one can see the inability to translate them into reality. 7 Patricia Mukhim, ‘Where Is This North-East?’, IIC Quarterly, ‘Where the Sun Rises When Shadows Fall: The North-East’, vol. 32, no. 2 & 3 (Monsoon–Winter 2005), pp. 177–179. 8 For detail study, see Birinchi Kumar Barua, History of Assamese Literature, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1964. 9 For detail study, see Ch. Manihar Singh, A History of Manipuri Literature, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1966. 10 NEWF, established in 1996, is recognised as the first literary body that has membership of writers writing in English from all the seven states of Northeast. Their objectives include encouraging creative writings in English, translation into English and to promote literature from the region to other parts of the world. The Forum also publishes an annual journal, NEWFrontiers, whose editorship rotates from state to state for two years’ time. It has also been successful in promoting translation works to in the last few years. The Forum also, in collaboration with some of the leading publishing houses like Penguin, Zubaan, Katha and HarperCollins, have published several authors from the region. For details, see www.newritersforum.org/. 11 For more information on the Austro-Asiatic languages, see Vikrant Kumar and B. Mohan Reddy, ‘Status of Austro-Asiatic Groups in the Peopling of India: An Exploratory Study Based on the Available Historic, Linguistic and Biological Evidences’, Journal of Biosciences, Indian Academy of Sciences, vol. 28, no. 4 (June 2003), pp. 507–522. Also see Dipanker Moral, ‘North-East India as a Linguistic Area’, The Mon-Khmer Studies Journal, vol. 27 (1997), pp. 43–53. 12 We may also include the large population of Bengali speakers who have now dominated the state of Tripura, Sylheti (another variant of Bengali) spoken in the Barak Valley of lower Assam and the Nepali speaking population spread across several states of the region. 13 The Tibeto-Burman speakers are spread widely across all the Northeastern states. Some of the major languages include Naga, Mizo, Kuki, Garo, Bodo, Kokborok, Tani, etc. For a comprehensive study on the language group, see Robbins Burling, ‘Lingua Franca Cycle: Implications for Language Shift, language Change and Language Classification’, Anthropological Linguistics, vol. 49, no. 3/4 (Fall–Winter 2007), pp. 207–234, and Robbins Burling, ‘Tibeto-Burman Languages of North-East India’, in Graham Thurgood and Randy LaPolla (eds.), The Sino-Tibetan Languages, London: Curzon Press, 2003, pp. 169–191. 14 Nagamese and Nefamese, both of which are corruption of Assamese, continued to be spoken in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh respectively, even today, despite reservations among educated population on the pidgin languages. It grew largely as lingua franca or ‘business language’ for communication between the hill and the plain peoples in the past. Since these languages are not developed into written language, they do not find their way into the educational institutions, and, therefore, remain as oral language. 15 See J. Anikuzhikattil, SDB, ‘Contribution of Christian Institution to Education in the Northeast Region of India’. www.easternpanorama.in/index.

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php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1234&catid=64 (accessed on 7 September 2013) for details. 16 For details see Abraham Lotha, ‘Nagas’ Conversion to Christianity and Modernity in Colonial India, in Zuchamo Yanthan, A. S. Shimreiwung, Poujenlung Gonmei, Veio Pou and Save Vadeo (eds.), Nagas Today: Indigenous Discourse, New Delhi: Naga Students’ Union, Delhi (NSUD), 2010, pp. 73–87. 17 Since most of the communities of the region do not have scripts of their own by virtue of being oral societies, the missionaries were left with the choice to either use the Bengali script, which was already used for both Assamese and Manipuri languages, or introduce a new one. Perhaps, to see the viability, Bangali script was used for some languages. Tilottoma Misra, in the introduction to her edited book, The Oxford Anthology of Writings From North-East India, vol. I & II, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011, noted that as early as 1831 the New Testament of the Bible was translated into the Khasi language using the Bangali script. However, the Welsh missionaries introduced the Roman script soon afterwards. 18 Tilottoma Misra, ‘Crossing Linguistic Boundaries: Two Arunachali Writers in Search of Readers’, in Tilottoma Misra (ed.), The Oxford Anthology of Writings From North-East India, vols. I & II, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 214–236. 19 Mamang Dai, ‘On Creation Myths and Oral Narratives’, IIC Quarterly, ‘Where the Sun Rises When Shadows Fall: The North-east’, vol. 32, no. 2 & 3 (Moonsoon–Winter 2005), pp. 3–6. 20 The prominent ones among the Shillong poets include Robin S. Ngangom, Desmond L. Kharmawplang, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Temsula Ao, Ananya S. Guha, Almond D. Syiem, Indari Syiem Warjri, Esther Syiem and Anjum Hasan (even though she is now based in Bangalore). 21 Prasanta Das, ‘Anthology-Making, the Nation, and the Shillong Poets’, Economic & Political Weekly, vol. 43, no. 42 (18–24 October 2008), pp. 19–21. 22 Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) was the pen name (also the legal name later) of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. 23 Czeslaw Milowz (1911–2004) was the Polish poet, writer and winner of Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. 24 Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) was a Palestinian poet and author. 25 Yehuda Amichai (1924–2000) was an Israeli poet. 26 Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih and Robin S. Ngangom (eds.), Anthology of Contemporary Poetry From the Northeast, Shillong: NEHU, 2003, p. ix. 27 P. D. Stracey, Nagaland Nightmare, Bombay: Applied Publishers, 1968, p. 12. 28 Verrier Elwin, Nagas in the 19th Century, Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1969, p. 162. 29 Sanjib Baruah, Durable Disorder: Understanding the Politics of Northeast India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 98. 30 For details on AFSPA see www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/resources/armed_forces. htm; www.mha.nic.in/pdfs/armed_forces_special_powers_act1958.pdf. (accessed on 29 March 2010). 31 Sanjoy Hazarika, Strangers of the Mist: Tales of War and Peace From India’s Northeast (Revised and updated), New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2011, p. xxxvi.

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He asserted his distaste on AFSPA by adding these words: ‘I know the internal story of AFSPA as I was a member of the Justice Jeevan Reddy Committee that the Prime Minister set up to review the Act and suggest what to do about it. Our report, which the Government of India has neither had the guts or the grace to publish or even hold a discussion on, is unambiguous.’ 32 Misra, ‘Crossing Linguistic Boundaries: Two Arunachali Writers in Search of Readers’, p. 220. 33 Ibid., pp. 217–218. 34 Desmond L. Kharmawphlang, ‘Conquest’, in Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih and Robin S. Ngangom (eds.), Anthology of Contemporary Poetry From the Northeast, Shillong: NEHU, 2003, pp. 134–135. 35 Niranjan Chakma, ‘The Words Will Be Uttered Boldly’, in Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih and Robin S. Ngangom (eds.), Anthology of Contemporary Poetry From the Northeast, Shillong: NEHU, 2003, pp. 240–241. 36 Robin S. Ngangom, The Desire of Roots, Cuttack: Chandrabhaga, 2006. The poem is also available at www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/ poem/item/11780/auto/Robin-Ngangom/NATIVE-LAND (accessed on 25 April 2014). 37 Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, ‘Hard-Edged Modernism: Contemporary Poetry in North-East India’, in IIC Quarterly, ‘Where the Sun Rises When Shadows Fall: The North-East’, vol. 32, no. 2 & 3 (Moonsoon–Winter 2005), pp. 40–44. 38 Paul Lyngdoh, ‘For Sale’, in Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih and Robin S Ngangom (eds.), Anthology of Contemporary Poetry From the Northeast, Shillong: NEHU, 2003, pp. 145–146. 39 Monallisa Changkija, ‘Of a People Unanswered-I’, in Monsoon Mourning, Dimapur: Write-on Publications, 2007, p. 29. 40 Nongkynrih and Ngangom, Anthology of Contemporary Poetry From the Northeast, p. ix. 41 Sanjib Baruah, ‘A New Politics of Race: India and Its Northeast’, IIC Quarterly, ‘Where the Sun Rises When Shadows Fall: The North-east’, vol. 32, no. 2 & 3 (Moonsoon–Winter 2005), p. 166. 42 Ibid., p. 175. 43 Cherrie L. Chhangte, ‘What Does an Indian Look Like’, in Tilottoma Misra (ed.), The Oxford Anthology of Writings From North-East India, vol. I & II, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 76. 44 Mona Zote, ‘What Poetry Means to Ernestina in Peril’, IIC Quarterly, ‘Where the Sun Rises When Shadows Fall: The North-East’, vol. 32, no. 2 & 3 (Monsoon–Winter 2005), pp. 66–67. 45 Nilmani Phookan, ‘What Were We Talking About Just Now?’ in IIC Quarterly, ‘Where the Sun Rises When Shadows Fall: The North-East’, vol. 32, no. 2 & 3 (Monsoon–Winter 2005), pp. 49–51. 46 Easterine Kire, Kelhoukevira, Calcutta: J. B. Lama, 1982, pp. 1–2. 47 Manjeet Baruah, ‘An Emerging Genre of “Political” Literature in India’s Frontier’, in Margaret C. H. Zama (ed.), Emerging Literatures From Northeast India: The Dynamics of Culture, Society and Identity, New Delhi: Sage, 2013, pp. 28–36. 48 Sometimes written Yaruingam, the novel was published in 1960 and fetched him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1961. The English translation was published as Love in the Time of Insurgency, New Delhi: Katha, 2005.

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49 Easterine Kire, Bitter Wormwood, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2011. 50 Temsula Ao, These Hills Called Home: Stories From a War Zone, New Delhi: Zubaan, 2006. 51 Published in 1992 in Mizo, the novella was translated into English by Margaret Zama and published in Fresh Fictions: Folk Tales, Plays, Novellas From the Northeast, New Delhi: Katha, 2005. 52 Heart of the Matter, New Delhi: Katha, 2004. 53 Fresh Fictions: Folk Tales, Plays, Novellas From the Northeast, New Delhi: Katha, 2005. 54 Kailash C. Baral, Earth Songs: Stories From Northeast India, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2005. 55 Misra, The Oxford Anthology of Writings From North-East India, p. xiii. 56 Manjeet Baruah, Frontier Cultures: A Social History of Assamese Literature, New Delhi: Routledge, 2012, p. 17. 57 Mamang Dai, ‘North East Poetry’, Muse India, no. 8 (July–August 2006) Focus: Indian English Poetry – New Voices. www.museindia.com/showcont. asp?id=286 (accessed on 10 April 2010). 58 Mamang Dai, ‘The Voice of the Mountain’, IIC Quarterly, ‘Where the Sun Rises When Shadows Fall: The North-East’, vol. 32, no. 2 & 3 (Monsoon– Winter 2005), pp. 45–46. 59 Mamang Dai, ‘An Obscure Place’, Muse India, ‘Focus: Indian English Poetry – New Voices’, no. 8 (July–August 2006). www.museindia.com/ showcont.asp?id=286 (accessed on 10 April 2010). 60 Nongkynrih, ‘Hard-Edged Modernism: Contemporary Poetry in NorthEast India’, p. 41. 61 Temsula Ao, ‘Writing Orality’, in Soumen Sen and Desmond L. Kharmawphlang (eds.), Orality and Beyond: A North-East Indian Perspective, New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2007a, pp. 99–112. 62 Temsula Ao, Songs From the Other Life: Poems, Pune: Grasswork Books, 2007. 63 Temsula Ao, ‘The Old Story Teller’, in Songs From the Other Life: Poems, Pune: Grasswork Books, 2007, pp. 1–2. 64 Desmond L. Kharmawphlang, ‘Oral Poetry’, Indian Folklife, Serial No. 27 (November 2003), p. 3. 65 One can also refer to Alcheringa: Ethnopoetics, the journal of ethnopoetics which was published from 1970 to 1980 by Denis Tedlock and Jerome Rothenberg. Ethnopoetics, in a way, challenges the standardised Western definition of poetry itself, because the stylistic doesn’t conform to the patterns of the already established written poetry. What gets stressed on is the effort to capture the power and beauty of the oral performance of the narratives. For a details study, see also Catherine S. Quick, ‘Ethnopoetics’, Folklore Forum, vol. 30, no. 1 & 2 (1999), pp. 95–105. 66 Desmond L. Kharmawphlang, ‘Ari Hoi Hali Bihoi’, Indian Folklife, Serial No. 27 (November 2003), p. 10. 67 Margaret Ch. Zama, ‘Mizo Literature: An Overview’, Tilottoma Misra (ed.), The Oxford Anthology of Writings From North-East India, vol. I & II, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 205–213. 68 When the River Sleeps, New Delhi: Zabaan, 2014, won The Hindu Literary Prize for Best Fiction 2015. Citing its importance, one of the judges

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described the novel as ‘a sample of how the mythopoeic imagination can work in our times’ (The Hindu, 17 January 2016). 69 Esther Syiem, ‘How Conflicts Are Reflected in Literature: Transcribing Troubled Realities in the Written and the Oral’, in Walter Fernandes (ed.), Search for Peace With Justice: Issues Around Conflicts in Northeast India, Guwahati: North Eastern Social Research Centre, 2008, pp. 28–35. 70 Tilottoma Misra, ‘Speaking, Writing and Coming of the Print Culture in Northeast India’, in Margaret C. H. Zama (ed.), Emerging Literatures From Northeast India: The Dynamics of Culture, Society and Identity, New Delhi: Sage, 2013, pp. 14–27. 71 Parag M. Sarma, ‘Towards an Appreciative Paradigm for Literatures of the Northeast’, in Margaret C. H. Zama (ed.), Emerging Literatures From Northeast India: The Dynamics of Culture, Society and Identity, New Delhi: Sage, 2013, pp. 37–46. 72 Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy, London and New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 8. 73 Ong, Orality and Literacy, p. 14. 74 Ibid., p. 172.

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9 CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE REAL KIND The avatars of terror in two Assamese short stories Amit R. Baishya

In his reflections on torture, the philosopher, survivor of torture and former concentration camp detainee, Jean Amery, says that the moment the first blow lands on the victim in a scenario of torture, he or she loses something called ‘trust in this world’. This notion of trust in the world, Amery continues: is the certainty that by reason of written or unwritten social contracts the other person will spare me – more precisely stated, that he respect my physical, and with it also my metaphysical being. The boundaries of my body are also the boundaries of my self. My skin surface shields me against the external world. If I am to have trust, I must feel on it only what I want to feel. 1 Amery’s description seems superficially simple, but it explores something deceptively complex. For instance, what exactly does an ‘unwritten social contract’ imply? A response to this question entails that we contend with the dimension of ‘fantasy’ and its crucial structuring functions in the sphere of social and psychic life. Fantasy, as Rose suggests, is often not taken as a proper domain for social analysis because ‘it is serious, not material, too flighty, and hence not worth bothering about.’ 2 However, a psychoanalytically inflected tradition in political and social thought, of which Rose is part, argues that we should not view fantasy as an opposed element to social reality, but as a form of reality in its own right which constitutes the ‘psychic glue’ of societal structures. 3 In other words, symbolic and narrative forms – the warp and woof 250

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of fantasy – emerge precisely as tenuous and fragile resolutions of antagonisms within social realities. Zizek, fusing the Marxist critique of ideology with psychoanalysis in his formulation of fantasy, redefines the Lacanian notions of the symbolic and the Real following this line of thinking. While a symbolic system renders fantasy cohesive and seemingly ‘natural’, an encounter with the ‘irrepresentability’ of the Real reveals a social reality devoid of its ideological constructs. 4 Such encounters make the subject witness or encounter elements that the symbolic insulates him or her from. These tears in the phantasmatic coherence of categories like the everyday and the ordinary have a shocking, traumatic effect. Amery’s invocation of ‘trust in the world’ and ‘unwritten social contract’ can be analysed in this light. For what does an extreme situation of physical privation like torture imply? Besides the potential for the negation of being, torture also is a traumatic encounter with the Real. Furthermore, Amery’s invocation of ‘unwritten social contract’ gestures towards the insulation that symbolic social structures provide from the intrusion of extreme violence and terror in the minutiae of everyday life. Amery continues: What one tends to call “normal life” may coincide with anticipatory imagination and trivial statement. I buy a newspaper and “am a man who buys a newspaper.” The act does not differ from the image through which I anticipated it, and I hardly differentiate myself personally from the millions who performed it before me. Because my imagination did not suffice to entirely capture such an event? No, rather because even in direct experience everyday reality is nothing but codified abstraction. Only in rare moments of life do we truly stand face to face with the event and, with it, reality. 5 Amery’s point about codified abstraction here is connected to his invocation of ‘unwritten social contract’ earlier. Consciousness of an ‘unwritten social contract’ exposes the ‘phantasmatic support of a public symbolic order’ whose breakdown in an extreme situation of terror (like torture) reveals the system’s vulnerability. 6 Although Amery’s account may seem too voluntarist, his observation about ‘codified abstraction’ shows that a category like the everyday is coded or narrativised in such a manner that it appears to the subject as the naturalised order of things. Such narrativisations create and sustain fantasies like that of ‘direct experience’ or the ‘free’ subject. Thus, a ‘direct experience’ like the expectation of help from a fellow being is often taken for granted as a natural response by the other to my distress. If, for instance, I fall down on the street, I expect people passing by to stop and help me if they can; if they don’t, I may excoriate them as inhuman 251

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and heartless. A terror-space like the torture chamber, however, reveals that such expectations of help from a fellow being are enmeshed within certain symbolic social economies that produce and sustain images and narratives such as those of reciprocity, humanity or fellow feeling. Thus, for Amery, the ‘face-to-face’ encounter with ‘reality’ produces a sense of astonishment at ‘the existence of the other, as he boundlessly asserts himself through torture, and astonishment at what one can become oneself: flesh and death’. 7 This feeling of astonishment is precisely that shocking effect, that ‘unbearable lucidity of being’ that the encounter with the Real provokes. Suddenly, as Aretxaga says, it is as if ‘a series of pictures which did not have shape before, come together in a single picture; one which both instantly understands and does not comprehend at all.’ 8 While I won’t be talking about torture in this chapter, the foregoing discussion about the eventual breakdown of symbolic structures following an encounter with the irrepresentability of the Real provides the basic scenario for two Assamese short stories I will analyse below: Imran Hussain’s ‘Jighansha’ (The Slaughter) and Harekrishna Deka’s ‘Bandiyar’ (The Prisoner). 9 My deployment of scenario is a slightly creative inflection of the performance theorist Diana Taylor’s use of the term: ‘a portable framework (which) bears the weight of accumulative repeats.’ 10 The scenario, Taylor continues, allows for the possibility of many endings. In other words, the scenario is something more than narrative – it can be considered as one of the structural preconditions for narratives to emerge. Furthermore, it is a form of ‘hauntology’ in the sense that we get the experience that we have seen it all before, yet every performance or narrative variation presents something new. To be sure, Taylor’s use of the term attempts to complicate the differences between the oral and the written, the privately read and the performed. In this essay, I study only short written fictions. However, the concept of the scenario is useful for my study of written texts because it delineates ‘a portable framework’ which simultaneously enables multiple narrative variations within its ambit. Therefore, I suggest that ‘Jighansha’ and ‘Bandiyar’ inhabit the same scenario: the breakdown of a social fantasy due to the encounter with the Real. The basic elements of the scenario in the two stories are similar: an intersubjectively defined social field which is mediated through a third-person perspective, an impending crisis which develops slowly but steadily, a series of reversals that precipitate the crisis, and a final shocking closure that forces the witness to come face-to-face with an inhuman image – manifested in both stories through the trope of gazing at the alien eyes of an unresponsive other – that stands in for the irrepresentability of the Real. 11 At this point, fully understanding and not comprehending at all occur simultaneously. 252

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To be sure, the adoption of this scenario allows for narrative variations – ‘Jighansha’ shows how a functioning fantasy of ‘normal life’ is unmade because of the hit of the Real, ‘Bandiyar’ shows how a sense of the ‘normal’, which is also eventually destroyed, emerges precariously in a state of emergency. ‘Jighansha’ is a fairly conventional text where violence and terror are imagined as lying outside the realm of law; ‘Bandiyar’ takes a state of emergency as its ground and shows how the possibility of social exchange develops in such situations. Despite these slight differences, in my analyses of the two stories later, I fuse Taylor’s conceptualisation of the scenario with the psychoanalytic approach to fantasy I broached in the previous paragraphs because I wager that it is a potent framework for studying how symbolic modes of social exchange and coexistence are ruptured due to the impact of terror, violence and death. I rely largely on the extant translations of the two texts by Gohain and Bezboruah respectively. 12 Both English versions are pretty accurate, although I take recourse to the original Assamese texts to emphasise certain important aspects that occasionally get lost in translation.

Alien eyes: gazing at the eye of the other in ‘Jighansha’ At the centre of ‘Jighansha’ is the aged Mahichandra, a retired teacher, whose son, Sonti, returns home after nine months. Sonti is the pride of Mahichandra’s village as he has gone for a university education after a brilliant academic performance as a young student. The preceding nine months before the events narrated in the story were the longest period Sonti had been away from the village. Sonti excused himself by saying that frequent visits home affected his academic performance. On the winter night in which this story is set, Sonti unexpectedly returns home with two other companions. Mahichandra’s wife, Lakhimi, is nonplussed by this unexpected visit and plans to slaughter two of their pigeons to prepare a meal for Sonti and his friends. Since Mahichandra is unwilling to slaughter the pigeons himself, Lakhimi sends him out to the village to find someone who can do so and also to see if he can find more pigeons for the meal. Mahichandra’s walk to the village, his conversations with a few people on the way, and his journey back to his house where a shocking revelation about Sonti awaits him, constitute ‘Jighansha’s’ plot. The diegetic space in ‘Jighansha’ can be divided into six distinct spatial units: Mahichandra’s initial conversation with his wife Lakhimi, his visit to the house of the aged Bogibai in search of more pigeons, his walk from Bogibai’s house to the village where he meets his student Tirtha and friend Rajanikanta Barua en route, his encounter with the cognitively challenged 253

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Benga just before he gets to the gaonburah’s (village headman) house, his conversation with the gaonburah and the other villagers about a violent incident which had taken place in the nearby town, and his journey back home where he finally comes face to face with the shattering reality that his beloved son may have been the perpetrator of the violence. Although the story is focalised primarily through Mahichandra’s perspective, each spatial unit mediates information about his subjectivity from the point of view of others. This presentation of information about Mahichandra’s subjectivity through the circuit of the other performs two functions in the plot. First, following Gerlach’s observations on closure in the short story, we notice how ‘anticipation of the ending is used to structure the whole.’ 13 Gerlach mines this point about closure to distinguish short fiction from the novel – in the former, he says, certain signals assume a greater structural prominence than in the novel because of its condensed form. An illustration from ‘Jighansha’ will illuminate this point. Just before Lakhimi reluctantly tells Mahichandra that she wants to slaughter their pigeons, the omniscient narrator indirectly reports her trepidation: ‘How like father and son were; they could not even bring themselves to hurt a mere bird.’ 14 The use of ‘like’ here institutes an identity between the Mahichandra’s ‘peace-loving soul’ (santipriyo mon) and his son. 15 This statement anticipates the end where the disidentification between the ‘peace-loving’ father and his now ‘alien’ (osinaki) son, who is gradually revealed to be a killer of human beings, provides a shocking closure to the plot. 16 Second, if we consider the presentation of information like the above from the perspectival point of subjectivity, we notice how the ‘desire “realized” (staged) in fantasy is not the subject’s own, but the other’s desire.’ 17 In other words, analysis of social fantasy does not tell me who I am (the ontological problematic), but what I am or how I appear to others. For instance, if we are to answer the question ‘who is Mahichandra?’ from the perspective of ‘direct experience’, the answer seems relatively simple – Mahichandra is a person characterised by his ‘santipriyo mon’. However, ‘Jighansha’ subtly places ‘direct experience’ in a relational, intersubjective field. Slaughtering a pigeon is an act that others cannot associate with Mahichandra and also, mistakenly as we will soon notice, with Sonti. The text provides concrete evidence of Mahichandra’s self-identification with his progeny only after we hear others making this connection. Thus, a direct statement of identification from Mahichandra is heard only in the third section of the story when he tells Tirtha about the assumed congruity between the father and son’s approach towards killing sentient life: ‘My boy’s no different, nor am I.’ 18 In other words, the perception of Mahichandra as a peace-loving soul firmly locates his subjectivity (and Sonti’s, too, as an imagined extension

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of his subjectivity) as an idealised manifestation of the ‘good life’ within a symbolic social field. I emphasise idealised above for two reasons. First, the sense of decency and the ‘peace-loving nature’ manifested in the figure of Mahichandra makes him the organisational centre in the distributional matrix for the dispersal of relations of power and desire in the text. Because Mahichandra is decent and peace-loving, he represents a desirable picture of the good life, of what that society should be. Conversely, the shattering revelation at the end ruptures the assumed coherence of this symbolic field precisely because it happens to Mahichandra and no one else. Second, the idealisation of Mahichandra accentuates certain forms of actual and symbolic violence within this particular social field. Through the portrayal of Bogibai and Benga, figures I will discuss soon, ‘Jighansha’ subtly shows that the violence that occurs at the edges of the village – whether by the militants or the state forces – is not the other of the sense of peace and ‘humane’ness we may associate with the village. Instead, forms of what Taussig calls ‘terror as usual’ enter the construction of the ‘normal’, everyday life of the village. 19 Furthermore, even Mahichandra’s identification with his son is a symbolic violence of a certain sort. In a patriarchal fashion, Mahichandra assumes that his son’s subjectivity is absolutely co-extensive with his. However, his certitude in the fact that he knows his son is ironically reversed at the end. We can call this ignorance and feel horrified at Mahichandra’s tragedy; however, this feeling of sympathy for Mahichandra cannot take us away from the fact that his certainty about subjective co-extension with his son is also a form of symbolic violence. My point about Mahichandra’s position as the organising centre of the symbolic social field becomes fleshed out even more if we consider an issue which is lost in translation. After his conversation with Lakhimi, Mahichandra goes to the widowed Bogibai’s place to get a few more pigeons for Sonti and his friends. When she was younger, the recently widowed Bogibai had been subject to ‘unwelcome attentions’ by the men in the village. At this point, Gohain’s translation goes: ‘A vulnerable young widow, she had to contend with unwelcome attentions.’ 20 However, this sentence dilutes the impact of sexualised terror that Bogibai was subjected to in her recently widowed state. The Assamese text emphasises this experience of terror in stronger terms – ‘Bari-bidhoba manuh Bogibai, tate iman dine aai-bai buli mata bohutei rati siyalor dore huwa dibo aarambho korile.’ 21 This sentence can be translated thus: ‘Bogibai was recently widowed; on top of that many people who had addressed her previously as aai or bai began howling like foxes at night.’ Gohain’s translation elides over two crucial experiential aspects communicated by the narrative voice. First, the narrative voice

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here has a tone of moral censure, which is flattened and represented as a statement of fact in the English translation. Second, ‘rati siyalor dore huwa dibo aarambho korile’ (began howling like foxes at night) strongly conveys Bogibai’s feelings of vulnerability and terror. As a widow living alone, she is viewed as an available sexual object by many predatory males in the village. The only exception here is Mahichandra, who ‘tried to help her without any ulterior motive’, but who later refrained from going to her house because of ‘awkward gossip’. Engaging with the narrator’s tone of moral censure is important here because, through a negative statement, it represents an image of the ‘good life’ of which Mahichandra is an epitome. If only, the narrative voice seems to be implying, everyone had been as selfless and decent as Mahichandra. Moreover, Mahichandra’s relationship with Bogibai and his concern for her welfare illustrate that his abhorrence for violence and terror is not limited only to ‘exceptional’ situations like the proposed slaughter of his beloved pigeons, but also to his cognisance of situations of ‘terror as usual’ such as the potential of violence on the body of the socially isolated woman. Mahichandra’s abhorrence of violence and his capacity for identification with others are further emphasised through two episodes that occur after he leaves Bogibai’s house with the lone pigeon she offers him. En route to the village, his former student Tirtha informs him about the deadly attack on an army officer and his family by unknown militants in a nearby town. The news ‘deeply agitated’ Mahichandra’s ‘peace-loving soul’. He was particularly perturbed by the fact that a child had been attacked. Making an imaginative leap, he transposes the unknown child’s face with that of a ‘faded black and white snapshot of a crying Sonti in the family album. . . [that] . . . seemed to stare back at him’. 22 Gohain’s translation skips over an important sentence in this section though: ‘Muhurtate xei osinaki mukhkhon ekhon oti sinaki mukholoi poribortito hol.’ 23 This sentence can be translated thus: ‘In an instant that unknown face transformed into an intimate one.’ The key word here is ‘osinaki’ which connotes ‘unknown’, ‘unfamiliar’ or ‘alien’ depending on context. ‘Osinaki’, as we will see soon, will return in two crucial junctures in the text later. For the moment, it is sufficient to note that Mahichandra’s instantaneous imaginative transposition, produced by the ‘natural’ feelings emanating from the father-son bond, inserts the unknown child into a familiar emotional landscape. The ‘dead’ form embalmed in the photograph is vitalised by the gaze that demands a response from the other and is conjoined with the image of the child killed in the bomb blast. 24 His pain and distress is rendered similar to Sonti’s appealing gaze. Mahichandra’s memory of his son’s distress, concretised by the image of a boy staring back at him and demanding a response, becomes a mode through which he attempts to open himself to the suffering of an unknown other. 256

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This ocular centric motif is further accentuated after he bids farewell to Tirtha and Rajanikanta and makes his way to the gaonburah’s house. Suddenly, after a fit of coughing, he feels terribly angry and feels like venting his anger on the pigeons. Coming perilously close to breaking his own personalised interdict against violence, he takes Bogibai’s pigeon out of the basket with the intention of killing it. However, the ‘warm, white body and those tiny, appealing eyes (moromloga soru soru soku duta) as usual moved him.’ 25 Once again, the demand that he imaginatively perceives in the gaze of the other reinforces the interdict against violence. Furthermore, the ‘as usual’ inserts it within a continuing chain of similar affective gestures in the past. Commensurate with the framework of intersubjective social fantasy that I am exploring in this chapter, I argue that such instances reveal not the essence of ‘who’ Mahichandra is, but how he sees himself in a mediated fashion through the circuit of the other’s desire. In other words, the interdict against violence shows how for a subject like Mahichandra ‘the Law functions as the agency of prohibition which regulates (access to the object of) his desire.’ 26 While this interdict against violence functions as an agency of prohibition for Mahichandra, could it also render him blind to what increasingly become obvious about Sonti’s participation in the act of violence? This is where, I think, the ocular centric motif of the other’s gaze merges with the symbolic play of vision, light and darkness in the text. The second sentence of ‘Jighansha’ shows Mahichandra groping his way towards the gate of his house, his ‘torch boring into the misty darkness’. 27 The ‘feeble light’ of the ‘flickering clay-lamp’ in his house fitfully illuminates the surroundings. In Bogibai’s place, Mahichandra waits ‘in the darkness uncertain as to what to do’, as he walks across the village the ‘darkness blocked his vision beyond a yard or two’, 28 and the village ‘was plunged in the inky darkness of the moonless night’. 29 Furthermore, one of the first ominous anticipations of the shocking closure is evident in Mahichandra’s encounter with the weeping Benga in the dark forest. The stage for this encounter is set in the following fashion: The night seemed to have thickened and poured itself out into that particular patch. Mahichandra was familiar with this route, since he always took it on his way back from the headman’s. Yet, nameless dread (osin bhoy) sent shivers up his spine. There was a rustle of dead leaves and suddenly the sound of weeping – strange, muffled (sounds) exploded the night’s silence. 30 This nameless, unidentifiable dread that Mahichandra feels in the patch is the first intimation of the uncanny in the text. Freud says that the uncanny 257

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is produced when the ‘distinction between imagination and reality is effaced, as when something that we have hitherto regarded as imaginary appears before us in reality, or when a symbol takes over the full functions of the thing it symbolizes.’ 31 One of the triggers of the uncanny, pretty much in line with what I have been saying about the self-image being formed through the circuit of the other’s desire, does not emerge in connection to alterity, but to the presence of the other in us. We already have an intimation of this when the narrator says that Mahichandra always took this familiar route, but today a nameless dread began to assail him. The ‘strange, muffled noise’, however, does not emanate from anything ‘supernatural’, but is revealed to emerge from the severely injured, maimed and weeping figure of Benga, who escapes with a loud cry as soon as he sees Mahichandra. The puzzled Mahichandra only gets an answer to Benga’s strange behaviour later at the gaonburah’s house when the violent incident which occurred earlier in the town is discussed. Benga had been caught in the melee after the incident and had been severely beaten up by army personnel. From this point on in the plot, the atmospheric play of light and dark in the text begins to converge with the tropes of the blindness of ignorance and the gradual unveiling of the inadmissible. Upon hearing about Benga’s misfortune from the gaonburah, Mahichandra’s imaginative faculty kicks into action again as he visualises the blows falling upon Benga’s helpless body. He says: ‘Where were our revolutionaries then? They take to their heels after carrying out their work, leaving us the poor villagers to suffer.’ 32 The irony inherent in these questions attains cruel dimensions as almost everyone, except Mahichandra, knows that Sonti was one of the ‘revolutionaries’ who carried out this act. Could it be that Mahichandra’s idealised position in this symbolic field, a location the other villagers do not seem to inhabit, renders him blind to the hit of the Real? Mahichandra’s initial reactions to the inadmissible truth, articulated for the first time by the gaonburah, are those of disavowal. Sonti is the pride of the village, jealous rumour-mongers like the shifty Khargeswar want to book this promising lad under the TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act) and so on. Moreover, he says unequivocally: ‘Whatever else my son might be guilty of, he would never commit murder.’ 33 Each disavowal, emphasised even more strongly by the ‘never’, represents a desperate attempt to cling on to the supports of the fantasy structure that organises Mahichandra’s world. As he walks back to his place from the gaonburah’s house, ‘anxiety and dread’ gnaw at his heart. 34 Lakhimi happily says that Sonti was dying to see him. As the wick of the lamp is turned up, he sees the thin Sonti, followed by two ‘equally emaciated’ boys. 35 Sonti remonstrates with his mother that she shouldn’t have sent his ailing father on a mission 258

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to kill pigeons in that cold winter night. Without waiting for a response from his parents, he brings the basket with the pigeons closer and – Fishing out the pigeons, he proceeded to wring their necks one after the other. Before Mahichandra’s eyes the dead pigeons dropped to the ground one by one. In the feeble light of the lamp Sonti’s eyes appeared to glow with a strange fire. Mahichandra felt his head throb viciously. In a daze he stared at those alien, bloodshot eyes [ronga osinaki sokuhal]. 36 The closure of ‘Jighansha’, thus, draws together a number of motifs that had already anticipated the end. In the ‘feeble light’ of the lamp, the irrepresentability of the Real finds a harsh, cruel culmination. Mahichandra’s patriarchal fantasy of filial continuity is shattered as Sonti’s murderous act renders him non-identical to his father’s ‘santipriyo mon’. Furthermore, the ‘osin bhoy’ that produces a feeling of the uncanny in the patch in the forest literally comes home to roost as Mahichandra is rendered immobile by the bloodshot ‘osinaki sokuhal’ (alien eyes) of his beloved son. The unrecognisable opacity of his son’s alien eyes offers a cruel, world-shattering blow to his instantaneous imaginative certitude to read and supposedly understand the demand implicit in the gaze of the unknown, ‘innocent’ other. Significantly the ‘innocent’ other here is concretised through the figures of the ‘child’ and the ‘animal’ – both of which are imagined as entities that need the protection of the benevolent patriarch. Thus, Sonti’s alien alterity that is shatteringly revealed at the story’s closure unmakes Mahichandra’s fantasy about certain located versions of the ‘good life’.

Curfew Jargon: language games and the fetish in ‘Bandiyar’ The act of gazing at the unresponsive eye of the other also closes Deka’s ‘Bandiyar’, although the discourse of ocular centrism does not occupy centerstage in this text. If ‘Jighansha’ shows how ordinary reality is transmogrified by a face-to-face encounter with the Real, Bandiyar’s theatre is a state of emergency which seems to attain a fragile sense of ‘normalcy’ because of a strange bond that develops between the two major characters – a prisoner and his captor – in the story. 37 There are, of course, two major differences between the circumstances of the two nodes of focalisation in the texts: Mahichandra in ‘Jighansha’ and the unnamed prisoner in ‘Bandiyar’. First, for the former, the symbolic structure appears ‘natural’ up to the point its fantasy supports begin to collapse, while for the latter, a functioning symbolic order is sutured together gradually in a state of emergency. 259

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In other words, the prisoner in ‘Bandiyar’ is already conscious about the constructed nature of this contingent symbolic economy, even though he slowly begins to get invested in the everyday modalities of its functioning; on the other hand, Mahichandra becomes conscious of the social fantasy he inhabits only under the debilitating pressure exerted by the Real. Another key difference between ‘Jighansha’ and ‘Bandiyar’ lies in the fact that the breakdown of a symbolic economy occurs not once, but twice in the latter text. The first catastrophe is when the bureaucrat is kidnapped and transported into ‘another world’ (aan jogot), the second occurs during the closure of the text. The double hit of the Real accentuates the consciousness of the fragile construction of a social fantasy for the focalising subject. Set in a near-exclusive masculine universe and eschewing proper names almost throughout, ‘Bandiyar’s plot narrates the story of a relationship that develops between a prisoner and a captor. The prisoner is a senior government official (referred throughout by the third-person ‘he’) who is abducted by a militant outfit; the captor is a young unnamed militant who is assigned to guard him. The structure of ‘Bandiyar’ is constituted of two concentric circles of narration. The outer circle recounts the events of the last two days and nights of the prisoner’s captivity. The inner circle is inaugurated by a scene of reading: the prisoner reads the entries in his diary on his second-last night of captivity. This scene of reading initially takes us back to a period seven months earlier when the prisoner – a bureaucrat by profession – was ‘snatched from . . . familiar surroundings and plunged . . . into another world’. 38 This hypodiegetic section also narrates what happens after the bureaucrat is plunged into ‘another world’: his experiences during his initial days of captivity, the first encounters with the unnamed militant four months prior to the unfolding of the events in the first narrative circle, and the subsequent relationship that develops between him and his captor. Extant analyses of the story emphasise the text’s pedagogic and moral functions. Thus, Kalita argues that Deka’s story ‘uncovers a whole gamut of social and psychological responses . . . of such situations in the terror games played out by men from the rebel outfits’, and also that texts like ‘Bandiyar’ reveals alternative viewpoints beyond security-centric perspectives that might ‘help in mitigating further acts of terror and alleviating violence’. 39 While I broadly agree with Kalita’s point about rendering security-centric perspectives more complex, ‘Bandiyar’s significance, I think, goes much beyond the act of retrieving information on the mindset of the so-called terrorist other. Close attention to the text reveals that ‘Bandiyar’, through its intense metaphysical meditations on the plasticity of language and the representation of the hypnotic and polyvalent significations of a fetish-object (the militant’s gun), explores how a fragile symbolic order takes form in bursts of intermittent exchange with the overweening 260

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power of terror and death in a state of emergency. In effect, I argue that ‘Bandiyar’ probes the contingencies of survival and communication in what Mbembe calls a ‘death world’ – ‘new and unique forms of social existence in which . . . populations are subjected to conditions of life conferring upon them the status of living dead’. 40 In The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi distinguishes two different modalities of linguistic exchange in the death world of the Nazi Lagers. The first arose from the sheer heterogeneity of languages in the camp. This was not a polyglot universe in an ‘ordinary’ sense; instead, it was a brutal universe where the inmate’s inability to understand German often resulted in physical violence. Levi says that For all of us survivors, who were not exactly polyglot, the first days in the Lager remain impressed in our memories like an outof-focus and frenzied film, filled with a dreadful sound and fury signifying nothing: a hubbub of people without names or faces drowned in a continuous, deafening background noise from which, however, the human word did not surface. A black and white film, with sound but not a talkie. 41 The second modality took shape after the inmates had resided in the camp for a while and had picked up a modicum of German. However, it was much after Levi was liberated that he realised that the Lager’s German was a ‘language apart’. The German Jewish philologist, Victor Klemperer, later dubbed this language LTI (Lingua Tertii Imperii – the language of the Third Reich) – an ironic analogy, Levi says, ‘to the hundred other acronyms . . . dear to the Germany of that time’. 42 ‘Lager jargon’ represented a violence conducted on language. For instance, Levi recalls how he picked up the German expression hau’ ab which was frequently used to order the inmates to ‘go away’. However, this expression, the imperative mode of the verb abhauen (meaning ‘to cut, chop off ’) literally meant something like ‘go to hell’. Levi recounts that many years later, when he came out of a business meeting for the Bayer company, he used this expression ‘in good faith’. 43 However, his well-intentioned statement was greeted with shock because it was tied inescapably to a radically different context. My basic point here is that habitation in a death world unmoors signifiers from their signifieds creating new (oftentimes ironic, sometimes sinister) semantic possibilities. A good illustration here is the ironic and often jarring use of English words culled from the domain of counterinsurgency in Mahasweta Devi’s ‘Draupadi’. 44 In her introduction to her translation of the story, Spivak says that the figure of Senanayak can identify 261

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with the enemy ‘in theory’, but in ‘practice’ must destroy this other. 45 This assumed neat separation between theory and practice is shattered absolutely during the closure when the ‘menacing other’ – the naked, battered body of Dopdi Mejhen – comes uncomfortably close to Senanayak. More importantly, a word taken from the lexicon of counter-insurgency ‘theory’ assumes a different meaning in the story when Dopdi says – ‘I will not let you put my cloth on me. What more can you do? Come on, kounter me – come on, kounter me?’ 46 The mythical intertext of Draupadi’s disrobing in the Mahabharata fuses with the ironic inversion (and misspelling) of the word ‘counter’ as Senanayak for once is struck with horror and stunned into silence. The captor in ‘Bandiyar’ is, of course, not like the inhuman Kapos of the SS or a detached ‘pluralist aesthete’ like Senanayak. 47 The captor is represented as humanised, hospitable figures in Deka’s story. In fact, the relationship between the captor and the prisoner develops because of the qualified respect and consideration shown by the so-called terrorists and their sympathisers to their detainees. My purpose in invoking this comparison with Levi and Devi is to set the ground for a discussion on the extreme pressure inserted on language games and acts of communication in states of emergency. In ‘Bandiyar’ too, allusions to linguistic incommunicability is mentioned a few times. Thus, the Assamese-speaking prisoner cannot understand when his ‘tribal’ captor speaks to two other ‘boys’ in ‘their own language’. 48 Later in the text, the narrator compares the language games of his captors with ‘their’ language explicitly: ‘He had heard various words appear in their speech that he had himself read or used. No, not the tribal words. Those he had not been able to understand, and they had remained as gestures for him – gestures that aroused fear.’ 49 The terror for the listener is accentuated because he does not possess the codes or resources to understand these acts of communication – thus, ‘their’ language remains at the level of ‘gestures’ or ‘noise’. Something is, of course, exchanged even in this ostensible incommunicable modality: the experience of fear which arose from the lack of understanding, pretty much like the spectre of the ‘out of focus and frenzied film’ that Levi invokes in his description of the first few days at the Lager. More crucial than this fact of ostensible incommunicability in ‘Bandiyar’, however, is the representation of what the narrator calls ‘curfew jargon’ (sandhyo bhaxa). 50 ‘Bandiyar’ stages the unfolding of the intersubjective relationship between the captor and the captured as a gradual establishment of a workable system of exchange between two incommensurable language games. I emphasise gradual because the establishment of this system of exchange between the captured and the captor takes time to develop. In

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his diary entries, the prisoner notes the different nuances that words held in the language game used by his kidnappers. The narrator says: [T]here were some Assamese and English words. . . nation, state, imperial power, colonialism, ethnic awareness, government, people, independence, rights. These words had completely different nuances in their world. Even the word security had a different meaning for them, because their law was of their own making. . . . The law that he had regarded as a haven of security, they saw as state terrorism. He had regarded his abduction by them an act of terrorism; they regarded this as their national duty. 51 There was a ‘yawning gap’, an ‘emptiness’ between the language game he was familiar with and ‘theirs’. The same word would register differently, ‘their’ words and ‘logic’ represented ‘obscure riddles’ for him. 52 The stakes of linguistic incommensurability have already been laid out clearly: ‘They had snatched him from his familiar surroundings and plunged him into another world’ (emphases mine). The captured feels like an alien being in this other world. The narrator tries to capture the yawning abyss between these two ‘worlds’ through a striking motif which bobs and weaves its way through the text: He had the impression that the thought processes of world he lived in were also controlled by a similar semantic field and that there was an electromagnetic field all around it. For him . . . that electromagnetic field held a positive charge. These boys too had found a positive electromagnetic field around the semantic world of their making. There was no way at all for the two fields to get close to each other. 53 However, incommensurability does not imply incommunicability. The initial shock experienced in the alien world of the state of emergency gives way to a certain measure of communication emerging in these conditions of duress. This portrayal of survival and communication in the days after the catastrophe is noticeable in the first instance where the Real intrudes into the structures of a symbolic order in ‘Bandiyar’. After his abduction, the prisoner is reduced to a form of bare life in that his life can be extinguished at any moment. He is literally at the mercy of a sovereign logic that he cannot understand. However, his continuing survival in a death world opens the potentiality for a form of communication between the ‘sovereign’ captors and bare life. The gap between the ‘two fields’ is bridged

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somewhat when the unnamed militant is assigned to guard the official. Till that point, the guards had been changed regularly and the prisoner hadn’t become familiar with anyone. The boy’s arrival makes it seem as if ‘amid their respective positively charged magnetic fields, they had begun to discover negatively charged points of attraction that allowed them to touch each other’s psyche.’ 54 A homosocial economy of reciprocal exchange begins to take shape from this point onwards. Responding to the trust, respect and consideration shown by the boy, the two subjects begin to play the role of teacher and pupil interchangeably. If the official informed him about literature and culture, the guard became the teacher when their conversations veered towards questions of nature or rural life. The trust between the two figures develops so rapidly that even the gun – a material object whose symbolism I will explore soon – ‘metamorphosed from a symbol of terror to a symbol of security’. 55 The establishment of this symbolic system becomes somewhat naturalised for the prisoner over time. There are, of course, periods when the prisoner is made conscious of the constructed dimension of this social fantasy of exchange. Thus, early on, when the duo stops near an isolated stream during their journey to the village, the boy says that there is nothing to fear. But the word fear once again makes the prisoner ruminate about the different nuances inherent in it. To be sure, this rumination does not end with a recognition of the incommensurability between two language games as it happened with the word security earlier; instead, ‘surprisingly enough, as soon as the boy said there was nothing to be afraid of, his mind too had become afraid of fear.’ 56 The state of emergency here is no longer an exception, but has become a certain sort of rule. However, the highly fragile nature of this space of exchange in an economy of terror and death is emphasised strongly towards the story’s finale. The ‘enemy’ army surrounds the area where the revolutionaries take shelter. The official asks his captor whether he would execute him if the army comes close. The boy, after a brief moment of hesitation, unequivocally says yes. The official’s death, he says, would keep the revolution alive. Initially horrified, the official slowly tries to come to terms with this chilling imperative that objectifies him as a disposable element only to prove the infallibility of a certain system of logic. ‘The state’, the boy says, seeks legitimacy for itself by promising to provide security to its citizens. We shall have to prove that your government is not capable of doing this. If you die, the cause of your death would thus be neither me nor my organisation. Your death would have been caused by your government. 57

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The prisoner thinks that no ‘legal system in the entire world would regard this logic to be just.’ but ‘in the world this boy inhabited, such logic had acquired legitimacy.’ 58 Once again, the prisoner encounters the incommensurable opacity of this other ‘world’: an impersonal system which seemingly operated on logics of its own. The brief possibility of communicative exchange which had emerged seems to breakdown once again as the prisoner’s continuing status as bare life seems to be re-enforced. However, the impersonal, opaque language game of the ‘boy’s’ world is soon contrasted with the impersonal, opaque language game of the statist machinery. Soon the ‘enemy’ army surrounds the camp on all sides. The captor and prisoner face each other for the last time. The boy ‘stared at him, without even a flicker of his eyelids’. Ordering the official off his bed, he points his gun at him. Narrative time seems to freeze as the victim awaits his death. This momentary suspension of narrative time is shattered when ‘everything happened all at once.’ 59 The boy’s body is riddled with bullets just when he is about to lay down his weapon. Captain Batra of the enemy army, the only person who is named in the story, rushes in and expresses relief that the official is safe. Batra sends the following message on his walkie-talkie: ‘Operation successful. Target safe. One terrorist killed.’ The descriptor ‘terrorist’ seems to ‘dash against the magnetic field of his (the prisoner’s) brain and explode’. 60 As in ‘Jighansha’, the story closes with the prisoner gazing steadfastly at his ‘captor’s unseeing eyes’ (dristihin khula soku dutaloi) while Captain Batra stands nearby touching his cap in ‘ritual respect’. 61 The adjective ‘unseeing’ (dristihin) merges with the ‘without even a flicker of his eyelids’ earlier to accentuate the fragility of an economy of reciprocal exchange in a death world, and concomitantly, the annihilation of a precarious social fantasy due to the hit of the Real. A few concluding observations about language games in the closure of ‘Bandiyar’ needs to be made before I turn to a discussion of how the fetish structures the social fantasy in the death world. First, there is the question of the proper name itself. In a story which eschews proper names throughout, the mention of Captain Batra’s name twice towards the end is bound to strike the reader. Moreover, there is something strange about this double invocation of a proper name – it merges an official status within the state machinery (‘Captain’) with a proper name (‘Batra’). As Avelar says, if there is ‘something proper to every proper name it is that it preserves something singular and unconvertable’, the juxtaposition of the common noun (Captain) with the proper noun reveals a ‘clash (that) takes place inside language’ in ‘Bandiyar’. 62 Consider Batra’s staccato communication to his superiors or fellow officials elsewhere – ‘Operation successful. Target safe. One terrorist killed.’ If ‘operation’ signifies a certain instrumentality

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inherent in statist language, ‘target’ represents the prisoner as the desired end of this instrumental discourse. The key word here, however, is ‘terrorist’. Adopting a Foucauldian perspective, Medovoi argues that monikers like ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorism’ lack any form of ‘political positivity in its own right’. ‘Terrorism’, he continues, does not name a substantive critique of any social order, nor an alternative conception for social order. It projects no “second world” with its alternative ways of life. Rather, the terrorist is to terror precisely as the criminal is to crime in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. . . . Terrorism becomes, like murder or rape, the naming of a deviant type against which society must be defended. 63 Medovoi’s general point about the ‘lack of political positivity’ associated with the term terrorism, especially when viewed from the standpoint of governmentality, is applicable to the specific context we are exploring in ‘Bandiyar’. While we do not have to agree with the conservative implications of Carl Schmitt’s Theory of the Partisan, we can draw an understanding from this work that the ‘terrorist’ represents one node in the long, albeit fuzzy, existence of the category of the ‘unlawful combatant’. 64 While the lawful enemy is more often than not the uniformed soldier of a specific nation state who is guaranteed certain protections under international law, anything could happen to unlawful combatants and ‘deviant types’ like the ‘terrorist’ who are placed outside the orbit of legality or ‘humanity’. The ‘terrorist’ is thus produced in biopolitical discourse as a legitimate target of violence. The cold, objectifying logic of the ‘boy’s’ world represented earlier is compared with the cold, objectifying logic of the armed representatives from ‘another world’. ‘Terrorist’, too, objectifies the ‘boy’ and reduces him to a mere statistic: ‘One terrorist killed.’ No exchange seems to be possible between the self-contained logics of the two opposed language games in the story. In a final twist though, we see Batra touching his cap in a gesture of respect. The act itself may have been mechanical, but does this brief gesture of respect for the dead ‘terrorist’ reveal a conflict between the common noun and the proper name? The closure leaves that possibility tantalisingly and ambiguously open. The double invocation of Batra’s proper name in a story that eschews names throughout is also a form of ‘hermeneutic closure’ in that it represents the culmination of the text’s meditation on the questions of power and freedom. Winther argues that hermeneutic closure is different from narrative closure in the short story. The latter refers to the actual moment of closure in the text (the prisoner gazing at the eyes of the ‘terrorist’ and Batra doffing his cap in ‘Bandiyar’). 65 Hermeneutic closure, on the other 266

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hand, refers to the closure of a theme or an idea that circumnavigates its way through the body of the text. Narrative closure and hermeneutic closure may coincide, although it is not necessary that they always have to be the same. I argue that the double invocation of Batra’s name at the end closes the text’s complex meditations on the question of freedom, which is powerfully symbolised through the polyvalent circulation of a fetishobject: the boy’s gun. Naming, after all, signifies power. Could it be that the invocation of Batra’s proper name and the erasure of the name of the boy exposes the latter’s powerlessness (even though he is seemingly endowed with an aura of power)? The stakes of this exploration of power and powerlessness are laid out early in the first narrative circle when the prisoner notices a ‘free bird’ – a kingfisher – near the stream where he and his captor stop for a while. However, the prisoner’s initial romanticisation of ‘natural’ freedom is bookended by the subsequent antithetical observation: ‘Perhaps there were fish in the stream and an unbreakable bond tied the bird down to the place. Free bird indeed!’ 66 This reflection on freedom and bondage later echoes in the prisoner’s reflections on how both he and the boy are held prisoner by the gun – ‘at one end of the black metal barrel, he was the prisoner; at its other, it held the boy prisoner.’ 67 The gun though plays a complex, shifting and polyvalent function in the symbolic economy that emerges precariously in this zone of emergency. I wager that the symbolism of the gun and its connection to the exploration of the question of freedom and bondage in the text can be adequately contended with if we examine it as a fetish. Pietz provides a genealogy of this interdisciplinary concept which concerns the ‘capacity of a material object to embody – simultaneously and sequentially – religious, commercial, aesthetic, and sexual values’. 68 The colonial and cross-cultural origins of the idea of the fetish that emerged from contacts between West Africans and Europeans, the complex transmutations of this ‘problem-idea’ in thinkers like Marx, Comte and Freud or subsequent critiques of Pietz which argue that his genealogy ‘amounts to a European history of consciousness making itself through making objects’ need not detain us here. 69 Instead, what interests me are the four themes that, according to Pietz, inform the problem-idea of the fetish: (1) the materiality of the fetish that then becomes the locus of psychic investment; (2) its beginnings in a singular event that fuses otherwise heterogeneous elements, and also its enduring capacity to repeat this event; (3) the dependence of the meaning of the fetish on a particular order of social relations, which it in turn, re-enforces; and (4) the active relation of the fetish to the body of the individual (the fetish is like an external supplement outside the subject’s will that subverts the ideal of the autonomous self). 70 267

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These four themes which appear repeatedly in the history of fetish theory also provide us a handle to evaluate the structural functions of the boy’s gun in the symbolic economy which emerges in the death world. The gun itself is the most potent and powerful symbolisation of the order of social relations in the death world. This object violently pitchforks the prisoner from one world into another and keeps him bound there. Yet, the gun is not simply an instrument of terror, death and servitude, but transforms almost magically into something else. In the beginning, we don’t see it directly, but its materiality is constantly alluded to: He could guess what was in the bag, even though the boy kept it hidden from him. It was this thing that should have become the symbol of fear for him . . . the . . . surprising fact was that as they pedaled along on their bicycles . . . that thing in the bag had given him, along with the boy, a sense of security, a sense of assurance. 71 Thus, from the very beginning, this thing exerts a hypnotic psychological effect even though it has not been shown. Soon enough, it is clearly stated that the weapon in the bag was a symbol of the relationship between the two people – one that had ‘undergone a qualitative change over the past few days’. 72 Clearly, it has already become a locus of psychic investment for both subjects whereby previously untranslatable words like ‘security’ garner new significations. Furthermore, heterogeneous phenomena are unified and concretised by this peculiarly mutable symbol; thus, the narrator says later that what was inside the bag on the boy’s back was ‘an inert barrel for the moment, but the medium of an active relationship between the two’. 73 The gun-as-fetish here condenses and accumulates meaning; as a synecdochic fragment that functions as a dangerous supplement and controls the boy’s corporeality from the outside, it connects psychic perceptions with a set of social and intersubjective relations. It also fuses heterogeneous phenomena such as life and death – as a material object it is just an ‘inert barrel’, but transmogrifies into a psychic medium for an ‘active relationship’ between two people. Significantly, the most powerful and anticipatory passage that triangulates the structural functions of the fetish, the problem of language and the exploration of freedom in ‘Bandiyar’ occurs early in the text. We recognise that this paragraph functions as a form of hermeneutic closure only after reading the entire text: His eyes fell once again on the bag slung so casually on the boy’s neck. It was as though the weapon in the bag just fulfilled a ritualistic need. It was no longer a messenger of death. Yet, it signified 268

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a certain authority; yes, a certain relationship. But was that all? At the other end of the black metal barrel, he was the prisoner; at its other, it held the boy prisoner. All of a sudden he remembered the kingfisher. A free bird, but a strange relationship bound it to the stream. It was free, but in the context, it was a prisoner. He was a prisoner. Yet, the boy could go nowhere without him, imprisoned as he was with the hostage’s captivity. . . . And the authority of this lifeless weapon (nispran bonduktur) controlled the relationship between the two of them with its mute language (okothit bhaxa). 74 The ‘ritualistic need’ for the polyvalent symbol of the gun, a ‘lifeless’ entity that assumes an animated hue, and the avian image of the kingfisher as a motif that probes the relative valence of freedom and bondage coalesces together in this evocative passage. However, the last sentence introduces an element that gestures towards the closing sequences of the story. The paradoxical ‘mute language’ of the ‘lifeless weapon’ controls the relationship between the two subjects. On the one hand, as a form of mute techne, the gun cannot account for itself autonomously; on the other hand, as a fetishistic object, it attains a hypersymbolic role in the diegetic space. 75 Towards the end, the boy points this instrument of mute language at his prisoner and narrative time seems to freeze for a while. A hail of bullets suddenly breaks the suspension of time and riddles the body of the boy. Subsequently, the ‘gun slips from his hands, and his lifeless body (pranhin deh) slumped to the floor’. 76 The ‘lifeless weapon’ had been perceived as the medium of a ‘mute language’; at the end, the gun dropping out of the hands of the ‘lifeless body’ of the boy represents the muting of his language, thus revealing both his state of bondage to the logic of the death world and also his extreme powerlessness in front of the overwhelming force of the state machinery. Unlike Captain Batra, we never get to know his name; instead, what we witness is his relegation to the realm of ‘lifeless’ matter as his dristihin eyes freezes its gaze on his liberated prisoner. The opaque surface of his lifeless eyes seems to demand a response, but in this terrible gaze, there is no possibility of reciprocity. Moreover, for all we know, this interpretation may simply be a projection on the part of the original ‘target’, the now-liberated prisoner. Conversely, it may also be the inauguration of a scene of an impossible reading. Thus, to tie ‘Jighansha’ and ‘Bandiyar’ together, both Sonti and the captor’s inhuman eyes reciprocate nothing, but, at the same time, reveal terrible truths about the precariousness, vulnerability and fragility of certain cherished, ordinary things. 269

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Conclusion Like ‘Jighansha’ and ‘Bandiyar’, quite a few Assamese writings dealing with states of emergency and terror – such Arupa Patangia Kalita’s ‘Arunimar Swades’ – depict how a social ideal of the good life or of life-sustaining intersubjective relations are torn apart by the shocking impact of politicised terror. 77 ‘Arunimar Swades’, for instance, is structured around a series of enclosures that sustain fragile boundaries between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’. The ‘inside’, Arunima’s home, offers a place of refuge, which is sensitively rendered through a phenomenological representation of the protagonist’s sensual and imaginary frameworks. These enclosures are shockingly destroyed at the closure of this searing story when the ‘mayabi jui’ (magical fire) of terror, which mesmerises and summons Arunima’s brother-in-law to the hills, boomerangs and mercilessly incinerates everything our protagonist cherished about her supposedly secure and homely ‘inside’. Can there be a movement beyond the stultification engendered by the hit of the Real? Here we have to look at stories like Jehirul Hussain’s ‘Xoru Dhemali, Bar Dhemali’ (Minor Preludes, Major Preludes) or Manorama Das Medhi’s ‘Sambhabya Kaal’ (A Time to Come). 78 In the former, an inconspicuous snail becomes a cipher for a form of ‘more life’ that escapes the chokehold of necropower. In the latter, the real drama begins after the state of emergency has dissipated as powerful figures that embody resilience – an infant that clings on to life stubbornly and a ‘traditional’ dhai (midwife) who becomes the primary agent of care in the text – illustrate the potentialities of life and survival in thanatopolitical worlds. ‘Jighansha’ and ‘Bandiyar’ are unable to show such spaces that continue beyond the shocking hit of the Real. But a comprehensive analysis of the depiction of the impact of the political terror in the contemporary Assamese short story should perform both functions: focus on shocking closures, and probe contingencies that continue resiliently and live on.

Glossary (All words are from Assamese unless indicated in parentheses.) Aan jogot  Another world Abhauen(German)  To chop off Bandiyar  Prisoner Bari  bidhoba manuh Bogibai, tate iman dine aai-bai buli mata bohutei rati siyalor dore huwa dibo aarambho korile– Bogibai was recently widowed; on top of that many people who had addressed her previously as aai or bai began howling like foxes at night. 270

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Benga  Cognitively challenged person, idiot Dhai  midwife Dristihin khula soku dutaloi  Two open, sightless eyes Gaonburah  Village headman Hau’ ab(German)  Go to hell Jighansha  Slaughter Lingua Tertii Imperii(Latin)  Language of the Third Reich Mayabi jui  Magical Fire Mon  Mind Moromloga soru soru soku duta  Those tiny, appealing eyes Muhurtate xei osinaki mukhkhon ekhon oti sinaki mukholoi poribortito hol  In an instant that unknown face transformed into an intimate one. Nispran bonduktur  Lifeless Weapon Okothit bhaxa  Mute language Osinaki  Alien, Unknown Osin bhoy  Nameless Dread Pranhin deh  Lifeless Body Ronga osinaki sokuhal  Alien, bloodshot eyes Sandhyo bhaxa  Curfew jargon Santipriyo  Peaceful, peace-loving

Notes 1 J. Amery, At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities, Trans. Sidney Rosenfeld and Stella P. Rosenfeld, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980, p. 28. 2 J. Rose, States of Fantasy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 5. 3 Ibid., p. 3. For the psychoanalytic tradition of analysing fantasy see: B. Aretxaga, States of Terror: Essays, Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2012; S. Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology, London: Verso, 1989; S. Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies, London: Verso, 1997. The Freudian concept of fantasy is different from that of the dream. In a dream, the journey goes backwards – the movement is from the perception to the unconscious. During the process of this journey, perceptions disaggregate and get redistributed. In fantasy, the journey is ‘progressive . . . always heading for the world it only appears to have left behind’ (Rose, States of Fantasy, p. 3). 4 Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies, p. 2. 5 Amery, At the Mind’s Limits, p. 26. 6 Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies, p. 28. 7 Amery, At the Mind’s Limits, p. 40. 8 Aretxaga, States of Terror, p. 128. 9 Imran Hussain is the author of one of the most original collections of short stories in Assamese titled Hudumdeo aru Anyanyo Golpo (Hudumdeo and Other Stories). Stories like ‘Baak’ and ‘Hudumdeo’ in this collection

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dexterously mix folk beliefs and realistic observations about rural life in a manner reminiscent of magic realism. I cite the original text from the same collection: I. Hussain, ‘Jighansha’, Hudumdeo Aru Anyanyo Golpo, New Delhi: Sahitya Academy, 2003, pp. 37–48. The former police officer Harekrishna Deka according to Choudhury is probably ‘the most urbane short fiction writer after Saurav Kumar Chaliha’. Deka, he continues, ‘has constantly innovated upon and exercised the contours of the short story format in ever-newer ways, with an intellectual underpinning informing even the most “conventional” of his fictional texts. Often described as one of the few practitioners of postmodernist fiction, Deka however, has also explored the realities of contemporary society and culture through structures that suggest a recognition of the resources of “traditional” storytelling modes.’ (see Choudhury, ‘Assamese Short Story’, museindia.com, Issue 17, January–February 2008) 10 D. Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003, p. 28. 11 Following Cavarero, we can say that such acts of gazing at alien eyes allude to ‘a human essence that, deformed in its very being, contemplates the unprecedented act of its own dehumanisation’. Moreover, it is as if the ‘address’ of inhuman eyes cannot garner any response and lies outside the realm of reciprocal, intersubjective meaning-making. See A. Cavarero, Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence, Trans. William McCuaig, New York: Columbia University Press, 2009, p. 16. 12 I. Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, Trans. A. Gohain, The Oxford Anthology of Writings ’From North-East India: Fiction, ed. T. Misra, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 131–143; H. Deka, ‘The Prisoner’, Trans. D. Bezboruah, A Game of Chess: Classic Assamese Stories, ed. D. Bezboruah, New Delhi: Penguin, 2009, pp. 165–186. 13 J. Gerlach, Toward the End: Closure and Structure in the American Short Story, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1985, p. 3. 14 Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, p. 132. 15 Ibid.; I. Hussain, ‘Jighansha’, p. 41. 16 Ibid., p. 48. 17 Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies, pp. 8–9. 18 Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, p. 137. 19 M. Taussig, The Nervous System, New York, London: Routledge, 1994. 20 Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, p. 132. 21 Hussain, ‘Jighansha’, p. 38. 22 Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, p. 136. 23 Hussain, ‘Jighansha’, p. 41. 24 For a discussion of photography, embalmment and death see A. Bazin, ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, Trans. Hugh Gray, Film Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 4 (Summer 1960), pp. 4–9. 25 Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, p. 138; I. Hussain, ‘Jighansha’, p. 44. 26 Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies, p. 14. 27 Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, p. 132. 28 Ibid., p. 135. 29 Ibid., p. 138. 30 Ibid., p. 139; I. Hussain, ‘Jighansha’, p. 44.

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31 S. Freud, ‘The Uncanny’, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: Vol. XVII (1917–19). Edited and Trans. James Strachey, London: The Hogarth Press, 1966, p. 244. 32 Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, p. 140. 33 Ibid., p. 141; italics mine. 34 Ibid., p. 142. 35 Ibid. 36 I. Hussain, ‘The Slaughter’, Ibid., p. 143; I. Hussain, ‘Jighansha’, p. 48. 37 H. Deka, ‘Bandiyar’, Harekrishna Dekar Srestha Kabya aru Gadya, ed. Manoj Barpujari, Guwahati: Nabajug, 2010, pp. 91–106. 38 Deka, ‘The Prisoner’, p. 174. 39 R. Kalita, ‘Writing Terror: Men of Rebellion and Contemporary Assamese Literature’, in Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. S. Baruah, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 112–113. 40 J. A. Mbembe, ‘Necropolitics’, Trans. Libby Meintjes, Public Culture, vol. 15, no. 1 (2003), p. 40. 41 P. Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, Trans. Raymond Rosenthal, New York: Vintage, 1989, pp. 93–94. 42 Ibid., p. 97 43 Ibid., p. 99. 44 M. Devi, ‘Draupadi’, Trans. Gayatri C. Spivak, Breast Stories, Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1997, pp. 19–38. 45 G. C. Spivak, ‘Draupadi: Translator’s Foreword’, Breast Stories, Calcutta: Seagull, 1997, pp. 1–2. 46 Devi, ‘Draupadi’, pp. 36–37. 47 Spivak, ‘Introduction’, pp. 13–14. 48 Deka, ‘The Prisoner’, p. 169. 49 Ibid., p. 174. 50 Ibid., p. 176; H. Deka, ‘Bandiyar’, p. 96. 51 Ibid., pp. 174–175. 52 Ibid., p. 176. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid., p. 178. 55 Ibid., p. 179. 56 Ibid., p. 168. 57 Ibid., p. 183. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid., p. 185. 60 Ibid., p. 186. 61 Ibid.; H. Deka, ‘Bandiyar’, p. 103. 62 I. Avelar, The Letter of Violence: Essays on Narrative, Ethics and Politics, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004, p. 47. 63 L. Medovoi, ‘Global Society Must Be Defended: Biopolitics without Boundaries’, Social Text 91, vol. 25, no. 2 (Summer 2007), p. 72. 64 C. Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan: Intermediate Commentary on the Concept of the Political, Trans. G. L. Ulmen, New York: Telos, 2007. 65 P. Winther, ‘Closure and Preclosure as Narrative Grids in Short Story Analysis: Some Methodological Suggestions’, The Art of Brevity: Excursions in

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Short Fiction Theory and Analysis, ed. P. Winther et al., Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2004, pp. 57–69. 66 Deka, ‘The Prisoner’, p. 167. 67 Ibid., p. 168. 68 W. Pietz, ‘The Problem of the Fetish I’, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 9 (Spring 1985), p. 12. 69 Taussig, The Nervous System, p. 118. 70 See Pietz, ‘The Problem of the Fetish II: the Origin of the Fetish’, RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics, no. 13 (Spring 1987), p. 23. Mulvey’s points also resonate here: ‘While the fetish object is mysterious and fascinating to the fetishist, it is also a primitive sign, signalling a meaning outside, unavailable to, consciousness and language. While supporting the suspension of disbelief, it also materialises the unspeakable, the disavowed, the repressed.’ (see L. Mulvey, ‘Xala: Ousmane Sembene, 1976: The Carapace that Failed’, Third Text, vol. 5, no. 16–17 (1991), pp. 22–23). 71 Deka, ‘The Prisoner’, p. 166. 72 Ibid., p. 167. 73 Ibid., p. 171. 74 Ibid., p. 168; H. Deka, ‘Bandiyar’, p. 93. 75 I am influenced here by Ranciere’s doubled signification of ‘mute speech’. Ranciere speaks about literature, but I am creatively stretching the concept of mute speech. See J. Ranciere, Mute Speech: Literature, Critical Theory and Politics, Trans. James Swenson, New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. 76 Deka, ‘The Prisoner’, p. 185; Deka, ‘Bandiyar’, p. 96. 77 A. P. Kalita, Arunimar Swades, Guwahati: Jyoti Prakashan, 2001. 78 J. Hussain ‘Xoru Dhemali, Bar Dhemali’, Axamiya Galpo Xonkolon (Tritiyo Khando), ed. Homen Borgohain and Areendom Barkataki, Guwahati: Axam Prakashan Parishad, 2007, pp. 1–14; M. Das Medhi, ‘Sambhabya Kaal’, in Xopunor Xonaru, Guwahati: Banalata, 2003, pp. 36–46.

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10 SUBDUED ELOQUENCE Poetics of body movement, time and space Usham Rojio

The history of performing arts in India’s Northeast, particularly dance, is obscure, and the earlier works on this area were greatly influenced by the religious and political ideologies of the scholars; thus, it makes the problem highly speculative and controversial at present. With the increased mobility of peoples in the new century, the forces that have brought about the cultural exchanges are becoming ever more prominent. However, the scholarship on performing arts in the region has not so far developed the polycultural performatives that has been evident in contemporary performance traditions of India’s Northeast. This essay will particularly focus on Manipur as a case in point and will then ascertain the politics of scholarship in the region. Next, it closely examines the different forms of scholarship and how it affects the art forms. Subsequently, by focussing on the precept, concepts and philosophy of dance through the analysis of the available traditional texts on performing arts, the study explores the lived-world symbols and meanings, the concepts, feelings, values, notions, etc. associated with them, that is the connotations and denotations – semantic dimensions. Finally, it calls for a study in pursuit of research on performing arts that is as elusive, temporal and contingent as performance. In Manipur, the history of dance and theatre scholarship is not different from the mainstream India where scholars are more prominent than the artists; and artists have always been subsidiary to the non-performing scholars for their academic and intellectual inputs. This is how the scholars garner the pride of place as a mediator of the art and ‘subdued’ the art form. The dance scholarship on Meetei 1 dance, in a most impressive manner, leaves the life-world context, and draws on unrestricted feeling somewhere else, for instance appropriating with Sanskrit texts. It cannot do

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otherwise; but in doing so, it loses its traditional sphere of influence, the solemn, festive populace, and runs a danger of never reaching beyond the sphere it was created. The scholarship, as opposed to the artistic features of performance, functions differently creating a huge gap between interpretations and contextual meanings. This is where a dividing line becomes clearly visible, which coincides with the implementation of form contrasting ‘art in life’ with a form of art that is in books and only in books. While acknowledging the role of Natyashastra that has played in structuring the performance in post-independent India, it is necessary to state that the authoritative treatise Natyashastra came to be reemployed by nationalistic endeavour to fuel Indian Nationalism and to prove its rootedness across the country in the first half of the twentieth century. This has altered and shaped the dance history in India to the extent that it still is regarded as the reference material of all the Indian dances, which is highly problematic. The dance scholarship and practitioners in Manipur also took part in this project of Nehruvian Nationalism with the establishment of Jawaharlal Nehru Manipuri Dance Academy since 1954 under the patronage of Sangeet Natak Academi and the Manipur Government. However, this doesn’t mean that there is no cultural resistance in Manipur, but the new ethos of Nationalism with the strong patronising politics and institutionalisation has been always powerful that it has generated a new ‘aesthetic regime of art’. 2 So the new generation of dancers tacitly consumes what the scholars of the new ethos feed in. These scholars are those who uphold the attempt to find Vedic origins for Meetei culture reflected the socio-political struggles of Atombabu’s time, including the noted and respected scholar E. Nilakanta who later rejected his position. Atombapu approaches Meetei culture and religion with a number of ideological assumptions, rather than from a position of scholarly detachment. The foundation of all this was his belief that Manipur is referred to in the Mahabharata, especially in the text which speaks of Chitrangada. He is said to have attained a reputation for reading and interpreting the sacred texts, and at the age of twenty became a teacher in local Sanskrit school. A few years later, he persuaded the Durbar to enforce Sanskrit as part of the curriculum of the Johnstone School, Imphal and had himself appointed to teach there. Consequently, he was able to influence a whole generation of elite educated Meeteis with his theories with little opposition. As Saroj N. Arambam Parratt and John Parratt starkly remarked, ‘such a history involves a naïve anachronism’ and ‘a deliberate misrepresentation of the text in the interest of a spurious theory’. 3 As Lokendra Arambam puts it rightly, Classical Manipuri dance was thus re-interpreted within the Shastric tradition, of course with a regional variable, which epitomised 276

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its distinctive identity. The post-independence Indian cultural movement vis-à-vis Manipur was a manifestation of a period of reconstruction, of assimilation, of search for unifying principles with the great Indian tradition. 4 It is in this ideological and discursive context that we have to see the dynamics of knowledge that were spread in the 1950s and 1960s, when national integration was the inspiring motivation for cultural research on the Manipuri performing arts. Great rivalry of authority-ship on the Manipuri performing arts, of establishment of dance institutions within the metropolises in the country, race for status, pride and privilege to be associated with Manipuri became a feature of the post-independence Manipur project. Sabita Mehta, Kapila Vatsayan, the Jhaveri sisters and Guru Bipin Singh filled the Indian cultural panorama associated with Manipuri. This new school of dance scholarship can be discerned as a form of epistemic violence. This form of epistemic violence serves as a tool to discipline the body with a new ethos of nationalism to absorb within a system of Indian principle of Natya and Nritya Shastra. This disciplining is to institute Indianness to the Meetei. In countering this grammatology, today, the other form of narrative by the revivalist Meetei also goes to the mythical past of the Meetei before the advent of Hinduism in Manipur. The revivalist movement is very strong in present time Manipur in consonance to the Hinduisation. The methodology/grammatology of the dance in both the cases is almost similar that in both the cases the study is mainly based on the hand gestures or hastas. But the only differences are the terms – one in sanskritised version and the other in the Meetei language. The latter I shall articulate as also a form of disciplining the body – disciplining to maintain order, to maintain the Meeteiness of the mythical past. Both the scholarships serve as violence to the creative growth of the Meetei dance. Thus, there is a tension and conflicting tendencies on the study of Meetei dance. Today, the irony is that this disciplining/construction instead of instituting or maintaining order, it rather has created disorder and has become almost an ‘embedded disorder’. Both the narratives have always failed to look the arts of Meetei/Manipur in pragmatic terms. But in both the narratives, many spurious conclusions are drawn, artistes are misled, and performances became a regime of the scholars with religious and political inclinations and are rendered irrelevant to the social and political context of the society. Thus, there is a pressing need to examine the modes of performance that emerged from a distinct geo-historical matrix of the location considering the political, economic and cultural exchange it took place over a period of time. Rather than trapping in the grammatology of dance which is a late phenomenon in the dance scholarship of Manipur, this 277

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study attempts to explore the precepts, concepts and philosophy or rather the history of imagination of Meetei performing arts in general and dance in particular. Dance is an echo of music, a melodious and rhythmic sound translated into melodious and rhythmic movements of the human body revealing the characters of people, their feelings and thoughts about the world. Nevertheless, it is also involved in the relationship between symbols and meanings, the concepts, feelings, values, notions, etc. associated with them, that is it has connotations and denotations – semantic dimensions. The Meetei had their own literature which records all these semantic dimensions. Anoirol 5 as a text records these semantic dimensions at a certain point of time reflecting the lives; they are the symbols of hopes, miseries, sufferings and fears of the people. The galaxies of deities, the descriptions of landscape along with the myths are the creations of the belief and imagination at the same time of the existential reality. With the desire to lift the quality of life they live, they gradually have started incorporating the lofty ideals and the desire for everlasting peace and happiness.

Aesthetics sensibility and imagination on body traditions The aesthetics sensibility of Meetei has a close affinity with how the Meetei imagines their body physiologically and cosmologically in relation to their life and religion, being and time, microcosm and macrocosm. Their aesthetics is reflected in literature, music, dance and other artefacts. Themes for aesthetics sensibility, life’s tragedy and melancholy are not scanty. Their aesthetics sensibility is reflected in the ancient available Meetei literature which is referred to as Puyas – literature of the academies. The foundational aesthetics sensibility and imagination on body traditions of the Meetei, particularly in relation to the performing arts, can be discerned from the traditional text called Anoirol. There is a substantial body of literature where Anoirol is found namely in Pongthourol Thouni, Panthoibi Khonggul, Pudin, Leithak Leikharol, Mahou Yangbi, Ukak Latha, etc. This is a vast bank of knowledge and philosophy about the origin of dance, creation of universe, earth, beings, and the life and death of people. The ancient textual traditions of Manipur have a unique way to producing its indigenous knowledge systems, which is absolutely different from the rational theory and concepts of how the modern conceive of a book, as a self-contained autonomous text, which exists by its own right. The manuscripts were a sort of organic interrelated, inter-textual networks of knowledge reference systems where a single book was not enough to understand a subject. Various other networks of related manuscripts were to be probed in order to comprehend the holistic 278

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implication of the subject. This vast knowledge is stored and handed down from one generation to another with the help of a body of learned persons called Pandit Loishang (originally known as Maichou Loishang/Maiba Loishang) where the Maichou (scholars) maintained the scripture carefully and imparted the same to the people. However, this area of study is unexplored in the mainstream discourse of Indian dance in particular even though it is much known to the traditional scholars in vernacular language. Anoirol incorporates the theory of creation and in equal measure, the theory of evolution as well. Along with the theory of creation, Meetei still carries forward the message of their folk story regarding their early settlements at the Koubru hill and the Langmaiching hill. Anoi (dance/ movement) was enacted by God on the top of the Koubru hilltop, in the presence of the progenitors of mankind who settled near about the hilltop where the Gods themselves would reside along with mankind. However, in course of time, the mankind tried to outgrow the divine charter laid down as codes of human behaviour. According to Anoirol, human outlook and conduct became perverted in their attempt to outsmart each other, as the Gods gradually distanced themselves from mankind. Today, an old flame is still kept burning in Andro village, on the other side of the Langmaiching hill, a few miles away from Imphal. The Andro flame is believed to have been kept burning for centuries together by the Meetei. A poet, Ashangbam Minaketan chanted about the flame: ‘Yumdil Meini Mutphade/Yaipha Meini Mangphade/Leishem meini Kamphade’ 6 (It is a fire of family union, it should not be put out./It is a fire of prosperity, it should not die out./It is a fire of creation, it shouldn’t be blown). Such a tradition and faith of not letting the fire burn out is very much a part and parcel of Meetei lived-world. In Anoirol, the recurring phrase ‘Hayi-ngeida Noibabu/Meina Waina Noiye/Tangna samna noiye’ (the dance of the age of truth/spread like wild fire/the dance never to be burn out) metaphorically suggests the importance of the Noiba and its continuity. Noiba is not considered only dancing, but understood in larger context, like every activity from household works to cultivation, making of a house, weaving clothes, etc. Indeed, the importance of dance being symbolical of activities and work habits, in agrarian as well as egalitarian society is suggested in the text as well as the cultural performance called Lai-Haraoba (Rejoicing with the God). R. K. Achoubisana convincingly differentiated the two words Anoi and Noiba. For him, the art of creation executed by nine Laibungthous 7 and seven Lainuras 8 is called Anoi. It is not only dance, but also the execution of all art forms, and so there are different forms of Anoi. It is the process of making art, the execution and the product; which also encompasses the precept, concept and philosophy of the art form. Whereas, Noiba is the performing art particularly the movement or dance. 9 279

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Anoi is the name given by the Meetei annals to any ‘imitation’ of the divine ensemble of nine Laibungthous and seven Lainuras themselves expressing devotion, self-contentment and extreme bliss in ‘re-depicting’ creation of the universe, procreation of mankind and his pursuits for sustenance and development. 10 Thus the concept of ‘imitation’ breathed into a new meaning in Meetei aesthetics. Like Plato equates poetry with painting, and Aristotle equates it with music, Konde Khutchum Maiba 11 equates poetry with dance. Thus, Anoirol stands for the distinctive and composite art form in theory and practice of re-enacting creation, procreation, etc. The creation of dance is much closer to the ‘creation myth’ and therefore an integral part of the belief system and its regeneration, in the Meetei world. Aesthetic sensibility and imagination are expressions of taste, belief system and lived world rather than reasoned analysis. As Sussane Langer elucidates, ‘at the centre of human experience, then, there is always the activity of imagining reality, conceiving the structure of it through words, images or other symbols.’ 12 This means imagination takes the centre-stage in crafting the society at the source of human insight, reason, dream, religion and other general observation. It is the greatest force acting on our feelings, and bigger than the stimuli around us. Not only, therefore, does imagination make our human worlds, framing, supporting and guiding our thinking, but it also ‘gives each of us a separate world, and a separate consciousness’. 13 As David Shulman rightly argues imagination is ‘more than real’, 14 the imagination of the new-fangled mind of the Meetei which found expression in the ancient text like Anoirol is executed or rather embodied in the everyday activity of the Meetei in general and performing arts in particular.

Poetic performance of nature and landscape In many of the ancient manuscripts, the Meeteis speak of the physical world as a component of earth, water, fire, air and ether. Land (space) and time are the essential elements of the world. Space was measured in terms of hills, rivers, plain and the jungle/groves. Time was measured in terms of day and night. The Sun, the Moon and stars are studied for the concept of time and motion. From a point of view, the world is divided into two: (1) nung (inner) and (2) paan (outer). The former one is the inner emotive/psychological one, and the later one is the outer physical meanings. Humanity is at the pinnacle of the Universe. In dance or for that matter any performing arts, the common advice of teachers to their pupil is ‘nungpaan ani tuna chatminnaba’ (to retain a balance of inner feelings and outer physical expressions/executions). This probably was derived from the analogy between human body and that of the Universe, that is, to say the relation between Microcosm and Macrocosm was quite common. 280

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The transiency of the physical world is reflected in the sayings, performances and texts. Nature, for that matter, is harmoniously related with human beings. Umang (grove) was the radiating centre of Meetei culture and philosophy. 15 The Meetei worshipped Umang Lais. They were so called, because generally the place of worship of this ‘lais’ was in a grove which was regarded as sacred. No one was allowed to fell the trees. If somebody violated this rule, it was believed that the man would suffer from sickness or death. Umang Lais 16 does not mean the God of the forest. As their dwelling were outside the houses, they were worshipped as lamlais (lam=outdoor, lai=deity). 17 This is to briefly give an idea about the importance of Nature in Meetei society, the intrinsic relation between Nature and human beings; and the idea of traditional jurisdiction to maintain the ecological balance of the living society. This is also very much reflected in the performance tradition of Meeteis. As suggested in Anoirol, the Meetei composed the dance imitated from various objects in the Nature mainly the hills, rivers and animals. Probably, it is also quite possible that the nine Laibungthous and seven Lainuras respectively were the images of the nine hills and seven rivers in Manipur (called Kangla in ancient time). As mentioned in ancient manuscripts, ‘chinglon mapal tampak ama’ (nine hills, one valley) it is evident that the Manipur geographically imagined ‘nine hills and one valley’. And in Anoirol ‘yiram taretmakki yiyaida/pamel sidababu houye’ (The tree of immortal (believed to be Kangla) survives because of the seven rivers.) The Meetei dance originally also imitates various ways of movements of living beings of their lived-world. In Anoirol, hither and thither we find reference on the dance imitating from animals. The extracts from Anoirol could be a reference point to assert this argument: With Konde Khutchum maiba in the hills where all the treatment of diseases are done, the same hill where the first dance was learnt is the hill where the monkeys exist and dance. The maiden Tankha, Phuitingwak, Khuyon, Phuitingloubi, Toura, Nongdang, Lengbi, 18 with all these names, incarnating different personifications with these names, dance with nine Gods. They learnt the dance from the maiden Tangkha’s serpent-dragon father Taoroinai. Learnt from her father, sliding smoothly, in rhythmic gaits, the maidens’ dance in sequence astonished every creature on earth. Astounded, all the creatures came out and started to dance. All the animals and birds were all engulf with excitements. All the mammals and species of squirrels, the aquatic animals, creatures that fly in aerial, the haunting spirits in the forest, all of them 281

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thrilled by the dance of Toibi Tankha Chanu, came out and dance with the nine Gods. Lairemma Tankha Chanu and her father Lairen (dragon/ snake), while learning to dance, dancing together with her father Lairen who dance first and Lairemma danced imitating his footsteps. Her gait and dance of the feet and meandering feet akin to that of the snake, the strong meandering steps crushed all the plants and flowers in the path. Mahou Phaibok Hill was the place of the enactment of this dance. The Father King Lairen Taoroinai’s gentle and graceful dance was imitated perfectly by his daughter by watching each of his steps, a male squirrel watching the complimentary dance of the father-daughter duo started dancing like the Taoroinai. The squirrel from beneath the earth came out of the burrow and leaped and twisted his body, waving eloquently danced imitating the Lairen Taoroinai. Seeing the dance of the male squirrel, the female squirrel laughed, she started dancing likewise. Seeing the dance of the female squirrel, her son laughed and embarrassed her. The son said laughing, ‘Your dance is good, but your broad teeth amuse me’. Along with the squirrel other animals too started dancing. ‘Let us dance like the dance of the nine dragon/snakes’, they said and started dancing. They learn the dance of the age of truth and dance akin to the gods who first danced this particular dance. The dance of the age of truth, spread like wild fire, the dance never to be burn out. 19 The imitative object of the ritual–magical attitude was a cultural phenomenon, that is, it was involved in cultural circulation, existed in the cultural context, had a special denotation and was different from other objects. The attitude to magical reality was a mental–practical, which is closely related to imagination. It enriched man’s memory with vivid and exciting impressions, observations of the animal’s appearance, ways and anatomy. Such observations improved the accuracy and skill with which magical–mimetic performances were executed. What is the purpose or motivation of the story? It is not supported by any information or argument as such, but by a whole texture of metaphor, of deviant syntactic and semantic patterning. The ethical aesthetic value on which its meaning is based is signified in the story and the metaphor it uses. For example, in Meetei dance, dancers are instructed not to open their mouth and show their teeth. It is regarded as not beautiful, consequently non-aesthetic. Such an ethical code that shaped the aesthetics of Meetei dance is rhetorically embedded in Anoirol poetry likewise, 282

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through metaphors and images. The common Meetei aphorism ‘sabina mama noknaba’ (a beaver ridiculing his mother) is a common usage when someone mocks or ridicules other. The central idea is, ‘don’t ridicule other before looking yourself in the mirror.’ As prescribed in the Anoirol, the Lai-Haraoba dance is the imitation of the above dance by nine Laibungthous and seven Lainuras. So the dance movements in Lai-Haraoba are mainly derived from the movements of different animals and its surroundings. In case of Chakpa, 20 autochthonous, they imitate from the movement of the skies (clouds). Here is the description of Chakpa Anoi: In the hayi age, Soraren 21 dance,/Chapas saw the dance of Soraren./Chakpa Sawangba the ancestral chief of the Chakpas,/ Went up the sky in pursuit of the deer, his quarry./And witness the dance of Soraren, God of the heaven,/various were the forms performed by Him./Chakpa Sawangpa learnt and brought them down to the Earth./In his region a white canopy was put up/And Chakpa Sawangpa too began to dance;/Then all men and women of his community joined him./Thus this dance had been handed down through generations. The Soraren dances akin to that of a peacock/He dances blissfully with pride/Twirling with grace was his dance/Even as he dances, the inhabitant of the skies/witnessed the merriment and contentment. The dance of the skies/Witnessed by the goat-like truth seeking eyes of Sawangpa,/His eyes, that of a hunter and that of the deer-prey, all observant/They all danced likewise. The king of the highest heaven, the god of the gods/Pakhangba, he called Chingu Yoirenba/The King of Gods, he too danced likewise/Observing the dance of the king of Gods, Soraren/The chief of the Chakpas too/Imitated the dance/The chief of the Chakpas, Sawang Melongba/Initiated and taught the dance of the Gods to his people. In the land the Chakpas inhabit/Adorned and fenced with clothes/White, like that of the clouds in sky as the roof./The chiefs of the Chakpas danced here/Following the Chakparen’s steps/daughters and daughter-in-laws danced likewise./The dance of the Gods, as dance by Soraren,/Nuanced and etched, in Soul and body/Executed to perfection each and every sequence,/ They danced. 22 The dance of the Nongpok Ningthou and Panthoibi are rendered in a magnificent poetry reflecting the contemporary Meetei performing arts 283

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being imitated from such renderings. The slow eloquence of Meetei dance is described as being like a dancing elephant or a dancing peacock. The following extract from Anoirol can be observed: O’ King of Kings, Nongpok Ningthou, The dance you have enacted, swirling your waist and hips, you are mighty like an elephant bending down and spreading out your elbows and your fingers spread out into a movement, twiddling gracefully akin to a peacock with abundant lustrous feathers. The dance of Panthoibi too, likewise complemented that of Nongpok Ningthou. The gait of the feet and gestures of the hands, the radiant twirling faces, the beautified bowed expression and the movement of their bodies waving eloquently, they danced. 23 The text also explores the myth, philosophy, values, lifestyles, convictions, faith and views on the life of the Meetei, and yet other associated beliefs about ecological preservation – its strong indication for preservation of nature, environment, flora and fauna; and its deep-rooted animism at the grassroots level. Historical and ethnographic research has indicated that the study of ritual behaviour could be greatly enriched by coalescing with the study of place and landscape with the interpretation of material culture. This strategy is especially advantageous for identifying the ritual of the societies that incorporated topographies and natural resources into their liturgical order. The beautiful descriptions of the extant landscape would be one interesting area to explore. It is relevant to mention what Elam Indira 24 during my conversation has come to a point that ‘subdued eloquence, serenity and calmness’ character in Meetei dance is the reflection of the extant landscape, and if one sees the performance of South India, for example, Kathakali reflects the emotions and feelings of the sea tide and roaring sea. There are several studies dealing with ‘sacred geographies’ which indicates that certain places are of special ritual significance highlighted in ritual performances, because one accesses ‘cosmic currents of ritual purity and power’ 25 through these systems of sacred geographies. In addition, these ‘spiritual landscapes’ have energy and agency, that landscape is ‘not simply a natural or physical environment, a taken for granted backdrop of hills, rivers and valleys’ 26 or even a way of seeing or representation seen in landscape paintings, but a ‘historical process of interaction between people and environment, in which both are shaped’. 27 Landscapes have agency. The presiding spirits of these landscapes have power and energy to affect the life of humans. The core belief was that all things in life and nature have energy and anima for movement and regeneration, that the water, 284

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plants, trees, stones, humans and animals and even houses or shelters – all have energy, potency and reproductive powers and nature and landscape have agency. The sky above is male and the earth below is female. These two cosmological categories in the Purush-Prakriti (of Hindu), Yin-Yang (of Chinese) and Pee-Paa (of the Meetei) principle in their eternal dynamic copulation and union produces this vibrant life, with an ever-renewing cycle of nourishing faith of the powers of the ancestral spirits able to influence the future of their succeeding progenies. Constant exhortation to nature and the ancestral spiritual forces to effect systems of benevolent food production as well as biological reproduction is a recurring theme in Meetei Lai-Haraoba. The human interventions to facilitate this cosmic union through ritual, dance and bodily movements enhance the cosmic energies and the spiritual sexuality of these two principles. Dance is a vital means to effect this exercise. The subtle imagery is of the moves of the ancestor serpent-dragon, the tail-devouring serpent (the Ouroboros) and his coils of constant renewal in the figure 8 or ∞, which defines the concept of Anoirol (See Fig. 10.1). New forms of conversation with the landscape are necessitated that there are ‘re-enchantments, religious syntheses or reassertions of landscape potency’. 28 In that case, the ancient Manipur was however present as an important spiritual authority based on indigenous traditions and philosophy derived from ancestor worship and organic thought, where the state was compared to the human body. The entire physiographic and environmental setting was regarded as the body, with Koubru as the head, the marshy plains of Lamphel as the breast, with Kangla, the capital as the navel, Loktak the bowels, and the watery flows at Chindwin from Sugnu as the rectum and the hills as the legs of the organism. 29 Control of Kangla was the main ritual energy, which gave connective links to the health and vitality of the system. 30 In another manuscript Leithak Leikharol, the description of landscape and its environment with existing diagnostic animals is mentioned. The physiography of Manipur is compared to that of a lotus in bloom. Many concentric hill ranges surround the central depression, imitating the upright blooming of petals of the lotus flower. The low mounds and hills located within the circular plain of valley termed as leiyai emerging from the watery landscape mimic the leirik anthers and stigma of a lotus. The dance called Chukparol Jagoi performed on the first day of the LaiHaraoba festival after Lai ikouba (invocation of God from water) would be pertinent to examine the symbolic significance of water with the observation made by O. A. Wall that the water is a ‘sacred feminine element’ from which life was formed because the simple logic is that where there was water, there was also vegetation and life. 31 Meetei worldview has immense association to the symbolic significance of water. The amaibi stands near 285

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Figure 10.1 Paphal, the tail-devouring serpent-dragon (ouroboros), the symbol of eternity and renewal. Source: Usham Rojio and Robin Wahengbam

the water site and dances holding two ihaifu (earthen pot symbolising two deities – male and female). So, this dance is called Ihaiphu Jagoi or Chaphu Jagoi or commonly Chukpharol Jagoi. Kumar Maibi describes that the dance is performed facing the guardianship of the four respective directions alluded to the Gods – Thangjing, Marjing, Wangbren and Koubru for 286

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the south–west, north–east, south–east and north–west. The dance starts facing the direction of Thangjing and so on. The dance facing these four directions are respectively called as Thanghi Ngangoi, Chenga Chukpharol, Yucheng Chukpharol, Yuha Chukpharol. 32 An exhibition of the unique ritualistic form has been interpreted as a theatrical performance of those assembled, representing the corresponding generation. In a crude form, it seeks to convey, communicate, guide and instruct the audience on their myths and philosophy of their existence. It may thus be viewed as an embodiment of symbolism – the semblance of an identity highlighting a holistic view of their ethnic background. The analysis of the text serves as a source of inspiration to understand their esoteric mystic–magical origin and associated values of life and moorings. In addition, it is significantly loaded with such fundamental religious values as reminiscent of the moral and ethical concerns embedded in its socio-religious fabric as guiding principles of the transcending clan, society and polity. Under the circumstances, as observed till now in Lai-Haraoba performances, it stands to reason how this encapsulated art form with an exclusive, inward-looking and self-preservative could have acted as a vehicle for transcending the ancient religio-cultural philosophy, concepts and precepts of the Meetei.

Performativity of the traditional concept of time The connection between time and Creation, time and being, time and performance, including the concept of absolute time as well as cosmological time measured from the initial moment of Genesis as believed is imbibed in Anoirol or Meetei dance. The old common saying regarding Meetei concept of time, 33 ‘64 mikup (moments) make a pung (at present “hour” is called pung in Manipuri). 8 pung make a yuthak. 8 yuthak make a day.’ So, there are 8 × 8 = 64 pung in a day. So, sixty-four is a significant number in Meetei belief system and philosophy. The performativity of this concept of time is embedded in Meetei performing arts. The relation of the concept of time, and Meetei dance is intricate and inherent in Lai-Haraoba as well as Vaishnavite performances. One needs a deep retrospection on the relationship between the concept of time and the Meetei performing arts. For instance, why did King Chandrakirti introduce sixty-four rasas in Meetei performing arts? The three royal scholars, Kurum Taapungpa, Lourempa Khonglei Thaapa alias Khongnaang Thaaba and Angom Kapi deliberated the historical accounts in the court of Meitingoo Paamheiba in seventeenth century ad as inscribed in Malem Leisemlon Areeba (The Ancient Philosophy of Creation) manuscript. These narratives account from the mythical age of Hayem (Age of the Divine) to the four Hangkos 287

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(Ka, Thoi, Poi and Tayo). These four Hangkos are time preceding Hayi Chak (The Age of Truth). As the penakhongba, a traditional balladeer sings the recurring phrase of the Anoirol song, ‘Hayi-ngeida noibabu meina waina noiye/tangna samna noiye’ (the movement/dance during the age of Truth/spread like wild fire/the movement/dance joining the joints) metaphorically embeds many philosophical ideas. Some of the traditional philosophers also conceptualise the Hayi Chak (Age of Truth) as the time of conception of the ‘body’ in the mother’s womb.

Myths embedded in the body Body serves as a vehicle for cultivating religio-philosophical sensibilities whether through meditation, martial, ritual or performance disciplines in Meetei lived-world. Consequently, traditional mythologies of the body adopted by Meetei do not simply assume a ‘physical’ body, which is separated from the mental (psychic), emotional, cosmological and philosophical modes of existence, but rather a ‘body’ which instantiates all of the above. The traditional performing arts reflect the structural formation of the society. The connections between cosmology and the body in Meetei society is immensely embedded and embodied. N. Vijaylakshmi Brara, in her description of the cosmology of statehood, the state is imagined as the body of a human. 34 The concept of cosmology in the ancient Meetei faith as well as embodied in Vaishnavite tradition is wide-ranging and could comprehend several studies. The cosmology of the body parts is thus an integral part of the Meetei faith system as observed in Anoirol. Apart from the narrative in Anoirol, two other cosmological arrangements of the body that are found in the Meetei faith system are that of the beliefs associated with the martial arts Thang-ta and that found in the Meetei scripts (called Meetei Mayek). The central idea of the philosophy of the Meetei mayek is that the letters are derived from the different parts of the body. The body cosmology of the ancient Meetei faith seems to be ‘an arrangement of the body parts in different areas of the universe’. 35 Predominantly, the human body is ‘a schema that is found in different cosmological domains of Meetei sacred thought – the universe, the land, the house, and later on, the alter offerings’ 36 and the sacred floor design particularly through performance of thengourol, ta khousaba 37 and Lairen mathek jagoi in Lai-Haraoba. The body mythology is also disseminated in the traditional architecture of Manipur which is well described in a manuscript called Yumsarol. The idea of Yumsarol is also being introduced through dance performance with hand gestures in Laipou cycle of Lai-Haraoba. According to some scholars, 288

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the reason why the part of ‘the body is female because the home is a place of fertility, which is associated with women.’ 38 Soyam Lokendrajit philosophised the embodiment of feminine body in Manipuri traditional society and as the ‘living carrier of culture and the conservatory of a way of life’. 39 He also emphasised that the Meetei House ‘is modelled in the likeness of the feminine body’, and ‘a house is considered an embodiment of shelter and only a mother can provide all-encompassing shelter to the inmates.’ 40 Paphal is one of the most sacred designs of the traditional Meetei faith. In Manipuri martial arts Thang-ta, the design of Paphal is traced on the floor by steps along with the movements of the thang (swords) or ta (spear) held in both hands (See Fig. 10.2). The mythology of the body in the

Figure 10.2  Malem Paphal, the spread of the ancestral serpent-dragon. Source: Usham Rojio and Robin Wahengbam

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ancient Meetei faith thus provides an important commentary on the studies of cosmogony and the body.

Subdued eloquence: poetics of movement/dance It has been hugely debated that ‘mind’ and ‘body’ are not two things, but rather aspects of one organic process, that all our meaning, thought and language emerge from the embodied activities. Noiba, which means movement/dance in archaic Meetei language has a philosophical meaning embedded/embodied in the cultural practices and day-to-day lived-world of the Meetei. Coming to grasps with the embodiment is one of the most profound philosophical tasks. Life and body movement are inextricably connected in Meetei worldview. The foetus in the womb, the ‘subtle-body’ maintains integrity to consciousness and nature in the same moment but neither can give a robust account of how the two are related. The analogous is that like the movement of the foetus within the mother’s womb give her the joyful news of new life, the Meetei believed that they are in womb-like Universe where the Creator Khoiyum Chingu Sidaba (the eternal owner of the world) and his consort will be pleased when they perform noiba. This is the reason that noiba is the main component of the Lai-Haraoba festival and is inextricably an important feature of Meetei performance traditions. In Meetei worldview, the metaphysics grew out of biology and very much embedded in the organic. The creation dance by the amaibis 41 with the athuppa 42 feature is the imitation of the slow and subtle movement of the foetus in the mother’s womb. The Meetei performances are notably the subtle, sensuous movements based on curvilinear principles, and dances which are more gravitational and slow in outlook and temper, despite of the existence of male vigorous forms. In performing art, the essence of body movement is to make seen, to order the visible by deploying a quasivisibility wherein two operations are fused: an operation of substitution (which places ‘before our eyes’ what is removed in space and time) and an operation of exhibition (which makes what is intrinsically hidden from sight, the inner springs motivating the outer, visible). Unlike other Indian classical music sung while seated, Nata-Sankirtana singing is by itself a combination of singing by musicians with the delicate movements of the body and hands based on Khuthek Anoi (language of hand movements) form in alignment of the great variety and range of complex footsteps derived from Khongthang Anoi (language of footsteps). By its very nature, the athuppa feature in Meetei performing arts make recognised the performances as suggestive, rather than blatantly expressive. This athuppa character is embedded with the morality and ethical codes of the living tradition of the Meetei. 43 As compared with other Indian classical 290

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dances it would certainly make much less use of any codified technique and elaborate facial expressions. Noiba, as mentioned earlier, is not only movement/dancing but also every activity from household works to cultivation, making of a house, weaving clothes, etc. This is also suggested in the laipou cycle of the LaiHaraoba, which seeks to reenact creation of the universe, procreation, the birth cycle and development of mankind. Noiba is not merely to dance, but to perform all these activities in the year round. So, by performing all these activities, the individuals and the community can live a better healthy life. This is suggested in Anoirol lyrics 44 sung by Penakhongba. 45 The concept of community healing through dance and dance as a therapy are depicted symbolically through these lyrics sung by Penakhongba. As a result, Noiba (dance/movement or physical activities) is a way of life to lead a healthy and prosperous life. With all these activities in performance of Lai-Haraoba, it will not be incorrect to say that Meetei dance is an occurrent art; a work growing from the first image to its general development of civilisation to its complete, physical presentation, in occurrence. In this growth there are, however, certain distinguishable stages – distinguishable, though not always separable. The ‘worldview’ of the Meeteis is not merely frozen into classics texts and archaic manuscripts, but is given adequate respectability in the form of performativity in the traditional Lai-Haraoba. Their worldview is transmitted from the olden days till now, and the world outlook of the people of the land is also influenced by the cosmological considerations year after year; the beliefs and attitudes are also formed within this wider framework. An examination of the performance of Lai-Haraoba reveals that it is mainly dominated by dances with the accompaniment of Pena and Langte-pung 46 (a traditional drum) and the songs either sung by Penakhongba or Amaibi. The intricately well-structured dances of Amaibi performed in Lai-Haraoba are also at the same time resilient, accommodative and all encompassing. The main body of the Lai-Haraoba (apart from other ritual performance) is the Laipou dance cycle in which the amaibi will reenact the whole process of the life on the earth, starting from the mystery of sexual union to the routine of monotonous existence of men and women. An important ritual act called hoirou laoba is enacted just before Laipou dance. The amaiba or penakhongba will sing some evocative lines to the accompaniment of pena music. The hoirou laoba song is sung flagrantly with great zest in such an evocative manner that the entire performers share in the experience enacted. The amaibis with their palms and fingers together and kept on the navel, then with a gentle credible movement form a receptive open hand keeping it at the height of their breasts. This signifies the mother receiving the germs of life from the father. The 291

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rhythmic movement of dance is to the accompaniment of the pena by penakhongba. This rhythmic movement with all the ecstasy and feelings of sexual intercourse in a clandestine mood is called athuppa jagoi. 47 From athuppa jagoi, many dance forms are originated. The widely accepted feature of Meetei dance ‘subdued eloquence’ is conceptually shaped by the athuppa character. The well-known classical dance Ras-Leela of Manipur is practically based on athuppa jagoi. 48 The Lai-Haraoba festival as well as the performance evolves into various forms of stages with the passage of time in relation to the civilisation of Meetei. The evolution of the Meetei and their religion was the dynamic movement of the ethnic clan amalgamation. The traditional belief system of these ethnic groups, through a long and complex process of evolution, developed to a higher order of polytheism and finally to the still higher order of monotheism. 49 On the performative aspect, with all the other ritual before and after Laipou dance, the hakchangsaba performance is the main performance, which we find in every type of Lai-Haraoba. Following the Laipou dance cycle is the maibi paton and Lairen mathek (also called paphal). It is dance around the Laibou laa (plaintain leaf) covering all the four corners. The legs move creeping on the ground and meandering around the Laibou laa in a way the naril (a little snake) moves in the accompaniment of the pena. The narrow, quick and low pacing of the feet is done on the pulsation of the pena music. The feet move slowly almost touching the ground and lightly with each foot taking two paces successively at a slow-running speed. The hands move in the pattern of chumsa khutthek. Tenderly and rhythmically, the right hand turns upwards slowly twisting the ankle, and the left hand reciprocates the act in the same manner, and it continues repeatedly in the same pattern timing with the leg movement. This dance involves a rhythmic move of neck, eyes, shoulders, waist, thighs, toes, soles and heels with the pulses of the body. In this ritual dance, the amaibis have to follow a fixed pattern in which the dances of maibi paton and Lairen mathek (Fig. 10.3) moves around the four corners of the Laibou laa signifying of giving tributes to the guardianship of the four respective directions alluded to the Gods – Thangjing, Marjing, Wangbren and Koubru for the south–west, north–east, south–east and north–west. The mild and rhythmic swaying of waist makes the movement looks like that of a snake. There is a lowering of the thighs at every corner. The legs, as mentioned earlier, creep in narrow and running pace in the pattern of right-right, left-left, a climatic tour de force. The aesthetical beauty of this performance is stunning in a group performance where amaibis dance in a long line meandering like a snake. This way of meandering like a snake in a long line is called ‘tubu sana noiba’ as mentioned in Anoirol. 50 The 292

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Figure 10.3  The floor pattern of the maibi paton dance and lairen mathek jagoi. Source: Usham Rojio and Robin Wahengbam

aesthetics of the Meetei performing arts as a whole are based on the simple movement of the circle, curve, and spiral. It is this pattern which runs through hand, chin, neck, head and foot movements and which, on a larger scale, underlies the patterns which are danced out in the central sections of the Lai-Haraoba and Ras-Leela. The basic hand movement consists in a gentle spiral, the hand being held in front of the body with the fingers 293

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loosely together and rotated from the wrist making an 8 symbol. In the more complicated movement of khujeng leiba, the wrists of both hands are placed together, and the hand movements spirals in opposite directions. The basic foot movement also describes a curve. The right foot is placed across the left and to the front, the left foot then moves out to the left, and the right foot is drawn back touching the left. The whole is then repeated in the opposite direction. The basis of the body movements is again spiral in nature. While the feet retain the fundamental position, the knees bend slowly, the body remaining upright from the thighs but swaying sinuously from right to left. In Ras-Leela, the chin and neck of the dancers move in the coiling horizontal 8 figure, that is in ∞ symbol. 51 The movement of the mild and rhythmic swaying from the waist is a clear imitation of the coiling movement of the snake. It is this body movement which is the basis of the turns at the corner of the courtyard during Laipou. The hand, foot and body movements are all performed with a slow and gentle gracefulness. Lai-Haraoba suffered impedes especially when Hinduism came to Manipur and the successive kings and generations Meeteis gradually turned to the grandeur of the Hindu religious ceremonies. History also witnessed the degradation of this festival tardily after the reign of Pakhangba (33–154 ce). It was again revived during the reign of Naothingkhong (663–763 ce), and thus the Lai-Haraoba festival developed since then till the reign of Khagemba (1597–1652 ce). During his time the songs, hymns and various texts were written down. Lai Haraoba suffered the severest blow in the first half of the eighteenth century when the Meetei King Pamheiba alias Garibniwaz (1709–1748 ce) issued a dictate pronouncing Hinduism as the state religion of Manipur in 1714 under the influence of the proselytising Bengali Vaisnavite, Shantidas Gosai. Lai-Haraoba was consequently banned. It was again revived by his grandson King Chingthangkhomba alais Bhagyachandra (1775–1787 ce). During the time of King Bhagyachandra, the Maichous (traditional scholars) recognised five kinds of Lai-Haraoba, consequently five kinds of Laipou jagoi 52 dance forms. They were the Laipou dances of (a) Khunthok Haraoba, (b) Khunung Haraoba, (c) Kanglei Haraoba, (d) Chakpa Haraoba and (e) Moirang Haraoba. 53 It is claimed that the five Bhangi Pareng in Manipuri Ras-Leela is composed based on these five forms of Laipou dance. 54 Khumanlambam Yaima observed the differences of the Laipou dances in his contemporary and as speculated in the Anoirol. He commented that the dance in the olden days seems to be limited while the contemporary forms is more detailing adding up many forms. But the athuppa character of clandestineness, suggestiveness and implicitness of the dance form is kept retain. 55 As Nongthombam Premchand remarked,

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Hinduism in Manipur assumed a new form with strands of local tradition and sensibilities intertwined with it. The Lai-Haraoba became a major source of inspiration for many of the Hindu religious ceremonies and performances. The formalistic structure of Lai-Haraoba continued to be a frame of reference for many Kings and courtiers in their creative experiment to introduce a new Hindu religious theatre. 56 According to R. K. Achoubisana, the then King Bhagyachandra banned Lai-Haraoba for three years (1776–1779 ce), and then Lai-Haraoba was again allowed to celebrate in the year 1779 ce and the following years. During these three years, for almost fifteen months, the amaibas, amaibis, penakhongba and other traditional scholars were ordered to write books on Lai-Haraoba consisting of songs, hymns, music and dances. Other than the Meetei maibas and maibis, some of the prominent Hindu scholars who assisted with the Hindu thematic text were Sidhyahasta Bachaspati Bhaskar Sharma, Shree Roopramanand Thakur, Shree Swarupanand Thakur and among the Meeteis, Kabo Khumbongba Chandramani could be mentioned. Mention may be made that these non-Meetei scholars were not artists, but religious preachers. With all these scholars, King Bhagyachandra composed the Ras-Leela dance. The religious thematic content of the Ras-Leela were provided by these Hindu scholars, whereas the forms of the dance was composed by the amaibas, amaibis and penakhongba. 57 The responsibility of choreography of the dance and its form was completely handed over to the dance expert of the time Kabo Khumbongba. 58 This form of dance gained its legitimacy in the Meetei society because of certain similarities particularly on the love theme story of Nongpok Ningthou and Panthoibi with that of Krishna and Radha. In both case, the female protagonists romance and love their male counterpart but married to another. However, they love the male lover throughout their life. This is one of the reasons why other forms of Hinduism like Nimandi and Ramanadi cult (which came earlier) failed but Chaitanya Vaishnavism of Bengal gain legitimacy in Manipur. The dance compositions used in the structuring of the Ras-Leela have a close affinity with the dance patterns of the Lai-Haraoba. The dance sequences like Laiching jagoi and yumsharol jagoi are found to have deep influences in the dance compositions of the Ras-Leela. 59 Like in Laibou laa thaba of Lai-Haraoba, the drawing out of the souls in the performing space to witness the rituals performed by the ritual functionaries and community members, unlike the other Indian Ras-Leela performance, the Ras-Leela in Manipur brings out the idols of Krishna and Radha out of the temple and

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placed at the centre of the performing space. Like the movement of the Laipou procession the Gopis move around the idols and dance, sing and talk to the idols. This idea of the souls of the deities believed to be in the midst of community participants and performing together with the souls of the deities is conceptually based on that of the Lai-Haraoba. As in case of the hoirou laoba enacted before the Laipou dances, Ras-Leela also begins with the usual purvaranga section of the Nata-Sankirtana. Like hoirou laoba is done by male pena player, the purvaranga section of the Nata-Sankirtana is also performed by male. When the purvaranga ends, the nata singers will leave the performance space and the Ras-Leela dance by female dancers begins immediately like the Laipou dance by amaibi begins after hoirou laoba. As mentioned above, Khumanlambam Yaima strongly pointed out that the five bhangi pareng in Ras-Leela is being composed from five types of Laipou dance which were existing during the time of King Bhagyachandra. It is also relevant here to remind what Faubion Bowers commented, Bhangi derives originally from its counterpart in the Lai-Haraoba. Its dance movements indicate the connection with the formation and awareness of the body as an instrument of pleasure shown in the Lai-Haraobas. On Ras-Leela’s plane of transport and ecstasy, the body is treated as an agent for adoration and worship through playful disport and through the duality of enticement and rejection. 60 Commenting on the world-famous Ras-Leela innovated by King Bhagyachandra, Ibohal Singh writes, simply basing on the existing Lai-Haraoba dance making improvement in technique or rhythmic movements to suit his religious beliefs and to some extent in costume. He (Bhagyachandra) uses singkaklen, nongdon jagoi, tindan, leitai nongdai, rajmen paring langsang (leinet jagoi), tanchup and menkup, and Laipou bhangi pareng. 61 Apart from all the structural similarities, as Achoubisana explained, the costume of Ras-Leela can also be regarded as the result of the process of stylisation of the costume of the amaibi in the Lai-Haraoba. He further explained that Gopis’s potloi was derived from amaibi’s phanek, poshwan from amaibi’s sarong, thabakyet (cloth covering breast), khwangyet (waistband) and maikhum (veil) are same. As Soroj N. Parratt and John Parratt starkly observed, Manipur dance has come to world attention because of its inclusion as one of the schools of ‘classical’ Indian dance. What is not 296

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generally appreciated is that the various Manipuri ‘rasa’ are actually based on the dance forms of the Lai-Haraoba. 62 On the whole performance of the Ras-Leela, Nata-Sankirtana is a significant constituent. The Nata Sankirtana performing as a purvaranga (prologue) before the dance performance of Ras-Leela and comes again at the end of the performance as the antaranga (epilogue). It is said that in the first Ras-Leela, King Bhagyachandra took part himself in the Nata-Sankirtana as a performer beating the Meetei drum called poong. It will be relevant to observe at this stage that some form of performance like that of the NataSankirtana without the Hindu religious content was in existence in Manipur before the advent of Hinduism in Manipur. Anoirol 63 refers to the existence of a tradition of dancing accompanied by instrumental music as the blowing of conch, striking of cymbals called taret senphang and beating of drum called langden. 64 It is important to note that another manuscript puya called Thaloi Nongkhailon has referred to the congregational singing to the accompaniment of instrumental music like that of clanging of a pair of taret senphang as cymbal. 65 Such performance was called hongba hongnemba, 66 which were performed in death ceremony, marriage, feast and other social activities. In the present time, it is replaced by Nata-Sankirtana. Nata-Sankirtana as a form has grown out of the interaction and synthesis of some indigenous art forms of Meetei like Lai-Haraoba, pena 67 music and khulang isei (a popular form of folk song) having same ‘high, vibrant and falsetto’ characteristic. Purvaranga starts with raga achouba (major raga) with the beating of Meetei drum called poong with the sound ‘ten ten tat ta tang’ three times. Then the clanging of kartal and the blowing of conch begin. The beating of drum and the pattern of sound constitute a language of art expressing something significant. The language of the drums reflects a whole process of building up of limbs of the body which seems parallel to that of LaiHaraoba’s philosophy. The initial beats (a) ten ten/ten ten ten/ten tak tadang; (b) khit ta/tak gin/khinta tak; (c) khra khra/ten tak tat tan/tat tat tang, three times each is supposed to build up the figure of Lord Krishna in the middle of the performance space. After this drum beats, the nata singers start making movements of their bodies and bowing their head slowly towards the centre where Lord Krishna is imagined to be sculptured with the poong beats and they start singing with rhythm ‘ta ri ta/na ri/ta na ta na’ three times. Every syllable and sound accompanying it refers to the different parts of the body: ta – chest, ri – navel, ta – waist, na – legs, ri – arms, ta – head, na – eyes and ears, ta – nose and finally na – face. 68 This has an intimacy with the Lai-Haraoba philosophy. Anoirol further refers to the performance of this dance and music at a place surrounded by white curtains and with the white cloth serving as a 297

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ceiling – phingou setna noiye/phingou khanna noiye 69 (dance wearing white dress/dance with white curtains around). Probably referring to it, NataSankirtana and Ras-Leela has white curtains hang around the performance space. Like in Lai-Haraoba the four directions are now supposed to be guarded by four Hindu Gods. God Ganesha is stationed at the northeastern corner of the performance space, Keshava at the south-western corner, Ananta at the north-western corner, Maheswara at the South-eastern corner. 70 An important point to be noted is that Bhagyachandra divided a day into eight sections related to the various functions in the daily round of Krishna. This sequence of eight divisions of the day with specified functions attached to it is known as astakal. Probably, this division may have been referred to the Meetei time concept as discussed earlier, the division of a day into eight yuthak. To look after the duties and functions attached to the eight divisions of a day, the king instituted more than ten departments called loishangs. Unlike that of Natyashastra, the Nata-Sankirtana introduced by Bhagyachandra found its most beautiful and effective expressions when King Chandrakirti (1850–1886 ad) created and introduced Meetei’s sixtyfour rasas. 71 This is contentious with the Indian Natyashastric tradition and aesthetics philosophy. According to A. V. Pandit, the dance of Manipur is a purer character than the other schools of dancing and says the form seems to be absolutely devoid of any foreign influence. The dance shows that lyrical quality which was inspired by the Vaishnava religion. 72 Angana Jhaveri in one of her article ‘Ras-Leela: The Sacred Circle’ draws similarity of the Lai-Haraoba or its metamorphoses – Nata-Sankirtana, the various Ras-Leelas, ThabalChongba (traditional folk dance), thang-ta (martial art/sword dance), etc on the formation of circular pattern, philosophy and its implication in terms of its inherent continuity. 73 It is also quite pertinent to remind what Faubion Bowers commented on Meetei dance: Unlike other Indian dance, Manipuri dancing requires that the eyes remain impassive. While contravening the Bharata Natya Shastra, the quiet of the face is suitable to Mongolian features and allies the dance with the Far East rather than with India. Abhinaya, with its meanings and interpretive expressions, is entirely absent from Manipuri dancers. Facial expression is brought into play only in the spoken or recitative portions of the Ras Lilas, a part of drama. 74 Having learnt this, it is pertinent to look anew the Meetei performing arts in general and dance in particular with an alternate perspective rather 298

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than confining with the usual mainstream Hindu Sanskrit texts like Natyashastra, Abhinaya Darpan, Sahitya Darpan, Dashroopak, etc. The approach helps explore the real philosophy of Meetei aesthetics, and in comprehending its ideational nature and the reflective mould, that makes Meetei dance ever moving and redefining itself. It is important to note how the songs, poetry, tales of representing the Universe, existential anxiety and worldly wisdom as found in Anoirol and other texts, are inscribed in dance and other performing arts shared from one generation to another. Accepting the former and denouncing the latter could be as distinction marked by politics of power. One can deepen the study of the aesthetics not on superficial and transcendental plane, but at a pragmatic social level. This would overcome the understanding of the nuances which would be otherwise missed. The attempt is just to flag off a new discourse understanding the underlying philosophy of dance and the inherent Meetei body philosophy.

Enroute The evolution of performance also involves geo-historical matrix of the particular circumstances of the Meetei world. The mode of performance emerged from the social, economic, political and cultural exchange. For instance, the continuous fights among the various clans and the repetitive attacks by the Burmese Awa till the eighteenth century engendered a martial body with all their cultural and day-to-day life practices. The practiced of Thang-ta (martial art), sagol kangjei (polo), 75 mukna kangjei (wresting hockey), etc. in Meetei traditional society contributed to the body culture. It has been increasingly proved that the steps, gaits and poses of sword and spear dances in thang-ta provided the framework of some of the classical steps of Lai-Haraoba, Ras-Leela, Sankirtana and specially poong cholom movements. 76 In the more complicated movement of khujeng leiba (literally means twisting wrists), the wrists of both hands are placed together and the spiral hand movements in opposite directions, which is a much for martial art, also witnessed in the dance forms. Even the basic movements like chali, longlei and uplei, champra okpi and lasing kappi have been demonstrated as having some affinity with the steps and poses of martial arts. 77 It is no wonder that some of the exponents of Meetei dance and music make a plea for a good background of martial arts before the art of dance is studied and mastered. It does not mean that a good swordsman is a good dancer. It is said that the simple childhood game khulokpi 78 is a preliminary exercise of the khujeng leiba. This is a much for a martial body who keep on protecting their community and land in the past. 299

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The practice of Lai-Haraoba by the people and the mass participation in the dances of Lai-Haraoba festival and also the dance like ThabalChongba 79 could be seen as a formation of habit-memory for the body. This habit-memory entails to collective cultural memory of the body which however keep changing in time and space at the same time maintaining continuity. All cultural memory is performative involving the transmission of culture through bodily practices such as ritual, repetition and habit. To make it a point, let me quote Samik Bandyopadhyay extensively about his experiences of the Kolkata-based dancers of Manipuri dance, which he claimed the lack of rootedness in training and performances. In the nineties for the first time in Kolkata, there was a trend among young learners of Manipuri to visit Imphal, after having finished with their Kolkata-based gurus (from a genuine sense of dissatisfaction and exhaustion with their gurus), to look for more – at the roots. Initially, they were even prepared to face resistance from their gurus and the gurus’ cronies in the media. The dancers’ community in Imphal were only too eager and cooperative to open out to them and offer training in parts of the repertoire never quite exposed or cultivated in the Kolkata gurukul. But even as the Kolkata learners had picked up a fresh stock of tricks of the trade enough to add a flourish to their modules, and claim a ‘difference’ or a ‘distinction’, they were back to their routine with facile appropriation of some novelty! Once one has had even glimpses of the Maibi range or the Thang-ta in classroom situations in Imphal, the decorativeness of the accretions in the New Kolkatta Manipuri appears a pretentious, anachronistic, half baked sham! The maddening desire to cater to a clientele not prepared to make the least effort to distance themselves culturally to feel the impact of a product located in a distinctly different culture drives these performers to relocate these forms in mass market matrices for easy acceptance. 80 The point of quoting this lengthy narrative is to posit that the two bodies of the Manipuri dancers in different spaces have different body memory and that entails to different body aesthetics of the two dancers in different spaces. The Kolkatta schools attempting to contain and control diversity, deflecting attention of the origin by privileging untouchable cultural differences, commodifying or exoticizing difference in the programming of diversity slots at the city’s mainstream performance has been something of a false friend to those grassroots practitioners who want to challenge the hegemony of the city’s stages. Correspondingly, in the dance scholarship 300

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also, the scholarship is produced in such a fashion that it is convenient for the City scholars and dance practitioners, thereby implicates the Natyashastra and other Sanskrit knowledge without really digging the historical archaeology. In terms of cultural memory, the policy problematically constructs memory in essentialist, static and nostalgic terms to dehistoricise the trend of ethnic knowledge forms. The basic understanding that emerges is the question of the relation between culture and memory which is not freed from cultural–topological interest. It is a pressing need that these two forms of dance developed in different location needs to be looked and studied differently and not to be interpolated. What emerges from this perspective is a vision of performance as an essentially constructive medium. However and wherever they appear, bodies and their actions are shaped by, give form to, figures drawn from cultural memories. If they, thus, comprise a means of reproducing those memories through time and between individuals, as articulators of an unofficial repertoire, bodies also provide an arena in which they can be adapted and contested. For that matter, within Manipur we find different forms of LaiHaraoba. This conception of cultural acts is essentially constructive, while making meaning is central to the third body of writing I want to consider. Clifford Geertz had rightly rebuked those who attempt to reconstruct the Indic past of Southeast Asia for ‘attempting to know what one has no way of knowing’. 81 With tongue in cheek, I think, there is more than a tincture of truth in his remark if one has to recall a sequence of specific happenings, a flow of temporally related events, or the interplay of particular personalities. Who reigned when is only too often debatable, who married whom is not infrequently irrecoverable; who begat whom a matter of speculation. This is not only because so much of the material evidence has been lost in one way or another – destroyed by earthquake, engulfed in a green sea of vegetation, swept away by flood water, devastated by mindless fanaticism, eliminated by the blind spade of ignorance, a great deal in this moment being allowed through government and institutional politics and policies apathy to suffer disintegration to misappropriation. My point is simply that, if prospects for the recovery of events in the Indic period as a whole are so unpromising, then what hope can there be of achieving even a partial understanding of its indigenous performances and history? It is possible; a pragmatic study of the political history of Manipur with its dynamics of social and cultural changes in totality will at least make us understand the missing nuances. Keeping foremost in mind, the radical changes that confront the contemporary scholarship on Manipuri performing arts and the heuristic research problems today, I wish to ask what cultural anthropology may offer us today for a better understanding of the tremendous change in the scholarship of 301

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the Manipuri performing arts in particular and Indian performing arts in general. This questioning should be coupled with a critical assessment of the origin of successive theoretical debates which are largely dominated by Indian Hindu nationalists and Western viewpoints. The implications that such a critical assessment entails in relation to issues cannot be but sensitive when one looks analytically at the societal dynamics at the junction of culture, literary forms of expression, performative expressions and society. Still, the purpose would be served if this position opens an analytically motivated debate over the issues and perspectives faced by performance studies in particular and cultural studies in general. This debate must focus on cultural as well as the social function of those narratives, sung poetry, theatre and other traditional forms of performances at the local, microregional and regional levels.

Notes 1 Specifically, I prefer to use the word ‘Meetei’ instead of ‘Manipuri’ because the so-called Manipuri dance that is being understood in India is basically a cultural practice of the Meetei and does not include the other thirty or more tribes residing in Manipur. 2 I borrowed this term from French philosopher Jacques Rancière in which he contends that aesthetics is not a discipline as it is usually defined but rather a particular ‘regime of identification of art’, that is, a particular way in which, in a given historical or social context, art is identified as art. Art therefore never exists as an abstraction, but is always tributary to the way it is perceived in different periods or regimes, of which Rancière identifies three – ethical regime, representational regime and aesthetic regime. The aesthetic regime differs from the other two in that it no longer assigns to art a particular place in society, nor is art any longer defined by skill and practice. For detail, see Jacques Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, London and New York: Continuum, [2000]2004, pp. 20–30. 3 For details see Saroj N. Arambam Parratt and John Parratt, Collected Papers on History and Culture of Manipur, Imphal: Patriotic Writers Forum, 2010, pp. 149–161. 4 Lokendra Arambam, ‘Place, People and Roots of Performance’, Excerpt from History of Manipuri Performing Arts, Report for Senior Fellowship of Sangeet Natak Academi (SNA), 2005. 5 Anoirol (Anoi = dance/movement, rol/lol = language) literally means ‘the language of dance/movement’, but it is mostly understood as the ‘art of body movement’. It is a manuscript containing a record of songs, verse and ballads describing the origin of dance, its relation to the Meetei cosmogony and the poetic depiction of dances with cultural metaphors, maxims and ethical codes of the Meetei, which shapes the aesthetics of the traditional Meetei community life. The date of the manuscript is controversial though. As Moirangthem Chandra, the editor of Panthoibi Khongkul, a manuscript where a portion of Anoirol appears, claims it written in the eighth century. However, this is contentious. As there is a tradition of copying down these

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manuscripts from one generation to another, in their present form that it cannot be particularly as old as it is claimed. It is very unfortunate that scholars of Meetei Mayek (scripts) have not yet turned attention to the dating and authenticity of these manuscripts. But it can be speculated that the text is written sometime before the advent of Hinduism in Manipur, that is, before the seventeenth century. 6 Asangbam Minaketan, Ngangoi Pareng, published by the author himself, 1949. 7 The nine male progenitors. 8 The seven female progenitors. 9 R.K. Achoubisana, ‘Manipuri Jagoigi Hourakpham’ (The Origin of Manipuri Dance), Seminar paper, Historical Research Association, 1983, p. 2. 10 Khumanlambam Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume IV, Imphal, 1981, p. 14. 11 Konde Khutchum Maiba is believed to have composed the creation dance and taught it to the Goddess Panthoibi. 12 Sussane Langer, Philosophical Sketches, New York: Mentor, 1964, p. 128. 13 Ibid., p. 130. 14 David Shulman, More Than Real: A History of Imagination in South India, Cambridge, MA, London and England: Harvard University Press, 2012. 15 M. Kirti, ‘Meeteism Through the Ages (Essence of Meetei Philosophy)’, in Naorem Sanajaoba (ed.), Manipur: Past and Present – II, New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1991, p. 102. 16 There are other theories about the interpretation of Umang Lais. T.C. Hodson (1910) and Shakespeare (1913) regarded Umang Lais as ‘forest deities’ from the actual etymology of the term (umang = forest, lai = deity/ God) and many scholars blindly follow this. While the other local interpretation is the following: Umang is the derivation of the word Uram (meaning something to be seen in the past), and Lai means something easy. So, it means the God easily seen in the past (Hayi Chak age/The Age of Truth). This can probably be more appropriate as the Meetei worshipped their ancestors. The other interpretation based on the importance of dreams is also pertinent, that is Umang Lai (U = [from Uba] to see, mang = dream, lai = easy), so it means ‘the God seen easily in the dreams’. This explains the significant of ‘dreams’ in Meetei society, and it has a tradition of ‘mangtak’ (advices by ancestors in the dreams). Taking the legitimacy of this tradition, King Bhagyachandra composed Ras-Leela, because as he claimed, he was told to do so in his dream by Krishna. 17 For more details please refer to Nilabir Sairem, ‘The Revivalist Movement of Sanamahism’, in Naorem Sanajaoba (ed.), Manipur: Past and Present – II, New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1991, p. 110 and Saroj N. Parratt, The Religion of Manipur, Calcutta: Fima KLM Private Ltd., 1980, p. 9. 18 Probably these are names of seven lainuras, the manifestations of Goddess Panthoibi (Khapi Lengnao Mompi). 19 Khumanlambam Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume I, Imphal, 1973, pp. 5–12 (Translation mine). 20 They are considered to be the oldest settlers in Manipur which is now considered as Lois (outcast). 21 The God of skies.

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2 Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol. 2 23 Khumanlambam Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume II, Imphal, 1975, p. 11 (Translation mine). 24 This point was initiated by me during the conversation on 17 April 2012, and she agreed to it. 25 F.K. Lehman, ‘The Concepts of “Sacred Geography”: Its Origin and Scope’, in R. Lukens-Bull (ed.), Sacred Places and Modern Landscapes: Sacred Geography and Social-Religious Transformations in South and Southeast Asia, Tempe, Arizona: Program for Southeast Asian Studies Monograph Series, Arizona State University, 2003, pp. xv–xxx. 26 Catherine Allerton, ‘Introduction’ to Spiritual Landscapes of Southeast Asia. Anthropological Forum, vol. 19, no. 3 (2009), pp. 235–251. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 Lokendra Arambam, ‘General Interpretive History and Culture of Meeteis’, a talk presented at the Conference of Religions of India – Manipur Branch at Little Flower School Imphal on September 10, 2012. 30 Ibid. 31 O.A. Wall, Sex and Sex Worship in the World, New Delhi: (Reprint) InterIndia Publications, 1979, p. 575. 32 Ngangbam Kumar Maibi, Kanglei Umang Lai-Haraoba, Imphal: Thambal Angou Devi, 1988. 33 In my personal interview with Ojha M. Macha Chaoreikanba, I was told that Meetei ‘concept of time’ is clearly explained in the unpublished manuscript called Tanyeiba (literally means ‘beating the rhythm’). But I could not procure this manuscript. As my purpose is only the relation of time concept and dance, this serves the purpose. The derivation here is in reference to the interview on 12 April 2012 mentioned on certain articles, and particularly the brief mention of Time Concept in the text of Anoirol, the extract of which is being quoted and translated further. 34 See Brara N. Vijaylakshmi, Politics, Society and Cosmology in India's North East, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. English. 35 Sohini Ray, ‘Writing the Body: Cosmology, Orthography, and Fragments of Modernity in Northeast India’, Anthropological Quarterly, (Winter 2009), pp. 129–154. 36 Ibid. 37 The art of spear dance, share the same myths and symbols with that of thengourol the art of movement patterns with sword or spear executes on the symbolical head of a thousand-petalled lotus and the thousand-hooded top of snake God, called Pakhangba in Meetei. 38 Ray, ‘Writing the Body: Cosmology, Orthography, and Fragments of Modernity in Northeast India’, pp. 129–154. 39 For detail please see, Soyam Lokendrajit, ‘Manipuri Women Throughout the Ages: A Case Study of the Feminine Response to the Challenges of History in Northeast India’, in History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilisation, Volume IX, Part 2, New Delhi: Centre for Studies in Civilization, 2009. 40 Ibid., p. 355. 41 The amaiba and amaibi are the traditional priest and priestess of the Meetei who perform the ritual function of the community. Saroj N. Arambam

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Parratt & John Parratt (1997) commented about amaibi, ‘Their origins are lost in obscurity but there can be little doubt that they are of genuinely Manipuri origin, or at least became assimilated into Meetei religion at a very early time. They belong to one or other of the sagei (clans), and fully integrated into Manipuri society in general, and are not a separate caste.’ She also gives references to the studies by the early British writers like Higgins (1933), who made the suggestion that (a)maibi is ‘derived from Sanamahi is quite untenable’. She however agrees with McCulloch (1854) who advanced the theory that they were descended from a princess of ancient time. This presumably reflects the mythology found in Anoirol which make Panthoibi, in the personification of Khabi Lengnao Mombi, the primeval amaibi. And the different personifications of Panthoibi in different texts manifest different Anoirol. 42 Athuppa means something clandestine and thus implicit. Khumanlambam Yaima says that athuppa is the main character of Meetei dance both in PreVaishnavite and Vaishnavite performances. For details, Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume 1, p. 6, also on p. 47. 43 See Ibid., pp. 46–49. 44 See the translation of the lyrics by Saroj N. Arambam Parratt and John Parratt, The Pleasing of Gods: Meetei Lai-Haraoba, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House Pvt. Ltd., 1997. 45 Pena is a traditional one-stringed fiddle. The penakhongba is the pena player. 46 Currently in Imphal, this is replaced by bass-drum and side-drum with clarinet, saxophone, etc. 47 Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume-I, Imphal, 1973, p. 6. 48 Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume-III, Imphal, 1977, p. 47. 49 Kh. Ratan Kumar, Lai-Haraoba of Manipur, Imphal, 2001, p. 44. 50 Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume-I, Imphal, 1973, p. 5. 51 These are demonstrated and explained to me by renowned theatre actress Heisnam Sabitri and his husband Heisnam Kanhailal, theatre director of Kalakshetra Manipur during my stay at their abode for a one-month theatre workshop in March 2012. Their actor training exercises are based on the basic exercises of Manipuri performing arts including martial art thang-ta. The one-month stay and interactions with Sabitri and Kanhailal have contributed a lot in this project. 52 Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume-III, Imphal, 1977, p. 47. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 As explained by the in Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume III, Imphal, 1977, p. 48. 56 Nongthombam Premchand, Rituals and Performances: Studies in Traditional Theatres of Manipur, Imphal: Cultural Research Centre, 2005, p. 129. 57 R.K. Achoubisana, ‘Anisuba Lanjao Mamangda Manipuri Classical Jagoigi Style’ (The Dancing Style of Manipuri Classical Dance Before Second World War), paper presented on a Seminar of the same topic at Archival Auditorium, State Central Library, Imphal, October 1, 2000; Organised by Guru Atomba Institute of Dance Music and Department of Culture, GOI. 58 Ibochouba Haobam, The Pre-World War-II Form of Ras-Leela, Imphal: Published by Haobam Ongbi Shantibala Devi, 2009, p. 30.

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59 Nongthombam Premchand, Rituals and Performances: Studies in Traditional Theatres of Manipur, Imphal: Cultural Research Centre, 2005, p. 129. 60 Faubion Bowers, The Dance in India, New York: Columbia University Press, 1953, pp. 139–140. 61 Ibohal Singh, Introduction to Manipur, Imphal, 1963, p. 116. 62 Saroj N. Arambam Parratt and John Parratt, The Pleasing of the Gods: Meetei Lai-Haraoba, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1997, p. 42. 63 Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume-I, Imphal, 1973, p. 21. 64 Taret senphang is a peculiar cymbals used by bronze or copper coin-liked materials, langden is the traditional drum of Meetei, also used in Lai-Haraoba. Now taret senphang is replaced by kartal. Mention may also be made that the kartal in Manipur is made different and produced different aesthetics having its own codified art of playing by the kartal singers. 65 Cited in Nongthombam Premchand, Rituals and Performances: Studies in Traditional Theatres of Manipur, Imphal: Cultural Research Centre, 2005, p. 97. 66 Yaima Singh (ed.), Meetei Jagoi: Anoirol, Volume I, Imphal, 1973, p. 5. 67 The study of the origin and the art of pena music could be extensively studied. The manuscript Pena Anoi needs attention to explore this music forms and its aesthetics. For a brief note on Pena Music, please see Saroj N. Arambam Parratt and John Parratt, The Pleasing of the Gods: Meetei LaiHaraoba, New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1997, pp. 40–41. 68 Nongthombam Premchand, Rituals and Performances: Studies in Traditional Theatres of Manipur, Imphal: Cultural Research Centre, 2005, p. 111. 69 Ibid., p. 21. 70 Ibid., p. 108. 71 The sixty-four rasas is explained in detailed by Sougaijam Thanil in his book Rasa Humphumari Seisak (The Songs of Sixty-four Rasas). 72 See A.V. Pandit, ‘The Dance of India’, The Hindustan Standard, daily paper dated May 30, 1954. 73 Sarju Doshi (ed.), Dances of Manipur: The Classical Tradition, Bombay: Marg Publications, 1989, p. 32. 74 Faubion Bowers, The Dance in India, New York: Columbia University Press, 1953, p. 146. 75 The game polo was introduced to British by Manipur. 76 Ningthoukhongjam Khelchandra, ‘Manipurgi Thang-ta’ (The Thang-ta of Manipur), in Manipur Jagoi: Seminar da Neinakhiba Mashak (Manipuri Dance: Seminar Proceedings), Manipur: MSKA, 1971, pp. 16–24. 77 Ibid. 78 An indigenous game played with pebbles. A pebble is thrown up, twisting the wrist picks up as many as pebbles one can from the ground and twisting the wrist back catching the former when it fells down. This is speedy exercise in a few seconds. A game with many other opponents in the competition of fishing the pebbles kept on the ground. In this game/exercise, an equal number of smooth pebbles are collected by each player to initiate the game. 79 Literally means ‘moonlit dance’. It is a dance festival around the Spring season festival called Yaoshang (Meetei Hinduism form of Holi festival). The

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dance is in the form of khencho as described in Anoirol. Presently, the youths have created different ways of dancing style in the same rhythm. This seems to be a development for the long time of cultural practice every year. 80 Samik Bandyopadhyay, ‘A Plea for Restoring/Conserving Eroding Spaces’, in Urmimala Sarkar Munsi (ed.), Time and Space in Asian Context: Contemporary Dance in Asia, Kolkata: Published by the Editor on behalf of World Dance Alliance, 2005. 81 Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 5.

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330

INDEX

Abhinaya Darpan 299 Aboriginals, The 126 achiku 157, 159 – 60, 165 Achipu 157 Achoubisana, R. K. 279, 295 – 6 ‘Act East’ policies 5 aesthetics sensibility and imagination on body traditions 278 – 80 agrarian land–labour relations 77 agrarian violence 76; Bengal 75; Kukis and 76; narration of 76; tax evasion and 80 Ahom aristocracy 196 Ahom Buranji chronicles 212 Ahom monarchy 195 aküpüla xe 156; see also topunasho xe Alias race 42 Alpine Aryans 42 – 3 alternative literary discourse 241 – 3 ameh 144, 148 – 67; marriage prestations and 155 – 63; Sumi marriage practices 155 – 63; and Sumi marriage practices 152 – 5 Amery, Jean 250 – 2 Amichai, Yehuda 229 Amin, Shahid 145 Amini Commission 79 amini kimiji xe 156 – 60, 163 – 5 Anandamath (Chattapadhyay) 68 Ancient Geography of India (Barooah) 34, 211 Anderson, David 74 – 5, 77, 79 Angamis 91 – 3, 95 – 6, 102 – 3 Angami traders 105, 107 Angas 28

Anglo-Burmese war 119, 197 Anglo-Lushai war 121, 128 Anglo-Naga war of 1879 – 1880 96, 102, 104 Anoi (dance/movement) 279 – 80, 283 Anoirol: dance imitating from animals 281; Lai-Haraoba dance 283; Meetei faith system as observed in 288; as a text records 278; theory of creation and 279; theory of evolution and 279; ‘tubu sana noiba’ as mentioned in 292 – 3 anxiety 72 – 4, 77, 82 Ao, Temsula 236, 239 Arambam, Lokendra 276 Aretxaga, B. 252 ‘Ari Hoi Hali Bihoi’ (‘A Ploughing Song’) 240 Aristotle 280 Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 (AFSPA) 230 – 1 Arthasastra (Kautilya) 28, 35 ‘Arunimar Swades’ 270 arya-dharma 31 Aryan culture 42 aryavarta: Kamarupa and 41 – 6 ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) 226 ashoghu xe 156, 160, 163 Assam: Kamarupa importance for 25; phases of history 27; ‘semi tribal–semi feudal’ 5; socio-cultural realities 5; toponymic identification 34; writings on aryavarta 41 – 6

331

INDEX

Assam Buranji (Barua) 210 Assam Buranji (Phukan) 210 Assam Company 198 Assamese ‘bourgeoisie’ 196 Assamese language 43, 198, 211 – 12, 228 Assamese literature 14 assana 161 – 2; see also tuqhou nhemugha asura 42, 43 Athavale, K. V. 36 athuppa jagoi 292 Australian loyalism 137 Austro-Asiatic languages 227 Avi 151, 158 – 61, 166 axe 151, 156 bamboo flowering 125 Bana 30 ‘Bandiyar’ (The Prisoner) 252 – 3; curfew jargon 259 – 69; language games and the fetish in 259 – 69; ostensible incommunicability in 262 – 3; problem of language and the exploration of freedom in 268 – 9 Bandyopadhyay, Samik 300 Baptist mission 125 Barganga rock inscription 30 Barnes, H. C. 100 Barooah, Anundoram 211 Barphukan, Badanchandra 197 – 204 Barphukanar Geet (‘The Ballad of the General’) 13, 195, 198, 201, 206 – 13; becoming a historical source 208 – 13; context of the historical period regarding the events in 195 – 8; ‘history,’ nation and colonialism 208 – 13; locating the ballad in history and the framework of ‘peasant literature’ 201 – 8; plot, characters and events 198 – 201 Barua, Gunabhiram 210 Baruah, Padmanath Gohain 209 Battle of Buxar 59, 60 Battle of Palashi (Plassey) 58, 66, 81 Baudhayana Dharmasutra 28 Bayer company 261 Bayly, C. A. 137

Beloved Bullet, The (Dokhuma) 236 Bengal agrarian violence 75 Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation 92 Bengal Literary Association 209 Benton, Lauren 70 – 1 Bezbaroa, Lakhminath 209, 211 Bhabha, Homi K. 182, 189 Bhagadatta, ruler of Pragjyotisa 27, 34, 36 – 7 Bhagyachandra, Meetei King 294 – 8 Bhaskaravarman 30 – 3, 38 Bhattacharya, P.N. 27, 43 Bhattacharyya, Birendra Kumar 236 Bhauma-Naraka dynasty 28, 29 bhukti 40 Bhutivarman 30 Bhuyan, S. K. 207 – 9, 211 – 13 bhuyan-raj 45 Bible 183 – 4, 191 Bitter Wormwood (Kire) 236 Bodawpaya, Burmese king 197, 199 – 200 body: myths embedded in 288 – 90; traditions 278 – 80 body traditions: aesthetics sensibility on 278 – 80; imagination on 278 – 80 borderland space 6 Bordoloi, Gopinath 135 Borooah, Anundoram 34 Bowers, Faubion 296 brahmanas 28; influence in Kamarupa 45 Brahmaputra Valley 25, 227, 237 Brara, N. Vijaylakshmi 288 bride price; see also dowry; marriage price British: as paternalist Sahibs 124 – 6; as valued allies of rival Mizo chiefs 120 – 4 British Assam 124, 126 – 7, 138 – 9 British Company Raj 127 British Crown 126, 130 British district of Tippera 56 British East Indian Company 72 British Empire 98, 124, 127, 129, 227 British imperialism 195, 203, 208 British India 2 British paternalism 125 – 6, 136

332

INDEX

British Raj 125; as a ‘custodial state’ 123; early decades of 123; Japanese occupation and 137; mautam and 125; political influence into the hills 108 Brown, Herbert 128 Buchanan, Francis 71, 75 – 6 Buddha 28 Buddhist canonical works 28 Buller, John 70 Buranji chronicles 202, 205 – 6, 212 Burhagohain, Puranananda 197 – 203 Burkandaz 196 Burmese imperialism 208 Butler, John 96, 105 – 6 Cacharie Beldars 91 Cacharies 91 – 2 Campbell, James Douglas 79 Candravamsa 31 – 2 Candravamsi status 31 Carnegy, P. T. 98 – 9, 101 caste-based movements 139 Cederlöf, Gunnel 67, 72, 78, 80 Chaitanya Vaishnavism 295 Chakla Roshnabad 58, 61, 69 Chakma, Niranjan 232 Chambers, W. E. 102 Chandrakirti, King of Manipur 287, 298 Chandramani, Kabo Khumbongba 295 Changkija, Monalisa 234 Chaphu Jagoior dance 286 Chapman, E. M. 190 Charter Act of 1813 227 Chattapadhyay, Bankim Chandra 68 Chatterjee, Indrani 65 Chatterjee, Partha 126 Chatterji, Suniti Kumar 209 chaudries 72 ‘Chawngchili’s’ 181 Chenga Chukpharol 287 Chengri Valley raids of the 1890s 128 Chhangte, Cherrie L. 235 Chhinlung 173 – 5, 182 Chief Khamliana 127 – 31 Chief Rothangpuia of South Lushai 128 Chief Savunga 128 – 9

child marriage 149 Chingthangkhomba, Meetei King 294 Chin-Lushai expedition 128 Chittagong: East India Company and 58; tax levied by East India Company on 59 Choudhury, P.C. 27, 42 Chowdhury, Nyer 79 Christian converts 127, 130 Christianity 131 – 2, 154, 172 – 7, 181 – 2, 242; and orality 174 – 7 Christian missionaries 130, 144 – 5, 153, 228, 243 Christian morality 154 Chukparol Jagoi dance 285 Chukpharol Jagoi dance 286 ‘Chungleng leh Hnuaileng Indo’ 180; see also ‘The War between the Creatures of the Air and the Creatures of the Land’ Churchill, Winston 126 class-based movements 139 Clifford, James 165 Clive, Robert 66 Coda, in music 81 – 2 coerced mobility 101 – 4; colonial Naga Hills 101 – 4; resistance and 101 – 4 Collector’s Wife, The (Phukan) 236 colonial communication networks 98 colonial governance 73, 104 colonialism 153; anxiety and 73; ballad becoming historical source and 208 – 13; British 198, 203, 209; Moneeram Dewan and 198; ‘objectivising style of thought’ of 73; oral narratives and 191; pervasive and constitutive aspect of 73; Ranajit Guha on 73 colonial knowledge: North East region and 3 – 4; state-making practices and 3 – 4 colonial legal-political institutions 123 colonial Lushai hills: British as paternalist Sahibs 124 – 6; British as valued allies of rival Mizo chiefs 120 – 4; responding to majoritarian state with Raj nostalgia 135 – 8;

333

INDEX

Sahibs, chiefs and commoners in 133 – 5; Welsh British missionary as Zosaps 127 – 33 colonial Naga Hills: knowing the routes 90 – 4; making ‘modern’ roads 94 – 101; people, goods and mobile practices 105 – 8; resistance and coerced mobility 101 – 4; routes, people and mobility in 89 – 109 colonial surveillance mechanisms 93 colonial violence 73 colonisation 172, 176 – 7, 182, 187 – 8, 191 Comaroff, Jean 131 Comaroff, John 131 Comilla 56 Committee of New Lands 57 Comte, Auguste 267 ‘connected history’ approach 7 ‘Conquest, The’ 231 corruption 120, 233 – 4 Cossyah rebellion 91 Crown Colony 136 Cunningham, Alexander 34 customary marriage practices 12; gift exchange practices 12 – 13; North East India 12 customary Sumi marriage practices 149 – 50 dacoity: Ralph Leeke on 71; violence and 72 dacoity 67 – 72 Dai, Lummer 228 Dai, Mamang 229 dakaiti 68 – 9 dak runners 97 – 8 Damodarpur plates 30 dance: amaibis 290 – 2, 295; history of, in Manipur 275 – 6; Indian 276, 279; Lai-Haraoba 283, 296; maibi paton 292 – 3; Meetei 277, 281 – 2, 284, 287, 291 – 2, 298 – 9; methodology/grammatology of 277; poetics of 290 – 9; Ras-Leela 292 – 9 Dancing Village, The (Kire) 241 Darwish, Mahmoud 229 Das, Prasanta 229

Dashroopak 299 Dattadevi, Gupta Empire queen 30 David Anderson Committee of Revenue 77 Deka, Harekrishna 252 Department of Historical and Antiquarian Studies (DHAS) 209 Devi, Mahasweta 261 Dewan, Moneeram 197 – 8, 203, 212 Dewan, Moneeram Dutt Borwah see Dewan, Moneeram Dewanny Adalat 78 Dharmapala, Pala king 39 Dhing of Rangpur (peasant rebellion) 68 Dhing rebellion 75 digvijaya 36 Dikkaravasini 40 – 1 Dino of Mezoma 107 diwani territories 67 dobashis 119, 133 – 5 Doiyang-Dhansiri Valley 28 – 9 Dokhuma, James 236 Douglas, Mary 150 – 1 dowry; see also bride price; marriage price ‘Draupadi’ 261 – 2 Drowned and the Saved, The (Levi) 261 Earth Songs: Stories from Northeast India (Baral) 237 East India Company (EIC) 56 – 7, 72, 119; Ahom kingdom and 196; Cederlöf on 80; Chittagong and 58; ‘Committee of New Lands’ 57; First Anglo-Burmese War and 119; governance 68; headquarters of 201; military priority of 80; tax levied on Chittagong 59; trading relations with Assam 196 Eden, Ashley 89 Edgar, J. Ware 121 – 2 Elliott, C. A. 92 Elwin, Verrier 126 English language 227; during the colonial period 227 – 8; as medium of literary articulation 13; and Northeastern part of India 227 – 8 escape routes 93 Ethnopoetics 239

334

INDEX

European Enlightenment 3 ‘excluded areas’ 124, 126, 137, 230 Fakir Sannyasi rebellion 68 Fanon, Frantz 173, 187, 189 First Anglo-Burmese War 119, 197 First World War 104, 109 Forest Songs (Kire) 241 Forgotten Friends (Chatterjee) 65 Fort Aijal 127, 177 Foucauldian dimension of ‘power’ 173 Foucault, Michel 81, 175 Fresh Fictions: Folktales, Plays, Novellas from the North East 237 Freud, Sigmund 257, 267 ‘frontier’: borderland approach and 6; colonial or missionary projections of 8; region as 3; resource 5 Gait, Edward 35, 210 gana-samga type of states 28 Gandhi, Leela 188, 191 Gandhi, Mahatma 137 Gandhian anti-colonial agitation 127 Garas 91 Garibniwaz, Meetei King 294 Garo people 148 Gauzee, Ally 69 Geertz, Clifford 301 gender: as a category of historical analysis 147; politics of genealogy and its dynamics and 164 – 5; in Sumi marriage practices 144 – 68; Sumi tribe and 147 – 9; using as a category in political economy of marriage and transactions 147 – 8; using as an analytical category 146 – 8 Geography of Ptolemy 28 Gerlach, J. 254 ghats 71 – 2 Ghazi, Shamsher 63 Ghinai see Barphukan, Badanchandra Ghurye, G. S. 126 Gift, The (Mauss) 150 gift diplomacy 121 – 3 God Ganesha 298 Gohain, Hiren 253, 255 – 6 Golaghat–Kohima road 96

Golaghat–Samaguting road 94, 101 golahs 106 goods: colonial Naga Hills 105 – 8; trading 105 – 6 Gopalavarman, Pala king 39 Gospels 175 Government of India Act 1935 126 Govind, Rahul 57, 81 Graeber, David 60 – 1 Gregory, John 91 – 2, 94 Guha, Ranajit 68, 73 Gupta Empire 29 – 30 Gurdon, P.R.T. 209 haats (marketplaces) 122, 124 Hall, Stuart 191 Harsa, Varman king 31 Harsacarita of Bana 30, 38 Hastings, Warren 79 hatha xe or latha xe 156, 160 hawilopar 186 Hazarika, Sanjoy 231 Hazra, the Puranic Vaisnava 32 Heart of the Matter: Stories from the North East 236 – 7 hegemonic masculinity 148, 156 hermeneutic closure 266 – 7 ‘highland’ polities 6 Hindess, Barry 73 Hindi language 233 Hinduism 237, 277, 294 – 7 Historical Atlas of South Asia, A (Schwartzberg) 23 History of Assam, A (Gait) 210 History of British India (Mill) 26 history of region: defined 25; Kamarupa 25; vs. regional history 24 – 5 Hiuen Tsang 33 – 4 Hluna, J. L. 135 Hmar, Pachunga 135 Hobsbawm, Eric 167 Hobson-Jobson: The Definitive Glossary of British India 124 hoirou laoba song 291 Holland, William 78 hongba hongnemba 297 Hopkinson, Henry 89 – 91, 106 – 7 House of Commons 126

335

INDEX

Johnstone, James 94, 96, 99 Johnstone School, Imphal 276 Jonaki 210 Jones, D. E. 127, 130 – 1 joom 71 – 2, 76 joomeas 71 – 2

House with a Thousand Stories, The (Kashyap) 236 hringlang tlang 186 hruai kawn 186 Hunter, William Wilson 56 Hunter, W. W. 105 Hussain, Imran 252 Hussain, Jehirul 270 Hutton, J. H. 147 – 8 Iaruingam (Bhattacharyya) 236 identities: modern forms of 7; as primeval 7 Ihaiphu Jagoi dance 286 Imperial loyalty 138 Imphal Valley 228, 233, 237 Indian Arms Act of 1860 107 Indian Constitution 148; Article 371A 148 Indian Historical Records Commission 211 Indian History Congress 211 Indian National Congress 126 – 7, 132 Indian Nationalism 137 – 8, 276 Indian principle of Natya and Nritya Shastra 277 Indic civilisation 4 Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) 57 Indo-Aryan languages 227 Indological writings 34 Indrapala, Pala king 39 ‘Inner Lines,’ resource frontiers 4 instituted region 23 – 4 Irigaray, Luce 149, 164 Irwin, James 70 Jacobs, Julian 105 – 6 Jain canonical works 28 Jalpisa (form of Siva) 44 Jantia tribe 148, 227 Jawaharlal Nehru Manipuri Dance Academy 276 Jaymati Upakhyan (Bhuyan) 212 Jhaveri, Angana 298 ‘Jighansha’ (The Slaughter) 252 – 3; alien eyes 253 – 9; closure of 259; as conventional text 253; diegetic space in 253 – 4; gazing at the eye of the other in 253 – 9

Kacharis 106 Kalidasa 37 Kalikapurana 39 – 40, 44 Kalita, Arupa Patangia 260, 270 Kalyo Kengyus 106 Kamakhya, goddess of Kalikapurana 32 Kamarupa: as ancient kingdom 26 – 33; Aryan dominance over 42; aryavarta and 41 – 6; defining 23 – 6; described 25; geopolitical entity 37; importance for Assam 25; mandala 40; Pala kings of 39 – 40; Pragjyotisa and 33 – 41; regional history 23 – 6; spatial context of 33 – 41 Kamrup Anusandhan Samiti (The Assam Research Society) 208 – 9 Kapi, Angom 287 Kar, Bodhisattva 34 Kashyap, Aruni 236 Kautilya 28 kayahs 106; see also marwari traders Keatinge, R. H. 100, 102 ‘Kelhoukevira’ 236 Khagemba, King of Manipur 294 Kharmawphlang, Desmond L. 231, 239 Khasi ‘krudksing songs’ 239 Khasi tribe 148, 227 Khongnaang Thaaba 287; see also Thaapa, Lourempa Khonglei Khongthang Anoi (language of footsteps) 290 Khuangchawi 174 – 5 khuazingnu 183 – 4 khujeng leiba 294, 299 Khumbongba, Kabo 295 Khuthek Anoi (language of hand movements) 290 Kire, Easterine 236, 240 Klemperer, Victor 261 Konyaks 105 – 6

336

INDEX

Kookies 91 Korh 133 Kristian Tlangau 135 ksatriya 42 Ksatriyaization 44 ksatriya model of regional raja 44 Kuki–Paite conflict 233 Kukis 75 – 6; agrarian violence and 76; Kuki–Paite conflict and 233; migratory habits of 103; Naga– Kuki conflict and 233 Kumaragupta I 30 kutha kulo 154 Lahiri, Nayanjot 28 Lai-Haraoba (Rejoicing with the God) 279 Lai-Haraoba dance 283, 296 Lai-Haraoba festival 285, 292, 294, 300 Lai-Haraoba performances 287 Lailen 185 Laipou dance cycle 291 Lairen mathek dance 292 Lalitakanta 40 – 1 Lalvunga, K. C. 189 landscape: Bengal agrarian 67; poetic performance of 280 – 7 Langer, Sussane 280 Leeke, Ralph 69 – 70, 69 – 80, 82 Legends of Pensam, The (Dai) 240 Leithak Leikharol 278, 285 Levi, Primo 261 Lewin, T. H. 121, 133, 176 – 7 Lewin, Tom 121 Lloyd, J. M. 132 Log Drummer Boy, The (Kire) 241 Lokendrajit, Soyam 289 London Missionary Society 131 ‘Look East’ policies 5 Look East Policy 226 Lord Dalhousie 230 Lord Krishna 297 – 8 Lorrain, J. Herbert 177 Lothas 102 Low, R. C. 97, 100 loyalism 137; Australian 137 Ludden, David 81 Lunghnema, V. 175 lungloh tui 187

lung rah buk 186 Lushai Expedition of 1871 124, 128 Lushai Hills District of Assam 120 Lushai traders 122 Lydall, E. F. 137 Lyngdoh, Paul 233 Magadhas 28 Mahabharata 27, 32, 34, 262, 276; Asvamedhikaparvan of 36; digvijaya 36; Pragjyotisa reference in 35 – 6 Mahou Yangbi 278 Maiba, Konde Khutchum 280 Maibi, Kumar 286 maibi paton dance 292, 293 Maichou Loishang/Maiba Loishang 279 majoritarian state: colonial Lushai hills 135 – 8; Raj nostalgia and 135 – 8 Majumdar, M. C. 36 Malem Leisemlon Areeba (The Ancient Philosophy of Creation) 287 Malem Paphal 289 Manavas race 42 Manikya, Krishna 58, 60 – 2, 71 – 6, 80 – 1; Razak relationship with 64; surrender to Mathews 63 Manikya, Rajdhar 81 Manikya, Rajdhur 69 – 70 Manipur Government 276 Manipuri language 228 Manipuri performing arts 277, 301 – 2 marriage price 147 – 8; see also bride price; dowry Marriott, Randolph 60 Marwari traders 106; see also kayahs Marx, Karl 267 Mathew, John 73 Mathews, John 61 – 2; on Razak 64; Tippera conquest and 63; on zamindars behaviour 64 – 5 Maurya Empire 28 Mauss, Marcel 150 – 1 mautam (famine) 125 Mawani, Renisa 73 Maxwell, H. 95

337

INDEX

Mbembe, J. A. 261 McCabe, R. B. 97 McLane, John 68 – 9 Medhi, Manorama Das 270 Medovoi, L. 266 Meetei culture 276, 281 Meetei dance 277, 281 – 2, 284, 287, 291 – 2, 298 – 9 Meetei Lai-Haraoba 285 Mehta, Sabita 277 Meitei ‘independentist’ groups 233 Meitei Mayek 237 Meitei organic unity 14 Meitingoo Paamheiba, King of Manipur 287 Memmi, Albert 188 ‘Messrs. Todarmal Sodaram of Dimapur’ 106 Mezoma expedition of 1878 96 Michell, T. B. 102 Mill, James 26 Mills, J. P. 100, 107 – 8 Milosz, Czeslaw 229 Minaketan, Ashangbam 279 Mir Qasim, Nawab of Bengal 58 – 9 Mirza Mahommed 71 Misra, Tilottoma 228, 237 missionary schools 126, 132 mitthi kawtkai (passageway for the dead) 186 mitthi khua 186 Mizo chiefs: British as valued allies of rival 120 – 4; in colonial Lushai hills 133 – 5 Mizo Commoners’ Union 135; see also Mizo Union Mizo famine of 1958 136 Mizo middle class 136 Mizo National Famine Front 136 Mizo National Front 236 Mizo oral literature 179 Mizo people 120, 135 – 6, 139, 173 Mizoram: as Christian state 173; geography of 173; as Lushai Hills during the British days 173; Mizo National Front and 236; Welsh mission in 173 Mizos 12; Christianity and 173; clans of 173; history of 174; interpreting 172 – 4; oral culture

12; orality and 189 – 92; oral narratives and 177 – 81; as song loving community 190; Welsh missionaries and 173; Western traditions and 190 – 1; written culture 12 Mizo sensibility 172, 177 Mizo Union 135 – 6; see also Mizo Commoners’ Union mleccha 43 – 4 mlecchadhinatha 43 mobile practices: along the Naga frontier 92; colonial Naga Hills 105 – 8; tribal immigrants and 93 modernisation: geographical ‘peripheries’ of 8; ideas and North East 7 – 8; missionary projections of 7 – 8 ‘modern’ roads: colonial Naga Hills and making of 94 – 101; emergence of a coercive labour and 11; fiscal regime and 11; hill routes and 90 Mohammad Ally of Dunserrah 74 Mohan, Ram 58 – 9 Molland, William 73 MoneeramDewanar Geet (Ballad of Moneeram Dewan) 204, 212 ‘Monkey and the Tortoise, The’ 178 morung system of traditional learning 243 Mughal Empire: Tippera and 58 My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills (Johnstone) 96 myths embedded in body 288 – 90 Naga Folktales Retold (Kire) 241 Naga frontier 89, 91 – 4 Naga Hills 11, 89 Naga Hills campaign of 1879 – 1880 96 Nagajari-Khanikarga 29 Naga–Kuki conflict 233 Naga–Meitei conflict 233 Naothingkhong, King of Manipur 294 Naraka 27 – 8, 30, 32, 39; designation as asura 42 Naraka-Bhagadatta dynasty 29 narrative closure 266 – 7 Nata-Sankirtana singing 290, 296 – 8

338

INDEX

Native American narratives 239 nature, poetic performance of 280 – 7 Natyashastra 276, 299, 301 Needham, J. F. 99 Nehru, Jawahar Lal 137 Nehruvian Nationalism 276 neo-vaishnavite literatures 205 Nepalese 91, 106 Neruda, Pablo 229 Ngangom, Robin S. 230, 232 Ngugi wa thiong’o 173 Nidhanpur plates 31 Nilakanta, E. 276 Noiba 279, 290 – 1 non-Christians 127, 182 Nonconformist missionaries 131 Nongkynrih, Kynpham Sing 230, 238 North East Frontier 89 North East Frontier Area (NEFA) 231 North East India: British India and 2; colonial knowledge and 3 – 4; description 1; evolution of English language in the region 227 – 8; gender relations and 8; ‘modernisation,’ missionary projections of 7 – 8; state-making practices and 3 – 4; towards an alternative literary discourse 241 – 3; writing as politics 228 – 37; writing oral tradition 237 – 41 North East Writers Forum (NEWF) 227 North West Frontier 2 Nuchhungi, Pi 190 Nunkum people 97 ‘Obscure Place, An’ 238 ‘Old Story Teller, The’ 239 Old Testament 183 Ong, Walter J. 243 oral folk narratives 189 orality: interpreting the Mizo 172 – 4; locating Christianity 174 – 7; orality and the Mizo 189 – 92; oral narratives 177 – 81; politics of orality 181 – 9 Orality and Literacy (Ong) 243 oral narratives 173, 177 – 81 organic reality 14 orthodox Indian nationalists 126

paiks 68 – 9 Pakhangba, King of Manipur 294 Pamheiba, Meetei King 294 Pandit, A. V. 298 Pandit Loishang 279 pan-Indian nationalism 139 Panthoibi Khonggul 278 Parade Ground of Aizawl 127 Pargiter, F.E. 35, 41 – 2 Parratt, John 276, 296 Parratt, Saroj N. Arambam 276, 296 parthiva 44 Pathian 131 Pawsey, Charles 134 perceived region 23 – 4 performativity of traditional concept of time 287 – 8 Periplus of Erythraean Sea 28 Permanent Settlement 61 Peters, L. L. 132 Phookan, Nilmani 235 Phukan, Anandaram Dhekial 196, 210 Phukan, Haliram Dhekial 196, 210 Phukan, Mitra 236 pialral 174, 186 Pietz, William 267 pitha 41 Plato 280 poetic performance: of landscape 280 – 7; of nature 280 – 7 poetic performance of nature and landscape 280 – 7 poetics: of dance 290 – 9; of movement 290 – 9 politics: of orality 181 – 9; of philanthropy 125; writing as 228 – 37 politics of genealogy: gender and 164 – 5 Pongthourol Thouni 278 Porteous, A. E. 97 – 8, 106 Portuguese Jesuit missionaries 227 Pragjyotisa: confusion about location of 37; geopolitical entity 37; Kamarupa and 33 – 41; Pargiter on 41 – 2; Ramayana’s reference to 36; reference in Mahabharata 35 – 6 pragjyotisendra 38 pre-colonial Buranji chronicles 206

339

INDEX

pre-colonial Mizo sensibility 177 Premchand, Nongthombam 294 Presbyterian Synod 127 Pudin 278 punastoma 28 Pundras 28 punitive expeditions 96 purity rituals for amini kimji xe 163 – 4 Pusyavarman, king of Kamarupa 27, 29, 38 Puyas 278 quotidian anxieties 72 Raghuvamsa (Kalidasa) 37 – 8 Rajmala (Singha) 66 Raj nostalgia: British as paternalist Sahibs 124 – 6; British as valued allies of rival Mizo chiefs 120 – 4; colonial Lushai hills 135 – 8; and Mizos 12; responding to majoritarian state with 135 – 8; Welsh British missionary as Zosaps 127 – 33 Ralte, Dara 133 – 4 Ralte, Vanlawma 135 Ram, Betal 134 Ramayana 36 Rani Jahnavi 81 Ras-Leela of Manipur 292 – 9 Rausch (Hanoverian salt merchant) 196 Ray, Ratnalekha 58 Razak, Abdul 63 – 4 region: defined 23; framing, through knowledge 3 – 4; as ‘frontier’ 3; geographical location, and nature of 5; insular approach to 4; legitimising conquest and governance of 3; as a periphery 3; space and 6 regional history: vs. history of region 24 – 5; Kamarupa 23 – 6; trends in 24 Rengmas 102 resistance: and coerced mobility 101 – 4; colonial Naga Hills 101 – 4 Reza Khan, Muhammad 58 – 9, 62 ‘Rimenhawihii’ 179 River Dhunsiri 94

road building 90, 108 Rosaldo, Renato 166 Rose, J. 250 Rothangpuia Thangluah (Rutton Poia) 121 Rothenberg, Jerome 239 Roy, J. J. Nicholos 135 Sahibs: British as paternalist 124 – 6; in colonial Lushai hills 133 – 5 Sahitya Darpan 299 Sahu, B.P. 25 Sailenpui Raja 128 Sailo, Khamliana 128 Sakhua religion 129 Salastambha, king of the Mlecchas 43 Samaguting-Hurriojan road 95 samantas 31 ‘Sambhabya Kaal’ (A Time to Come) 270 Samudragupta, Gupta emperor 28, 30 Samudravarman 30 sanatana varna 41 Sangeet Natak Academi 276 Sankaradeva (sixteenth-century neovaishnavite figure) 211 Sanskrit language 44 Sarma, Benudhar 209 Sarma, Dimbeswar 27 Sarma, Parag M 242 sarvaprstha 28 Sastras 41 Saudyumnas race 42 Savidge, F. W. 177 Schmitt, Carl 266 Schwartzberg, Joseph E. 23 Scott, David 125, 197 Sema, Jankhomo 107 Sema Naga, The (Hutton) 147 ‘Serkawn Graded Reader’ 190 Shah Alam II 67 Shakespear, John 134 Shakespear, L. W. 103 Shakespeare, John 69 Sharma, Sidhyahasta Bachaspati Bhaskar 295 shatter zone: class formation/relation and 5; defined 5 Shillong poets 229 Shulman, David 280

340

INDEX

Siamkima Khawlhring 189 Singh, Bharath 37 Singh, Bipin 277 Singh, Cawn 65 Singh, Ibohal 296 Singh, Roop 200 Singh, Uday 199 Singha, Gaurinath 37, 196 Singha, Kailash Chandra 61, 65 – 6 Siraj-ud-Daula, Nawab of Bengal 66 60 Indian Poets (Thayil) 229 Sky Queen, The (Dai) 240 Smith, Dorothy 144, 146, 167 social relations 5 Songs from Other Life (Ao) 239 space, and region 6 spatial unit 23 Spivak, Gayatri 188, 191, 261 Stack, E. 97 state-evading practices 6 ‘Strange Affair of Robin S. Ngangom, The’ 233 strategies of governance 5 Suakpuilala (Sukpilal) Sailo 121 – 3, 128 – 9 Subaltern Project 138 subdued eloquence 290 – 9 Sumi cultural practices 148 – 9 Sumi marriage practices 144, 147; ameh 144, 148 – 67, 150 – 2; amini kimiji xe 156 – 60, 163 – 5; ashoghu xe 156, 160, 163; centrality of women’s body and her sexuality 163 – 4; child marriage 149; customary 149 – 50; customary Sumi marriage practices 149 – 50; economics of power 155 – 63; exchange of ameh during 152 – 5; exchange of ameh during Sumi marriage 152 – 5; gender in 144 – 68; gendering politics of genealogy and dynamics 164 – 5; hatha xe or latha xe 156, 160; marriage prestations and ameh 155 – 63; marriage rituals and prestation in different marriage category 157 – 63; purity rituals for amini kimji xe 163 – 4; Sumi cultural practices, values, rules and norms 148 – 9; topunasho xe

156; using gender as an analytical category 146 – 8 Sumi tribe 147, 149, 157 Sumner, Richard 71, 74 – 5 Surendravarman 30 Survey of India 78 Suryavamsa 31 – 2 Taapungpa, Kurum 287 TADA (Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act) 258 taluqdars 72 Taylor, Diana 252 tea estates 119, 121 terrorism 233, 266 Tezpur plates 38 Thaapa, Lourempa Khonglei 287; see also Khongnaang Thaaba Thailungi 177 Thakur, Shree Roopramanand 295 Thakur, Shree Swarupanand 295 Thaloi Nongkhailon 297 Thanghi Ngangoi 287 Thangliena, Mizo chief 121, 177 Thapar, Romila 24 Thayil, Jeet 229 Theory of the Partisan (Schmitt) 266 These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone (Ao) 236 Thimzing 175 Thingtam famine of 1880 – 1881 125 thingvantawng 185 Thlanrawkpa Khuangchawi 174 Thompson, George 78 Thongchi, Yeshe Dorje 228 Tibeto-Burman languages 227 Tippera: conquest of 57, 59, 61, 62 – 7; dacoity and 67 – 72; Mughal Empire and 58; see also Tripura toponymic identification 34 topunasho xe 156; see also aküpüla xe Totok punitive expedition 104 trading goods 105 traditional concept of time: performativity of 287 – 8 Travers, Robert 68 Treaty of Yandabo 27, 197 Tribal Question 126 Tripura: territorial frame of 10; tribal identity 57; violence and 10

341

INDEX

Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council 56 Trivedi, Harish 191 Trotter, W. F. 101 tuihriam 184 tuqhou nhemugha (secret property) 161; see also assana Ukak Lathaetc 278 Umachal rock inscription 30 Umang Lais 281 ‘ungoverned’ frontier 5 – 6 ‘unwritten social contract’ 250 – 1 vaidika brahmanas 31 ‘Vai lenlai’ 123 Vai Len Lai (‘the time of foreign invasion’) 128 Vaisnava brahmans 32 Vajradatta 27, 30 Vanamalavarman 38 Vangas 28 Vanlaiphai 185 Van Schendel, Willem 75 Vansittart, Henry 58 – 9 Varmans 29 – 31 varnasrama-dharma 31 Vasumati 33 Vatsayan, Kapila 277 Vedas 41, 42 Vedic Aryans 42 – 3 Verelst, Harry 58, 60; on expedition to Tippera 62 verse chronicles 205 violence: colonial 73; dacoity and 72; Tripura and 10 Virkus, Fred 29 – 30 visaya 31 Voeltzel 175 ‘Voice of the Mountain, The’ 238 Wall, O. A. 285 ‘War between the Creatures of the Air and the Creatures of the Land, The’ 180; see also ‘Chungleng leh Hnuaileng Indo’

Webster, J. E. 106 Welsh, Thomas 196 Welsh British missionary as Zosaps 127 – 33 Welsh Calvinistic mission 127 Welsh missionary 124, 130 – 1, 173, 191 ‘What Poetry Means to Ernestina in Peril’ 235 ‘What Were We Talking About Just Now?’ 235 When the River Sleeps (Kire) 241 Williamson, W. J. 95 – 6, 101 Wilson, Jon 68, 72, 77 Winther, Per 266 women: amini kimji xe, rituals for 163 – 4; assana 161 – 2; marginality in society 13, 148; sexuality of 154 – 5; Sumi marriage practices and 163 – 4 Woodthorpe, R. G. 101 Wotsa, Hosheli 153 writing: oral tradition 237 – 41; as politics 228 – 37 ‘Xoru Dhemali, Bar Dhemali’ (Minor Preludes, Major Preludes) 270 Yaima, Khumanlambam 294 yavana 36 Yoginitantra 40 yoni worship 42 Yucheng Chukpharol 287 Yuha Chukpharol 287 Yumsarol 288 Zama, Margaret 240 zamindary 79, 82 Zizek, Slavoj 251 zomia 6 Zosaphluia 127, 131 ‘Zosaphluia’ see Jones, D. E. Zosaps: Welsh British missionary as 127 – 33 Zote, Mona 235

342