Recently, I published an essay on Kuki Rebellion of 1917-1919, titled “To bridge the divide in Manipur, the effects of a long cycle of violence should be accepted” about how the rebellion affected neighbouring Naga tribes especially Zeliangrong. This aspect has been hardly presented in the existing writings on Kuki Rebellion wherein it has been largely portrayed as a history in isolation from ethnic tensions between Naga and Kuki tribes since nineteenth century.

Kuki Rebellion has been usually portrayed as a heroic act of fighting the Colonial force but this particular ‘anti-colonial’ narrative ignores the sufferings meted out to Zeliangrong people (a conglomeration of Naga tribes- Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei and Inpui). How a significant part of historical event has been obscured so far requires a retelling/rewriting experiences of Zeliangrong people from Kuki Rebellion, 1917-1919. The horrors unleashed on Zeliangrong people cannot be passed off as ‘unfortunate’, as Mr. Sonthang Haokip does in his thesis on “Anglo Kuki relations” 1Haokip, Sonthang. (2011). “Anglo Kuki relations”, Unpublished Thesis. Manipur University, or circumstantial as presented in the essay in The Statesman titled “Misrepresenting the Past” by Thongkholal Haokip.

I relied on secondary data like books and archival records to piece them together into a historical account of Zeliangrong people under the shadow of Kuki Rebellion. In doing so, I have presented how events before and after Kuki Rebellion are replete with Naga Kuki ethnic tension and its politics by keeping myself away from making subjective comments.

Historical writing is susceptible to interpretation and reproduction, and the outcome can lead to distortion of original contents. To start with, Mr. Thongkholal Haokip’s misinterpretation of a particular line from my article is deceptive wherein I wrote based on archival record that “…in the Naga Hills, Kukis took 250 heads from the neighbouring villages” changes into “250 Kabuis in the North Western hills, now in Tamenglong…” in his article. The archival record I referred to is from the year 1910.2National Archives of India- New Delhi. Government of India. Foreign Department. External-A. Proceeding, July 1910, Nos. 20-27 This account of heads being taken is to highlight the existing feud between Kuki and Naga tribes long before the Kuki Rebellion began.

It is with great dismay to put our Zeliangrong Naga history and suffering in the face of wilful distortion of history. While at it, I would also like to point out that there were multiple instances where colonial sources documented number of casualties/deaths. I have found the sources not once but multiple times. One of many instances being this record in the State Archives of West Bengal, where Major-General W.F. Nuthall, Political Agent, Munipore, in his letter to Lieutenant J. Butler, Deputy Commissioner, Naga Hills in 1871 informed that

As to how the article “Misrepresenting the Past” reminds us that the effort of Kuki to instil peace is largely forgotten is at best selective writing and at worst distortion of history. The efforts of few Kuki chiefs in reaching out to Naga villages to join them in resisting recruitment for labour corps is remarkable in a sense that a space for alliance against the colonial rule is hardly initiated between the Kukis and the Nagas. However, this effort is subdued later by calculated attacks of Kukis against Zeliangrong Naga. For instance, as per Sonthang Haokip, Tintong, Chief of Laijang initially sought cooperation from Nagas in resisting Labour Corps recruitment, and later he masterminded and took part in raids on Naga villages causing burning of houses and several casualties.

Gangmumei Kamei in his book,4Kamei, Gangmumei. (2004). “A History of The Zeliangrong Nagas. From Makhel To Rani Gaidinliu”. Gauhati: Spectrum Publications The History of Zeliangrong Nagas- From Makhel to Rani Gaidinliu, described the genesis of attack on Zeliangrong during the Kuki Rebellion. He wrote that it began with the incident of an attack on some Kukis leading to confiscation of their guns at Rongmei village, Lukhambi. Two Rongmei villages – Awangkhul and Rangkhong came forward to help Lukhambi. Tintong responded with a retaliation by leading a raid on Awangkhul, and they took 30 heads. Akhui, a Rongmei village led an attack on nearby Kuki village causing a death of dozen Kukis. Tintong then responded with an attack on Akhui village killing 76 persons and burnt down the village. The pattern here reveals that ethnic lines are being drawn leading to ethnic tension. Sensing the situations of Rongmei villages, Liangmai Naga came to rescue them. Loss of multiple of hundreds of Zeliangrong people and several villages burnt down to ashes, is not a circumstantial incident, it happened with strategic, deliberate and pre planned massacre by Kukis against Zeliangrong people during Kuki Rebellion. Gangmumei Kamei added that Tangkhul Nagas were also attacked by Kukis during the Kuki Rebellion. He also wrote that around that time the Kukis had already ceased the use of “the bow and arrow, sword and spear”, for they possessed a skill to manufacture “guns, gunpowder and leather canons.” The absence of Naga men can also be drawn into this particular event for the fact that many were sent to France as labour corps to help the Allied Forces during World War I.

In the words of Lal Dena,5History of Morden Manipur (1826-1949). New Delhi: Orbit Publication & Distributions.

After Kuki Rebellion, towards the end of 1919, is marked by introduction of direct administration of hill people under the British, a move which is unprecedented considering how the hills were administered indirectly after the British conquest of Manipur in 1891. The hills come under the rule of three sub-divisions constituted by Chief Commissioner of Assam.

Historical writing in this form begs a question to re-examine and bring out dynamics at play and processes surrounding events from the past. In addition to EH Carr’s emphasis on the need of historiography as Mr. Haokip reminds us in his article, it will be of great value to extend our ears also to Ronald Aminzade’s take on the role of historical sociologists where he sees it to be a way to bring out diverse patterns, and linkages among events by critically assessing historical accounts. This involves focussing on the causes and consequences of the events, and other processes among events like overlapping and intersection.

Less than ten years after the Kuki Rebellion, the Zeliangrong movement began under the leadership of Jadonang and later Rani Gaidinliu. The arrest of Rani Gaidinliu by the British came through with the help of Kuki informer. The role of Kuki informer in aiding the arrest of Rani Gaidinliu is corroborated in the writings of Ursula Graham Bower.6Ursula Graham Bower. (1952). Naga Path. Delhi: Spectrum Publications. So, it will be unwise to say that there existed a group which has been forgotten for their effort to initiate peace during the colonial period. Zeliangrong movement is a freedom movement against the British colonialism, and also plays out its rivalry with Kukis.

In Assam State Archives, there is a letter written by W.A. Cosgrave, Chief Secretary to the Government of Assam on February 25, 1931, where he highlights about the unrest among Kabui Nagas in North-west of Manipur state.7Assam State Archives – Appointment II & Political Department Branch, Nos. 20-94, “Unrest among Kabui Nagas in North-West of Manipur State”. He noted that Kuki villages were set up in Naga inhabited areas especially of Kabui and Kacha Nagas, and they were described as not indigenous who migrated into the region some generations ago. A description here conveys that the main dispute is around land, and land has been an important factor which is central to formulations of Naga identity. Land is also attached to Naga notions of culture, custom, belief system and rituals. The formation of Naga Club in 1918 and its memorandum (one of the signatories was Kuki) to the Simon Commission in 1929 are a clear indication of ethnic identity consciousness and its expression back in the early twentieth century.

Scholars from northeast writing on colonial history, must critically look at the British administration, and how they created fault lines to implant their divide and rule policy. The contours of colonialism can be easily identified by people who are at its receiving end. One must stay vigilant from falling into the trap of colonialism and internalising it, like how Zeliangrong Naga, one of the largest tribes in Manipur being referred to as “smaller hill communities in Manipur in T Haokip’s writing, is dishonest. A concerted effort to skirt acknowledgement of violence and its excesses on Zeliangrong Naga people during Kuki Rebellion, is an ahistorical approach towards Zeliangrong movement which happened later under Jadonang and Rani Gaidinliu.

The post Many Histories of Kuki Rebellion (1917-1919) appeared first on RAIOT.

The unruly Brahmaputra has always been an agent in shaping both the landscape of its valley and the livelihoods of its inhabitants. But how much do we know of this river’s rich past? The Unquiet River, Historian Arupjyoti Saikia’s biography of the Brahmaputra reimagines the layered history of Assam with the unquiet river at the centre. The book combines a range of disciplinary scholarship to unravel the geological forces as well as human endeavour which have shaped the river into what it is today. Illuminated with archival detail and interwoven with narratives and striking connections, the book allows the reader to imagine the Brahmaputra’s course in history. We are publishing the extract from the last chapter of the book.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SAW THE emergence of many ideas related to meaningfully transforming the Brahmaputra to serve the government and the country. Experts toyed with ideas on how to tame the river. If other rivers of the world could serve the cause of the governments of the countries through which they flowed, why should the Brahmaputra not be trained in similar ways? It was only a matter of the appropriate calculations and necessary engineering works. What was called for was a plan for the river’s regulation to achieve the desired goals. The river, despite its erratic temperament, was bound to behave according to the rules thus framed. After two centuries of political, economic, intellectual, and bureaucratic negotiation, the river has become part of India’s national imagination. India’s stake in the Brahmaputra is now firmly established. The genealogy of this belief in the expertise, knowledge, and governance of the river goes back to the mid-nineteenth century as the example of the Kalang, a distributary of the Brahmaputra, shows.

The Kalang is the river on the banks of which I have partly grown up. The mouth of this distributary was closed in 1964. Once the highway for kings, traders, and British steamers, the river is now highly polluted. It now carries only carcasses, human excreta, and hardly any water except during the monsoon. More recently, there was an increasing public clamour to re-wild the river. Different public organizations demanded that the river’s mouth be restored and ‘regulated water flow’ maintained. As I finish writing this book, nothing of the sort has happened. But this public demand provides an opening to explore how a river’s destiny is connected to knowledge and governmentality.

A RIVER OF MANY LIVES

Early nineteenth-century accounts of Assam contained this singular piece of information about the course of the Brahmaputra: that in the central part of the valley, the river bifurcated into two channels, the southern one taking the name of Kalang.

On reaching Assam the Brahmaputra turns nearly due west and receives a copious supply of water from that region of rivers. About 104 miles above Gohati in longitude 91 48 E it separates into two branches of which the northern is by far the greatest and retains the name while the southern is called Kolong [Kalang]; they enclose an island five days journey in length and about one in width.1Hamilton,Geographical,Statistical,and Historical Description,1820,p.14.

This stream of the Brahmaputra has undergone several geographical transformations. Dead channels called Mori-Kalang and Pota- Kalang indicate the earlier courses of the river. Both manmade and geographical transformations reduced the river into insignificance from the second half of the twentieth century but in the sixteenth century the river was an important source of navigation and military mobility. In 1529, the Ahom king Suhungmung sent a ‘filibustering expedition down the Brahmaputra’ (using the Kalang channel) against the Mughals.2 Gait, A History of Assam, 1906, p. 91. Examples of the Ahom military officials using the Kalang are many (see Bhuyan, Deodhai Asom Buranji, 1932b, pp. 82, 110) This southern branch of the river was less ferocious and agricultural production flourished on its banks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The kings, their soldiers, and merchants regularly travelled through this branch of the river. The Ahom kings relied on this region for the supply of rice, mustard, cotton, et cetera. The river also hosted several custom checkpoints including the Raha chowki (customs checkpoint). Goods arriving from Assam’s southern hills had to necessarily pay taxes there. In the seventeenth century an influential Ahom official, Momai Tamuli Barbarua, ensured human settlement along the Kalang and brought significant areas under reclamation. When British officials toured the central parts of the valley early in the nineteenth century, they detoured through the Kalang, as it was deep and full of water. Mills recorded that the scenario of the densely populated villages, with ‘good gardens and rich cultivation’ situated on both banks, was ‘most gratifying’. ‘There is no part of Assam more populous or prosperous.’

The Kalang’s course ensured that the present Nagaon and Morigaon districts of central Assam were divided into two. The East India Company (EIC) established the headquarters of Nagaon district along the banks of the river. The British shifted three times before finally settling down here in 1837. Most British officials did not have good things to say about the river, with some critiquing the river as ‘swarm[ing] with mosquitoes’, but they recognized its role in consolidating EIC rule in this part of the valley. Both imperial and Assamese officials posted in the district realized the tremendous possibilities of trade and commerce via improved navigation. Over the years, these localities were able to make vast improvements in agriculture, and were also the meeting point of a wide range of hill-based commerce. On both sides of the Kalang there were permanent agricultural villages, some of them benefitting from regular monsoon floods.

The life of the Kalang changed when its headwaters came to be obstructed by the formation of a sandbar in 1852–3. Due to the sedimentation, the upper portion of the river was rendered virtually unnavigable. Such geomorphological processes, integral to the Brahmaputra, were serious obstacles to the colonial enterprise. Eager to make the interiors of the newly occupied territories accessible for trade and commerce, Butler proposed to A.J. Moffat Mills, the touring judge from Calcutta, that the ‘bank might be removed or cut through which would [give] incalculable benefits to the people of Nowgaon as large boats would be able to pass through entire length of the district and trade would greatly promoted thereby’.3‘Letter from Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, Sub-Assistant Commissioner(SAC) in charge of Nagaon, to F. Jenkins, Commissioner of Assam, 8 October 1857, no. 371’, in File no. 434, Commissioner’s Office, 1857–1864, in Correspondence Regarding the Opening of the Mouth of Kulong river in Nowgong (Assam State Archives) (hereafter CROMKRN). Kalang has been spelled variously, that is, Kalang, Kulong, Kullung, Kolong. In this work, we have used Kalang.Like many other British officials, Butler believed the floodplains should be remunerative, like any other tract of land; an estimated 10 per cent of the district’s revenue came from the chapori areas in 1851–2. The primary reason behind attempts to improve navigation on the Kalang was to allow access to the hinterland of one of Assam’s richest agricultural areas, which produced rice, mustard, and cotton, apart from other forest produce in the Naga hills. Mills agreed to what Butler proposed.

Even as the ideas and financial outlays of improved navigation were being debated, the river posed new challenges. Towards the end of 1857, a char was formed at the mouth of the Kalang, which limited the flow of water into the river. The char ‘has set with great impetuosity on the south bank exactly at the pace where the cut is proposed’. This further setback in the navigability of Kalang must have worried officials. Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, as Sub-assistant Commissioner of Nagaon, reiterated Butler’s proposal of opening the ‘mouth of Kullung’. A great admirer of British science and technology, he believed European modernity could bring order to the chaotic landscape of his birthplace. Phukan maintained that at least till ‘24 years ago waters of the Brohmopooter flowed through the Kullung all the year round’. Asserting his personal knowledge of the localities the Kalang traversed, he corresponded with his superiors including Francis Jenkins, the commissioner of Assam, regarding the rationale for river engineering. He observed that this question had ‘frequently attracted the earnest attention of those who have hitherto had occasion to think or write upon the means of advancing the prosperity and resources of this district’.

Phukan was convinced that navigation on the Kalang throughout the year would consolidate commercial and agricultural speculations which had acquired new dynamism with the advent of British capital. He proposed that the Kalang’s mouth be kept open in the dry season by ‘cutting a canal through a less sandy soil, or by any other means which a scientific examination might render it fit to suggest’. Phukan suggested the proposal be scientifically examined by an official from the Public Works Department.

Jenkins quickly forwarded the proposal to the Bengal government, observing that ‘the want of a better navigation is a serious drawback to the improvement of one of the finest Districts in Assam’. ‘Could the upper mouths of the Kulling [Kalang] therefore be kept open all the year, the advantages to the Divisions would be almost incalculable, and to the whole province it would be a benefit of great value.’ While Jenkins did not oppose Phukan’s proposal, he favoured a ‘short new cut’ connecting the Kalang to the Brahmaputra.

Such a canal would ensure more waters across the Kalang, argued Jenkins. ‘Not only might these streams and bhills bring down a sufficient body of water to keep the Kullung below navigable all the year but a large extent of country would be efficiently drained which from marshes and morasses are now useless and very pestilential [sic].’ These would be the regular medium of navigation and ‘useless’ dangerous areas would become useful. The beels were part of the old beds of the Dhansiri River. Jenkins aimed to turn these beels into a ‘living’ river by connecting them artificially and thereby opening ‘a most valuable internal navigation from Golaghat to Gowhatty through the finest parts of Nowgong’, and linking ‘the Kullung with a large system of navigable branches of the Berhampooter which pass in the rains through the district of Sibsaugor’.

In May 1857, the Bengal government sought a report on the project from the chief engineer of the Bengal Presidency. Though we do not know what happened in that respect, in January 1858, Phukan wrote a detailed report to his superior Lieutenant B.W.D. Morton, the principal assistant commissioner at Nagaon. Visualized with rough sketches, this report summed up Phukan’s observations based on his own inspection of the course of the Brahmaputra. He noted with astonishment that the river had been cutting through the sandbank at the mouth of the Kalang ‘exactly at the place’ where he had proposed the cut, reducing the sandbank to only 10 m. The ‘Heavenly Will of Providence’ was behind this wonder, he wrote to his superior. But he reiterated the need to accelerate the process by human intervention.4‘Letter from Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, SAC, Nagaon, to Captain Jenkins, no. 371, 8 April 1857, Nagaon’, in CROMKRN. Phukan wrote: ‘From the fact of the Berhampooter even at the present moment rapidly cutting away the strip of land alluded to [the one between the two rivers], I am led to believe that the junction so much desired will come off in all probability without any recourse of artificial means…. I am however of opinion that a cut across the intervening narrow belt will no doubt accelerate the confluence of the two streams.’Phukan was in favour of any form of river engineering, from constructing small embankments to redirecting the flow of a river.

Phukan’s proposal faced strong opposition from local inhabitants, the ‘principal ryots and mouzdars’, and local revenue officials. Many felt this scheme would lead to ‘the most dreadful consequences’ as the Kalang would overflow and inundate the paddy fields on both banks of the river. They had been regularly ‘repairing and maintaining extensive bunds’ along the river to prevent floods. If the Brahmaputra’s floodwaters flowed into the Kalang it would be an invitation for disaster. Seeing the strength of the opposition from people, Phukan admitted that he had not had the opportunity to observe the extent of floods in those localities. ‘I do not suppose that it is wholly impossible for the Kullung after an active current of the Brahmaputra to overflow its banks to a greater extent than it has hitherto done.’ However, he was confident that ‘by the small cut … [nothing] more will be done than what the course of the Berhampootra will itself eventually accomplish’.

Phukan’s proposal had many supporters including his superior B.W.D. Morton, who remarked that the ‘proposed cut is one which will confer the greatest blessings on the district and will not be attended with slightest danger’. He requested Jenkins to grant Rs 150 as expenses for cutting a rivulet to connect the Kalang and the Brahmaputra. Jenkins, with the approval of the Government of Bengal, happily sanctioned this trifling cost for an ‘experiment’ of great import.

Phukan died in June 1859 at the young age of thirty; but before that, in April 1859, Captain Marshall, an engineer fairly well acquainted with Assam’s geography, submitted a report to Jenkins on Phukan’s proposal. Marshall was convinced that any attempt to improve the Kalang’s navigability by opening its mouth would be an environmentally impractical project. He suggested an alternative: that a whole day’s journey could be saved for boats by cutting through the neck of ‘a great bend [in the river] … between Raha and Jaggee’. Marshall also suggested the levelling of some steep sections of the Kalang’s tributary Kopili, which stood as major obstacles to country boats. Navigation through these sections involved additional expenses as boatmen had to unload and load their goods. Marshall was also expected to comment on Jenkins’ grandiose plan of connecting the Kalang to the Brahmaputra. Since it was difficult to reject Jenkins’ ideas given his seniority, Marshall cautiously noted that the proposed 50–65 km long canal would cost no less than Rs 4 lakh; even then it would only result in a paltry increase of half a metre of water in the dry season. To link the Brahmaputra with the hinterland by a cart road would serve the purpose better. The general concurrence of the engineers was that the scheme for opening the navigation of the Kalang might be abandoned. The chief engineer quickly agreed and wrote to the Bengal government expressing his view that Assam’s economy did not warrant such work at the time but might be taken up when a suitable time came. The Lieutenant-Governor concurred with the views of the chief engineer.

In spite of Marshall’s unenthusiastic report, Jenkins continued to try to persuade officials in London. In 1860, the secretary of state in London agreed that if implemented the project would bring ‘great benefit to the country’. Advisories from London resulted in an apportionment of a sum of Rs 1,500 for removing the rapids in the lower reaches of the Kalang but actual work did not begin. In February 1861, Colonel Reid, the superintending engineer, warned against any attempt to bring the force of the Brahmaputra into the Kalang. Reid concurred with Marshall’s idea of a raised cart road from Nagaon to Tezpur which would be traversable throughout the year. This work could be carried out at a much lower cost compared to the expensive plans of river improvement. However, by 1864 no aspect of the dream river improvement had seen the light of day.

The history of the Kalang in the interim period, of almost a hundred years, until sometime after Independence, is unclear. The river probably began to receive more water from the Brahmaputra, as prophesied by Anandaram Dhekial Phukan. It continued to flood fields and urban areas. The older generation that I met cherished their memories of the Kalang and the abundance of food it engendered. Post the 1950 earthquake, due to the raising of the Brahmaputra’s bed, more water came through the Kalang, which triggered high flooding in urban areas. These floods caused by the Kalang, in the 1950s and early years of the 1960s, led to a strong political demand from the urban elite to close the mouth of the river at its source. A war of words ensued between the rich and poor, between upstream and downstream dwellers. In 1962 the Government of India approved a scheme to embank the river. This was the time when floods were seen as destructive and the assertion of human will over nature viewed as essential. The waves of major floods that severely affected the town of Nagaon in August 1963 compelled K.L. Rao, Union Minister of Irrigation and Power, to make a brief visit to Nagaon. After a hastily taken decision, the mouth of the Kalang was finally closed in 1964. This cut down the river from its organic wing and it was allowed to die out. Kalang was separated from the Brahmaputra both physically and in terms of the local imagination.

The closing down of the mouth of the river affected the fields, trees, and kitchen gardens of the peasants. As water stopped flowing in the Kalang, it meant a fall in the water table of these areas, sounding the death knell for plants and fields. The fate of the soil, fish, and fishermen was captured in the Assamese short story ‘Ekhan Nodir Mritu’ (Death of a River), where one of the protagonists recalled a popular saying about the Hindu Kali Yug: crops would disappear, fish would disappear, fruits would disappear. Within a year, ‘an area of 10,000 acres of land was reported to have suffered’ as fields went dry.5Assam Information, vol. 15, 1963, p. 28; Draft Minutes of the 5th Meeting of the Assam Flood Control Board, 11 November, 1964, Chief Minister’s Secretariat (hereafter CMS), 260/64, 1964, Secretariat Branch, CM’s Department, ASA.Widespread protests grew, and peasants came out in large numbers to break the embankment.

To mollify the disgruntled cultivators, the government proposed a lift-irrigation project at the site where the river’s mouth was closed down. The peasants in the downstream demanded that they also be provided with irrigation waters. A reworked irrigation project now released 600 cusecs of water from the Brahmaputra into the closed Kalang to rejuvenate a dead river, like an artificial heart. In 1975, with funds amounting to Rs 4.75 crores from the World Bank, an irrigation project was undertaken, with the pumping station in the closed mouth of the river, where Anandaram Dhekial Phukan had spent weeks observing the river. This irrigation project continued to play a game of hide and seek until the end of the century as the water retreated or moved forward.

Post closure of the Kalang, human habitation suddenly soared (as agricultural areas were brought under habitation), wetlands decreased (mostly because of human intervention), areas under grassland increased, the upper reaches of the river remained dry during the pre-monsoon period, and finally there was a significant deterioration of the physio-chemical parameters of the water. While the Kalang had stopped flowing, it continued to be fed by smaller tributaries. According to a recent government report, the Kalang is one of the most polluted rivers of India.

Anandaram Dhekial Phukan had been struck by the technological wonders and progress of England. His grand scheme for the Kalang was part of his effort to bring the British experience to his homeland. Nature must serve the cause of the nation and the government. This would be possible when one has thorough knowledge of nature. In the nineteenth century, Assam’s nature at large came to be catalogued and codified in a language suitable for a modern capitalist economy. The process of knowing the Brahmaputra acquired speed after the 1950 earthquake. A complex array of scientific and technological knowledge became the medium through which the mechanization of the river and the nation’s claims to the river was sought to be achieved. In the process, the river and the corpus of scientific knowledge about it became part of the modern nation-building process.

Assam’s politicians reposed complete faith in their engineers as the true custodians of their rivers. Experts were seen as blessed with power and wisdom—people who could rescue Assam from the fury of the river. The experts’ answer—embankments—was partly a failure and partly a disaster, belying Assam’s hopes. Experts then convinced their political masters to experiment with storage dams. With the march of multinational capital to the eastern Himalayas by the turn of the twentieth century, the experts’ dream of big dams came closer to fruition. Both the Indian technocrats and corporate capital have been enthusiastic about the future of the river. This confidence had strong but often not uncritical backing from the Assamese ruling elite.

The Brahmaputra continues to be a bone of contention between the Assam and Indian governments in terms of apportioning of respective rights and responsibilities. The river still instils in and consolidates a sense of identity for the people of Assam as a counter to the idea of India. At the same time, ecological sensibilities continue to divide technocrats, bureaucrats, and, more so, politicians about river engineering. The Brahmaputra is truly sandwiched between hopes of India’s economic prosperity and great ecological uncertainties. The new age of river engineering appears to be at cross-purposes with the river’s intimate connection to the floodplains. Human history and the biological life of the river now begin to disappear from the new narrative of the river crafted by the nation.

The post Nationalising the Brahmaputra appeared first on RAIOT.

This essay is a partially expanded, edited and reconstructed version of the translators’ postscript to the Japanese edition of Nagaland and India – The Blood and the Tears (2011).

“This concludes my talk. Thank you very much for listening with interest.”

It was November 2003, at a Buddhist facility in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Having finished his talk about the suffering of the Naga people, this imposing man who must have weighed more than 100 kg was trembling at the shoulders as he wiped the tears from his eyes so untypically. Was it anger? Sorrow? Or gladness to find empathic people in Japan? Leaving the venue as if to escape, he deeply inhaled the purple smoke of his cigarette and offered me his pocket-sized whiskey bottle, though we were meeting for the first time.

“Want a sip?” I can’t get by without this stuff.”

Dierhekolie Iralu, known as Kaka, impulsive and straightforward, sentimental, domineering at times but innocent like a child, foaming at the mouth when voicing convictions, but with an attentive ear to the views of others. He is the man who revealed the history and truth of the Naga people that no one before him had dared to divulge.

Nineteen fifty six – the year Kaka was born, India launched a full-fledged military invasion of Nagaland. Naga villages were burned to ashes one after another, and the helpless people were driven into the jungle. Shortly after his birth, Kaka wandered the jungles with his mother, and was detained as a political prisoner at the age of 8 months. During his boyhood, scenes of blood and gore were etched into his memory as he spent time with his grandfather, who was a doctor.

“People with arms and legs torn off, or with guts spilling out were carried into the house every night, one after another.”

The smell of blood and medicine. Skin being sewn back together. In his formative years, Nagaland was drenched in blood and tears. From some point in time, he started to distance himself from politics, immersing himself in the study of literature and theology.

“In those days, I simply avoided getting embroiled in politics.”

Perhaps it was an escapism common to many Naga youths who were forced to live in hopeless circumstances. Mutilated bodies scattered in the town day after day, people being tortured on the streets – all these realities of the Naga people were hidden from the view of not only the world but also the people of India, supposedly the “world’s largest democracy.” Meanwhile, Kaka made some money trading timber, got married and had three children. However, an inner cry continued to disturb him.

One day, a youth was shot with an automatic rifle in broad daylight. Screams pierced the air. The town was frozen with fear. As Kaka rushed to help him, his shirt was dyed bright red in the youth’s blood.

“What kind of world will I be leaving to my children? I can’t keep my eyes and ears shut any longer.”

Kaka resolved to tell what India had done in Nagaland. He began his work as a journalist walking from village to village, digging up the truths that had almost been erased, and writing them down. It was a process of throwing light on the darkness of history – an odyssey of re-experiencing the sorrow, suffering and rage of the Naga people in all its gruesome detail.

“It haunts me in dreams. The work nearly drove me mad.”

Kaka’s handwritten notes were often stained with tears. They were shed by his wife as she typed his manuscripts. Initially, she was opposed to publishing the book. She could easily imagine how much danger it would entail for Kaka himself and for the family.

But one day, standing in front of him with tears in her eyes, manuscript in hand, she said: “You must publish this manuscript and inform the world. No matter what happens to you, I will take care of the children.”

After three to four years of hard work, he had completed a manuscript of more than 400 pages. But no publisher would accept it, because it “exposed too much of the truth” of history covered up by the great nation of India.

“It was turned down not only in Nagaland but even by relatively courageous publishers in India. They advised me ‘not to publish it,’ expressing concern.”

Nagaland and India – The Blood and The Tears. Kaka scrambled for the money to publish the book at his own expense, prevailing upon a reluctant printer. Released to the world in 2000, it soon gained renown through word of mouth. He started to receive discreet praise from many people. Passersby would suddenly come up to shake his hand in tears. The reason was apparent from the subtitle of the book – “the story of those who were never allowed to tell it.” The first 5000 copies sold out in only two years. The book was acknowledged with thanks by Indian Army officers, surprisingly.

“Why did we Indian soldiers have to shed blood in Nagaland?”

The book gave a clear answer to this simple question that had been avoided for half a century.

“Indian soldiers are also the victims of the nearsighted policies of politicians and those in power.”

Meanwhile, Kaka was caught between the feuding Naga factions, kidnapped and nearly killed. Living in constant fear for life took a toll on his mind and the family. The local Naga brew (rice beer) called Zutho was not enough; he took to whiskey and rum, which were banned in the state. Without waiting for the enlarged third edition to be published, his wife and two daughters took asylum in Norway. He was in high demand to give lectures, also overseas, and many readers waited eagerly for his newspaper column. But as his fame and people’s expectations increased, his fears and isolation intensified. Before he knew it, he was a lone wolf journalist without stable income.

But he continued to question himself on how to understand the history of his forefathers, as a Naga and as a human being; how to live out his life as an individual and as a father.

“By knowing the truth, the future comes into view. If the truth is kept hidden, no solution is possible.”

That is the case not only for Nagaland. It is a fundamental question of how to live that transcends national and regional boundaries. Is it not a question that we in particular must ask ourselves as Japanese living today with a history of imposing the horrors of war on his land and many people of Asia?

Always shortly after midnight, I would receive a call from overseas. The country code indicated it was from India.

“Is this Wataru? Let me tell you something! This time I have really stopped drinking!”

I trusted his sincerity but not the outcome. Still, who of us could scoff at this lovable, talented man, who refused to give up?

His motherland of Nagaland still lacks its own country code. The Naga flag still does not wave in front of the UN Headquarters in New York, more than 60 years since the declaration of independence. People are still living at gunpoint – nothing has changed.

In the face of the consequences of history, we can no longer be bystanders.

Wataru Haejima, August 14, 2011
(on the Sixty-fourth Naga Independence Day)

The post The Man Who Wove Nightmares Into History appeared first on RAIOT.

There is a kind of myth making going on in the media that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home. For example, listening to the ‘echo of migrant footfalls’, Sanjoy Hazarika writes

The question is what choice these migrant workers had. They did not start their journey from the cities out of love for their homeland and relatives. They had to leave their homes in the cities. We conveniently/unconsciously switch this compulsion to leave cities for a phrase ‘love for the home’. Those who had some means to stay deferred their journey.

To say that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home/natives is to absolve ourselves from looking at harsh conditions which forced them out of city boundaries and left them walking in extreme conditions or undertaking arduous train journey.

This is not the first case when migrant workers are leaving cities. In late 1896, Mumbai came into the grip of Plague and by February 1897 around four lakh migrants, constituting half of Mumbai’s population, fled the city. During 1897 to 1899, around four million people were medically examined before they were allowed to enter into Bengal. Approximately 72000 people were detained for plague related and other reasons. This gives us a broad contour to imagine the scale of migration due to the spread of dreadful Plague which were killing nearly 1900 people every week in Mumbai. There was a panic in the city. The government had already brought in one of the most draconian regulations of colonial periods, the Indian Epidemic Act of 1897. Thousands of homes were declared unfit for living and were destroyed. There were rumours circulating and fuelling insecurities. For example, the rumour that Indians were captured and hospitalised so that the oil (momiai from their bodies can be extracted. We come across the fear of this body oil momiai getting circulated in a very wide geography and across the seas (among indenture labourers in the Carribeans to East Africa to Bombay). Should we not factor the widespread fear, the panic behind workers’ migration? Historians like David Arnold and particularly Prashant Kidambi have written that from the outset lower class neighbourhoods and poor were targeted by colonial government’s Plague policies during the outbreak of Plague in 1896.

Yet, we do not know whether there was a shortage of food and work back then in 1896-1899. The scenario was slightly different in the case of the Spanish influenza of 1918-1919 which killed around 50 million people worldwide, a one third of the entire population and around 15 million people in India alone. In 1918, the South-West monsoon, a feature of June-July, failed leading to crop failure in various parts of the country like Gujarat, Bombay, Deccan, Berar, Rajputana, southern Central Provinces ( Marathi speaking areas) and United Provinces. People from these famine stricken regions moved to Bombay city and official reports note ‘a large influx, especially of pooerer people into the city’ in ‘weakened and destitute condition’. These malnourished bodies were easy prey for the deadly flu catapulting the mortality figures manifold.

Historians largely agree that each epidemics are unique. Yet, in each episodes (at least in the case of India), epidemics, food insecurity and migration are intertwined with each other. In most cases, though nature’s vagaries act their roles, scarcities are man-made.

In the case of Covid 19 scenario, ground reports have increasingly made it clear that non-payment of wages and salary at all levels in the informal sector for a better part of extended lockdown period was a major reason behind migrant exodus from cities. In addition to the paucity of liquid cash in their pockets, the food provided to them (both in cooked form as well as raw ration) remain highly insufficient. When sharply asked when you had the food last time; with embarrassed eyes, many of them reported, it was a day ago or even two to three days back they had something like a meal.

Coupled with indignity of standing in the food queue just for one time meal, perpetual extension of lockdown tenures accentuated insecurities for these socially alienated migrant workers. The responses to food or salary crisis differed according to internal hierarchies among these migrant workers. This is why, while the first batch of migrant walkers came from the bottom of the informal sector (daily wage earners and itinerant construction labourers abandoned by thekedars and sub-contractors), those at relatively intermediary levels of occupational hierarchy (i.e. Mason, fitters, carpenters and auto-rickshaw drivers) braced food and cash crisis in initial phases of the lockdown. They waited for the trains to resume. They pulled money to hire goods containers, tempos and small trucks. Many of them had to request their near and distant relatives living in villages to transfer money to sustain themselves and to undertake journey. For the first time, in the history of migration, we have witnessed reverse remittances. Yet, we do not know at what point and which specific elements convinced them to move out of their cities.

This is also because neither social scientists nor policy makers care to ask: what do migrant workers think and how do they make decisions? Except psephologists, politicians during election campaigns and some of the ground reporters, these two questions bother none of us.

There is a deeper design when we succumbed to this myth making. The discourse on migration worker has denied the agency to migrants. We have never considered them beyond statistical numbers. We have never engaged with their subjectivities. This myopia is a characteristic feature of the scholarship on internal labour migration in India. Except a couple of scholars like Dipesh Chakrabarty (in his work on Jute mill workers of Bengal) and Raj Chandavarkar (on migrants from Ratnagiri districts and rural western Maharashtra working in textile mills of Mumbai), migration scholars have not paid any attention even to cultural ties or linkages which workers carry along with them when they move to cities. Only recently, scholars have started spending some amount of analytical energy to aspects like ideas of home circulating in the folk memory. However, these forays are yet to acquire substantive visibility in the discourse on migration. This lack of attention to migrant subjectivities and scholarly apathy towards meaningfully engaging with migrants’ belonging is ironical as we have a very sophisticated and robust discourse on subjectivity, belonging/attachment and longing in the context of the scholarship on diaspora or even cinematic representations of diasporic communities.

In the case of internal migration of migrant labourers, first, we are told that migrants were forced out of villages. They had to move to cities and/or to other states. Now, suddenly we have switched our positions and keep declaring that these migrants can actually exercise their agencies and translate their love for their homes into concrete actions by taking this arduous journey. What this switching subtly does is making migrant workers responsible for all the troubles they face in the course of the journey. It is like saying Hey! I told you not to go out and yet you did that. Now, face the consequences.

First, we never bothered whether these migrant workers were capable of love (their homes) and now suddenly, we forget that it is not their love but an imposed condition… and their indomitable zeal to survive.

The post How Much Love Do Migrant Workers Have For Their Original Homes? appeared first on RAIOT.

—————-

Today is “Rev. Thomas Jones Day”, gazetted as a Special Holiday for all State Government Offices and all revenue and Magisterial Courts and Educational Institutions across the Khasi and Jaintia Hills and the Ri-Bhoi District. What might this 22 June holiday mean, individually or collectively, for Christian or non-Christian, in that shape-shifting ground between the past and the present?

There are two statues of Thomas Jones that I like to visit. One, white and sanctified, bible in hand, in a churchyard in Shillong; another an ordinary man crumbling under the elements on a bend in the road at Sohra, saw in one hand, a book with ABKD in the other, a knup barely keeping away the ravages of rain and time. Both in their own ways symbolise the two faces of this lightening rod figure.

The 22 June holiday commemorates Thomas Jones as a founder, a father, a first. The idea of historical “firsts” often drives a popular understanding of the past— and more pertinently, the political use of the past in the present—but is not always helpful in really getting to grips with complex and interconnected historical processes. There’s not necessarily a ground zero moment when it comes to cultural change. Hero worship, furthermore — though it comes with a feel-good factor— can be rather unhelpful. Historian Daves Rossell put it neatly some years ago now: “the original first becomes a marginally important fact in itself, but each of the firsts is important as part of a tradition of claiming primacy, and as part of individual efforts to distinguish themselves in a unique manner… Having a first is not like winning a race but rather like being part of a far more general exultation in innovation and novelty”.

There should by now be no dispute around the lineage of activity prior to Jones arriving, from Alexander Lish, Rowe and  Jacob Tomlin, Rae’s Guwahati mission school in the 1830s, back to Krishna Chandra Pal’s 1813 preaching tour and the ensuing period of scriptural translation, with its source in the originating work of William Carey. Lish was certainly active in the Khasi Hills from 1832 to 1837, aided by Joshua Rowe; Serampore Baptists like the Macks and the Marshmans were regular visitors; Jacob Tomlin was also there for a short time in 1837.

Thomas Jones himself was very clear about these debts, and wrote about them to John Roberts from Calcutta, 11 May 1841:

So Jones was well aware of the previous work—he acknowledged it, critiqued it, and built on it. It’s clear he didn’t always agree with its efficacy or accuracy, and in his criticisms there is likely to be both something of truth, and also at times a self-serving means to suring up his own methodology and approach. John Roberts (in Y Drysorfa Rhif CXLV Llyfr XIII Ionawr 1843), citing a letter from Jones, reveals more about Jones’s approach:

The other point that I would reiterate is that language translation and rendering in written form was always co-produced, which again was overtly acknowledged by Jones.

Jones effectively built on the legacy of Serampore and the interactions of its missionaries with the Khasis: U Juncha and U Dewan Rai probably honed their English language skills at the foot of Alexander Lish. The idea of any missionary singlehandedly ‘reducing’ native languages from oral to literary form is simplistic, and misses the ways in which local agency balanced colonial power. The full translation of the letter in which Jones explains how he went about his early linguistic work is as follows (there are two versions of this letter—one printed in Y Drysorfa in 1841; and one a manuscript copy of the original—I indicate where they vary in brackets]:

So the fact that Lish included a specimen of Khasi vocabulary rendered (however incompetently) in Roman script in the 1838 Calcutta Christian Observer piece is a small kind of first in a bigger continuum of cultural change and interaction. My broader point is that if there is an argument that Thomes Jones was not the first to render Khasi into Roman script, he would be the first to agree. And while he was obviously never to know the work and the workers that came after him, I suspect he would be more interested in being remembered for what he did at the end of his time in the Hills rather than at the start—as defender of civil rights rather than the father of words on a page.

Your Thomas Jones and my Thomas Jones exists in the gap between what the history books tell us, what stories are handed down from generation to generation, and the way we may have wished the story to be from our own perspective, whether that be a proponent or a critic of one belief system or another. Thomas Jones is in some respects whatever we want to make him to be—a pliable representation. We often ask, who is this Thomas Jones? But we might also ask, what is Thomas Jones? He is now a process as much as a person, he is a blank sheet upon which every generation projects their own desires and ideologies; he can be a building or a book, a statue or a national holiday; he can be a sinner and a saviour at one and the same time.  Thomas Jones is not a simple black and white figure: he taught the Khasis to improve their distillation methods, but he also preached on the dangers of excessive drinking.

There is no doubt that Jones was a product of his day — paternalistic, imperialistic, reflecting the characteristics of the Victorian period in which he lived. But we should not forget that he was also a champion of the underdog, and Thomas Jones of course was a stone in the shoe of the mission itself, particularly after he was expelled from its service and went solo. His defence of the Khasis in terms of labor exploitation and violence exercised by the British came at a personal cost to him—it’s not so easy to be so brave or wise in the face of your conscience and of what you believe is right.

So I’m sure that he does still rightly stand for personal commitment to belief — but also, and importantly, he represents learning and growing, adaptation and change, taking up a social cause if inequality is staring you in the face. The Thomas Jones at the end of his time in the Khasi Hills in the late 1840s was not the Thomas Jones who stepped off the ship at Calcutta in 1841.

What would those two statues say if they could speak? Don’t ossify story, culture, tradition; don’t actually set things in stone. If Thomas Jones were alive, what would he want his name to be associated with? Empowering the next generation to actively make their own meanings out of the symbols of the past and turn them into liberating ones. He would challenge those in the church constructed partly in his name, as well as those with other platforms of social and political power, to rise to the challenge of change, to root out the cancers of corruption and venality, and to value rights and equality.

‘If I kept silent’, Jones wrote in his 1849 manifesto to the Government of India before he was hounded to his death by the British authorities, ‘I would be a partaker of the sins of their oppressors and totally unworthy of the name of a benefactor of the suffering Kassias as well as inconsistent with my professions as a Missionary of the Gospel’. He might be quietly pleased that 22nd June is marked out to honour him, but more interested I fancy in the truths that need to be told on the 23^rd and thereafter.

The post How Should We Remember Thomas Jones? appeared first on RAIOT.

On 5th August 2020 the Bhartiya Janta Party lived up to its promise of  ‘Mandir Vahin Banega’ as India’s Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of a temple at the place of a historical mosque demolished by the same party in 1992 in Ayodhya. While preparations of a grand temple in Ayodhya are on, it must be remembered that just a couple of years back in 2017, the Sardar Sarovar dam was inaugurated by the same Prime Minister with great fanfare in which large number of religious places of the Adivasis, Hindus, Jains and Muslims were drowned in the dam waters permanently.

Adivasis protest against the Sardar Sarovar dam on the banks of River Narmada in the now submerged village Hapeshwar, Photo: Shripad Dharmadhikary

It is in times like this that the words of Kevalsingh Vasave, a tribal leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), the powerful people’s movement against the gigantic Sardar Sarovar dam echo in my ears:

“There is lot of difference between Adivasi culture and other cultures. Whether it is the Gods or how one worships. There is no temple in Adivasi culture. Adivasis worship nature. If there is a tree and near the tree is a pile of stones, the stone palya itself is worshipped by Adivasis.

Before eating the new grain that we have grown ourselves, we worship the Goddess Nilowanwa, and if it is anything new procured from the forest, it is the God Nilpi who has to be worshipped. We worship rivers, streams, mountains. There is no idol of God in Adivasi culture. Adivasis worship Khatri (ancestors). It is only after offerings are given to them that we eat newly harvested grains.

Our gayanas (song recitals) mention the names of many mountains, many rivers, many valleys and many animals. Without the worship of Vagh dev (Tiger) there can be no protection of the village. Worship of animals, of calves and bullocks, is all nature worship. It is not as if, over there is an idol of the God and so we go and worship that idol. Foremost we worship Rani Kajal, which is worship of the rains…”

Kevalsingh’s relationship with River Narmada can be heard in his own voice in a three minute photo-video clip here, where he describes his reaction when his own home drowned in the dam. (Language Marathi, Subtitles in English):

Adivasi worship during the religious festival of Holi in the now submerged village Bhadal, Photo: Rehmat

Narmada River sand where Gayna, Adivasi religious recitals are often sung, now submerged, Photo: Shripad Dharmadhikary

Adivasi religious site, similar to many of those submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Rohit Jain

Adivasi religious site, similar to many of those submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Rohit Jain

The voice of a woman Adivasi leader of the NBA and Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangathan, Late Pervi bai too resonates with Kevalsingh as she speaks about the folly of the government that destroyed the River Narmada. In a three minute photo –video here, Pervi talks of the lives supported in the belly of the Narmada before it bloated like a carcass with the noose of a dam around her neck. (Language Bhilali, Subtitles in English):

While for the Adivasis, the River Narmada is a mother, the giver, for the Hindus, like the River Ganga the River Narmada is a Goddess. Considered to be the daughter of Shiva, every stone on the banks of the Narmada is considered a Shivlinga. As per the Hindu belief, while it is necessary to bathe in the Ganga to absolve oneself of all sins, the mere sight of the Narmada is enough to absolve one of all sins. It is therefore no surprise that there is a unique Hindu spiritual tradition, possibly the only one of its kind in the world, where thousands of Hindus undertake circumambulation of the River Narmada, the Goddess incarnate. During the Narmada Parikrama (circumambulation), people walk up to the place of the River’s origin at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh, walk to its mouth in Gulf of Khambhat, in Gujarat and back. This age old tradition of Narmada Parikrama, when done fully came to about 2600 kilometres. Not to carry any worldly possessions has been the rule followed by the Parikramavasis, and the villagers on the banks of the River considered providing for the Parikramavasis a pious deed. Thus there used to be an excellent system to cater to this age old Hindu tradition and provide for the thousands of Parikramavasis with just bare minimum luggage on their shoulders and hardly any money in their pockets camping on their way in these villages.

Narmada Parikramavasi resting on his spiritual journey, Photo: Pragna Patel

The signboard in the photo below gives directions to the Parikramavasis about the facilities of dharmashalas/vishram gruhas (free guest houses) in village Chikhalda and Nisarpur, both under water of the Sardar Sarovar dam now. Earlier, these villages and all the other 245 villages that submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam provided free lodging and boarding arrangements for the Parikramavasis for a night before they embarked upon their religious journey the next morning, many even walking bare feet on the sands of the Narmada. This distinct Hindu arduous but spiritual Parikrama too has been defiled by the many dams 1The Narmada Valley Development Plan consists of 30 large dams, 135 medium and 3000 small dams on the River Narmada and its tributaries of which many mega dams have already been built like the Bargi dam, the Tawa dam, the Indira Sagar dam, etc that have also destroyed the historic ghats and Hindu temples where the Parikramavasis from far and wide found their calling.

Sign board directing the Narmada Parikramavasis to free facilities in villages Nisarpur and Chikhalda now submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Pragna Patel

Sign board for Parikramavasis that the path is now closed due to Sardar Sarovar dam waters, Photo: Pragna Patel

The Koteshwar Ghat near Nisarpur village, now submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Pragna Patel

Parikramavasis bathe in the once free flowing unpolluted Narmada while on Parikrama, Photo: Ashish Kothari

The once pristine free flowing Narmada, now bloated with stagnant-polluted silt filled reservoir at most places due to series of mega dams, making it unapproachable, Photo: Anonymous

The people on the banks of this mighty River put up a great deal of resistance against these mega dams not just to save their livelihood but to protect one of the richest River Valley civilisations in the country. In 1992, around the same time as the Babri Masjid was demolished, the people of village Manibeli one of the first villages to submerge in the Sardar Sarovar dam, foiled several attempts by the police to dig out the Swayambhu (one which has emerged on its own) Shivlinga from the Shulpaneshwar temple as the temple was to drown in the dam waters. The Shivlinga along with the grand Shulpaneshwar temple has been under the dam waters since 1994.

People in village Manibeli resist police from digging out Swayambhu Shivlinga from Sulpaneshwar Temple, Photo: Ashish Kothari

Shulpaneshwar temple submerges in Sardar Sarovar dam in 1994, Photo: Anonymous

Countless temples with great historic and religious significance submerged one after another in the many dams in the Narmada. The photo below is of Hapeshwar temple near Chota-Updaipur in Gujarat that submerged in early 2000. As this temple does not drown fully, local people change its flag regularly. After being submerged for over a decade, when it emerged out of waters fully for the first time in 2018 as the Sardar Sarovar dam waters reduced drastically, the core structure of the old temple was found intact! Widely reported in Gujarat press, believers flocked to the temple for a glimpse before the temple submerged once again.

Hapeshwar Temple drowning in the Sardar Sarovar dam waters, Photo: NBA

Partially submerged Hapeshwar temple, Photo: NBA

While the government was supposed to relocate the religious sites, particularly the historical ones, before these submerged in the many dams on the Narmada, it did not have the resources or the will to do so. The government dismantled only those few temples where people’s resistance was most powerful and the temple at the centre of attention. For example, the over 200 year old Shiv temple at submergence village Kasravad where Padma Vibhushan Baba Amte resided for over ten years in solidarity with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, was dismantled in parts, relocated and rebuild at the Kasravad resettlement site. Of course, it was not possible to restore the temple in its original form and most of it remains under water today.

Baba Amte at Shiv temple in the submergence village Kasravad, parts of it are relocated and parts submerged, Photo: Ashish Kothari

The Kasravad temple on the banks of Narmada in its full glory, Photo: Shripad Dharmadhikary

The Kasravad temple, part of it now relocated at the Kasravad resettlement site, Photo: Rehmat

Relocated Kasravad temple, Photo: Rehmat

Ironically, hundreds of such historic and ancient temples that were not in spotlight and allowed to submerge in the Sardar Sarovar dam, emerged out of the dam waters as it receded in July 2020 reminding the people of this country of our heritage that we have allowed to be destroyed, even as arrangements were being geared up to lay the foundation of a Ram temple at Ayodhya on 5th August 2020.

Shiv temple at Submergence Village Chikhalda emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

Shiv temple at Koteshwar emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Pragna Patel

Ram temple at village Koteshwar emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Pragna Patel.

Shiv temple at Chikhalda emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

Shiv temple at Chikhalda, emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in July 2020, Photo: Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

It is clear that the laying of the foundation of a temple at Ayodhya  is not out of any regard for any religion, be it that of Adivasis or Hindus but  is part of the ongoing attempts to divide the people of this country on religious lines for mere political gains. By doing this we have disregarded the core Hindu Philosophy of  वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् – The World Is a Family.

(Note: Some of the photos are not of high quality/resolution as these have been taken over 30 year period.)

Nandini Oza was  an activist with Narmada Bachao Andolan, Nandini Oza has been working on the oral histories of the Narmada struggle and is currently the President of Oral History Association of India. https://oralhistorynarmada.in/

The post [Photo/Essay] Who Remembers the Temple Destructions in Narmada Valley? appeared first on RAIOT.

All photographs by the author

The construction of popular narratives about a place is sometimes driven by an overuse of popular tropes, which delegitimises and silences the local community’s own interpretations of their history and culture. A Google search on ‘Mayong’ opens results such as ‘India’s Black Magic Capital’, ‘Land of Black Magic’, and so on, where the words ‘black’, ‘occult’, and ‘spooky’ take a connotative precedence. The image search provides a confusing plethora of images ranging from portraits of Naga sadhus smeared in bibhuti (holy ash), neo-Vaishnavite Assamese monks, Amazonian tribes and shamans passed off as practitioners of ‘black magic’ in Mayong. There is a particularly odd image of a collection of globes, a skeleton, and an assortment of objects, ostensibly hosted by the ‘Mayong Central Museum and Emporium of Black Magic and Witchcraft’. The image is definitely not from any museum in Mayong and the words “Black Magic” and “Witchcraft” were never a part of any museum title in Assam. The frontier Kamrupa-Pragjyotishpur has always been associated with magic and myths around magical practices since ancient times, because of the Śākta cult of the Kamakhya temple, and alleged instances of blood sacrifices and associated Tantric practices. This exoticization of Mayong in popular imagery, therefore, has deep historical roots.

Mayong is situated at a distance of approximately 40 km from Guwahati, in the Morigaon district of Assam. Known for its traditions of magical practices, the village is also a popular site for visitors because of the Pobitora National Park, home to a large number of one-horned rhinos. The history of Mayong is as enigmatic as the mystery associated with the ‘magic’ of Mayong. Though written sources about the history and etymology of Mayong are scant, popular folklore describes Mayong as a “dangerous place”. According to one belief system, the name Mayong may have been derived from ‘Ma-anga’, “ma” meaning mother and “anga” meaning body-part, specifically the female organ “yoni” of the mother goddess. In the Yogini tantra, a reference is found of Bhadrapith as a part of Kamapith. Bhadrapith was bordered by the Brahmaputra in the north, Kachari and Jayantia kingdoms in the south, Kampur and Silghat in the east and Kamrupa towards the west. Another name for Goddess Kamakhya is Bhadra and therefore there is a belief that Mayong may have been the Bhadrapith mentioned in the Yogini tantra.

Another version ascribes Mayong to be named after Mayan, a general of king Rampala (1080-1124 CE) of the Pala dynasty of Bengal. Under general Mayan, Rampala sent a huge army to defeat the weakened Kamrupa kingdom, then under Jayapala (1075-1100 CE) of the Bhauma Naraka dynasty. After defeating Jayapala, the general established a town named Mayangarh and settled Buddhist Tantric emissaries there. Mayan installed Timgyadeva (1110-26 CE) as the Governor of Pragjyotishpur-Kamrupa under Rampala and left for Bengal.

According to a manuscript in possession of the present royal family of Mayong, which contains the genealogy of the present kings of Mayong, the kingdom of Mayong was established by a Kachari king, who had come from Maibong, the erstwhile capital of the Dimasa Kachari kingdom. The kingdom was established in the year 1624 and Sunyat Singha, the brother of Kachari king Satrudaman, was named the first king of Mayong.

Another claim to the political ancestry of Mayong is by the Tiwa community. The Tiwas claim that the kingdom of Mayong was established by Mahasing who was the youngest brother of the king of Gobha (the ruler of the Tiwas). The claim is based on a sanchipat manuscript describing the genealogy of Tiwa kings, believed to be found by Gobang Lalung of Bormajrong village.

The culture of Mayong seems to have a strong Śākta-tantric belief system syncretized with associated indigenous practices, such as magic. The use of magic by bez (traditional magic healers) for constructive purposes like healing or finding social solutions for theft is good Tantra, or su mantra, while the use of magic for causing harm to someone for individual gain like settling agrarian disputes might be considered bad Tantra, or ku mantra. However, a bez is supposed to know the application of both su mantra and ku mantra and its applications in jantra because the ritual practices of Tantra demand a total knowledge of both in a composite system, counter-balancing each other. The villagers as well as practitioners of magic traditions seem to understand the need for this balance. In addition, Mayong is also home to Shaivite and neo-Vaishnavite belief systems. There is absence of rigidity in the politics of participation from different traditional practices and there seems to be no bar on believers of one religious tradition from participating in the religious ceremonies of others.

The Genesis of Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre

On September 27, 2002, an exhibition was organised at Mayong Higher Secondary School to celebrate World Tourism Day. The exhibition contained artefacts collected from different villages in and around the Mayong area. A large part of the objects displayed came from the personal collection of a local teacher Shri Lokendra Hazarika. The exhibition was immensely popular and was covered extensively in the regional media. The popularity of the exhibition encouraged the organisers to form a Museum Committee of ten members with Lokendra Hazarika as President and Shri Utpal Nath, an ex-student of the school, as its Secretary. An Assam-type  house with three rooms was rented and on November 1, 2002, it was inaugurated as Mayong Central Museum by the then king of Mayong, the Late Ghanakanta Singha. The entry tickets were priced at Rs. 10 andRs. 5 (for students). Despite several challenges, the museum survived. The income from tickets, however, was not sufficient and once the tourist season was over, there was a lack of funds.

For a while, the members of the Museum Committee, particularly the President and the Secretary, tried to run the museum with their own money. On August 30, 2003 the collection was shifted to Mayong Central Library, but was faced with another problem – pest infestation. The Museum Committee approached the Range Officer of the Pobitara Range Mr. Mukul Tamuli and requested another space to house the collection. The collection was then shifted to three rooms of a government quarter inside the Pobitara Wildlife Sanctuary, in 2008. The following year, the Committee passed a resolution to rename the museum as Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre. Meanwhile, the Committee’s request for land to construct a permanent museum was acknowledged by the Government.

The construction of a museum building was first started by the District Rural Development Agency, but it remained incomplete. The present building was constructed by the Morigaon Zila Parishad and the collection was shifted here on the October 20, 2010. However, in an interview with the Committee members, they revealed that the building was not constructed as per the scientific norms of Museum architecture and the DPR (Detailed Project Report) requested by the Committee. Eventually, the Committee was able to persuade the Nath Jogi Development Council to start construction of a new museum building, but the circular architecture with high ceilings and sufficient wall space remains incomplete due to the dissolution of the Development Councils by the Government of Assam in 2017. The museum still houses its rare and valuable collection in the building constructed by the Zila Parishad in 2010.

The Collection: a museum for the community

The museum holds a variety of objects. The manuscript collection, a valuable archive of oral traditions written in the local language, contain information on tantra-mantras and herbal medicine, among other things, from the 12^th to 18^th century. Most manuscripts are in the Assamese language, in Kaitheli script. Among other objects are artefacts in terracotta: utensils, earthen necklaces, incense pots, spouted pots, chillums, bricks and some terracotta images reportedly dating back to 12^th century; 8^th to 9^th century stone sculptures like yonipeeths, lingams, padma chakra; items belonging to the royal family like a palanquin, and rare copper and brass utensils: hati khojia bati (or “a bowl as big as an elephant’s foot”), caskets, copper plates and medals etc.; arms and armour, iron and stone cannon balls; monetary items like silver and copper coins and cowrie shells; local fishing implements; local oil extraction implements; agricultural implements; weaving implements; traditional weights and measures; ornaments; traditional musical instruments; and household items.

The collection was developed by Lokendra Hazarika, the President of the Museum Committee. Hazarika’s interest in collecting objects can be traced back to his childhood when he would roam the fields and forests of Mayong after fresh rains to find potsherds and beads. Mayong is rich in archaeological remains which are yet to be explored and excavated properly. According to villagers, finding objects during the digging of wells and ploughing of fields is still common in the area. Influenced by Hazarika’s efforts, local youth (particularly Utpal Nath who now teaches at the local college), students and concerned citizens began their own collection drive in nearby villages. It is important to mention that the collection of the museum has been acquired entirely through donations and fieldwork by individuals. The Committee took a conscious decision not to acquire any artefact commercially. The acquisition process seems to be arbitrary; no conscious pattern of collecting seems to have been employed. The collectors rely on oral history, popular narratives and traditional community knowledge to determine what is to be collected. In addition, there may be a few objects in the museum which have been collected out of sheer curiosity in the esoteric arts.

It is interesting how the Committee persuaded the local villagers to donate their family or community heirlooms to be housed in a new, incomplete museum space in a rural area with communities who obviously did not possess the metropolitan museological consciousness. The Committee documented a series of public meetings (raij mel) organised by the community, with the help of village elders, where important members of the community were asked to initiate a trust-building exercise to build awareness about the importance of preserving Mayong’s collective heritage to inculcate a sense of pride about the culture of the village. In these meetings, villagers were requested to donate an object of cultural importance that they may have found in the locality and were also requested to inform the Committee members if any object is unearthed while digging wells or ploughing fields. they came across any other objects in the future. As a result of these meetings, the Committee believes that villagers of Mayong have been persuaded to regard the Museum as an important institution of the collective heritage.

The caretaker of the museum, Mr. Karuna Nath has been providing free services in the museum for a long time: “I am giving [my] services for the preservation of the glorious history of Mayong and our community practices. They will be lost otherwise. I hope someday the Government will take notice and think of providing some basic remuneration to me so that I can work in this museum full-time. But I also need to run a family and so I run a small tea shop here in front of the museum”.

Apart from local students and villagers, the museum is visited by research scholars, academics and journalists. Favourably located opposite the approach road to Pobitora Sanctuary, the museum ends up attracting visitors to the sanctuary and local commuters, particularly during tourist season.

It is sad that the Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre, in spite of media attention, is in a dilapidated condition today. The present building is crumbling, and the construction of the new building largely remains incomplete. The display is temporary in nature: there are no showcases, barring one which displays the manuscript collection of the museum, and the rest of the collection is displayed atop cloth-covered wooden benches and on the floor against the walls. There is no running electricity at present. This is the result of a severe lack of funds and government apathy towards completing construction of the space and other demands for the upkeep of the museum. The Committee’s appeals and petitions somehow get lost in government files and verbal assurances. The local community, according to Committee members, is against the transfer of the collection to any other big museum of the State. They believe this would diminish the importance of the collection and decontextualize it from the composite culture of Mayong. The Committee members are equally wary of government interference – they believe it will counter the very essence of the museum, that of a community space maintained and curated by members of the community. However, they are open to the idea of the government acting as facilitator: providing a maintenance fund for the museum, while recognising it as a community project managed by local bodies autonomously.

In the absence of a tangible presence in strict museological terms, like display, access, conservation, and so on, the museum has turned to multiple field activities. This includes door-to-door collection drives, seminars and temporary exhibitions, special exhibitions during Government festivals like the Namami Brahmaputra Festival, digitisation and preservation of the manuscript collection through the National Manuscripts Mission, photo documentation of ritual practices and archaeological remains, recording of oral history, among other things. The Committee has planned initiatives to sustain the museum in the future, such as a residency programme, guest house, and a library and research centre, which can attract scholars as well as build revenue. Recently, the INTACH Assam Chapter has shown an interest in the museum and is currently undertaking a conservation project to save the collection from deterioration.

There is a prevailing sense of history and collective memory amongst the villagers of Mayong in spite of the exotic portrayal of the area as a land of black magic and witchcraft in the popular imagination. The idea of Mayong as a ‘dangerous place’ is accepted by the community as part of the grand narrative of Assam, though it might not necessarily be representative of the collective past of Mayong. In the past few decades, oral history and folk narratives from Assam have come to the fore, increasingly contesting orientalist and nationalist narratives with marginal and local plots. The Mayong Museum tries to fill a void by adding community histories in the grand narrative of Assam and India’s northeast. The museum, therefore, serves as an important institution to legitimise and demystify the overlap of magic, ritualistic traditions and healing practices that form the core of Mayong’s cultural history.

A version of this article was originally published in criticalcollective.in

The post Demystifying Black Magic: Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre, Assam appeared first on RAIOT.

The post On the Indian Knowledge Systems Calendar from WhatsApp Department of IIT Kharagpur appeared first on RAIOT.

Political conflicts have lifecycles: like persons they go through different stages with each associating with particular behaviours, experiences, emotions and viewpoints. While each stage informs the articulations and acts that become seen as characteristic of the next, these stages do not necessarily follow in a unilinear fashion, nor is it always possible to demarcate different stages in a clear-cut manner. Their points of beginning and ending are often fuzzy, overlapping, and open to interpretation. However, especially as time passes, distinct stages tend to become analytically distinguishable and recognizing these offer heuristic frames to better understand the evolution of political conflicts. Reading stages into a political conflict may not be feasible in the heat of the war, or even during its immediate aftermath, but become the domain of ‘second-generation historiography’, or the more professional, more detached forms of history writing that emerge after ‘those who experienced the war fade away and, with them, the scars, emotions, myths, and self-justifications that were part of their mental make-up’ (Van Schendel 2016: 76).

The protracted Indo-Naga war is one such political conflict whose historical trajectory can be deconstructed and analysed in the form of analytically distinguishable stages. At the time of writing, the conflict continues to evade a final political settlement, although since the 1997 Indo-Naga ceasefire the war has increasingly turned into a low-intensity conflict. In this context, it remains ‘first-generation historiography’, written by stakeholders or veterans of either the Naga Movement or the Indian state and its army, that dominates public discourse and moulds popular understandings of the conflict, its causes and consequences. 8Examples include: Iralu, Kaka. 2000. The Naga Saga: A Historical Account of the Sixty-Two years Indo-Naga War and the Story of Those Who were Never Allowed to Tell it. Kohima: published by author; Anand, V.K. 1980. Conflict in Nagaland: A Study of Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency. Delhi: Chanakya Publications; Aram, M. 1974. Peace in Nagaland: Eighty Year Story: 1964-72. Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann; Sema, Hokishe 1986. The Emergence of Nagaland. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Gradually, however, space is beginning to open for more detached reflections on the conflict, particularly concerning its origins and early beginnings in the 1940s and 50s.2Examples of more detached exercises of Naga history writing include Franke, Marcus. 2009. War and Nationalism in South Asia: the Indian State and the Nagas. London and New York: Routledge and Thomas, John. 2016. Evangelizing the Nation: Religions and the Formation of Naga Political Identity. New Delhi: RoutledgeWhile historians differently portray and theorise the Naga Movement, the moment the actual war breaks out is shrouded in less ambiguity: ‘Troops moved into Tuensang by Oct. 1955’, B.N. Mullick, then Director of India’s Central Intelligence Bureau, recounted, ‘and the war with the Nagas started from then’ (cited in Vashum 2005: 112).

The outbreak of war occured within the stage of the Indo-Naga conflict I propose to demarcate and discuss here, which is the period roughly between the Battle of Kohima in 1944, which ended Japanese expansionism in the east, and the enactment of Nagaland state in 1963 as an envisaged (but failed) political compromise to the demand by the Naga National Council (NNC) for complete Naga sovereignty. This stage often finds itself subsumed into a larger master narrative of the Naga struggle that reconstructs a relatively straight and uncomplicated historical trajectory that sees the genuine awakening and NNC-led political mobilization of a highland community situated off the beaten track of both Indian civilization and colonial domination, and of Nagas’ collective resolve to take up arms to fight for a place on the table of nation-states. Alternatively, if the story is told from the vantage of the Indian state, the dominant narrative apportions blame to a ‘misguided’ Naga elite that seeks to undermine the territorial and national integrity of the Indian state.

Simplistic historical reconstructions of any war are worrisome enough in themselves. In the case of the Indo-Naga war such readings become particularly constrictive, though, when they make the present and future generations see the armed conflict – and the death, misery and societal destruction havocked in its name – through a reductive lens of historically inevitable and clear-cut fault-lines between India and Nagas that erupted in full force during the difficult process of decolonization. These prevailing views, attractive for their absence of complexity, however, ignore the anguished debates, interpersonal and intertribal differences, contingent histories and events, dissenting voices, political assassinations, and sharp differences within the rank-and-file of the NNC prior to the outbreak of the armed conflict, and whose inner dynamics and sentiments could as well have produced outcomes other than war.

While the Naga Movement is home to a growing body of scholarship, I am not aware of any study that concentrates in detail on the period between 1944 and 1963. This is a lack because the political debates and events that transpired in this period not only led to the outbreak of armed conflict, but also set the stage for later developments and complications that continue to haunt and divide Naga society, including intertribal antagonisms and a broad division into ‘underground’ and ‘overground’ Nagas. This essay uses archival histories to challenge and complicate the historiographical certainty apportioned to the early political evolution and outbreak of the Indo-Naga war. I tell the narrative that follows through hitherto scantily used sources, including official statements and memorandums, colonial tour diaries and personal journals, memoirs and biographies, and those memories recorded by history. First, however, the next section offers, in much abridged form, a few reflections on the rise of Naga political consciousness and self-assertion during the era of late-colonialism.

Antecedents of Naga Nationalism

Modern Naga political history can be read as the product of two mutually constitutive processes – the internal dynamics of clan, khel (village ward or sector), village, and tribe and the effects and transformations impelled by systematic contact with external agencies and events such as colonial rule, Christian missions, and the First and Second World Wars. Their conjunction is what first gave rise to an encompassing, though ever fraught and fragile, sense of a pan-Naga political identity that became articulated during the era of late-colonialism. While most Naga nationalists prefer to frame the Naga nation as God-given, rather than man-made, and speak of a perennial, historically immutable Naga essence that was not created but awakened in the 20th century, most historians agree that the Naga nation, in its present form and substance, did not flourish in primordial isolation but emerged and took on significance in relation to particular historical processes and cataclysmic events.

Historians variously theorise the experience of colonial rule – here including ‘pacification’, administrative unification, the imposition of an Inner-Line regime, and ethnological classification – and Christianity – its universal ‘truths’, the standardization and Romanization of languages, the advent of mission schools and education – as centripetal forces that established the initial terms for an emergent Naga national identity (see Thong 2016; Thomas 2016). Other reconstructions are less processual and highlight specific events, such as the recruitment of an estimated 2000 Naga villagers from different clans, villages, and tribes into the Labour Corps that was dispatched to war trenches in France during the First World War. Toiling within the sound of guns, these Naga ‘coolies’, the argument goes, gained political consciousness as they were introduced, with harsh clarity, to the modern compulsions of nation, nationalism, and patriotism (Chasie 2005)3On the role of the Indian Labour Corps, including Nagas and other hill tribes, see Singha, Radhika 2015. ‘The Short Career of the Indian Labour Corps in France, 1917-1919’, International Labor and Working- Class History, 87: 27-62.. The journey across seas and the war trenches subsequently ‘awakened the spunk of the Naga nationalism’ (Yonuo 1974: xii) as it led to a rethinking and broadening of Naga identity that began to transcend divisions along tribal, village and clan lines.

The returning home of these Naga labours is popularly associated with the establishment of the Naga Club in 1918, the first pan-Naga apex body, even as most of its founding members had not been part of the Labour Corps but were newly educated and entrepreneurial Nagas, the majority of whom were serving the colonial government.

It is under the aegis of the Naga Club that, in 1929, Naga representatives petitioned the Simon Commission, which had come to British India to study constitutional reform. Were the British to depart, as rumour already had it, they pleaded:

‘We [the Nagas] should not be thrust to the mercy of other people… but to leave us alone as in ancient times.’

While, bar a few, the 21 signatories belonged to the Angami Naga and hailed from Kohima and its immediate surroundings, they nevertheless claimed to represent not only ‘those regions to which we [the signatories] belong… but also other regions of Nagaland’ (Vashum 2005: 175). This determining influence of the Angami tribe in Naga political expressions was to remain characteristic, as subsequent sections will show, of the beginnings of the Naga uprising. This thesis of Angami ‘leadership’ or ‘domination’ (depending on whom you ask) is personified by the charisma and activities of Angami Zaphu Phizo, who was the fourth president of the NNC and the main ideologue and prophet of Naga nationalism, and whose ascend to power and influence I will discuss further below.

While historians debate and disagree about the relative importance of these processes, events, and the political magnetism that emanated from Phizo, they broadly agree that, taken together, they transformed a social fabric that revolved strongly around fragmented and ‘primordial givens’ into a society progressively preoccupied with constructing a more generic Naga cultural and political identity.

The Second World War and the Nagas

If Naga labourers travelled frightening journeys on rundown ships to participate in the First World War, the Second World War announced itself at Naga doorsteps. In December 1941, the first Japanese bombs fell on Rangoon, the capital of British Burma. A few months later large swathes of Burma were in Japanese hands. India was to be conquered next and rumours of an imminent invasion spread across the hills and valleys of Assam (Bower 1950: 171). Contrary to expectations, the Japanese advance paused at the foot of the Patkai range, the jungle-clad and upland frontier that separated India and Burma. To prepare for the assault, Allied Forces turned the Naga highlands, and neighbouring hills, into a huge ‘military bulwark against Tokyo’ (Guyot-Réchard 2017: 7). In 1944, Japanese forces began their by now long anticipated march into India and which resulted in a destructive battle that bogged down to the towns of Imphal and especially Kohima, whose hilltop garrison the Japanese placed under siege.

The Battle of Kohima raged between April 4 and June 22 1944 and witnessed some of the fiercest hand-to-hand combat in the Second World War (see Guyot-Réchard 2017). While thousands of Allied Soldiers lost their lives, victory was nevertheless claimed by them, making Kohima to the Japanese what ‘Stalingrad was to Russia and Alemein to the Dessert’ (Philipps cited in Horam 1988: 57). What greatly frustrated the Japanese Army, as well as the collaborating Indian National Army (INA) led by Subhas Chandra Bose, is that, at the decisive moment, Nagas sided with Allied Forces, instead of capitalizing on the opportunity to revolt against their colonial rulers. A large literature of military analyses and memoirs document how Nagas actively contributed to the Allied Victory by serving as scouts, interpreters, spies, labourers, orderlies, and levies.4See, among several others, Rooney, D. 1992. Burma Victory: Imphal, Kohima, and the Chindits – March 1944 to May 1945. Oxford: Osprey Publishing; Campbell, A. 1956. The Siege – A Story From Kohima. London: George Allen and Swinson, A. 1956. Kohima. London: Arrow Books. Wrote John Colvin (1994: 35): ‘Irrespective of the tribe or sub-tribe, the record of the Nagas during the Japanese occupation was one of extraordinary loyalty to the British’. General Slim (1956: 341) similarly acknowledged: ‘These were the gallant Nagas whose loyalty, even in the most depressing times of the invasion had never faltered’.

But while this official narrative firmly places the Nagas on the ‘good side’ of history, not all Nagas sided with the Allied Forces. Amongst those who did not was the later NNC president A.Z. Phizo. On the eve of the Japanese invasion of Burma, Phizo was in Rangoon, where he had arrived some years earlier out of a mixture of business interests and ‘self-imposed exile’ following a series of ‘anti-British statements’ in Kohima that earned him the reputation of a ‘potential troublemaker in the eyes of officialdom’ (Steyn 2002: 48). Despite past ill-feelings, Phizo enlisted himself as a volunteer in the British Army. ‘I did not hate the British, only their colonialism and what they stood for’, he justified his decision many years later (cited in Steyn 2002: 52). However, Phizo’s political convictions prevented his actual enrolment:

At his interview trouble arose when he was told that Asiatics could not be enrolled and he would have to change his nationality to either Anglo-Indian or Anglo-Burmese if he wanted to enlist. Such a suggestion, of course, immediately put his back up in no uncertain way – his uncompromising retort being:

‘I am a Naga first, a Naga second, and a Naga last’

An inevitable stalemate ensued. The commanding officer, Major Sample, lost his patience and summarily ordered him to depart. Once again, stubbornly dignified Phizo had his way:

‘If you tell me to go, I will go, but for my part I have offered my services’ (Steyn 2002: 54).

Following this encounter, Phizo, accompanied in Rangoon by his wife and brother Keviyallay, did not join the large stream of refugees that fled towards India, but stayed put. He now offered his services to the Japanese:

When war came to Burma in 1942, my brother and I were asked by the Japanese Army to assist them. As they promised to recognize Nagaland as an independent sovereign state, we rendered whatever service we could towards what seemed to us the liberation of our own country (Phizo 1960).5This assertion by Phizo is not corroborated by any other source I am aware of.

In the end, it was not Phizo but Keviyallay who guided several Japanese patrols into both the Naga ‘Control Area’ 6The Naga ‘Control Area’ here refers to the Naga uplands east of the Naga Hills District, and which were not formally administrated by the British, but where colonial offices and officers nevertheless exerted considerable influence, mostly through military and punitive expeditions.and the Naga Hills District (Steyn 2002: 58). Meanwhile, Subhas Bose arrived in Burma. Phizo met him on several occasions, and became, somewhat informally, associated with the INA, again on the premise that Bose would recognize Naga independence after the British would be routed. While Phizo was inspired by Bose’s ‘charisma and boundless energy’, he is said to have ‘refrained from joining the cries of Jai Hind whenever and wherever Bose appeared’. Phizo offered to join the INA in their invasion of India, but was ‘rebuffed’, reportedly because ‘he would be needed once Nagaland had been liberated’ (Steyn 2002: 60). Phizo subsequently waited out the war in Rangoon (Nibedon 1978: 23).

After Burma fell back in British hands, Phizo and Keviyallay were arrested on charges of collaborating with the enemy. Phizo was jailed and remained so for eight months. Following his release in 1946, he returned to the Naga Hills, and now did so ‘with his mind full of unwavering determination and revolutionary ideas to achieve political independence for his homeland’ (Yonuo 1974: 199).

From Reconstruction to Political Assertion: the Making of the Naga National Council

By July 1944, Kohima was reduced to ruins and rubble. ‘After the battle I was one of the first to return. The entire place was strewn with corpses, rubble’, reflected Langalang (cited in Aram 1974: 18), the Headmaster of the Kohima High School and soon to become an influential NNC member.

Villages through which Japanese and Allied Forces had passed too suffered painful destruction and depletion. Fields lay uncultivated, granaries were empty, and most livestock was confiscated and slaughtered. This destruction, however, was also politically productive with the war serving as ‘an agent of ethnicization’ (Guyot-Réchard 2017: 3; emphasis in original). As Fürer-Haimendorf reflected:

When the Japanese invaded Burma and India during the Second World War the Naga Hills became a battleground. Soldiers of various races passed through, lived, fought and died among the Nagas. Thus new people, new weapons, new attire, new food and above all new ideas were introduced to the Nagas and when the War came to an end they could not go back to the old secluded life (cited in Joshi 2012: 26).

In the aftermath of the war, the Assam Governor constituted an Assam Relief Measures organization that provided relief and reconstruction for war-affected areas. In the Naga Hills District, Charles Pawsey, the District Commissioner, invited Naga government officers and tribal leaders to his bungalow and proposed the formation of the Naga Hills District Tribal Council (NHDTC) ‘with the aim of uniting the Nagas and repairing some of the damage done during World War II’ (Elwin 1961: 51). While Pawsey saw the NHDTC as a technical, apolitical body, ‘once it was formed the council increasingly became a platform for Nagas to express and debate some of their pressing political concerns, ultimately leading to the formation of the NNC in February 1946’ (Thomas 2016: 102). As opposed to the NHDTC, which soon dissolved, the NNC was wholly an indigenous creation.

The NNC began with 29 members and was organized around two central councils: Mokokchung and Kohima. Its members represented all Naga tribes located within the Naga Hills District and several of the ‘Control Area’. Membership, however, was dominated by the Angami and Ao tribes with 7 and 5 members in the council respectively (Misra 2000: 29). At first, the NNC received ‘official patronage’ from colonial officials who perceived of the Council as a ‘unifying and moderating influence’ (Elwin 1961: 51), and who were themselves engaged in discussions on the future administration of the hills. 7Administrators like Mills, Reid, and Adams variously envisaged this in the form of a Crown Colony or North-East protectorate, the creation of a separate province for the hill tracts within India, or through the inclusion of the Assam hills not in India but in Burma. These proposals were however resisted by Andrew Clow, the last British Governor of Assam, his successor Akbar Hydari, and the Congress Party, and in the course of 1946 were shelved. The Crown Colony was discussed in early NNC meetings with its members perceiving positively of a plan that ‘would sever them from the administration of the plainsmen’; ‘thus when the British abandoned the idea of a crown colony and withdrew from India, they left the Council with its expectations heightened by the discussions of a crown colony’ Franda, M.F. 1961 ‘The Naga National Council: Origins of a Separatist Movement’, Economic and Political Weekly, February 4.However, as NNC members became more politically assertive, they increasingly began to view the Council with apprehension. ‘There is a somewhat nebulous body in existence (more or less self-created) called “the Naga National Council”’, J.P. Mills, a veteran administrator among the Naga and then Advisor to the Governor in Shillong, wrote to William Archer upon the latter’s posting to Mokokchung. Mills explained:

‘It is not “National” at all, of course, though it may be nationalistic. It has to be treated with politeness – rudeness never pays – but I personally don’t regard it the mouthpiece of the public’8Letters from Mills to Archer. Digital Himalaya, Naga Video-Disc. Url: http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/naga/record/r66612.html This is the first of a large number of references I make to the Naga videodisc (http://www.digitalhimalaya.com/collections/naga/), hosted by Digital Himalaya of the University of Cambridge, and which now offers a significant collection of letters, tour-diaries and memoires written mostly by colonial administrators.

In his judgment, Mills was to be mistaken as the NNC soon became the catalyst of political developments in the Naga highlands.

The Debate Within: Autonomy versus Independence

Dominant Naga national reconstructions tell that immediately after its formation in 1946, the NNC began to prepare itself for complete independence, ultimately resulting in a unilateral declaration of independence based on the general will of the Naga people. This single master narrative highlights the political unity of the Naga people and presents the enactment of the NNC and the declaration of Naga independence as complementary events that followed in linear and relatively uncomplicated fashion. This section unsettles such historical certainties and complicates the proclaimed inevitability of Nagas’ claim to independence by focusing on debates, disagreements and divisions within the NNC rank-and-file between its formation in February 1946 and the Naga declaration of independence on August 14 1947, one day before India achieved hers. I am not aware of any surviving minutes of early NNC meetings (if they were kept in the first place), and I therefore rely on official memorandums and statements issued by the NNC as well as on secondary sources, mostly in the form of diaries, notes, and correspondence written unfortunately not by Nagas but by colonial officers (and the spouse of one such officer) then posted in the Naga Hills District. These officers kept themselves abreast of (and also interfered into) political developments through personal discussions with NNC members.

‘The Naga future would not be bound by any arbitrary decision of the British Government, and no recommendation would be accepted without consultation’ (Lisam 2011: 447), the first NNC memorandum read and was submitted to a British Cabinet Mission that visited Delhi in April 1946. The generality of this statement is not because NNC members lacked concrete political vision, but because, right from the beginning, the NNC was broadly divided into two camps: those in favour of meaningful Naga autonomy within Assam and India and advocates of complete Naga independence. These conflicting political viewpoints revealed themselves along tribal lines with Ao Naga representatives, supported by their Lotha neighbours, arguing for autonomy and Angami delegates making the case for Naga independence.9The tribal dimension emphasised here does of course not mean that all Ao Nagas were in favour of autonomy and all Angamis wishing independence, but that these views were popularly associated with NNC members of these tribes and became talked about as tribal political positions. Basing her notes on conversations with Aliba Imti, NNC’s first president, 10NNC, Golden Jubilee: Naga Independence 1947-1997, p. 28. and Mayangnokcha, the vice-president (both Ao Nagas), Mildred Archer (the wife of William Archer, then Sub-Divisional Officer of Mokokchung District) detailed the rift between the Mokokchung and Kohima centres of the NNC:

On the Kohima side of the district, the Angamis and Kacha Nagas began to dream of a fully independent Naga Hills.‘Until the British conquered us, we ruled ourselves. We were never under the Assamese. Why should an Assam Raj be foisted on us now? During the war we saw the plainsman. We know his tricks. We will never be safe without a Naga Raj’. But on the Mokokchung side, the Aos and Lhotas were much less hostile. The Japanese were halted on their boundaries. They have experienced no Indian exploitation, while a few who were educated in Jorhat and Shillong [Assam] had even imbibed some Congress ideas.

In important parts, these conflicting political positions seemed a response to divergent historical experiences, not least in relation to the Second World War. While the war destroyed and depleted Kohima and most Angami villages, Mokokchung district was saved this disaster, witnessed fewer Japanese and Allied soldiers on its soil, and was so spared the exploitation most Angamis experienced. After the war, Angami villagers favourably compared the behaviour of Japanese soldiers to that of ‘the “Punjabis”’ (Guyot-Réchard 2017: 21) with whom they had sided. Subhas Bose’s INA conjured similarly disparaging evaluations. ‘They treated us like dirt’, an Angami headmaster recalled, then added: ‘It will be like that if the plainsmen rule us’. ‘I worked as a road contractor’, another Angami narrated. ‘The Indian officers made me promises but they never kept them. They only wanted bribes. The Pathans and the Sikhs were the worst. How can we stand against the plainsman?’ (cited in Guyot-Réchard 2017: 21). But not just differential experiences of war. Divergent trajectories of Christian conversion and pre-existent intertribal animosities, too, shaped Ao and Angami political positions differently:

Moreover at the back of their [Ao and Lhota] minds was the vague fear that Independence would mean in practice not a Naga Raj but an Angami one. They saw themselves weakened by Christianity [Ao Nagas were the first to convert in large numbers], no longer militant in outlook, and opposed by a vigorous thrusting tribe [Angami] which was still proud of its warriors’ traditions and was only recently weaned from head-taking.

This apprehension of a Naga independence becoming an ‘Angami Raj’ was to remain an important subtext of NNC debates. While touring the Rengma Naga, neighbouring the Angami, William Archer noticed the strengthening of village defence walls. Villagers told him that they did so for reasons of ‘cattle’, but when Archer asked poignantly: ‘for Angami cattle?’, ‘they laughed and did not deny it’. Archer wrote: ‘Rengmas fear an Angami Raj on the one hand and an Assam Raj on the other, the latter the lesser of the 2 evils’.

Differences between Angami and Ao delegates came to a head during an NNC meeting in Wokha, the Lotha Naga headquarters, in June 1946. Kevichusa, the first Naga graduate and a senior government servant in Kohima, strongly made the case for Naga independence: ‘Self-government should mean a government of the Nagas, for the Nagas, by the Nagas. Nothing else means anything to the Nagas. We have to be masters of our own country and be free’. Ao delegates were ‘unconvinced’ and ‘realising that only through a united front would any advance be possible, the Angamis yielded to Mokokchung opinion [and] abandoned the demand for independence’. What resulted was a four-point memorandum, which T. Sakhrie, the Angami NNC Secretary, dispatched to Jawaharlal Nehru. It read:

1. 1. This Naga National Council stands for the solidarity of Naga tribes including those in the un-administrated areas.
   2. This Council strongly protests against the grouping of Assam with Bengal.
   3. The Naga Hills should be Constitutionally included in autonomous Assam, in a free India, with local autonomy and due safeguards for the interest of the Nagas
   4. The Naga tribes should have a separate electorate (Vashum 2005: 69).

In his response, Nehru endorsed the first three points, but rejected the idea of a separate Naga electorate: ‘We are against separate electorates as this will limit and injure the small group by keeping it separated from the rest of the nation’. Nehru also informed that an Advisory Committee would soon be enacted to offer recommendations on the constitutional inclusion of the Assam hill tribes, and added that this Committee ‘should have representatives of the tribal areas’ (Vashum 2005: 69-70).

Once enacted, however, the Committee was primarily made up of Congress politicians from Assam, including Gopinath Bordoloi (Assam’s first chief minister) and had only two tribal representatives: Nichols Roy, a Khasi Reverend married to an American and known to favour an integrated Assam, and Mayangnokcha. This immediately irked the NNC:

‘Everyone realised that the object of the sub-committee was not to give the Nagas the constitution they wanted but to ensure that Congress ideas of what the Nagas ought to want should prevail’

It reinvigorated the Angami voice for independence, and in the next NNC meeting, in February 1947, Angami delegates proposed that a clause be included in any agreement that allowed for a Naga interim government for a period of ten years, under the protection of either the British or Indian Government, and after which Nagas would freely decide their political future. A furious debate ensued with Ao representatives standing by the Wokha resolution. It was only after the interference of Pawsey, who called the disagreeing NNC members to his bungalow, that the deadlock was resolved. This time Ao delegates yielded to the Angami position and the proposed clause was added to a new memorandum. Pawsey’s intervention (and not just in this instance) frustrated Phizo. He reflected later: ‘I had seen nationalists at work in Burma. I had witnessed what patriotism could achieve. What I found on my return to Nagaland was nothing – no unity, no ideas. Everybody waited to hear what the District Commissioner wanted’ (cited in Steyn 2002: 72).

Mayangnokcha presented the new memorandum to the Advisory Committee in Delhi, but was rebuked by its members: ‘Your memorandum is merely history… Who ever heard of a Naga interim government?’, they reacted. ‘I tried to reason with them’, Mayangnokcha recounted,

‘but they were all sour. They do not argue straight. They twist your words. There is no love in them. No one of them desired the Nagas’ good. They think only of Assam’.

A frustrated Mayangnokcha tendered his resignation. A few months on, in May 1947, the Advisory Committee visited Kohima to meet the NNC. Bordoloi proposed several suggestions for Nagas’ constitutional inclusion in an independent India. ‘Give us a reply to our demands, then we will answer your question’, is what NNC members responded. The meeting ended with Bordoloi retorting: ‘You are really very obstinate’. In a report of the meeting, the Secretary of the Committee stated: ‘It was clearly perceived that the Council was now dominated by certain Angami leaders like Kevichusa and Lungalong and the more reasonable elements were prevented from asserting themselves’ (cited in Chaube 1999: 141-2).

Now it was Sir Akbar Hydari’s, the Assam Governor, turn to try and resolve the deadlock. Three days of consultations in Kohima resulted in an agreement known variously as the ‘nine-point agreement’, the ‘Hydari agreement’, and the ‘Governor’s agreement’. It proposed measures of executive, judiciary, and legislative autonomy. Its ninth, and soon controversial, clause read:

The Governor of Assam as the Agent of the Government of the Indian Union will have a special responsibility for a period of 10 years to ensure the observance of the agreement, at the end of this period the Naga Council will be asked whether they require the above agreement to be extended for a further period or a new agreement regarding the future of Naga people arrived at (Nuh 2002: 67-8).

The Hydari agreement divided the NNC. While it was realised that most clauses were ‘very loosely worded’ and that ‘it said nothing of an interim government’, it did fulfil the Ao demand for autonomy and Ao representatives, guided by Mayangnokcha and Aliba Imti, were ready to accept it. The Angami response was more complicated and disagreements led to a split between the historically influential Kohima and Khonoma villages, and their respective traditional allies and tributaries. While the Kohima group reluctantly accepted the agreement, the Khonoma group, of which Kevichusa, Sakhrie, and Phizo were part, called upon Hydari to clarify whether clause nine allowed Nagas to declare their independence after ten years if they would so desire. When Hydari explained that it did not, and threatened violent repercussions if Nagas would proclaim independence, the ‘Khonoma Nagas’ rebuked NNC leaders for having agreed to it, seceded from the NNC, and began a movement of their own under the banner of the People’s Independence League (PIL) with headquarters in Khonoma village.

Confusion within the NNC mounted further when, a week after the Hydari agreement, the Advisory Committee met in Shillong. Aliba Imti, who replaced Mayangnokcha as a member, attended, but discovered that the Hydari agreement had been brushed aside by the Committee, whose members insisted: ‘We find the recommendations made by us cover in essence the measure of autonomy contemplated by the Nagas and go much further in some respects’. It were these recommendations that ultimately became the basis of the Sixth Schedule to the Indian Constitution that came to apply to selected upland areas [and later also certain territories in the plains] in India’s Northeast. Aliba Imti objected against the Committee ‘treating the Naga Hills District as part of Assam and not as an independent area’, but he was overruled. In the aftermath of the Shillong meeting, Mildred Archer recorded how ‘those who never liked the agreement now feel themselves no longer pledged to it, while those who were satisfied are at loss to understand the position’. Another NNC meeting was scheduled. This time in Mokokchung.

On the 21^st of July, Mildred Archer wrote in her diary:

Today there is great excitement as the Naga National Council is beginning to assemble. Kohima is sending Angami, Rengma, and Kacha Naga delegates, while Sema, Lhotas and Aos are coming in from villages all over Mokokchung. Imlong and Hopongki, the Chang and Sangtam members, are putting their shops in order and already the air is full of trade and politics.

The splitting away of the ‘Khonoma group’ was the first point on the agenda. Mildred Archer wrote down what Aliba Imti told her: ‘the Angami split is more serious than was thought. The Khonoma group have denounced the NNC and formed a separate independence party. A delegation has gone to Delhi and he hears that they have met Gandhi and Jinnah. Their action is a challenge to the NNC and the delegates must now decide what counter steps to take’. Mayangnokcha, however, was of the view that ‘a little “extremism” will do no harm’, reasoning: ‘the Congress leaders will be more ready to listen if they had a preliminary shock’. He then proposed that the NNC send a counter-delegation to Delhi. To be noted, here, is that at this stage, less than a month prior to India’s independence, the demand for Naga independence was still talked about as ‘extremist’ within the NNC.

The Hydari agreement was next on the agenda. Once again, Ao and Angami positions clashed with the Angami insisting on the modification of clause nine to allow for the possibility of Nagas seceding from the Indian Union after ten years. Ao delegates, on the other hand, argued in favour of the original agreement and wished to press for its immediate implementation. After three days of discussion, it was the Angami viewpoint that prevailed. This resolution now split the Ao:

‘All the morning, excited angry groups of villagers have been standing round and complaining of Mayang[nokcha]’s “treachery.” Late last night they angrily abused him. “We stood by the Governor’s agreement”, they said, “What right had you to change it?”’

Meanwhile, confirmation arrived that the Khonoma delegation had met both Jinnah and Gandhi in Delhi, and it was said that both leaders did not object to political projections of Naga independence. In Assam, Bordoloi reacted with fury:

‘The question of the Nagas remaining independent of the Indian Union is absurd. A section of the Angami tribe under the leadership of persons from the village of Khonoma is misguided and their number is small’.

The NNC reacted and, apropos Mayangnokcha’s suggestion, send a counter-delegation to Delhi.

‘The suspense in Mokokchung is electric’, Mildred Archer wrote as India’s independence was drawing closer. ‘Some of the Aos are exasperated, others are bewildered and every day the silence thickens’. On August 12 a cable arrived informing that the NNC delegation had met Nehru and summoned all NNC members to Kohima for an emergency meeting.

Mildred Archer pondered: ‘Have the Mokokchung demands been granted? Will the meeting be asked to ratify the new terms? Are we on the verge of a Naga revolt? No one can say and no one dares to guess’.

The meeting with Nehru had not gone well. While Nehru listened carefully to the NNC delegation at first, after Longri Ao, an NNC delegate, remarked, somewhat crudely, ‘if the clause is not accepted the Nagas will go their own way’, Nehru banged the table with his fist: ‘India cannot be split into a hundred bits. If you fight we shall resist’. The next day, two press communiqués appeared. The first, on behalf of the Indian Government, said: ‘We can give you complete autonomy but never complete independence. You can never hope to be independent. No state, big or small, in India, will be allowed to remain independent. We will use all our influence and power to suppress such tendencies’. In turn, the communiqué the NNC released stated:

The Naga National Council recently sent a full representative body to Delhi to reach a settlement regarding their future relationship with India. In interviews with some of the Government of India leaders in Delhi, they were given to understand that their demands could not be satisfied in full. Since the people they represent will accept nothing short of their full demands, the members of the various delegations have decided that the Naga National Council is henceforth free to decide the future of the Naga people in the way that suits them best.

The NNC met in Kohima on 13 and 14 August and decided that India’s independence celebrations will be boycotted in protest against the government’s refusal to revise clause nine of the Hydari agreement. In Khonoma, the People’s Independence League took matters in its own hands and on August 14 declared Naga independence. Its leaders drafted a cable to the United Nations. It read:

Benign excellence,

Kindly put on record that Nagas will be independent. Discussion with India are being carried on to that effect. Nagas do not accept Indian Constitution. The right of the people must prevail regardless of size (Nuh 2002:115).

The cable, copies of which were addressed to Delhi and Indian newspapers, never left the Naga Hills, however. The postmaster, sensing the sensitivity of the cable’s contents, referred them for clearance to Pawsey, who ordered the cables to be withheld. As a result, ‘Nothing therefore reaches the press, not a word appeared announcing their tremendous step’.

Naga Raj or Khonoma Raj?

‘Since 15 August, nothing has happened’, Mildred Archer told her diary on August 23.

‘The Khonoma group have had a number of meetings but have so far done nothing to set up a rival government. Pawsey thinks that having declared their independence they are now at loss to know what to do next’

In their private correspondence, Pawsey, Archer, and other colonial officials disparagingly referred to the PIL as the Khonoma ‘independence racket’ and doubted their true motivations:

‘In Khonoma it is the Christian clan [khel] which demands complete independence. One is indifferent and the other does not want it – the clan which want it does so because it desires to re-impose Khonoma domination – to terrorize the region – as Khonoma did before’

To situate their reasoning we need to back up a little. Prior to British annexation, ‘pacification’, and overrule, ‘No Angamis enjoyed such prestige or levied such widespread tribute as ‘Khonoma’, wrote the colonial officer J.H. Hutton (1921: 11). Several Kacha Naga villages, he observed, ‘seem to have been entirely dominated by settlements of Khonoma Angamis who superimposed on them their own customs’ (ibid.: 156). And not just Kacha villages. The colonial archive reveals that Khonoma raids and tributary relations extended far and wide. Inside Khonoma, the ‘Christian khel’, which colonial officers singled out as the forerunner of the independence claim, referred to the Merhü khel. This khel was heir to powerful chiefs and warriors, had earned itself a hardy reputation for subjugating villages (as well as for struggling with the other two Khonoma khels over property and domination within the village), and put up a particularly fiery resistance against British invasions in the 19^th century.

‘Today I have been reading a number of tour diaries… The most interesting is by Capt. John Butler who was here from 1870 to 1875’, wrote Mildred Archer. She continued:

‘It is amusing to see how Butler found the Khonoma group a wearisome problem with their unending feuds and “stubborn importunity”. It is the same provocative qualities which mark their incursion into politics today’

‘It is not perhaps surprising that Kevichusa himself should come from the Merhü or partially Christian khel of Khonoma’, William Archer agreed, referring here to Kevichusa’s political argument for Naga independence. Not surprising, too, then, in this line of reasoning, is that A.Z. Phizo hailed from the same village and khel. In this reading, the Khonoma declaration for Naga independence was framed within intra-Naga constellations of power and hierarchy: not only did the independence claim provided a new political arena to struggle over pre-existent rivalries and divisions, it also became the basis for an envisaged regeneration of Khonoma village, and the Merhü khel within it, as the leading political and intellectual Naga bastion.

The Khonoma declaration, for one thing, imbued new tensions between Khonoma and Kohima villages, which shared a long history of feuds and raids. Being attached to the offices of Pawsey, Kevichusa was a long-time Kohima resident, but when his wife hoisted an Angami cloth to a bamboo pole in their yard in support of the Khonoma declaration, her doing so ‘immediately revived the old Kohima-Khonoma rivalry of headhunting days’. An angry crowd of Kohima villagers surrounded Kevichusa’s house and shouted: ‘take it down’. Anticipating a breakdown of law and order, Pawsey personally intervened to have the flag removed. ‘Kohima [villagers] are very angry with Khonoma’, he subsequently reported to William Archer.

The PIL, meanwhile, sought to defuse apprehensions about a looming ‘Khonoma Raj’. In a cyclostyled paper they produced and called ‘Our Home News’, they wrote:

‘Some people said that independence is the voice of Khonoma. What silly talk! How foolish it is! Why is Indonesia fighting today? Is it not for Independence? Why Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Nehru and all the Indian leaders went to jail? Is it because of their foolishness? Is it not for the independence of India? So, why not say I am not Khonoma, but a Naga’.

In the following issue of Our Home News, the PIL both admonished and encouraged the NNC:

The present situation is very serious. Those members who are and have been in the NNC seem to be feeling down-hearted. There can be no good reason for this lack of enthusiasm. It is true that their old friends [the Khonoma group] have left the NNC because they want something higher than what the NNC is still now fighting for. A nation must move on according to time and circumstances. Those who are still in the NNC must buck up their spirit and face the situation with manly determination.

The statement then continued:

We are convinced that INDEPENDENCE IS THE BEST SAFEGUARD [sic] and the only salvation for the Nagas to be free from political turmoil… But a few NNC members talk as if they have the fate of the Nagas in their pocket. So we challenge the NNC to take a referendum whether the Nagas want independence or join India. We know definitely that people in the villages are very angry and they will never agree to join India.

It was this challenge to ‘take a referendum’ that, a few years later, resulted in the Naga plebiscite, which became foundational to the Naga political struggle. I return to this shortly.

The Abeyance of the ‘Hydari Agreement’

While the ‘Khonoma group’ was pushing for independence, the NNC continued to pursue the revision of clause nine of the Hydari agreement. Governor Hydari himself, however, became increasingly wary about the agreement – both in its original and proposed revised form. He now told William Archer:

The Nagas must learn to fit in. They must shed their insularity. The hills must be integrated with the plains. I look forward to a time when the hillmen will be indistinguishable from the plainsmen. We must modernize the tribes. We must make them citizens of the new India. From this point of view, the objective must be greater and greater subordination, lesser and lesser independence.

As William Archer communicated Hydari’s stance to Aliba Imti, the latter admonished the colonial officer: ‘You have also failed us’.

In response, Aliba Imti wrote a letter to all NNC members in which he called for tougher action:

‘That the Naga people attach so much importance upon the point no 9 modified and as such as we had anticipated from the very beginning that hardly will there be any government who will recognise it easily without strong opposition and firm stand from the Nagas themselves’.

His letter went on:

I personally have lost confidence that words alone will bring no effect upon the politicians of India. I presume the Nagas mean what they are uttering for it should be our motto now – “Deeds but not words.” 1. Decision should be made in favour of non-cooperation with the existing government. 2. One month’s ultimatum be given to the Government of India. 3. From the beginning of Nov. ’47, the government servants of Naga people should be ready to lay down their pens. Naga Hills must show worthy of the CALL [sic].

Imti’s letter exacerbated intra-Naga political divisions. ‘Perhaps the Angami will favour civil disobedience, but if the Aos stay true to type, I am sure no one in Mokokchung will’, Mildred Archer predicted. Imti’s political shift, from autonomy into the direction of the Khonoma position, indeed upset the other Ao NNC members, who now decided to boycott the NNC meeting scheduled for September. Mildred Archer wrote: ‘They [the Aos] are all angry with Aliba and his pompous announcements. They are opposed to civil disobedience and they are tired of being dragged along by the Angamis. The Aos are prepared to accept the Governor’s agreement, although they are still not happy about Clause 9, and are anxious that a committee should start to work out the details’. But while civil disobedience was discussed during the September meeting, no consensus was reached and instead a committee was enacted to work out the original Hydari agreement.

Clause 2 of this agreement read:

‘Executive – The general principle is accepted that what the Naga Council is prepared to pay for, the Naga Council should control’.

As the Committee tried to work out what departments the NNC could reasonably manage on its own, the problem of finances immediately arose. Increasing the house-tax by ‘four or five times’ appeared the only option. This, however, was a contentious matter. Mayangnokcha opined: ‘The villagers will pay anything for complete independence, but what will they pay for this? If we double the house-tax they will grudge it… If we treble it they will refuse to pay any tax at all’. Representing the Kohima circle, Krusihu added: ‘The Independence party will laugh at us. They will tell the villagers, “You have not got independence. You have only got taxes”’.

Despite difficulties of finance, the committee fleshed out a draft constitution and another NNC meeting was called to deliberate on it. In this meeting several ambitious alterations and additions were proposed and incorporated, to the extent that, William Archer adjudged, they ‘completely nullify the Governor’s [Hydari] “agreement” and amounted to a new constitution for an independent state’. ‘The same people [of the NNC] speak without stopping’, Mayangnokcha lamented after the meeting concluded. ‘At the end a vote is taken and everyone agrees without knowing what is really being decided’. Amongst those overruled were Hopongki and Imlong, the Sangtam and Chang delegates of the ‘Control Area’. They wished for the ‘Control Area’ to remain under Assam as the NNC did not have the finances to develop it. Mayangnokcha blamed Governor Hydari for his failure to expedite the initial agreement: ‘This delay has given the Nagas time to talk and talk. If he had acted quickly, none of these present difficulties would have arisen’.

Aliba Imti led an NNC delegation to Shillong to meet Governor Hydari with the proposed constitution. Hydari, however, refused to meet them unless they withdrew the ultimatum, which the NNC was not prepared to do. On the 2^nd of December, Mildred Archer wrote:

‘At the bungalow, we found a typed notice from Aliba announcing that at 12PM on 5 December, the Naga Hills would leave the Indian Union’.

Pawsey successfully pressed the NNC to have the ultimatum postponed to 31 December, but this too did not prompt a response from either Hydari or Nehru. The ultimatum passed. However, divisions within the NNC prevented a declaration of Naga independence or large-scale civil disobedience and records available suggest that the first months of 1948 passed in an uneasy calm.

Then A.Z. Phizo stepped up.

The Ascendancy of A.Z. Phizo

In the spring of 1948, the draft Indian Constitution was published and proposed the Sixth Schedule as the legal basis and machinery to safeguard measures of autonomy for all Assam hill tribes, including Nagas. By now, however, the NNC had moved beyond their initial political demand for autonomy and its members refused to see the Sixth Schedule as the constitutional translation of the Hydari agreement. Sentiments were now changing fast in the Naga uplands. If, early in 1948, Hydari could tell Pawsey that ‘Kevichusa has arrived in Shillong, but I am told he and his party [the PIL] have little following in the hills’ (cited in Steyn 2002: 77), the continued abeyance of the Hydari agreement progressively strengthened the position of the ‘Khonoma group’, of which Phizo was rapidly turning into its most prolific and influential leader.

Phizo began the touring of villages and in fiery speeches decried the timidity and servility of the NNC, lambasted Akbar Hydari, and warned villagers about the taxes and restrictions the Indian state would soon and surely impose upon them if they would not actively resist the enclosure of their hills. Phizo was persuasive and the theory and voice of Naga independence was gaining ground. While stirring up popular support, Phizo also followed a constitutional line and repeatedly called upon authorities in Kohima, Shillong, and elsewhere to seek clarification on the government’s position. ‘What struck me about Phizo at my first meeting was his extraordinary thoroughness and pertinacity’, Nari Rustomji, Advisor to the Governor, recalled, then continued:

He was armed with neatly typed, systematically serialized copies of all documents relevant to the Naga problem and he gave the impression of carrying, in his little briefcase, the destinies of the entire Naga people. Everything had to be documented, nothing left to chance, and as soon as the discussions were concluded, he insisted on having the minutes drawn up while the proceedings were still fresh in mind, and taking copies certified personally by the Governor and Chief Minister… The next I heard of him was when I received monumental letters addressed by him from a jail in Calcutta to the Governor General, Rajagopalachari.

In June 1948, Phizo was arrested for stirring trouble in the Naga highlands. From his prison cell, he appealed to the India’s Governor-General: ‘I, A.Z. Phizo, Naga, your state prisoner, address this letter to you as one of the spokesmen of the Naga people’, he began a series of letters. He then wrote:

Since we endured a life together as the British conquered subjects along with the Indians, we sincerely believed India not to interfere in our liberty and freedom now the British had [sic] left and India is politically free. But the possibility of India’s annexation of Nagaland and domination over the unwilling Nagas, have become more a fearful problem than the British Imperialism whose home country was at least several thousand miles away… (see Nuh 2002: 51-62 for the complete letter).

An answer Phizo did not receive.

While incarcerated, the vehicle in which Phizo’s wife and infant son travelled met with an accident, instantly killing his son and grievously injuring his wife. Phizo appealed for release on compassionate grounds. His plea was successful and he was conditionally released in December 1948. Jwanna, his wife, made a slow but successful recovery in the Welsh mission hospital in Shillong, with Phizo at her side. In August 1948, Phizo was permanently released, reportedly ‘in recognition of a bond of good behaviour’ (Steyn 2002: 79).

Meanwhile, Hydari passed away (as did Bordoloi soon after). His successor, Jairamdas Daulatram declared the Naga Hills as an unambiguous and integral part of Assam and India, a political position he impressed upon NNC delegations that called on him. When he subsequently visited Mokokchung he was greeted with ‘Go Back’ placards. Humiliated, Daulatram dispatched armed police into the Ao region. It was an action that further strained relations and in a follow-up NNC meeting Ao and Sema Naga leaders publicly, and for the first time, ‘cry for complete sovereign independence’ (Steyn 2002: 80).

It is amidst these political developments that Phizo returned midway 1949. His spell in prison for advocating Naga freedom now added to his name an charisma, and he resumed, ever more vigorously, his touring ‘from one village to another in the Naga inhabited areas to mobilise support for Naga freedom’ (Yonuo 1974: 200). His popularity soared and ultimately resulted, in 1950, into his election as NNC president. In analysing the beginnings of the Naga Movement it is nearly impossible to overstate the influence of Phizo. Literature that exists on him indeed typifies him as a ‘Moses of his people’ (Horam 1988: 45) and ‘father of Naga nation’ (Ao 2002: 21). Even an Indian General conceded how, from the late 1940s onward, Phizo ‘operated his strings to skilfully that one by one all tribes were caught in his net, which he cast far and wide and with speed’ (Anand 1980: 70).

Violence or Non-Violence: The NNC Divided (Again)

Phizo’s ascendency to NNC president signalled the definite replacement of the initial Ao stance for autonomy with the Angami, but especially Khonoma, demand for independence. However, it did not take long for new divisions to emerge within the NNC over the preferred strategy to achieve this political end. This divide, which turned deadly, was between those who sought to metamorphose the NNC into a militant organisation and advocates of a Gandhian strategy of nonviolence. The main protagonists, here, were Phizo and Sakhrie, the NNC president and secretary, who turned from ‘friends’ into ‘foes’. Both leaders hailed from Khonoma. But whereas Phizo’s election to NNC president reinvigorated Khonoma’s longstanding political supremacy in the hills, the Sakhrie-Phizo fallout simultaneously created a wedge within the village, and was to stir inter-clan tensions that blemished its social fabric for long decades following.

As president, Phizo immediately ‘put the house of the NNC in order and filled its executive with his own chosen men from the People’s Independence League [which is subsequently disbanded], purged all his opponents who were determined to remain in India [from the ranks of the NNC]… and strove to make it a militant political organization pledged to fight for the sovereignty of Nagaland’ (Yonuo 1974: 201). In response, Governor Daulatram severed all communication with the NNC, insisting that ‘no useful purpose would be served by having personal discussion with NNC representatives unless they made it clear that they would enter into talks with an open mind to discuss the place of the Nagas within the framework of the constitution of India’ (cited in Steyn 2002: 80-81). At this increasingly tense juncture, the NNC formally followed the path of nonviolence. While a new NNC memorandum, adopted in 1950, declared that ‘anything that is autonomous in character will not be accepted by Nagas’, it simultaneously asserted:

‘The aspiration and inspiration of the Nagas is to fight for freedom through peace and goodwill, not through bloodshed. The Nagas are strongly determined to fight constitutionally for the liberation of their motherland – Nagaland’ (Steyn 2002: 81).

It was in this spirit of struggling ‘constitutionally’ that Phizo announced the plebiscite the PIL had wanted to carry out as early as 1947. But if, back then, the plebiscite was envisaged as a tactic to silence the Ao voice for autonomy, in 1951, with the official NNC policy already shifted to independence, the plebiscite was conducted to dispel, once and for all, claims from the Indian government that the independence demand was the handiwork of a few ‘misguided’ Nagas. Bishnuram Medhi, who succeeded Gopinath Bordoloi as Assam’s chief minister, personalized this view: ‘I cannot think’, he said, ‘of any demand for independent sovereign Naga state raised by a few handful of leaders, mostly Christians’ (cited in Maitra 2011: 22). Phizo wrote yet another letter to India’s president in which he explained that a Naga plebiscite was to be held ‘with the view of furnishing the people and the Government of India with evidential and conclusive proof of their national aspiration and for independence’. In the same letter he regretted ‘the scant attention paid to the case of the Naga people by the Government of India despite very fervent and earnest pleadings’, and concluded by inviting the Government of India to ‘send their observers to witness the whole processing of the plebiscite from beginning to the end’ (Nuh 2002: 92-3).

At this stage, Phizo and Sakhrie still worked in tandem. Not only had Sakhrie actively campaigned for Phizo’s election as NNC president, he now led the organizing of the plebiscite. He printed the papers in Imphal and transported them by truck to Khonoma, from where he saw to it that they were rolled in bamboo cylinders and dispatched to Naga villages (Sakhrie 2006: 11). One the eve of the plebiscite, Phizo addressed a large crowd in Kohima:

We are here to commence our voluntary plebiscite to put on record and to express our mind, our national policy, in the form of thumb impression. It is five months now that our nation has been given time to discuss about this plebiscite voluntarily offered by us to prove our unity and our spontaneous willingness to continue to live on as a distinct nation. In the past five months I have visited every region of our area and met everyone of you. What we do now will go down in our history (see Nuh 2002: 116-133 for the complete speech).

The plebiscite’s result, as declared by the NNC, was an overwhelming 99% of thumb prints in favour of independence. An NNC delegation subsequently carried the plebiscite papers to Delhi, but where, to their dismay, the plebiscite was derided as illegitimate and non-consequential. And when several subsequent meetings between Phizo, or NNC delegations sent by him, and Nehru (variously held in Delhi, Assam, and Manipur) also proved futile, as well as turned increasingly frosty, Phizo departed from his earlier commitment to struggling through constitutional means. He called for civil disobedience. This time civil disobedience was actively participated in: ‘School teachers resigned, children left their studies and village headmen returned their blankets [that signalled their authority and alliance to the government]’ (Nibedon 1978: 39). In addition, and crucially, the NNC boycotted independent India’s first general elections in 1952 and ‘not a single vote is cast’ (Sema 1986: 92).

Things came to a head in 1953, when Nehru, accompanied by the Burmese Prime Minister U Nu, visited Kohima with the aim of persuading the Nagas into accepting the Sixth Schedule. The NNC prepared to meet Nehru, but Deputy Commissioner Barkataki denied them the opportunity. Instead he instructed NNC leaders ‘to listen what the two Prime Ministers would say’ (Yonuo 1974: 204). The Nagas gathered in Kohima responded in style and ‘as Nehru and his cavalcade started moving towards the podium, the Naga assemblage started moving out… The Nagas left in full purview smacking their bottoms’ (Nibedon 1978: 45). What followed this Naga walk-out were repressive police measures that included raids on the houses of top NNC leaders, including Sakhrie’s, the establishment of nine additional police posts, and the enactment of the Assam Maintenance of Public Order (Autonomous Districts) Act, which bestowed extra-constitutional powers on the armed police to decisively and swiftly quell any Naga ‘disturbance’.

Anticipating arrest, Phizo slipped into Tuensang, the formerly ‘Control Area’, and from where he began organising a guerrilla force. According to one reading: ‘The adamant posture of the Assam authorities, perhaps natural in those given circumstances, forced Phizo and his men to pledge for a war that would not admit of truces, retreats or compromises’ (Nibedon 1978: 57). In a highly symbolic move, Phizo declared the formation of the Hongking Government in 1954 as the government of all Nagas, so formally undercutting the authority and jurisdiction of the Indian government. The next year, in 1955, the Indian Army moved into Tuensang, which was soon followed by reports of encounters, scuffles, attacks, and burning villages. The war began.

Experiencing new levels of insecurity and violence, voices within the NNC raised objections to Phizo’s turn to armed resistance. Amongst these were Sakhrie and Jasokie. While subscribing to the thesis of Naga independence, Sakhrie preached passive resistance. In a letter to Purwar, a Gandhian activist, he wrote:

[there] are developments such as the NNC has so far worked to keep in check. The idea is gaining popular favour and momentum. The situation is getting out of control… After the first strike it will not stop until it exhausts itself. We must therefore prevent the first strike from being ever struck. This must be attempted by peaceful methods (cited in Sakhrie 2006: 13-14).

Phizo disapproved strongly of, what he saw as, Sakhrie’s softening stance. In several meetings in Kohima and Khonoma, the two debated furiously. ‘You are placing your opponent in a position where he feels morally wrong to oppose you’, Sakhrie countered Phizo. ‘Fight rather than be oppressed… Die rather than lose your honour’ (cited in Sakhrie 2006: 13), Phizo returned. Sakhrie not only took on Phizo verbally, but also began ‘blazing his own trail with the message of peace and non-violence… touring the countryside in a bid to dismantle Phizo’s guerrilla machine’ (Nibedon 1978: 64). It fragmented the NNC and followers of Phizo and Sakhrie now convened separately. Sakhrie’s influence was growing and he called for a NNC meeting on the 31^st of January in which, it was rumoured, he planned to table a no-confidence motion against Phizo’s presidency. It infuriated Phizo as ‘Sakhrie’s vehement opposition to Phizo’s theme of violence made the threat to his preeminent position in the NNC too real’ (Anand 1980: 96). Followers of Phizo arrested Sakhrie, took him into the jungle, tortured him for two days, then killed him. The gruesomeness with which this was done made it not just a murder, but a ‘crucifixion’ (Nibedon 1978: 71). Sakhrie’s assassination was the first in a series of attacks by, what press reports soon called, Naga ‘extremists’ on ‘liberals.’

The scheduled NNC meeting and the no-confidence motion never took place.

Violence and the Return of the ‘Liberals’

‘They have killed Sakhrie! The balloon has gone up’, Carvalho, the District Commissioner, exclaimed upon receiving the news (cited in Stracey 1960: 79). While Phizo was seen mourning Sakhrie’s death, and termed the murder a great tragedy, all leads pointed to his personal involvement. A police warrant (and a bounty of 5000 rupees) was issued against his name on charges of ‘rioting, abduction, trespass, murder, and conspiracy to commit murder of T. Sakhrie’. Sakhrie’s rising influence in the rank-and-file of the NNC had been the Indian Government’s last hope of seeing Phizo’s guerrilla army contained organically. It now reacted strongly: ‘Full Army operations in the Naga Hills’, The Statesman reported on 31 March 1956.11The Statesmen, ‘Full Army Operations in Naga Hills’ (31-03-1956). Click to view slideshow.

In the aftermath of Sakhrie’s murder it was not just arrest Phizo needed to dodge. Sakhrie’s clan cried for revenge and Khonoma split into rivaling camps. What colonial officers dubbed as the ‘Christian khel’ and ‘forerunner’ of the Naga independence claim turned into a site of internal division and violent tension. Once again Phizo disappeared. His loyalists, now referred to as ‘Phizoites’, followed suit, and in February 1956 it was reported that ‘All top leaders of the Naga National Council led by its president A.Z. Phizo have gone underground and are directing lawless activities in isolated areas’.

The armed conflict was multisided, and while the Indian Army hunted after NNC members, Phizo and his men pursued the ‘liberals’ within the NNC and word had it that they were working their way down a hit-list (of which Sakhrie had been on top). ‘Official confirmation is lacking’, The Statesman reported, ‘about the latest rumour that another Naga young man belonging to the liberal group has been shot dead’.12The Statesman, ‘Naga Leaders go Underground’ (01-02-1956). The Phizo-led armed uprising also pitched, what the Indian Army called, ‘hostile’ against ‘loyal’ Naga villages (or what the NNC called ‘national’ and ‘anti-national’ villages). In June 1956, for instance, seven Ao Naga villages publicly pledged to ‘break completely with Phizo and his associates and to abstain from violence’.13Assam Tribune, ‘Nagas pledge to break with Phizo’, (26-06-1956). Another report read: ‘Naga rebels kidnapped seven loyal Naga leaders in the Mokokchung [Ao Naga] sub-division of the Naga Hills District and beheaded at least four of them’.14The Statesmen, ‘Rebels behead four loyal Nagas’ (05-04-1956).

Amidst this engulfing crisis and chaos, Phizo enacted the Federal Government of Nagaland (FGN) as the Naga government, replacing the earlier Hongking government that operated from the formerly ‘Control Area.’ By now, two guerrilla wings were fully operative and called the Home Guards and the Safe Guards, both of which specialized in classic ‘hit and run’ attacks on Indian police posts and army convoys, as well as assaulted ‘anti-national’ Naga villages. The Indian Army stepped up its ‘operations’ even further, often exerting force at Naga guerrillas and villagers alike. A European tea-planter in the Assam foothills wrote to Pawsey in August 1956:

The Indian Army is in full occupation of every section of the Naga Hills. 60% of the Ao villages have been burnt… 70% of the Sema villages have been burnt, and 30% of the Angami. The army uses incendiaries. Worse still: the Nagas are not allowed to rebuild them so they are living in the jungles as best they can. Their crops are being deliberately destroyed and any Naga seen is apt to be shot on sight so that they cannot enter their fields anyway.15Pawsey Papers, Letter from Stephen Laing, (13-08-1956). I thank Edward Moon-Little for very generously scanning and sending me the Pawsey Papers from the archives of Cambridge University, where they are kept.

On February 5 1957, Pawsey received another letter from the same tea-planter: ‘Conditions in the Naga Hills seem to go from bad to worse. No one ventures to predict what the outcome will be. There is so much wrong now on both sides and so much pig-headedness to go with it’.16Pawsey Papers, Letter from Stephen Laing, (05-02-1957). Violence continued to escalate, and began to draw voices of protest from elsewhere. On the floor of the Assam Assembly, an elected member accused the Indian Army of ‘excesses’ and declared: ‘I cannot support the steamroller of police rule in the Naga Hills’.[/footnote]The Statesmen, ‘Police Accused of “Excesses” in Naga Hills’ (27-03-1956) [/footnote] In the Indian Parliament, Rishang Keishing, a Tangkhul Naga MP from Manipur, blamed the Indian Army of orchestrating ‘an orgy of murder’.17Pawsey Papers, Newspaper clipping (name of newspaper not mentioned), ‘Nehru told: try peace in your own land’ (27-08-1956).

Nehru, on his part, defended his armed forces and stated that no talks would take place until Phizo and his men surrendered their demand for independence. As for Phizo himself, he slipped out of the Naga Hills and into East Pakistan towards the end of 1956. In the year 1960 he arrived in London – officially to internationalise the Naga issue – but where he soon adopted British citizenship and died in ‘self-exile’ roughly three decades later, still in the armor of NNC president. But I am getting ahead of myself.

While the Naga Army was outnumbered by Indian armed forces many times over, it put up a daring fight: ‘Naga tribes hold down 30.000 men [Indian soldiers], The Telegraph reported on March 20, 1957.18The Telegraph, ‘Naga Tribes Hold Down 30.000 Men’ (20-03-1957) Here and there, Naga guerrillas won battles. ‘Naga rebels… have scored their first spectacular triumph by sending a platoon of Indian soldiers home naked’, The Statesman reported on August 5, 1957. The article went on:

The platoon was stripped of rifles, ammunition, and every stich of clothing in the steaming Naga hills near the Burma frontier. They surrendered after another platoon of the same regiment – the Garhwal Rifles from the Indian plains – had been massacred. The tribesmen, who have a headhunting tradition, let them go after stripping them. As the naked soldiers ran away, the Nagas jeered after them.19Pawsey Papers, Newspaper clipping (name newspaper not mentioned), ‘Head-Hunters Strip Nehru’s Soldiers’ (05-08-1957).

Even more Indian armed forces were dispatched into the hills, and violence flared from one village to the next. From London, Phizo (1960) called it ‘genocide’, while Indian commentators began to speak of ‘India’s little Vietnam’ (Nibedon 1978: 75).

The grim violence exacerbated the crisis within the NNC, to the extent that the Assam Tribune reported its ‘dissolution’ following ‘a rift between the leader of the council, Phizo, and its members’.20Assam Tribune, ‘Dissolution of NNC’, 23-05-1956. ‘Dissolution’, however, was too strong a wording for the resurrection of Sakhrie-inspired ‘liberal’ NNC voices, despite continued threats to their lives. In September 1956, Jasokie, Sakhrie’s former right-hand and fellow Khonoma villager, led a delegation of ‘liberal’ NNC members to Delhi where they told Nehru that they were ‘convinced of the futility of the so-called demand for independence’ and condemned ‘the use of violence by some misguided sentiments of their people [read: Phizo and his followers]’.21India News, ‘Prime Minister meets Naga delegation’, 22-09-1956. On returning to the Naga Hills, they pursued internal NNC reforms through the enactment of a ‘Reforming Committee’. However, with Phizo resisting these reforms, and him ruling the day, the group of NNC liberals resolved to break away from the NNC and proposed an all tribes Naga People’s Convention (NPC) to deliberate the political situation.

Came August 1957. A reported 1765 tribal representatives of both the Tuensang Area and the Naga Hills District convened in Kohima.22Yonuo (1974: 222) speaks of ‘1765 traditional representatives of the different Naga tribes particularly from the Naga Hills and Tuensang Area of NEFA and about 2.000 observers from the other Naga areas.’ 23 The Convention explained its coming together as a response to the ‘killings and widespread suffering’ and their desire to ‘end the infinite sufferings and bloodshed’. Five days of discussions resulted in three demands that were communicated to Delhi:

1) to come to a ‘satisfactory political settlement’
2) to amalgamate the Naga Hills District and the Tuensang Area of NEFA into a single administrative unit
3) a ‘genuine, general amnesty’ for Naga rebels.

The Convention also called on Phizo and his guerrilla army to renounce ‘the cult of violence’ (Yonuo 1974: 232). Imkongliba Ao was selected as the Convention’s president and entrusted to head a delegation to meet Nehru in Delhi for political negotiations. Nehru applauded the NPC’s efforts, consented to the demands, and acted promptly: a general amnesty was declared immediately, Naga political prisoners were released, and the Naga Hills and Tuensang Area merged into a single district within Assam in December 1957.

To further deliberate the nature of a definite political settlement a second NPC was scheduled for May 1958. The NNC, however, took exception to this ‘overground’ political process and warned that NPC activities should ‘not pose any obstruction on the way of independence of Nagaland’ (Yonuo 1974: 228). Warnings and threats were issued to the villagers of Ungma, who offered to host the NPC meet. Within the NNC views on the NPC were not unanimous, however. S.C. Jamir, a later Nagaland chief minister and organizing member of the Ungma Convention, recalled: ‘To clarify the real stand of the underground, Dr. Imkongliba and I met Mr. Jakrenkokba, Advisor to the Home Guard in the village at Sungratsue. He gave us verbal assurance and clearance to go ahead with the preparations for the Convention’ (Jamir 2016: 125).

Attended by an estimated 2700 delegates, the Ungma Convention condemned violence of any source and sort, appealed to the Indian government to extend the period of amnesty, and envisaged the political and administrative elevation of the Naga Hills and Tuensang Area from a district into a state within the Indian Union, but with special provisions for autonomy. Significantly, the Convention also enacted a Liaison Committee with the task of contacting the NNC/FGN and to persuade ‘underground’ Nagas into joining the ‘overground’ political process. The Committee was chaired by Kevichusa, an early advocate of Naga independence and former confidant of Phizo (as well as his immediate relative), but who disassociated himself from the NNC after its turn to armed struggle. Naga underground leaders rejected the Liaison Committee’s overtures and instead asked Kevichusa ‘to inform the Government of India to confirm recognition of the Naga Federal Government first as the basis of negotiation for a political settlement’ (Yonuo 1974: 229). For the NNC/ FGN, the Indian Government communicating with the NPC was an affront to the Naga plebiscite, from which they derived the legitimacy to represent the Nagas politically. The NPC, they insisted, carried no such legitimacy. A disillusioned Kevichusa reported:

I have to report after meeting different leaders that up to this time the Naga Political Party [NNC] does not desire to have any negotiation except on the issue of Independence… So the stalemate continues, and will, I am afraid continue for some time longer. I do believe in the good sense of our people, and I earnestly believe that change in the mind of the people will also come and there will be a settlement on practical lines. But I and my colleagues [of the Liaison Committee] feel that a forced settlement will not bring about any permanent solution (cited in Nibedon 1978: 117-118).

Kevichusa’s message that Nagaland statehood will not bring a political solution, but only produce further divisions was not heeded to by the NPC, which instead enacted another Committee to work out a draft constitution. In a public meeting, Kevichusa made his dissent known: ‘I was the originator of the resolutions of the NPC in 1957. But, friends, I had not the slightest suspicion that a political settlement was going to be made behind the back of those who had their difference with the Government. It was, therefore, a surprise to me that a second NPC was held in Ungma in May, 1958 and the question of a political settlement was raised’ (cited in Nibedon 1978: 117). ‘I hold no brief for the rebels’, Kevichusa clarified (ibid.: 120), but then insisted that the NPC was to act as ‘a bridge between the Government of India and the underground people’, not to push for a settlement of its own (ibid.: 117).

A third (and final) NPC met in Mokokchung in October 1959 to discuss the draft constitution that was prepared. This meeting culminated into 16 concrete demands to the Indian Government, core among which was the creation of Nagaland state (Nibedon 1978: 88). This demand was accepted by Nehru, who subsequently ushered the Nagaland statehood bill through parliament. From London, Phizo reacted with dismay: he reiterated that the Naga struggle was for complete independence, called the NPC a ‘puppet assembly’ (Yonuo 1974: 236), and stated that ‘No agreement can be recognized regarding the future of Nagaland except with the people who are truly representative of the Naga people’, which Phizo insisted was not the NPC but the NNC/FGN (Stracey 1960: 93).

To waylay these political developments, the NNC stepped up its guerrilla attacks, bombed a train in Assam, and shot down a Dakota plane of the Indian Army, capturing its four crewmen (Yonuo 1974: 237). Phizo’s stance did not dissuade the NPC from enacting an ‘Interim Body’ to prepare the grounds for statehood. In this, Jasokie became a prominent leader and was seen as the carrier of Sakhrie’s legacy. Jasokie’s leadership had repercussions in Khonoma that was ‘now split by a deep hatred between the two khels of Phizo and Jasokie’ (Stracey 1960: 103). While the Interim Body and the NNC were now at loggerheads, ‘only a handful [of the Interim Body] had never come under Phizo’s revolutionary doctrines’ (Nibedon 1978: 85). With Nagaland statehood drawing closer, Imkongliba appealed, once again, to the NNC/FGN:

I, as the President of the Naga People’s Convention, appeal to all the Nagas, including the underground people to join hands with the members of the Interim Body in building up a strong and progressive state of our Nagaland. For the last six years, beginning from 1956, there had been killings, bloodshed and burning of villages causing great suffering to the people on account of widespread armed hostile activities followed by military operations throughout Nagaland. It is high time, therefore that all the sensible citizens of Nagaland should devote wholeheartedly to bring peace to the land doing away with the mutual suspicions and hatred amongst us (reproduced in Jamir 2016: 132).

The NNC/FGN refused to heed. Instead, in a final attempt to obstruct ‘overground’ political developments, it targeted the Interim Body; [Its members are] the inevitable targets in the shape of verbal abuse [by the NNC], which included such words as ‘traitors’ and worse… words, which for a Naga were harder to bear than the bullets which were also flung at them’ (Stracey 1960: 94). In August 1961 Imkongliba was assassinated by the NNC. Another member of the Interim Body, Phanting Phom, was killed the next year, while several other members made narrow escapes. Many decades later, S.C. Jamir reflected on this period:

‘I would also like to keep it on record that the underground’s aim was to eliminate all leaders and functionaries of the Interim Body; but they were not successful in their efforts’ (Jamir 2016: 134).

The reason the Naga Army was not successful in carrying out these assassinations was because Interim Body members were guarded day and night by Indian security forces, an observation which further indicates that it does not serve to look at the Naga uprising in terms of a clear-cut Naga-India binary.

On the 1^st of December 1963, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, India’s president, flew to Kohima to inaugurate the state of Nagaland. He spoke:

Friends, I have great pleasure in inaugurating the new state of Nagaland. It takes an honoured place today as the Sixteenth State of the Indian Union… [Our] attempts to secure you the fullest freedom to manage your own affairs have culminated in the creation of Nagaland State… May I also express the hope that, now that the wishes of the Nagas have been fully met, normal conditions will rapidly return to the State, and those who are still unreconciled will come forward to participate in the development of Nagaland (reproduced in Sharma and Sharma 2006: 253).

Coming ‘forward’ the NNC/FGN did not. To the contrary: ‘All those wishfully expecting the collapse of the Underground after the granting of statehood found themselves to be wrong’ (Horam 1988: 12). As predicted by Kevichusa, Nagaland statehood worked to divide Naga society more definitely into two – the people of the new state and the people supporting the NNC/FGN – although the boundaries between them soon had very many crossings, so further complicating the Naga struggle, and the Indian state’s response to it, in ways that, five decades on, continue to impede a permanent political solution of the Indo-Naga conflict.

References

Anand, V.K. 1980. Conflict in Nagaland: A Study of Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency. Delhi: Chanakya Publications.

Aram, M. 1974. Peace in Nagaland: Eighty Year Story: 1964-72. Delhi: Arnold-Heinemann.

Bower, Ursula 1950. Naga Path London: John Murray.

Campbell, A. 1956. The Siege – A Story From Kohima. London: George Allen.

Chaube, S.C. 1999. Hill Polities in Northeast India Noida: Orient Longman.

Colvin, John. 1994. Not Ordinary Men. London: Leo Cooper.

Franda, M.F. 1961 ‘The Naga National Council: Origins of a Separatist Movement’, Economic and Political Weekly, February 4.

Franke, Marcus. 2009. War and Nationalism in South Asia: the Indian State and the Nagas. London and New York: Routledge.

Guyot-Réchard, Bérénice 2017. ‘When the Legions Thunder Past: the Second World War and India’s Northeastern Frontier’, War in History, Doi: 10.1177/0968344516679041.

Iralu, Kaka. 2000. The Naga Saga: A Historical Account of the Sixty-Two years Indo-Naga War and the Story of Those Who were Never Allowed to Tell it. Kohima: published by author.

Jamir, S.C. 2016. A Naga’s Quest for Fulfillment Bhubaneswar: Apurba.

Lisam, K.S. 2011. Encyclopedia of Manipur, Vol. 2 New Delhi: Kalpaz Publications.

Maitra, K. Nagaland: The Land of Sunshine. New Delhi: Anjali Publishers.

Phizo, A.Z. (1960) ‘The Fate of the Naga People: An Appeal to the World’ (London, 1960).

Rooney, D. 1992. Burma Victory: Imphal, Kohima, and the Chindits – March 1944 to May 1945. Oxford: Osprey Publishing.

Sakhrie, A. 2006. The Vision of T. Sakhrie for a Naga Nation. Kohima; published by author.

Sema, Hokishe 1986. The Emergence of Nagaland. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House.

Singha, Radhika 2015. ‘The Short Career of the Indian Labour Corps in France, 1917-1919’, International Labor and Working- Class History, 87: 27-62.

Slim, William 1956. Defeat into Victory. London: Cassell and Company.

Steyn, Peter 2002. Zaphu Phizo: The Voice of the Nagas. London: Kegan Paul.

Stracey, P.D. 1960 Nagaland Nightmare. New Delhi: Allied Publishers.

Swinson, A. 1956. Kohima. London: Arrow Books.

Thomas, John. 2016. Evangelizing the Nation: Religions and the Formation of Naga Political Identity. New Delhi: Routledge.

Thong, Tezenlo 2016. Colonization, Proselytization, and Identity: the Nagas and Westernization in Northeast India. London: Palgrave.

V.K. Nuh, 2002. The Naga Chronicle Shillong: ICSSR.

Van Schendel, Willem 2016. ‘A War Within a War: Mizo Rebels and the Bangladesh Liberation Struggle’, Modern Asian Studies 50(1): 75-117.

The post Debates, Divisions, and Deaths Within the Naga Uprising (1944-1963) appeared first on RAIOT.

Recently, I published an essay on Kuki Rebellion of 1917-1919, titled “To bridge the divide in Manipur, the effects of a long cycle of violence should be accepted” about how the rebellion affected neighbouring Naga tribes especially Zeliangrong. This aspect has been hardly presented in the existing writings on Kuki Rebellion wherein it has been largely portrayed as a history in isolation from ethnic tensions between Naga and Kuki tribes since nineteenth century.

Kuki Rebellion has been usually portrayed as a heroic act of fighting the Colonial force but this particular ‘anti-colonial’ narrative ignores the sufferings meted out to Zeliangrong people (a conglomeration of Naga tribes- Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei and Inpui). How a significant part of historical event has been obscured so far requires a retelling/rewriting experiences of Zeliangrong people from Kuki Rebellion, 1917-1919. The horrors unleashed on Zeliangrong people cannot be passed off as ‘unfortunate’, as Mr. Sonthang Haokip does in his thesis on “Anglo Kuki relations” 6Haokip, Sonthang. (2011). “Anglo Kuki relations”, Unpublished Thesis. Manipur University, or circumstantial as presented in the essay in The Statesman titled “Misrepresenting the Past” by Thongkholal Haokip.

I relied on secondary data like books and archival records to piece them together into a historical account of Zeliangrong people under the shadow of Kuki Rebellion. In doing so, I have presented how events before and after Kuki Rebellion are replete with Naga Kuki ethnic tension and its politics by keeping myself away from making subjective comments.

Historical writing is susceptible to interpretation and reproduction, and the outcome can lead to distortion of original contents. To start with, Mr. Thongkholal Haokip’s misinterpretation of a particular line from my article is deceptive wherein I wrote based on archival record that “…in the Naga Hills, Kukis took 250 heads from the neighbouring villages” changes into “250 Kabuis in the North Western hills, now in Tamenglong…” in his article. The archival record I referred to is from the year 1910.2National Archives of India- New Delhi. Government of India. Foreign Department. External-A. Proceeding, July 1910, Nos. 20-27 This account of heads being taken is to highlight the existing feud between Kuki and Naga tribes long before the Kuki Rebellion began.

It is with great dismay to put our Zeliangrong Naga history and suffering in the face of wilful distortion of history. While at it, I would also like to point out that there were multiple instances where colonial sources documented number of casualties/deaths. I have found the sources not once but multiple times. One of many instances being this record in the State Archives of West Bengal, where Major-General W.F. Nuthall, Political Agent, Munipore, in his letter to Lieutenant J. Butler, Deputy Commissioner, Naga Hills in 1871 informed that

As to how the article “Misrepresenting the Past” reminds us that the effort of Kuki to instil peace is largely forgotten is at best selective writing and at worst distortion of history. The efforts of few Kuki chiefs in reaching out to Naga villages to join them in resisting recruitment for labour corps is remarkable in a sense that a space for alliance against the colonial rule is hardly initiated between the Kukis and the Nagas. However, this effort is subdued later by calculated attacks of Kukis against Zeliangrong Naga. For instance, as per Sonthang Haokip, Tintong, Chief of Laijang initially sought cooperation from Nagas in resisting Labour Corps recruitment, and later he masterminded and took part in raids on Naga villages causing burning of houses and several casualties.

Gangmumei Kamei in his book,4Kamei, Gangmumei. (2004). “A History of The Zeliangrong Nagas. From Makhel To Rani Gaidinliu”. Gauhati: Spectrum Publications The History of Zeliangrong Nagas- From Makhel to Rani Gaidinliu, described the genesis of attack on Zeliangrong during the Kuki Rebellion. He wrote that it began with the incident of an attack on some Kukis leading to confiscation of their guns at Rongmei village, Lukhambi. Two Rongmei villages – Awangkhul and Rangkhong came forward to help Lukhambi. Tintong responded with a retaliation by leading a raid on Awangkhul, and they took 30 heads. Akhui, a Rongmei village led an attack on nearby Kuki village causing a death of dozen Kukis. Tintong then responded with an attack on Akhui village killing 76 persons and burnt down the village. The pattern here reveals that ethnic lines are being drawn leading to ethnic tension. Sensing the situations of Rongmei villages, Liangmai Naga came to rescue them. Loss of multiple of hundreds of Zeliangrong people and several villages burnt down to ashes, is not a circumstantial incident, it happened with strategic, deliberate and pre planned massacre by Kukis against Zeliangrong people during Kuki Rebellion. Gangmumei Kamei added that Tangkhul Nagas were also attacked by Kukis during the Kuki Rebellion. He also wrote that around that time the Kukis had already ceased the use of “the bow and arrow, sword and spear”, for they possessed a skill to manufacture “guns, gunpowder and leather canons.” The absence of Naga men can also be drawn into this particular event for the fact that many were sent to France as labour corps to help the Allied Forces during World War I.

In the words of Lal Dena,5History of Morden Manipur (1826-1949). New Delhi: Orbit Publication & Distributions.

After Kuki Rebellion, towards the end of 1919, is marked by introduction of direct administration of hill people under the British, a move which is unprecedented considering how the hills were administered indirectly after the British conquest of Manipur in 1891. The hills come under the rule of three sub-divisions constituted by Chief Commissioner of Assam.

Historical writing in this form begs a question to re-examine and bring out dynamics at play and processes surrounding events from the past. In addition to EH Carr’s emphasis on the need of historiography as Mr. Haokip reminds us in his article, it will be of great value to extend our ears also to Ronald Aminzade’s take on the role of historical sociologists where he sees it to be a way to bring out diverse patterns, and linkages among events by critically assessing historical accounts. This involves focussing on the causes and consequences of the events, and other processes among events like overlapping and intersection.

Less than ten years after the Kuki Rebellion, the Zeliangrong movement began under the leadership of Jadonang and later Rani Gaidinliu. The arrest of Rani Gaidinliu by the British came through with the help of Kuki informer. The role of Kuki informer in aiding the arrest of Rani Gaidinliu is corroborated in the writings of Ursula Graham Bower.6Ursula Graham Bower. (1952). Naga Path. Delhi: Spectrum Publications. So, it will be unwise to say that there existed a group which has been forgotten for their effort to initiate peace during the colonial period. Zeliangrong movement is a freedom movement against the British colonialism, and also plays out its rivalry with Kukis.

In Assam State Archives, there is a letter written by W.A. Cosgrave, Chief Secretary to the Government of Assam on February 25, 1931, where he highlights about the unrest among Kabui Nagas in North-west of Manipur state.7Assam State Archives – Appointment II & Political Department Branch, Nos. 20-94, “Unrest among Kabui Nagas in North-West of Manipur State”. He noted that Kuki villages were set up in Naga inhabited areas especially of Kabui and Kacha Nagas, and they were described as not indigenous who migrated into the region some generations ago. A description here conveys that the main dispute is around land, and land has been an important factor which is central to formulations of Naga identity. Land is also attached to Naga notions of culture, custom, belief system and rituals. The formation of Naga Club in 1918 and its memorandum (one of the signatories was Kuki) to the Simon Commission in 1929 are a clear indication of ethnic identity consciousness and its expression back in the early twentieth century.

Scholars from northeast writing on colonial history, must critically look at the British administration, and how they created fault lines to implant their divide and rule policy. The contours of colonialism can be easily identified by people who are at its receiving end. One must stay vigilant from falling into the trap of colonialism and internalising it, like how Zeliangrong Naga, one of the largest tribes in Manipur being referred to as “smaller hill communities in Manipur in T Haokip’s writing, is dishonest. A concerted effort to skirt acknowledgement of violence and its excesses on Zeliangrong Naga people during Kuki Rebellion, is an ahistorical approach towards Zeliangrong movement which happened later under Jadonang and Rani Gaidinliu.

The post Many Histories of Kuki Rebellion (1917-1919) appeared first on RAIOT.

The unruly Brahmaputra has always been an agent in shaping both the landscape of its valley and the livelihoods of its inhabitants. But how much do we know of this river’s rich past? The Unquiet River, Historian Arupjyoti Saikia’s biography of the Brahmaputra reimagines the layered history of Assam with the unquiet river at the centre. The book combines a range of disciplinary scholarship to unravel the geological forces as well as human endeavour which have shaped the river into what it is today. Illuminated with archival detail and interwoven with narratives and striking connections, the book allows the reader to imagine the Brahmaputra’s course in history. We are publishing the extract from the last chapter of the book.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY SAW THE emergence of many ideas related to meaningfully transforming the Brahmaputra to serve the government and the country. Experts toyed with ideas on how to tame the river. If other rivers of the world could serve the cause of the governments of the countries through which they flowed, why should the Brahmaputra not be trained in similar ways? It was only a matter of the appropriate calculations and necessary engineering works. What was called for was a plan for the river’s regulation to achieve the desired goals. The river, despite its erratic temperament, was bound to behave according to the rules thus framed. After two centuries of political, economic, intellectual, and bureaucratic negotiation, the river has become part of India’s national imagination. India’s stake in the Brahmaputra is now firmly established. The genealogy of this belief in the expertise, knowledge, and governance of the river goes back to the mid-nineteenth century as the example of the Kalang, a distributary of the Brahmaputra, shows.

The Kalang is the river on the banks of which I have partly grown up. The mouth of this distributary was closed in 1964. Once the highway for kings, traders, and British steamers, the river is now highly polluted. It now carries only carcasses, human excreta, and hardly any water except during the monsoon. More recently, there was an increasing public clamour to re-wild the river. Different public organizations demanded that the river’s mouth be restored and ‘regulated water flow’ maintained. As I finish writing this book, nothing of the sort has happened. But this public demand provides an opening to explore how a river’s destiny is connected to knowledge and governmentality.

A RIVER OF MANY LIVES

Early nineteenth-century accounts of Assam contained this singular piece of information about the course of the Brahmaputra: that in the central part of the valley, the river bifurcated into two channels, the southern one taking the name of Kalang.

On reaching Assam the Brahmaputra turns nearly due west and receives a copious supply of water from that region of rivers. About 104 miles above Gohati in longitude 91 48 E it separates into two branches of which the northern is by far the greatest and retains the name while the southern is called Kolong [Kalang]; they enclose an island five days journey in length and about one in width.2Hamilton,Geographical,Statistical,and Historical Description,1820,p.14.

This stream of the Brahmaputra has undergone several geographical transformations. Dead channels called Mori-Kalang and Pota- Kalang indicate the earlier courses of the river. Both manmade and geographical transformations reduced the river into insignificance from the second half of the twentieth century but in the sixteenth century the river was an important source of navigation and military mobility. In 1529, the Ahom king Suhungmung sent a ‘filibustering expedition down the Brahmaputra’ (using the Kalang channel) against the Mughals.2 Gait, A History of Assam, 1906, p. 91. Examples of the Ahom military officials using the Kalang are many (see Bhuyan, Deodhai Asom Buranji, 1932b, pp. 82, 110) This southern branch of the river was less ferocious and agricultural production flourished on its banks in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The kings, their soldiers, and merchants regularly travelled through this branch of the river. The Ahom kings relied on this region for the supply of rice, mustard, cotton, et cetera. The river also hosted several custom checkpoints including the Raha chowki (customs checkpoint). Goods arriving from Assam’s southern hills had to necessarily pay taxes there. In the seventeenth century an influential Ahom official, Momai Tamuli Barbarua, ensured human settlement along the Kalang and brought significant areas under reclamation. When British officials toured the central parts of the valley early in the nineteenth century, they detoured through the Kalang, as it was deep and full of water. Mills recorded that the scenario of the densely populated villages, with ‘good gardens and rich cultivation’ situated on both banks, was ‘most gratifying’. ‘There is no part of Assam more populous or prosperous.’

The Kalang’s course ensured that the present Nagaon and Morigaon districts of central Assam were divided into two. The East India Company (EIC) established the headquarters of Nagaon district along the banks of the river. The British shifted three times before finally settling down here in 1837. Most British officials did not have good things to say about the river, with some critiquing the river as ‘swarm[ing] with mosquitoes’, but they recognized its role in consolidating EIC rule in this part of the valley. Both imperial and Assamese officials posted in the district realized the tremendous possibilities of trade and commerce via improved navigation. Over the years, these localities were able to make vast improvements in agriculture, and were also the meeting point of a wide range of hill-based commerce. On both sides of the Kalang there were permanent agricultural villages, some of them benefitting from regular monsoon floods.

The life of the Kalang changed when its headwaters came to be obstructed by the formation of a sandbar in 1852–3. Due to the sedimentation, the upper portion of the river was rendered virtually unnavigable. Such geomorphological processes, integral to the Brahmaputra, were serious obstacles to the colonial enterprise. Eager to make the interiors of the newly occupied territories accessible for trade and commerce, Butler proposed to A.J. Moffat Mills, the touring judge from Calcutta, that the ‘bank might be removed or cut through which would [give] incalculable benefits to the people of Nowgaon as large boats would be able to pass through entire length of the district and trade would greatly promoted thereby’.3‘Letter from Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, Sub-Assistant Commissioner(SAC) in charge of Nagaon, to F. Jenkins, Commissioner of Assam, 8 October 1857, no. 371’, in File no. 434, Commissioner’s Office, 1857–1864, in Correspondence Regarding the Opening of the Mouth of Kulong river in Nowgong (Assam State Archives) (hereafter CROMKRN). Kalang has been spelled variously, that is, Kalang, Kulong, Kullung, Kolong. In this work, we have used Kalang.Like many other British officials, Butler believed the floodplains should be remunerative, like any other tract of land; an estimated 10 per cent of the district’s revenue came from the chapori areas in 1851–2. The primary reason behind attempts to improve navigation on the Kalang was to allow access to the hinterland of one of Assam’s richest agricultural areas, which produced rice, mustard, and cotton, apart from other forest produce in the Naga hills. Mills agreed to what Butler proposed.

Even as the ideas and financial outlays of improved navigation were being debated, the river posed new challenges. Towards the end of 1857, a char was formed at the mouth of the Kalang, which limited the flow of water into the river. The char ‘has set with great impetuosity on the south bank exactly at the pace where the cut is proposed’. This further setback in the navigability of Kalang must have worried officials. Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, as Sub-assistant Commissioner of Nagaon, reiterated Butler’s proposal of opening the ‘mouth of Kullung’. A great admirer of British science and technology, he believed European modernity could bring order to the chaotic landscape of his birthplace. Phukan maintained that at least till ‘24 years ago waters of the Brohmopooter flowed through the Kullung all the year round’. Asserting his personal knowledge of the localities the Kalang traversed, he corresponded with his superiors including Francis Jenkins, the commissioner of Assam, regarding the rationale for river engineering. He observed that this question had ‘frequently attracted the earnest attention of those who have hitherto had occasion to think or write upon the means of advancing the prosperity and resources of this district’.

Phukan was convinced that navigation on the Kalang throughout the year would consolidate commercial and agricultural speculations which had acquired new dynamism with the advent of British capital. He proposed that the Kalang’s mouth be kept open in the dry season by ‘cutting a canal through a less sandy soil, or by any other means which a scientific examination might render it fit to suggest’. Phukan suggested the proposal be scientifically examined by an official from the Public Works Department.

Jenkins quickly forwarded the proposal to the Bengal government, observing that ‘the want of a better navigation is a serious drawback to the improvement of one of the finest Districts in Assam’. ‘Could the upper mouths of the Kulling [Kalang] therefore be kept open all the year, the advantages to the Divisions would be almost incalculable, and to the whole province it would be a benefit of great value.’ While Jenkins did not oppose Phukan’s proposal, he favoured a ‘short new cut’ connecting the Kalang to the Brahmaputra.

Such a canal would ensure more waters across the Kalang, argued Jenkins. ‘Not only might these streams and bhills bring down a sufficient body of water to keep the Kullung below navigable all the year but a large extent of country would be efficiently drained which from marshes and morasses are now useless and very pestilential [sic].’ These would be the regular medium of navigation and ‘useless’ dangerous areas would become useful. The beels were part of the old beds of the Dhansiri River. Jenkins aimed to turn these beels into a ‘living’ river by connecting them artificially and thereby opening ‘a most valuable internal navigation from Golaghat to Gowhatty through the finest parts of Nowgong’, and linking ‘the Kullung with a large system of navigable branches of the Berhampooter which pass in the rains through the district of Sibsaugor’.

In May 1857, the Bengal government sought a report on the project from the chief engineer of the Bengal Presidency. Though we do not know what happened in that respect, in January 1858, Phukan wrote a detailed report to his superior Lieutenant B.W.D. Morton, the principal assistant commissioner at Nagaon. Visualized with rough sketches, this report summed up Phukan’s observations based on his own inspection of the course of the Brahmaputra. He noted with astonishment that the river had been cutting through the sandbank at the mouth of the Kalang ‘exactly at the place’ where he had proposed the cut, reducing the sandbank to only 10 m. The ‘Heavenly Will of Providence’ was behind this wonder, he wrote to his superior. But he reiterated the need to accelerate the process by human intervention.4‘Letter from Anandaram Dhekial Phukan, SAC, Nagaon, to Captain Jenkins, no. 371, 8 April 1857, Nagaon’, in CROMKRN. Phukan wrote: ‘From the fact of the Berhampooter even at the present moment rapidly cutting away the strip of land alluded to [the one between the two rivers], I am led to believe that the junction so much desired will come off in all probability without any recourse of artificial means…. I am however of opinion that a cut across the intervening narrow belt will no doubt accelerate the confluence of the two streams.’Phukan was in favour of any form of river engineering, from constructing small embankments to redirecting the flow of a river.

Phukan’s proposal faced strong opposition from local inhabitants, the ‘principal ryots and mouzdars’, and local revenue officials. Many felt this scheme would lead to ‘the most dreadful consequences’ as the Kalang would overflow and inundate the paddy fields on both banks of the river. They had been regularly ‘repairing and maintaining extensive bunds’ along the river to prevent floods. If the Brahmaputra’s floodwaters flowed into the Kalang it would be an invitation for disaster. Seeing the strength of the opposition from people, Phukan admitted that he had not had the opportunity to observe the extent of floods in those localities. ‘I do not suppose that it is wholly impossible for the Kullung after an active current of the Brahmaputra to overflow its banks to a greater extent than it has hitherto done.’ However, he was confident that ‘by the small cut … [nothing] more will be done than what the course of the Berhampootra will itself eventually accomplish’.

Phukan’s proposal had many supporters including his superior B.W.D. Morton, who remarked that the ‘proposed cut is one which will confer the greatest blessings on the district and will not be attended with slightest danger’. He requested Jenkins to grant Rs 150 as expenses for cutting a rivulet to connect the Kalang and the Brahmaputra. Jenkins, with the approval of the Government of Bengal, happily sanctioned this trifling cost for an ‘experiment’ of great import.

Phukan died in June 1859 at the young age of thirty; but before that, in April 1859, Captain Marshall, an engineer fairly well acquainted with Assam’s geography, submitted a report to Jenkins on Phukan’s proposal. Marshall was convinced that any attempt to improve the Kalang’s navigability by opening its mouth would be an environmentally impractical project. He suggested an alternative: that a whole day’s journey could be saved for boats by cutting through the neck of ‘a great bend [in the river] … between Raha and Jaggee’. Marshall also suggested the levelling of some steep sections of the Kalang’s tributary Kopili, which stood as major obstacles to country boats. Navigation through these sections involved additional expenses as boatmen had to unload and load their goods. Marshall was also expected to comment on Jenkins’ grandiose plan of connecting the Kalang to the Brahmaputra. Since it was difficult to reject Jenkins’ ideas given his seniority, Marshall cautiously noted that the proposed 50–65 km long canal would cost no less than Rs 4 lakh; even then it would only result in a paltry increase of half a metre of water in the dry season. To link the Brahmaputra with the hinterland by a cart road would serve the purpose better. The general concurrence of the engineers was that the scheme for opening the navigation of the Kalang might be abandoned. The chief engineer quickly agreed and wrote to the Bengal government expressing his view that Assam’s economy did not warrant such work at the time but might be taken up when a suitable time came. The Lieutenant-Governor concurred with the views of the chief engineer.

In spite of Marshall’s unenthusiastic report, Jenkins continued to try to persuade officials in London. In 1860, the secretary of state in London agreed that if implemented the project would bring ‘great benefit to the country’. Advisories from London resulted in an apportionment of a sum of Rs 1,500 for removing the rapids in the lower reaches of the Kalang but actual work did not begin. In February 1861, Colonel Reid, the superintending engineer, warned against any attempt to bring the force of the Brahmaputra into the Kalang. Reid concurred with Marshall’s idea of a raised cart road from Nagaon to Tezpur which would be traversable throughout the year. This work could be carried out at a much lower cost compared to the expensive plans of river improvement. However, by 1864 no aspect of the dream river improvement had seen the light of day.

The history of the Kalang in the interim period, of almost a hundred years, until sometime after Independence, is unclear. The river probably began to receive more water from the Brahmaputra, as prophesied by Anandaram Dhekial Phukan. It continued to flood fields and urban areas. The older generation that I met cherished their memories of the Kalang and the abundance of food it engendered. Post the 1950 earthquake, due to the raising of the Brahmaputra’s bed, more water came through the Kalang, which triggered high flooding in urban areas. These floods caused by the Kalang, in the 1950s and early years of the 1960s, led to a strong political demand from the urban elite to close the mouth of the river at its source. A war of words ensued between the rich and poor, between upstream and downstream dwellers. In 1962 the Government of India approved a scheme to embank the river. This was the time when floods were seen as destructive and the assertion of human will over nature viewed as essential. The waves of major floods that severely affected the town of Nagaon in August 1963 compelled K.L. Rao, Union Minister of Irrigation and Power, to make a brief visit to Nagaon. After a hastily taken decision, the mouth of the Kalang was finally closed in 1964. This cut down the river from its organic wing and it was allowed to die out. Kalang was separated from the Brahmaputra both physically and in terms of the local imagination.

The closing down of the mouth of the river affected the fields, trees, and kitchen gardens of the peasants. As water stopped flowing in the Kalang, it meant a fall in the water table of these areas, sounding the death knell for plants and fields. The fate of the soil, fish, and fishermen was captured in the Assamese short story ‘Ekhan Nodir Mritu’ (Death of a River), where one of the protagonists recalled a popular saying about the Hindu Kali Yug: crops would disappear, fish would disappear, fruits would disappear. Within a year, ‘an area of 10,000 acres of land was reported to have suffered’ as fields went dry.5Assam Information, vol. 15, 1963, p. 28; Draft Minutes of the 5th Meeting of the Assam Flood Control Board, 11 November, 1964, Chief Minister’s Secretariat (hereafter CMS), 260/64, 1964, Secretariat Branch, CM’s Department, ASA.Widespread protests grew, and peasants came out in large numbers to break the embankment.

To mollify the disgruntled cultivators, the government proposed a lift-irrigation project at the site where the river’s mouth was closed down. The peasants in the downstream demanded that they also be provided with irrigation waters. A reworked irrigation project now released 600 cusecs of water from the Brahmaputra into the closed Kalang to rejuvenate a dead river, like an artificial heart. In 1975, with funds amounting to Rs 4.75 crores from the World Bank, an irrigation project was undertaken, with the pumping station in the closed mouth of the river, where Anandaram Dhekial Phukan had spent weeks observing the river. This irrigation project continued to play a game of hide and seek until the end of the century as the water retreated or moved forward.

Post closure of the Kalang, human habitation suddenly soared (as agricultural areas were brought under habitation), wetlands decreased (mostly because of human intervention), areas under grassland increased, the upper reaches of the river remained dry during the pre-monsoon period, and finally there was a significant deterioration of the physio-chemical parameters of the water. While the Kalang had stopped flowing, it continued to be fed by smaller tributaries. According to a recent government report, the Kalang is one of the most polluted rivers of India.

Anandaram Dhekial Phukan had been struck by the technological wonders and progress of England. His grand scheme for the Kalang was part of his effort to bring the British experience to his homeland. Nature must serve the cause of the nation and the government. This would be possible when one has thorough knowledge of nature. In the nineteenth century, Assam’s nature at large came to be catalogued and codified in a language suitable for a modern capitalist economy. The process of knowing the Brahmaputra acquired speed after the 1950 earthquake. A complex array of scientific and technological knowledge became the medium through which the mechanization of the river and the nation’s claims to the river was sought to be achieved. In the process, the river and the corpus of scientific knowledge about it became part of the modern nation-building process.

Assam’s politicians reposed complete faith in their engineers as the true custodians of their rivers. Experts were seen as blessed with power and wisdom—people who could rescue Assam from the fury of the river. The experts’ answer—embankments—was partly a failure and partly a disaster, belying Assam’s hopes. Experts then convinced their political masters to experiment with storage dams. With the march of multinational capital to the eastern Himalayas by the turn of the twentieth century, the experts’ dream of big dams came closer to fruition. Both the Indian technocrats and corporate capital have been enthusiastic about the future of the river. This confidence had strong but often not uncritical backing from the Assamese ruling elite.

The Brahmaputra continues to be a bone of contention between the Assam and Indian governments in terms of apportioning of respective rights and responsibilities. The river still instils in and consolidates a sense of identity for the people of Assam as a counter to the idea of India. At the same time, ecological sensibilities continue to divide technocrats, bureaucrats, and, more so, politicians about river engineering. The Brahmaputra is truly sandwiched between hopes of India’s economic prosperity and great ecological uncertainties. The new age of river engineering appears to be at cross-purposes with the river’s intimate connection to the floodplains. Human history and the biological life of the river now begin to disappear from the new narrative of the river crafted by the nation.

The post Nationalising the Brahmaputra appeared first on RAIOT.

This essay is a partially expanded, edited and reconstructed version of the translators’ postscript to the Japanese edition of Nagaland and India – The Blood and the Tears (2011).

“This concludes my talk. Thank you very much for listening with interest.”

It was November 2003, at a Buddhist facility in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Having finished his talk about the suffering of the Naga people, this imposing man who must have weighed more than 100 kg was trembling at the shoulders as he wiped the tears from his eyes so untypically. Was it anger? Sorrow? Or gladness to find empathic people in Japan? Leaving the venue as if to escape, he deeply inhaled the purple smoke of his cigarette and offered me his pocket-sized whiskey bottle, though we were meeting for the first time.

“Want a sip?” I can’t get by without this stuff.”

Dierhekolie Iralu, known as Kaka, impulsive and straightforward, sentimental, domineering at times but innocent like a child, foaming at the mouth when voicing convictions, but with an attentive ear to the views of others. He is the man who revealed the history and truth of the Naga people that no one before him had dared to divulge.

Nineteen fifty six – the year Kaka was born, India launched a full-fledged military invasion of Nagaland. Naga villages were burned to ashes one after another, and the helpless people were driven into the jungle. Shortly after his birth, Kaka wandered the jungles with his mother, and was detained as a political prisoner at the age of 8 months. During his boyhood, scenes of blood and gore were etched into his memory as he spent time with his grandfather, who was a doctor.

“People with arms and legs torn off, or with guts spilling out were carried into the house every night, one after another.”

The smell of blood and medicine. Skin being sewn back together. In his formative years, Nagaland was drenched in blood and tears. From some point in time, he started to distance himself from politics, immersing himself in the study of literature and theology.

“In those days, I simply avoided getting embroiled in politics.”

Perhaps it was an escapism common to many Naga youths who were forced to live in hopeless circumstances. Mutilated bodies scattered in the town day after day, people being tortured on the streets – all these realities of the Naga people were hidden from the view of not only the world but also the people of India, supposedly the “world’s largest democracy.” Meanwhile, Kaka made some money trading timber, got married and had three children. However, an inner cry continued to disturb him.

One day, a youth was shot with an automatic rifle in broad daylight. Screams pierced the air. The town was frozen with fear. As Kaka rushed to help him, his shirt was dyed bright red in the youth’s blood.

“What kind of world will I be leaving to my children? I can’t keep my eyes and ears shut any longer.”

Kaka resolved to tell what India had done in Nagaland. He began his work as a journalist walking from village to village, digging up the truths that had almost been erased, and writing them down. It was a process of throwing light on the darkness of history – an odyssey of re-experiencing the sorrow, suffering and rage of the Naga people in all its gruesome detail.

“It haunts me in dreams. The work nearly drove me mad.”

Kaka’s handwritten notes were often stained with tears. They were shed by his wife as she typed his manuscripts. Initially, she was opposed to publishing the book. She could easily imagine how much danger it would entail for Kaka himself and for the family.

But one day, standing in front of him with tears in her eyes, manuscript in hand, she said: “You must publish this manuscript and inform the world. No matter what happens to you, I will take care of the children.”

After three to four years of hard work, he had completed a manuscript of more than 400 pages. But no publisher would accept it, because it “exposed too much of the truth” of history covered up by the great nation of India.

“It was turned down not only in Nagaland but even by relatively courageous publishers in India. They advised me ‘not to publish it,’ expressing concern.”

Nagaland and India – The Blood and The Tears. Kaka scrambled for the money to publish the book at his own expense, prevailing upon a reluctant printer. Released to the world in 2000, it soon gained renown through word of mouth. He started to receive discreet praise from many people. Passersby would suddenly come up to shake his hand in tears. The reason was apparent from the subtitle of the book – “the story of those who were never allowed to tell it.” The first 5000 copies sold out in only two years. The book was acknowledged with thanks by Indian Army officers, surprisingly.

“Why did we Indian soldiers have to shed blood in Nagaland?”

The book gave a clear answer to this simple question that had been avoided for half a century.

“Indian soldiers are also the victims of the nearsighted policies of politicians and those in power.”

Meanwhile, Kaka was caught between the feuding Naga factions, kidnapped and nearly killed. Living in constant fear for life took a toll on his mind and the family. The local Naga brew (rice beer) called Zutho was not enough; he took to whiskey and rum, which were banned in the state. Without waiting for the enlarged third edition to be published, his wife and two daughters took asylum in Norway. He was in high demand to give lectures, also overseas, and many readers waited eagerly for his newspaper column. But as his fame and people’s expectations increased, his fears and isolation intensified. Before he knew it, he was a lone wolf journalist without stable income.

But he continued to question himself on how to understand the history of his forefathers, as a Naga and as a human being; how to live out his life as an individual and as a father.

“By knowing the truth, the future comes into view. If the truth is kept hidden, no solution is possible.”

That is the case not only for Nagaland. It is a fundamental question of how to live that transcends national and regional boundaries. Is it not a question that we in particular must ask ourselves as Japanese living today with a history of imposing the horrors of war on his land and many people of Asia?

Always shortly after midnight, I would receive a call from overseas. The country code indicated it was from India.

“Is this Wataru? Let me tell you something! This time I have really stopped drinking!”

I trusted his sincerity but not the outcome. Still, who of us could scoff at this lovable, talented man, who refused to give up?

His motherland of Nagaland still lacks its own country code. The Naga flag still does not wave in front of the UN Headquarters in New York, more than 60 years since the declaration of independence. People are still living at gunpoint – nothing has changed.

In the face of the consequences of history, we can no longer be bystanders.

Wataru Haejima, August 14, 2011
(on the Sixty-fourth Naga Independence Day)

The post The Man Who Wove Nightmares Into History appeared first on RAIOT.

There is a kind of myth making going on in the media that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home. For example, listening to the ‘echo of migrant footfalls’, Sanjoy Hazarika writes

The question is what choice these migrant workers had. They did not start their journey from the cities out of love for their homeland and relatives. They had to leave their homes in the cities. We conveniently/unconsciously switch this compulsion to leave cities for a phrase ‘love for the home’. Those who had some means to stay deferred their journey.

To say that migrant workers are leaving cities for their love of home/natives is to absolve ourselves from looking at harsh conditions which forced them out of city boundaries and left them walking in extreme conditions or undertaking arduous train journey.

This is not the first case when migrant workers are leaving cities. In late 1896, Mumbai came into the grip of Plague and by February 1897 around four lakh migrants, constituting half of Mumbai’s population, fled the city. During 1897 to 1899, around four million people were medically examined before they were allowed to enter into Bengal. Approximately 72000 people were detained for plague related and other reasons. This gives us a broad contour to imagine the scale of migration due to the spread of dreadful Plague which were killing nearly 1900 people every week in Mumbai. There was a panic in the city. The government had already brought in one of the most draconian regulations of colonial periods, the Indian Epidemic Act of 1897. Thousands of homes were declared unfit for living and were destroyed. There were rumours circulating and fuelling insecurities. For example, the rumour that Indians were captured and hospitalised so that the oil (momiai from their bodies can be extracted. We come across the fear of this body oil momiai getting circulated in a very wide geography and across the seas (among indenture labourers in the Carribeans to East Africa to Bombay). Should we not factor the widespread fear, the panic behind workers’ migration? Historians like David Arnold and particularly Prashant Kidambi have written that from the outset lower class neighbourhoods and poor were targeted by colonial government’s Plague policies during the outbreak of Plague in 1896.

Yet, we do not know whether there was a shortage of food and work back then in 1896-1899. The scenario was slightly different in the case of the Spanish influenza of 1918-1919 which killed around 50 million people worldwide, a one third of the entire population and around 15 million people in India alone. In 1918, the South-West monsoon, a feature of June-July, failed leading to crop failure in various parts of the country like Gujarat, Bombay, Deccan, Berar, Rajputana, southern Central Provinces ( Marathi speaking areas) and United Provinces. People from these famine stricken regions moved to Bombay city and official reports note ‘a large influx, especially of pooerer people into the city’ in ‘weakened and destitute condition’. These malnourished bodies were easy prey for the deadly flu catapulting the mortality figures manifold.

Historians largely agree that each epidemics are unique. Yet, in each episodes (at least in the case of India), epidemics, food insecurity and migration are intertwined with each other. In most cases, though nature’s vagaries act their roles, scarcities are man-made.

In the case of Covid 19 scenario, ground reports have increasingly made it clear that non-payment of wages and salary at all levels in the informal sector for a better part of extended lockdown period was a major reason behind migrant exodus from cities. In addition to the paucity of liquid cash in their pockets, the food provided to them (both in cooked form as well as raw ration) remain highly insufficient. When sharply asked when you had the food last time; with embarrassed eyes, many of them reported, it was a day ago or even two to three days back they had something like a meal.

Coupled with indignity of standing in the food queue just for one time meal, perpetual extension of lockdown tenures accentuated insecurities for these socially alienated migrant workers. The responses to food or salary crisis differed according to internal hierarchies among these migrant workers. This is why, while the first batch of migrant walkers came from the bottom of the informal sector (daily wage earners and itinerant construction labourers abandoned by thekedars and sub-contractors), those at relatively intermediary levels of occupational hierarchy (i.e. Mason, fitters, carpenters and auto-rickshaw drivers) braced food and cash crisis in initial phases of the lockdown. They waited for the trains to resume. They pulled money to hire goods containers, tempos and small trucks. Many of them had to request their near and distant relatives living in villages to transfer money to sustain themselves and to undertake journey. For the first time, in the history of migration, we have witnessed reverse remittances. Yet, we do not know at what point and which specific elements convinced them to move out of their cities.

This is also because neither social scientists nor policy makers care to ask: what do migrant workers think and how do they make decisions? Except psephologists, politicians during election campaigns and some of the ground reporters, these two questions bother none of us.

There is a deeper design when we succumbed to this myth making. The discourse on migration worker has denied the agency to migrants. We have never considered them beyond statistical numbers. We have never engaged with their subjectivities. This myopia is a characteristic feature of the scholarship on internal labour migration in India. Except a couple of scholars like Dipesh Chakrabarty (in his work on Jute mill workers of Bengal) and Raj Chandavarkar (on migrants from Ratnagiri districts and rural western Maharashtra working in textile mills of Mumbai), migration scholars have not paid any attention even to cultural ties or linkages which workers carry along with them when they move to cities. Only recently, scholars have started spending some amount of analytical energy to aspects like ideas of home circulating in the folk memory. However, these forays are yet to acquire substantive visibility in the discourse on migration. This lack of attention to migrant subjectivities and scholarly apathy towards meaningfully engaging with migrants’ belonging is ironical as we have a very sophisticated and robust discourse on subjectivity, belonging/attachment and longing in the context of the scholarship on diaspora or even cinematic representations of diasporic communities.

In the case of internal migration of migrant labourers, first, we are told that migrants were forced out of villages. They had to move to cities and/or to other states. Now, suddenly we have switched our positions and keep declaring that these migrants can actually exercise their agencies and translate their love for their homes into concrete actions by taking this arduous journey. What this switching subtly does is making migrant workers responsible for all the troubles they face in the course of the journey. It is like saying Hey! I told you not to go out and yet you did that. Now, face the consequences.

First, we never bothered whether these migrant workers were capable of love (their homes) and now suddenly, we forget that it is not their love but an imposed condition… and their indomitable zeal to survive.

The post How Much Love Do Migrant Workers Have For Their Original Homes? appeared first on RAIOT.

—————-

Today is “Rev. Thomas Jones Day”, gazetted as a Special Holiday for all State Government Offices and all revenue and Magisterial Courts and Educational Institutions across the Khasi and Jaintia Hills and the Ri-Bhoi District. What might this 22 June holiday mean, individually or collectively, for Christian or non-Christian, in that shape-shifting ground between the past and the present?

There are two statues of Thomas Jones that I like to visit. One, white and sanctified, bible in hand, in a churchyard in Shillong; another an ordinary man crumbling under the elements on a bend in the road at Sohra, saw in one hand, a book with ABKD in the other, a knup barely keeping away the ravages of rain and time. Both in their own ways symbolise the two faces of this lightening rod figure.

The 22 June holiday commemorates Thomas Jones as a founder, a father, a first. The idea of historical “firsts” often drives a popular understanding of the past— and more pertinently, the political use of the past in the present—but is not always helpful in really getting to grips with complex and interconnected historical processes. There’s not necessarily a ground zero moment when it comes to cultural change. Hero worship, furthermore — though it comes with a feel-good factor— can be rather unhelpful. Historian Daves Rossell put it neatly some years ago now: “the original first becomes a marginally important fact in itself, but each of the firsts is important as part of a tradition of claiming primacy, and as part of individual efforts to distinguish themselves in a unique manner… Having a first is not like winning a race but rather like being part of a far more general exultation in innovation and novelty”.

There should by now be no dispute around the lineage of activity prior to Jones arriving, from Alexander Lish, Rowe and  Jacob Tomlin, Rae’s Guwahati mission school in the 1830s, back to Krishna Chandra Pal’s 1813 preaching tour and the ensuing period of scriptural translation, with its source in the originating work of William Carey. Lish was certainly active in the Khasi Hills from 1832 to 1837, aided by Joshua Rowe; Serampore Baptists like the Macks and the Marshmans were regular visitors; Jacob Tomlin was also there for a short time in 1837.

Thomas Jones himself was very clear about these debts, and wrote about them to John Roberts from Calcutta, 11 May 1841:

So Jones was well aware of the previous work—he acknowledged it, critiqued it, and built on it. It’s clear he didn’t always agree with its efficacy or accuracy, and in his criticisms there is likely to be both something of truth, and also at times a self-serving means to suring up his own methodology and approach. John Roberts (in Y Drysorfa Rhif CXLV Llyfr XIII Ionawr 1843), citing a letter from Jones, reveals more about Jones’s approach:

The other point that I would reiterate is that language translation and rendering in written form was always co-produced, which again was overtly acknowledged by Jones.

Jones effectively built on the legacy of Serampore and the interactions of its missionaries with the Khasis: U Juncha and U Dewan Rai probably honed their English language skills at the foot of Alexander Lish. The idea of any missionary singlehandedly ‘reducing’ native languages from oral to literary form is simplistic, and misses the ways in which local agency balanced colonial power. The full translation of the letter in which Jones explains how he went about his early linguistic work is as follows (there are two versions of this letter—one printed in Y Drysorfa in 1841; and one a manuscript copy of the original—I indicate where they vary in brackets]:

So the fact that Lish included a specimen of Khasi vocabulary rendered (however incompetently) in Roman script in the 1838 Calcutta Christian Observer piece is a small kind of first in a bigger continuum of cultural change and interaction. My broader point is that if there is an argument that Thomes Jones was not the first to render Khasi into Roman script, he would be the first to agree. And while he was obviously never to know the work and the workers that came after him, I suspect he would be more interested in being remembered for what he did at the end of his time in the Hills rather than at the start—as defender of civil rights rather than the father of words on a page.

Your Thomas Jones and my Thomas Jones exists in the gap between what the history books tell us, what stories are handed down from generation to generation, and the way we may have wished the story to be from our own perspective, whether that be a proponent or a critic of one belief system or another. Thomas Jones is in some respects whatever we want to make him to be—a pliable representation. We often ask, who is this Thomas Jones? But we might also ask, what is Thomas Jones? He is now a process as much as a person, he is a blank sheet upon which every generation projects their own desires and ideologies; he can be a building or a book, a statue or a national holiday; he can be a sinner and a saviour at one and the same time.  Thomas Jones is not a simple black and white figure: he taught the Khasis to improve their distillation methods, but he also preached on the dangers of excessive drinking.

There is no doubt that Jones was a product of his day — paternalistic, imperialistic, reflecting the characteristics of the Victorian period in which he lived. But we should not forget that he was also a champion of the underdog, and Thomas Jones of course was a stone in the shoe of the mission itself, particularly after he was expelled from its service and went solo. His defence of the Khasis in terms of labor exploitation and violence exercised by the British came at a personal cost to him—it’s not so easy to be so brave or wise in the face of your conscience and of what you believe is right.

So I’m sure that he does still rightly stand for personal commitment to belief — but also, and importantly, he represents learning and growing, adaptation and change, taking up a social cause if inequality is staring you in the face. The Thomas Jones at the end of his time in the Khasi Hills in the late 1840s was not the Thomas Jones who stepped off the ship at Calcutta in 1841.

What would those two statues say if they could speak? Don’t ossify story, culture, tradition; don’t actually set things in stone. If Thomas Jones were alive, what would he want his name to be associated with? Empowering the next generation to actively make their own meanings out of the symbols of the past and turn them into liberating ones. He would challenge those in the church constructed partly in his name, as well as those with other platforms of social and political power, to rise to the challenge of change, to root out the cancers of corruption and venality, and to value rights and equality.

‘If I kept silent’, Jones wrote in his 1849 manifesto to the Government of India before he was hounded to his death by the British authorities, ‘I would be a partaker of the sins of their oppressors and totally unworthy of the name of a benefactor of the suffering Kassias as well as inconsistent with my professions as a Missionary of the Gospel’. He might be quietly pleased that 22nd June is marked out to honour him, but more interested I fancy in the truths that need to be told on the 23^rd and thereafter.

The post How Should We Remember Thomas Jones? appeared first on RAIOT.

On 5th August 2020 the Bhartiya Janta Party lived up to its promise of  ‘Mandir Vahin Banega’ as India’s Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of a temple at the place of a historical mosque demolished by the same party in 1992 in Ayodhya. While preparations of a grand temple in Ayodhya are on, it must be remembered that just a couple of years back in 2017, the Sardar Sarovar dam was inaugurated by the same Prime Minister with great fanfare in which large number of religious places of the Adivasis, Hindus, Jains and Muslims were drowned in the dam waters permanently.

Adivasis protest against the Sardar Sarovar dam on the banks of River Narmada in the now submerged village Hapeshwar, Photo: Shripad Dharmadhikary

It is in times like this that the words of Kevalsingh Vasave, a tribal leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), the powerful people’s movement against the gigantic Sardar Sarovar dam echo in my ears:

“There is lot of difference between Adivasi culture and other cultures. Whether it is the Gods or how one worships. There is no temple in Adivasi culture. Adivasis worship nature. If there is a tree and near the tree is a pile of stones, the stone palya itself is worshipped by Adivasis.

Before eating the new grain that we have grown ourselves, we worship the Goddess Nilowanwa, and if it is anything new procured from the forest, it is the God Nilpi who has to be worshipped. We worship rivers, streams, mountains. There is no idol of God in Adivasi culture. Adivasis worship Khatri (ancestors). It is only after offerings are given to them that we eat newly harvested grains.

Our gayanas (song recitals) mention the names of many mountains, many rivers, many valleys and many animals. Without the worship of Vagh dev (Tiger) there can be no protection of the village. Worship of animals, of calves and bullocks, is all nature worship. It is not as if, over there is an idol of the God and so we go and worship that idol. Foremost we worship Rani Kajal, which is worship of the rains…”

Kevalsingh’s relationship with River Narmada can be heard in his own voice in a three minute photo-video clip here, where he describes his reaction when his own home drowned in the dam. (Language Marathi, Subtitles in English):

Adivasi worship during the religious festival of Holi in the now submerged village Bhadal, Photo: Rehmat

Narmada River sand where Gayna, Adivasi religious recitals are often sung, now submerged, Photo: Shripad Dharmadhikary

Adivasi religious site, similar to many of those submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Rohit Jain

Adivasi religious site, similar to many of those submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Rohit Jain

The voice of a woman Adivasi leader of the NBA and Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangathan, Late Pervi bai too resonates with Kevalsingh as she speaks about the folly of the government that destroyed the River Narmada. In a three minute photo –video here, Pervi talks of the lives supported in the belly of the Narmada before it bloated like a carcass with the noose of a dam around her neck. (Language Bhilali, Subtitles in English):

While for the Adivasis, the River Narmada is a mother, the giver, for the Hindus, like the River Ganga the River Narmada is a Goddess. Considered to be the daughter of Shiva, every stone on the banks of the Narmada is considered a Shivlinga. As per the Hindu belief, while it is necessary to bathe in the Ganga to absolve oneself of all sins, the mere sight of the Narmada is enough to absolve one of all sins. It is therefore no surprise that there is a unique Hindu spiritual tradition, possibly the only one of its kind in the world, where thousands of Hindus undertake circumambulation of the River Narmada, the Goddess incarnate. During the Narmada Parikrama (circumambulation), people walk up to the place of the River’s origin at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh, walk to its mouth in Gulf of Khambhat, in Gujarat and back. This age old tradition of Narmada Parikrama, when done fully came to about 2600 kilometres. Not to carry any worldly possessions has been the rule followed by the Parikramavasis, and the villagers on the banks of the River considered providing for the Parikramavasis a pious deed. Thus there used to be an excellent system to cater to this age old Hindu tradition and provide for the thousands of Parikramavasis with just bare minimum luggage on their shoulders and hardly any money in their pockets camping on their way in these villages.

Narmada Parikramavasi resting on his spiritual journey, Photo: Pragna Patel

The signboard in the photo below gives directions to the Parikramavasis about the facilities of dharmashalas/vishram gruhas (free guest houses) in village Chikhalda and Nisarpur, both under water of the Sardar Sarovar dam now. Earlier, these villages and all the other 245 villages that submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam provided free lodging and boarding arrangements for the Parikramavasis for a night before they embarked upon their religious journey the next morning, many even walking bare feet on the sands of the Narmada. This distinct Hindu arduous but spiritual Parikrama too has been defiled by the many dams 1The Narmada Valley Development Plan consists of 30 large dams, 135 medium and 3000 small dams on the River Narmada and its tributaries of which many mega dams have already been built like the Bargi dam, the Tawa dam, the Indira Sagar dam, etc that have also destroyed the historic ghats and Hindu temples where the Parikramavasis from far and wide found their calling.

Sign board directing the Narmada Parikramavasis to free facilities in villages Nisarpur and Chikhalda now submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Pragna Patel

Sign board for Parikramavasis that the path is now closed due to Sardar Sarovar dam waters, Photo: Pragna Patel

The Koteshwar Ghat near Nisarpur village, now submerged in the Sardar Sarovar dam, Photo: Pragna Patel

Parikramavasis bathe in the once free flowing unpolluted Narmada while on Parikrama, Photo: Ashish Kothari

The once pristine free flowing Narmada, now bloated with stagnant-polluted silt filled reservoir at most places due to series of mega dams, making it unapproachable, Photo: Anonymous

The people on the banks of this mighty River put up a great deal of resistance against these mega dams not just to save their livelihood but to protect one of the richest River Valley civilisations in the country. In 1992, around the same time as the Babri Masjid was demolished, the people of village Manibeli one of the first villages to submerge in the Sardar Sarovar dam, foiled several attempts by the police to dig out the Swayambhu (one which has emerged on its own) Shivlinga from the Shulpaneshwar temple as the temple was to drown in the dam waters. The Shivlinga along with the grand Shulpaneshwar temple has been under the dam waters since 1994.

People in village Manibeli resist police from digging out Swayambhu Shivlinga from Sulpaneshwar Temple, Photo: Ashish Kothari

Shulpaneshwar temple submerges in Sardar Sarovar dam in 1994, Photo: Anonymous

Countless temples with great historic and religious significance submerged one after another in the many dams in the Narmada. The photo below is of Hapeshwar temple near Chota-Updaipur in Gujarat that submerged in early 2000. As this temple does not drown fully, local people change its flag regularly. After being submerged for over a decade, when it emerged out of waters fully for the first time in 2018 as the Sardar Sarovar dam waters reduced drastically, the core structure of the old temple was found intact! Widely reported in Gujarat press, believers flocked to the temple for a glimpse before the temple submerged once again.

Hapeshwar Temple drowning in the Sardar Sarovar dam waters, Photo: NBA

Partially submerged Hapeshwar temple, Photo: NBA

While the government was supposed to relocate the religious sites, particularly the historical ones, before these submerged in the many dams on the Narmada, it did not have the resources or the will to do so. The government dismantled only those few temples where people’s resistance was most powerful and the temple at the centre of attention. For example, the over 200 year old Shiv temple at submergence village Kasravad where Padma Vibhushan Baba Amte resided for over ten years in solidarity with the Narmada Bachao Andolan, was dismantled in parts, relocated and rebuild at the Kasravad resettlement site. Of course, it was not possible to restore the temple in its original form and most of it remains under water today.

Baba Amte at Shiv temple in the submergence village Kasravad, parts of it are relocated and parts submerged, Photo: Ashish Kothari

The Kasravad temple on the banks of Narmada in its full glory, Photo: Shripad Dharmadhikary

The Kasravad temple, part of it now relocated at the Kasravad resettlement site, Photo: Rehmat

Relocated Kasravad temple, Photo: Rehmat

Ironically, hundreds of such historic and ancient temples that were not in spotlight and allowed to submerge in the Sardar Sarovar dam, emerged out of the dam waters as it receded in July 2020 reminding the people of this country of our heritage that we have allowed to be destroyed, even as arrangements were being geared up to lay the foundation of a Ram temple at Ayodhya on 5th August 2020.

Shiv temple at Submergence Village Chikhalda emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

Shiv temple at Koteshwar emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Pragna Patel

Ram temple at village Koteshwar emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Pragna Patel.

Shiv temple at Chikhalda emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in 2020, Photo: Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

Shiv temple at Chikhalda, emerges out of Sardar Sarovar dam waters in July 2020, Photo: Manthan Adhyayan Kendra

It is clear that the laying of the foundation of a temple at Ayodhya  is not out of any regard for any religion, be it that of Adivasis or Hindus but  is part of the ongoing attempts to divide the people of this country on religious lines for mere political gains. By doing this we have disregarded the core Hindu Philosophy of  वसुधैव कुटुम्बकम् – The World Is a Family.

(Note: Some of the photos are not of high quality/resolution as these have been taken over 30 year period.)

Nandini Oza was  an activist with Narmada Bachao Andolan, Nandini Oza has been working on the oral histories of the Narmada struggle and is currently the President of Oral History Association of India. https://oralhistorynarmada.in/

The post [Photo/Essay] Who Remembers the Temple Destructions in Narmada Valley? appeared first on RAIOT.

All photographs by the author

The construction of popular narratives about a place is sometimes driven by an overuse of popular tropes, which delegitimises and silences the local community’s own interpretations of their history and culture. A Google search on ‘Mayong’ opens results such as ‘India’s Black Magic Capital’, ‘Land of Black Magic’, and so on, where the words ‘black’, ‘occult’, and ‘spooky’ take a connotative precedence. The image search provides a confusing plethora of images ranging from portraits of Naga sadhus smeared in bibhuti (holy ash), neo-Vaishnavite Assamese monks, Amazonian tribes and shamans passed off as practitioners of ‘black magic’ in Mayong. There is a particularly odd image of a collection of globes, a skeleton, and an assortment of objects, ostensibly hosted by the ‘Mayong Central Museum and Emporium of Black Magic and Witchcraft’. The image is definitely not from any museum in Mayong and the words “Black Magic” and “Witchcraft” were never a part of any museum title in Assam. The frontier Kamrupa-Pragjyotishpur has always been associated with magic and myths around magical practices since ancient times, because of the Śākta cult of the Kamakhya temple, and alleged instances of blood sacrifices and associated Tantric practices. This exoticization of Mayong in popular imagery, therefore, has deep historical roots.

Mayong is situated at a distance of approximately 40 km from Guwahati, in the Morigaon district of Assam. Known for its traditions of magical practices, the village is also a popular site for visitors because of the Pobitora National Park, home to a large number of one-horned rhinos. The history of Mayong is as enigmatic as the mystery associated with the ‘magic’ of Mayong. Though written sources about the history and etymology of Mayong are scant, popular folklore describes Mayong as a “dangerous place”. According to one belief system, the name Mayong may have been derived from ‘Ma-anga’, “ma” meaning mother and “anga” meaning body-part, specifically the female organ “yoni” of the mother goddess. In the Yogini tantra, a reference is found of Bhadrapith as a part of Kamapith. Bhadrapith was bordered by the Brahmaputra in the north, Kachari and Jayantia kingdoms in the south, Kampur and Silghat in the east and Kamrupa towards the west. Another name for Goddess Kamakhya is Bhadra and therefore there is a belief that Mayong may have been the Bhadrapith mentioned in the Yogini tantra.

Another version ascribes Mayong to be named after Mayan, a general of king Rampala (1080-1124 CE) of the Pala dynasty of Bengal. Under general Mayan, Rampala sent a huge army to defeat the weakened Kamrupa kingdom, then under Jayapala (1075-1100 CE) of the Bhauma Naraka dynasty. After defeating Jayapala, the general established a town named Mayangarh and settled Buddhist Tantric emissaries there. Mayan installed Timgyadeva (1110-26 CE) as the Governor of Pragjyotishpur-Kamrupa under Rampala and left for Bengal.

According to a manuscript in possession of the present royal family of Mayong, which contains the genealogy of the present kings of Mayong, the kingdom of Mayong was established by a Kachari king, who had come from Maibong, the erstwhile capital of the Dimasa Kachari kingdom. The kingdom was established in the year 1624 and Sunyat Singha, the brother of Kachari king Satrudaman, was named the first king of Mayong.

Another claim to the political ancestry of Mayong is by the Tiwa community. The Tiwas claim that the kingdom of Mayong was established by Mahasing who was the youngest brother of the king of Gobha (the ruler of the Tiwas). The claim is based on a sanchipat manuscript describing the genealogy of Tiwa kings, believed to be found by Gobang Lalung of Bormajrong village.

The culture of Mayong seems to have a strong Śākta-tantric belief system syncretized with associated indigenous practices, such as magic. The use of magic by bez (traditional magic healers) for constructive purposes like healing or finding social solutions for theft is good Tantra, or su mantra, while the use of magic for causing harm to someone for individual gain like settling agrarian disputes might be considered bad Tantra, or ku mantra. However, a bez is supposed to know the application of both su mantra and ku mantra and its applications in jantra because the ritual practices of Tantra demand a total knowledge of both in a composite system, counter-balancing each other. The villagers as well as practitioners of magic traditions seem to understand the need for this balance. In addition, Mayong is also home to Shaivite and neo-Vaishnavite belief systems. There is absence of rigidity in the politics of participation from different traditional practices and there seems to be no bar on believers of one religious tradition from participating in the religious ceremonies of others.

The Genesis of Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre

On September 27, 2002, an exhibition was organised at Mayong Higher Secondary School to celebrate World Tourism Day. The exhibition contained artefacts collected from different villages in and around the Mayong area. A large part of the objects displayed came from the personal collection of a local teacher Shri Lokendra Hazarika. The exhibition was immensely popular and was covered extensively in the regional media. The popularity of the exhibition encouraged the organisers to form a Museum Committee of ten members with Lokendra Hazarika as President and Shri Utpal Nath, an ex-student of the school, as its Secretary. An Assam-type  house with three rooms was rented and on November 1, 2002, it was inaugurated as Mayong Central Museum by the then king of Mayong, the Late Ghanakanta Singha. The entry tickets were priced at Rs. 10 andRs. 5 (for students). Despite several challenges, the museum survived. The income from tickets, however, was not sufficient and once the tourist season was over, there was a lack of funds.

For a while, the members of the Museum Committee, particularly the President and the Secretary, tried to run the museum with their own money. On August 30, 2003 the collection was shifted to Mayong Central Library, but was faced with another problem – pest infestation. The Museum Committee approached the Range Officer of the Pobitara Range Mr. Mukul Tamuli and requested another space to house the collection. The collection was then shifted to three rooms of a government quarter inside the Pobitara Wildlife Sanctuary, in 2008. The following year, the Committee passed a resolution to rename the museum as Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre. Meanwhile, the Committee’s request for land to construct a permanent museum was acknowledged by the Government.

The construction of a museum building was first started by the District Rural Development Agency, but it remained incomplete. The present building was constructed by the Morigaon Zila Parishad and the collection was shifted here on the October 20, 2010. However, in an interview with the Committee members, they revealed that the building was not constructed as per the scientific norms of Museum architecture and the DPR (Detailed Project Report) requested by the Committee. Eventually, the Committee was able to persuade the Nath Jogi Development Council to start construction of a new museum building, but the circular architecture with high ceilings and sufficient wall space remains incomplete due to the dissolution of the Development Councils by the Government of Assam in 2017. The museum still houses its rare and valuable collection in the building constructed by the Zila Parishad in 2010.

The Collection: a museum for the community

The museum holds a variety of objects. The manuscript collection, a valuable archive of oral traditions written in the local language, contain information on tantra-mantras and herbal medicine, among other things, from the 12^th to 18^th century. Most manuscripts are in the Assamese language, in Kaitheli script. Among other objects are artefacts in terracotta: utensils, earthen necklaces, incense pots, spouted pots, chillums, bricks and some terracotta images reportedly dating back to 12^th century; 8^th to 9^th century stone sculptures like yonipeeths, lingams, padma chakra; items belonging to the royal family like a palanquin, and rare copper and brass utensils: hati khojia bati (or “a bowl as big as an elephant’s foot”), caskets, copper plates and medals etc.; arms and armour, iron and stone cannon balls; monetary items like silver and copper coins and cowrie shells; local fishing implements; local oil extraction implements; agricultural implements; weaving implements; traditional weights and measures; ornaments; traditional musical instruments; and household items.

The collection was developed by Lokendra Hazarika, the President of the Museum Committee. Hazarika’s interest in collecting objects can be traced back to his childhood when he would roam the fields and forests of Mayong after fresh rains to find potsherds and beads. Mayong is rich in archaeological remains which are yet to be explored and excavated properly. According to villagers, finding objects during the digging of wells and ploughing of fields is still common in the area. Influenced by Hazarika’s efforts, local youth (particularly Utpal Nath who now teaches at the local college), students and concerned citizens began their own collection drive in nearby villages. It is important to mention that the collection of the museum has been acquired entirely through donations and fieldwork by individuals. The Committee took a conscious decision not to acquire any artefact commercially. The acquisition process seems to be arbitrary; no conscious pattern of collecting seems to have been employed. The collectors rely on oral history, popular narratives and traditional community knowledge to determine what is to be collected. In addition, there may be a few objects in the museum which have been collected out of sheer curiosity in the esoteric arts.

It is interesting how the Committee persuaded the local villagers to donate their family or community heirlooms to be housed in a new, incomplete museum space in a rural area with communities who obviously did not possess the metropolitan museological consciousness. The Committee documented a series of public meetings (raij mel) organised by the community, with the help of village elders, where important members of the community were asked to initiate a trust-building exercise to build awareness about the importance of preserving Mayong’s collective heritage to inculcate a sense of pride about the culture of the village. In these meetings, villagers were requested to donate an object of cultural importance that they may have found in the locality and were also requested to inform the Committee members if any object is unearthed while digging wells or ploughing fields. they came across any other objects in the future. As a result of these meetings, the Committee believes that villagers of Mayong have been persuaded to regard the Museum as an important institution of the collective heritage.

The caretaker of the museum, Mr. Karuna Nath has been providing free services in the museum for a long time: “I am giving [my] services for the preservation of the glorious history of Mayong and our community practices. They will be lost otherwise. I hope someday the Government will take notice and think of providing some basic remuneration to me so that I can work in this museum full-time. But I also need to run a family and so I run a small tea shop here in front of the museum”.

Apart from local students and villagers, the museum is visited by research scholars, academics and journalists. Favourably located opposite the approach road to Pobitora Sanctuary, the museum ends up attracting visitors to the sanctuary and local commuters, particularly during tourist season.

It is sad that the Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre, in spite of media attention, is in a dilapidated condition today. The present building is crumbling, and the construction of the new building largely remains incomplete. The display is temporary in nature: there are no showcases, barring one which displays the manuscript collection of the museum, and the rest of the collection is displayed atop cloth-covered wooden benches and on the floor against the walls. There is no running electricity at present. This is the result of a severe lack of funds and government apathy towards completing construction of the space and other demands for the upkeep of the museum. The Committee’s appeals and petitions somehow get lost in government files and verbal assurances. The local community, according to Committee members, is against the transfer of the collection to any other big museum of the State. They believe this would diminish the importance of the collection and decontextualize it from the composite culture of Mayong. The Committee members are equally wary of government interference – they believe it will counter the very essence of the museum, that of a community space maintained and curated by members of the community. However, they are open to the idea of the government acting as facilitator: providing a maintenance fund for the museum, while recognising it as a community project managed by local bodies autonomously.

In the absence of a tangible presence in strict museological terms, like display, access, conservation, and so on, the museum has turned to multiple field activities. This includes door-to-door collection drives, seminars and temporary exhibitions, special exhibitions during Government festivals like the Namami Brahmaputra Festival, digitisation and preservation of the manuscript collection through the National Manuscripts Mission, photo documentation of ritual practices and archaeological remains, recording of oral history, among other things. The Committee has planned initiatives to sustain the museum in the future, such as a residency programme, guest house, and a library and research centre, which can attract scholars as well as build revenue. Recently, the INTACH Assam Chapter has shown an interest in the museum and is currently undertaking a conservation project to save the collection from deterioration.

There is a prevailing sense of history and collective memory amongst the villagers of Mayong in spite of the exotic portrayal of the area as a land of black magic and witchcraft in the popular imagination. The idea of Mayong as a ‘dangerous place’ is accepted by the community as part of the grand narrative of Assam, though it might not necessarily be representative of the collective past of Mayong. In the past few decades, oral history and folk narratives from Assam have come to the fore, increasingly contesting orientalist and nationalist narratives with marginal and local plots. The Mayong Museum tries to fill a void by adding community histories in the grand narrative of Assam and India’s northeast. The museum, therefore, serves as an important institution to legitimise and demystify the overlap of magic, ritualistic traditions and healing practices that form the core of Mayong’s cultural history.

A version of this article was originally published in criticalcollective.in

The post Demystifying Black Magic: Mayong Village Museum and Research Centre, Assam appeared first on RAIOT.

The post On the Indian Knowledge Systems Calendar from WhatsApp Department of IIT Kharagpur appeared first on RAIOT.