Resistance to the Colonial rule through Evasion and Denial of Service in the Southern Lushai Hills

From Animism To Structured Beliefs: Socio-Cultural Changes In Lushai Hills With The Advent Of Christianity And British Administration In The Region

2017

The Lushais inhabited the district of Lushai Hills of British Assam which is presently known as Mizoram. It is the 23 rd state of the Indian Union that shares international boundaries with Bangladesh and Burma, and is situated in the north eastern tip of India surrounded by the Indian states of Tripura, Manipur and the Cachar district of Assam. Prior to the British rule, Lushai Hills was a conglomeration of tribal units ruled by chiefs known as ‘Lals’. On April 1 st 1898, the region was annexed to Assam as one of its districts for administrative convenience and on strategic grounds. The region was known as Lushai Hills till the end of August 1954 and was later renamed as Mizo district. In January 1972 it was declared as a Union Territory within the Indian Union. It attained statehood in February 1987 with Aizawl as the state capital. The people of Mizoram were known as ‘Lushai’ prior to Indian independence. The name of the region inhabited by them was derived from this term and was ...

"The Impact of Colonial Administration on the Political Culture of the Mizo community in Mizoram"

Mizoram is one of the states in Northeastern India. The people of the state are called Mizo, they are a small tribal group of Tibeto-Burman-Mongoloid stock. As a tribe, Mizos have gone through several transitions; culturally and politically such as the transition from traditional chieftainship to the British Colonial Administration and from there to the Democratic Republic of India. By observing the behaviour of the people, one could identify that those changes and transitions left deep traces and impact on the political culture of the Mizos even till today. The current condition of the Political Culture of the Mizos seems to be somewhat of a 'subject' political culture, which is believed to be the influence of the doubled subjection of the people to British colonial Administration and the traditional chieftainship. The influence and impact of which could be seen even after the abolition of the Chieftainship and up-to this present time. This paper brings into focus a study on the historical basis of the Political Culture of the Mizos. It attempts to provide useful insight for reorienting and restructuring the socio-political aspects of the Mizo people.

Reconfigured frontier: British policy towards the Chin-Lushai Hills, 1881-1898

The paper analyses three British policies toward the Chin-Lushai Hills in the late nineteenth century. Though initially the British considered these hill tracts only as a source of trouble and therefore followed a non-interventionist approach, it was after the fall of Upper Burma that they began to see its strategic importance and therefore changed their perspective. This paper examines three colonial policies all of which in one way or the other dealt with the Zo people who predominantly lived in the Chin-Lushai hill tracts. It argues that the common thread that passes through the three policies was an attempt to establish colonial rule in the frontier based on 'administrative convenience' at the expense of the interest of the local population. The paper also argues that colonial and postcolonial borders not only fragmented the indigenous Zo population into different nation-states, but also changed the contour of their history.

Riverine bazaars, trade and chiefs in the colonial Lushai Hills

Taylor and Francis, 2019

The Lushais maintained commercial contact with the surrounding plains traders in the eighteenth and nineteenth century The British administrators recognised the importance of trade and bazaar in relation with independent Lushai chiefs and to use them as a diplomatic tool to influence the behaviour of the Lushais. The British introduced riverine bazaars in the interiors of Lushai hills to satisfy Lushais' desire for tradable commodities; to facilitate the interests of plain merchants in a profitable rubber trade; and to provide security to their subjects within their territories The failure on the part of the Lushai chiefs to provide security to the marketplaces and resumption of raids in the British territories paved the way for the British to directly interfere in the Lushai affairs. This paper contradicts the Romantic notion of Lushai village communities being self-supporting and isolated autarchy and the notion of self-sufficiency of 'Indian village communities' as propagated in the nineteenth century.

British Colonialism and the Indirect Rule: A Hierarchical Administrative Structure to Control the Unruly Tribes

Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews

Purpose: This paper intends to focus on elaborating on British colonialism and the types of indirect rule. The main purpose of the paper is to dig deep into the matter of how the British controlled the tribal societies and how far they were successful in controlling the tribal people. Indirect rule was designed to serve the interests of the British, whereas the tribes were left independent to deal with their internal affairs. It gives a detailed description of the British policy of controlling the tribes and answering the question of why the British opted for the indirect form of rule. Method: The research work is qualitative and descriptive in which the already available information and facts about the contents are critically analyzed. Secondary sources such as books, research papers, journals, and online internet materials have been used to collect data related to this topic. The research work is analytical where qualitative techniques have been applied to investigate the major re...

Mizo Identity and Indianisation: A Case of Conflict Transformation in Mizoram

Indian Journal of Public Administration, 2016

This article examines the process of conflict transformation in Mizoramfollowing the signing of the Peace Accord in 1986. First, the article examines the process of 'Mizoisation', which was responsible for bringing together all the diverse groups and elements inhabiting the Lushai hills of the erstwhile Lushai district of the then Assam province. Second, it examines whether Mizoisation has been complementary to the process of 'Indianisation '. Although the process of Indianisation started as early as the colonial times, the project of national integration after Independence faced numerous challenges to the extent of interrogating the efficacy of the Indian state. Thirdly, the article examines the Mizoisation process by using the conceptual tool of conflict transformation. Conflict transformation is a process of change in the relationship and the discourse of conflict into the constructivist domain to redefine issues of identity and sharing the power structure to the wellbeing of the community. Fourthly, the author interprets the process of conflict transformation in the context of the post-Accord developments in Mizoram. In the concluding section, he argues that the process of Mizoisation is complementary to the process of Indianisation that was ushered in intensely since Independence.

The Nature of Colonial Intervention in the Naga Hills, 1840-80

Were laissez-faire and non-interference the characteristics of colonial rule in the Naga Hills? The writings of that period -official sources, ethnographic accounts, travelogues and missionary accounts -suggest some answers. The strategic location of the area and its mineral and natural resources, besides tea. made the hills economically attractive to the colonial state. Though coercive force was minimised there was a process of cultural construction which transformed the indigenous social fabric of the region.

Colonial Boundary Politics in Chin-Lushai Hills, Northeast India 1870-1875

This study located in the extreme most corner of Northeast India region known by Chin-Lushai Tract or Hills. The territory was bounded all around by the established valley states. It had a pre-existing boundary in which the altitudes of the hilly mountainous terrain formed the boundary with the adjoining plain territories. But, the coming of colonial state in the region had shattered those existing hills-plain boundary enterprises. Those colonial boundary politics was contested by the people as impolitic and undermining act of the existing boundary and often manifested their grievances in the form of reids and atrocities. This paper revealed the imperatives politics which overwhelmed the colonial state to displace the vernacular boundary by the material and textual manifestation of institutionalized boundary. In the same time it tends to show that how the colonial state legitimizes their politics and justified their arguments on the boundary making practices from 1870 to 1875 and argued that the colonial state justified pleas ultimately were the broad spectrum policies which serve the ulterior purpose of colonization of territory but in the same time disguise its actual purpose.