ABSTRACT
During the First World War, a confederation of Kuki chiefs in the hills of Manipur persistently refused to obey the orders of the colonial state and supply coolies for France, which then developed into an armed resistance against colonial rule. The people shared grievances against colonial control, especially on the issue of going to France as coolies during the First World War. What were the motivations and the contexts which shaped such a response to colonial rule? This chapter studies the Kuki rising of 1917–1919 in the context of the establishment of colonial administration and its intervention in the lives of the hill people. It will show that the Anglo-Kuki War 1917–1919 was a war of not only the dominant sections of Kuki society but was also a popular war against domination and control from outside. The Kuki rising was, therefore, an assertion of the ‘tribal’ chiefs, representing multiple leadership figures, and their people for self-determination in the face of subordination under colonialism. This chapter will locate the Kuki unrest in the context of increasing colonial intervention in their everyday lives, and the popular resistance against such interventions, which was related to livelihood struggles of common people against outside disruption.
