ABSTRACT
This book explores the Kuki uprising against the British Empire during the First World War in the northeast frontier of India (then the Assam–Burma frontier). It sheds light on how the three-year war (1917–1919), spanning over 6,000 square miles, is crucial to understanding present-day Northeast India.
Companion to the seminal The Anglo-Kuki War, 1917–1919, the chapters in this volume:
- Examine several aspects of the Anglo-Kuki War, which had far-reaching consequences for the indigenous Kuki population, including economy, politics, identity, indigenous culture and belief systems, and traditional institutions during and after the First World War itself
- Highlight finer themes such as the role of the chiefs and war councils, symbols of communication, indigenous interpretation of the war, remembrance, and other policies which continued to confront the Kuki communities
- Interrogate themes of colonial geopolitics, colonialism and the missionaries, state making, and the frontier dimensions of the First World War
Moving away from colonial ethnographies, the volume taps on a variety of sources – from civilisational discourse to indigenous readings of the war, from tour diaries to oral accounts – meshing together the primitive with the modern, the tribal and the settled. This book will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South and Southeast Asian Studies, area studies, modern history, military and strategic studies, insurgency and counterinsurgency studies, tribal warfare, and politics.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part I|37 pages
Against the Empire’s Army
chapter 1|19 pages
Resistance, War Council and Formation of Militia
chapter 2|16 pages
The Zou Gal (1917–1919)
part II|40 pages
Colonial Politics and Violence
chapter 3|18 pages
From Co-Operation to Coercion
chapter 4|20 pages
Empire of Violence
part III|63 pages
Logistics, Economy and Livelihood Strategies
chapter 6|19 pages
Escape Agriculture, Foraging Culture
chapter 7|17 pages
Food Security, Ecology and Livelihoods
part IV|35 pages
Cultural Symbols, Interpretation and the War
chapter 8|15 pages
The Understanding between Pre-Understanding and Work of Art
part V|33 pages
Colonialism, Missionisation and After
chapter 11|15 pages
Spatialising the Missionary Encounter
part VI|36 pages
Commemoration of the War