ABSTRACT
This chapter is a historical overview of colonial state-making in the northeast frontier and examines how violence is closely linked to processes of state making. It seeks to trace the elements of violence and attempts to address how everyday forms of colonial violence and punishment were crucial in the process of empire building and argues how physical violence, as an instrument, was used to contain the growing aspirations for assertion of freedom from the colonial rule. Violence, however as an ordinary (and not an exceptional) part of the British rule in the subcontinent often resulted in the outbreak of uprisings and small wars such as the Anglo-Kuki War 1917–1919 fought across the hills. The responses and the zeal with which the hill tribes resisted the invading colonial empire came as a shock to the British administration on several occasions. In fact, re-examining 100 years of Kuki history seems to suggest that the history of the Kukis has been a relationship between the colonial forces that could largely be characterised by violent encounter. Taking this as a point of departure, the chapter addresses the geography of violence and state-making in the northeast frontier.
