ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on how the Japanese soldiers who participated in the Battles of Imphal and Kohima saw the people of the NER. The author examines how the people of the NER were represented in the Japanese literature about the Imphal Campaign and also how the people of Nagaland saw Japanese soldiers, according to literature containing narratives of the Naga people. References to the people of the NER is rather limited in the Japanese literature, except some observations about the lifestyle of Naga people. That may be because of the relatively limited time Japanese soldiers were in the territory of the NER and because they faced fierce fighting and limited supplies. It was only during a bone–collecting mission that war veterans began to consider how the people of the NER experienced the war. When a new era between the people of the NER and Japan begins, promoted by their respective governments, we need to be conscious of the huge gap that remains in our knowledge and understanding, even about our ‘shared history’.
