Manipur unrest and the disastrous fallout a legacy of colonial British rule
- Part 1 -

Maheshsana Rajkumar *

The North East State of Manipur is witnessing unrest since 3 May 2023 and there is no end to the vicious cycle of violence as of today. Manipur kingdom before merger to India in 1949 had 2000 years of monarchical rule with a proud history, culture and traditions. The bleak future looms ahead with the very existence of her territorial integrity being threatened with every passing day.

The article delves into the history of British rule in Manipur and identifies one of the main root causes of the present turmoil taking stock of the past autocratic rule and the divisive policies laid in 19th and 20th centuries.

The long drawn plan for consolidation hatched by Colonial British is mentioned in “The Gazetteer of India: History and Culture Volume Two”, 1973, authored by Dr PN Chopra, records that the 18th century was an important landmark in the respective histories of Burma, Manipur and Assam.

The glory of the three countries was equally in zenith. However, by the turn of the 19th century the British had appeared restless for implementing their policies to make establishment of their rule over the western and eastern frontiers of India. As a matter of their consolidation policies, control over the western frontier was secured by annexing Sind and Punjab and by making Afghanistan a buffer State between the British and the Russian empire.

Control over the eastern frontier was to be secured by annexing Lower Burma and by establishing British authority over Assam, Manipur, Cachar and Jaintia. In addition, the process of political unification of the country was to be hastened by annexing some of the problem States. On the eastern frontier, war between Burma and British India played in the logic of history, for it was of vital importance to both the countries to secure control over the frontier by annexing Assam, Manipur and other border States. Slowly but almost inevitably events moved to a crisis and led to First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26).

In fact, Manipur was unavoidably entangled in the spontaneous conflict between the British Imperial power and the Burmese Empire which was caused due to the stern policies of the British to consolidate its rule up to the whole of Southeast Asia.

Therefore after the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26) the British had transferred Kabaw Valley to Burma on 9 January 1834 in receipt of 1 million pounds sterling war indemnity in four installments with final installment paid in 1833 and not to forget the compelling situation that arose to British Supreme Government with Bengal agency houses in 1833 facing severe bankruptcy.

Thus 19th century Manipur is unforgettable forever as her civilization was stamped out with the loss of economic lifeline due to the loss of ancestral land of Manipur along the Chindwin River (Ningthee River) including Kabaw Valley resulting in the erstwhile kingdom being landlocked enduring hardship, poverty and curtail- ment of free movements of people on both sides of the kingdoms.

Consequently the British were successful to consolidate its rule over the whole of Southeast Asia by waging three Anglo-Burmese Wars consecutively (First- 1824-26, Second- 1852-53, Third-1885). In the case of Manipur the Anglo-Manipuri War broke out in 1891 with one reason being due to the unbearable interference of the British in the internal affairs of the kingdom.

During the colonial era, with the development of a modern Burmese Nationalism, the colonial experiences made Burma a “South-East Asian” rather than a “South-Asian” Nation, on the one hand and Manipur was geographically pushed as a “South Asian” Nation, on the other.

It is an open fact that kings of Manipur had approached the British Government so as to make retrocession of Kabaw Valley to Manipur when Upper Burma was conquered during the third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885, but the British had ignored it. After independence, during the period of Constitutional monarchy of Manipur, MK Priya Brata Singh, the Chief Minister tried to correspond with the British Government on the issue.

The Government of India under Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, advised the State Government not to pursue the matter; and the letter was returned. In fact the British put the Kabaw Valley issue to notoriety and the complexity of the issue lingers till today for both Manipur (India) and Burma.

By the turn of the 20th century it was a fact that Manipur was the last kingdom consolidated by the Imperialist power in the Southeast Asia. Only when the kingdom was in the British colonial yoke it became an Indian State. Since then Manipur had been in the hands of Two Masters one was the Colonial Power and its concerned officials such as Chief Commissioner of Assam, the Political Agent and the Assistant Political Agent holding the post of President of Manipur State Durbar on the one hand, and the Prince selected by the British Supreme Government as Raja subsequently Maharaja and his companion concerned departments such as Manipur State Durbar, Brahma Sabha and Pandit Loishang, on the other.

It was an undisputed fact that during the Colonial rule the British had deliberately divided Manipur into Hills and Plain with the complete separation as the hills people and the plain people socially, religiously, culturally and administratively (politically). Sir Athelstane Baines, the first Census Commissioner of British India had put Meitei under the category of Hills Tribe since 1891 Census of British India. The status of Meitei remained as Hills Tribe until 1931 Census of British India.

The colonial policy of drawing a hard boundary between the hills and the plains was a sharp break from the past. As a book on the Nagas puts it, “the people of the hills and of the plains or valley are radically different but have always been interconnected.” Indeed, early colonial officials recognized and took advantage of these historical connections. It is only later that those colonial officials came to believe that the hills and the plains were different entities and adopted policies severely restricting contact between them.

This new perception led to a policy of strict boundary maintenance that was superimposed on a complex world of interrelationships. The boundaries between the hill “tribes” and the plain peoples of Assam were, of course, not equally porous in the case of all the hills that became part of colonial Assam. With some of hills, for instance, the Lushai hills (today’s Mizoram), the colonial policy of segregation, combined with economic and cultural changes in the hills and the plains that took place during the colonial period, profoundly affected the new projects of peoplehood that emerged in the region.

These tracts were excluded from the automatic application of laws passed by the Central and provincial legislatures. The Simon Commission of 1930 replaced the term “backward” with the term “excluded.” Two categories of such areas were distinguished: excluded and partially excluded areas. While all “tribal” peoples were thought to need some kind of protection, such protection could not be extended as easily to those “tribes” living alongside “non-tribal” populations.

The enclaves or compact areas that could be identified as areas inhabited by particular tribes were to be classified as Excluded Areas. Areas where the “tribal” populations lived alongside “non-tribal” populations, and yet the “tribal” populations were considered undeveloped and were substantial in number, were classified as “partially excluded.”

Legally the main distinction was that, while both types of areas were excluded from the competence of the provincial and federal legislatures, in administering the excluded areas, the provincial Governors could act in their own discretion, while in the case of the partially excluded areas, the elected Governments had some jurisdiction, limited by the supervisory powers of the British Governors.

To be continued...