Contested history

Contested history

Context

The Lushai Expedition followed a devastating raid by Lushai tribesmen on the Alexanderpur tea estate in Cachar

Lushai expedition

• The Lushai Expedition followed a devastating raid by Lushai tribesmen on the Alexanderpur tea estate in Cachar. Several were killed, including a planter, Winchester. The raiders also abducted Winchester’s six-year-old daughter, Mary
• Thereafter, the British launched a massive punitive expedition into the Lushai hills
• Tedim Chins, known to the British as Kamhows, from the Tedim ranges of the present Chin State of Myanmar, were British-friendly, and their service was enlisted in the hunt for Mary
• Manipur was then bound by a 1762 treaty with the East India Company and was called upon to send troops accompanied by Maj. Gen. W.F. Nuthall to block northern escape routes around Behiang, but was not part of the Cachar column carrying out the expedition under Brigadier General Bourchier
• The expedition lasted from December 9, 1871 to February 24, 1872, when Mary was rescued and the Lushai chiefs behind the raid surrendered
• Nothing of significance happened on the Manipur side, but when the expedition concluded, Manipur troops intercepted a team of Kamhows returning from the British expedition with 957 Lushai captives
• The Kamhows were held and the Lushai captives were freed. They settled in Manipur
• Kamhow leader Kokatung was brought to Imphal and put in prison, where he died. Bourchier was outraged. Nuthall was also angry but later reasoned that Manipur was justified in doing this as the Kamhows had earlier raided and committed offences within Manipur

Boundary modifications

• Pemberton line: In 1834, when the boundary of Manipur was redrawn to gift the disputed Kabaw valley to Burma, Chassad-Kuki settlements were left neither in Manipur nor Burma. This 1834 line came to be known as the Pemberton Line, after Capt. R. Boileau Pemberton who drew it along the foot of “Muring hills” (British records), indicating that these hills were once the domain of the MaringNagas
• Towards 1881, Chassad became restive, and armed with muskets — which the British suspect were supplied by the king of Sumjok, a small Shan principality in Kabaw valley — made several attacks onTangkhul Naga villages nearby
• Pemberton-Johnstone Line: The matter could not be adequately addressed because of the ambiguity of Chassad’ssubjecthood. The boundary was then redrawn to bring Chassad within Manipur and this brought peace. The boundary became the Pemberton-Johnstone Line after Col. James Johnstone, head of the 1881 boundary commission. Burma was invited but failed to turn up
• Pemberton-Johnstone-Maxwell Line: This boundary was modified again in 1896 and thereafter came to be known as the Pemberton-Johnstone-Maxwell Line. This is the line ratified by the Rangoon Agreement of 1967 between India and Burma. The 1834 line is India’s earliest demarcated international boundary
• In 1885, when the British again waged war on Burma to annex it, Manipur troops were called upon to march to Kendat in Burma to rescue European employees of the Bombay Burmah Company. It is also noteworthy that the Manipur army then had a sizeable number of Kuki soldiers. It is not true therefore that Manipur’s boundary did not extend into the southern hills. The fact is, unlike in its northern hills where large, fortified Naga villages practising a good measure of settled agriculture were common, its southern hills were largely barren of settled villages and population
• Though changed considerably now, this demographic profile is still very much a marked feature of the State. Chandrakriti died in 1886, so he also cannot be justifiably associated with events during WWI as the article has done