British Colonization and Restructuring of Naga Polity

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The British occupation of Kohima was a landmark in the history of the British colonisation of Naga Hills Broadly speaking. the history of British colonisation may be divided into several periods: The period of control from without conducted by a system of expeditions; the period of interference; and the period of control from within, merging into gradul absorption into British territory.

The British colonisation of Naga territory gradually brought about certain changes in the administration of the Nagas while leaving them to administer their villages according to their respective customs and traditions. This book is a study of the British Colonization and the restructuring of the Naga polity.

N. VENUH is Professor in the Department of History and Archeaology, Nagaland University, Kohima. He is the former Dean of the School of Social Sciences, Nagaland Univerity. He has published another two books entitled "Continuity and Change in the Naga Society and "People, Heritage and Oral History of Naga".

By occupying Assam in the Anglo-Burmese War of 1824- 26, the British had stepped into the shoes of the Ahom ruling power that had maintained its age-old relations with the hill people. One of them was the Nagas, who had been occupying a very wide belt of hilly country from the upper Buri-Dihing to the upper Doyang regions on the south-eastern border. Divided into fifteen tribes, the Nagas were then known to the plains people by a variety of local names. Several Naga tribes inhabiting near the border visited the plains for bartering their products or transacting business of political nature with the Ahom government. Occasionally, for various reasons, such relations turned sour leading to raids on the plain villages by the Nagas and the consequent punitive military expeditions by the Ahom army against the erring tribe. On the whole, the Ahoms being a regional power confined to the Brahmaputra valley did not interfere, even for once, in the internal administration of the Naga tribes, nor did they occupy any portion of their hills. Without any outside interference the Nagas had retained their age-old polity, customs and traditions, beliefs and the customary laws.

Before the British colonization of the Naga Hills, the Nagas had their own form of polity based on their age-old experience, customs and traditions. Each village being an independent political unit had its own administrative mechanism. Any problem in the village, of whatever nature and degree of seriousness, was settled by a council either of the village elders or by the chief assisted by a council without reference to any other sovereign power. The political authority of each council in the village was absolutely independent and supreme; and here lies the significance of the Naga polity.

The colonization of the British had brought into existence a completely new situation in the region. In building their colonial empire during the nineteenth century, the colonial administrators seized every opportunity to extend their influence or political authority.

**Contents and Sample Pages**