Administrative Rivalries on a Frontier: Problem of the Chin-Lushai Hills
During 19-21 May 1988 an unusual gathering took place at Champhai, a small town in the Indian state of Mizoram, some twenty kilometers from Myanmar border. It was the First World Zomi Convention and was attended by a large number of people, estimated at more than one thousand, from parts of Mizoram, Manipur and the contiguous Chin State of Myanmar. On the third day, the Convention pledged “solidarity and integration to take on a just struggle for Zo-Reunification under one administrative umbrella”.[1] Though it went unnoticed by the India press, the Convention became the forerunner of the Zo-Reunification Organisation(ZORO) with the avowed object of unifying the India’s state of Mizoram and the Chin State of Myanmar where the Zo* descendents are predominant.
What was significant about the Convention is that the Zo people on both sides of the international boundary met for the first time over an issue that they had so long been airing separately. The event was coincided with the political upheaval in Myanmar which was triggered by the demonstrations of students of Rangoon Institute of Technology and townsfolk; the minority communities later joined with the people in the Myanmar heartland.[2]
Smaller tribal groups in Manipur who see themselves as part of the Zo group too had developed these ideas. The Paite National Council in Manipur, for instance, submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru urging him to take steps “to re-unite all the Chin tribes into one territory by rectifying the artificial demarcation/boundary between India and Burma”.[3] Later in the 1980s books[4] began to appear emphasizing the common ethnicity of these people.
The basis for such assertions had been brought out by the Mizo Union, the first political party in the former Mizo Hills District in 1947:
It is a great injustice that the Mizos having one and the same culture, speaking one and the same language, professing one and the same religion, and knit together by common customs and traditions should have been called and known by different names and thrown among different people with their homeland sliced out and given to others.[5]
The main body of this article examines the underlying problems of the settlements of the Zo people or the Chin-Lushai Hills as it was referred to during colonial rule, with special reference to colonial period. It looks into the possible factors responsible for the failure of the Chin-Lushai Conference of 1892 which has far-reaching effects on the socio-economic and political unity of the various tribes of Zo descendents on the Indo-Myanmar border areas in post-colonial period.
I
The hill tracts occupied by the Zo people, or Chin-Lushai people as they were referred to during colonial rule, lies between 92° and 95° longitude (East) and between 20° and 25° latitude North of Equator.[6] The whole area is roughly about 91,000 square miles with a population of almost one and a half million in 2003.[7] The south-western portion of these hills first came into contact with the British after the annexation of Chittagong in 1760. Trade route was opened with the hills of the Chittagong frontier which facilitated regular communication between the plain and the hill tribes who were generally known as Kukies. Early British reports noticed that these “large bodies of Kookie men who live far in the interior parts of the hills, who have not the use of fire-arms, and whose bodies go unclothed”[8], occasionally swooped down from their fastnesses into the plains causing innumerable disturbances. The Chief of Chittagong on one occasion requested Captain Edward Ellerker, commanding the 22nd Battalion of Sepoys, in November 1777, to send “for the protection of the inhabitants against some Kookies”.[9]
The annexation of Cachar in 1832 brought the British into close proximity with the Kukies of that region. These Kukies were actually driven northward by another powerful tribe which was later identified as the Lushais who were referred to as “so well armed and independent and residing from eight to ten days journey south of Cachar”. One official report says:
When we took possession of Cachar, and for many years afterwards, the families whose feuds attracted most attention, and from whose raids we suffered most, were the Thlangums, Changsels, Thadoes, and Poitoos. But somewhere about 1840, the Lushais, (a new family) made its appearance, which by degrees has reduced to submission, or driven out all the others, and for the last twenty years has kept possession of all the southern hills.[10]
It was apparent that the Lushais had been pushed from the south by the Pawi (also referred to as Lai) and they in turn pressed other tribes towards the Cachar border. About the same time there were also reports of friendly relations between the Lushais and Cacharis. They visited each other for trade and other purposes. This relationship, however, turned hostile when a Lushai chief Lalsuthlaha raided the Manipuri village of Kochabari in April 1844, killing twenty and six taken into captivity.[11] Subsequent raids by Chief Lallianvunga and his son Ngura deteriorated the situation.
The annexation of Arakan after the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26) significantly established another hold of the British on the Chin frontier. Here the British again came into contact with the hill tribes who they saw on the other frontier. These hill tribes, referred to as Khumi, Khyeng, Mru and the like, sometimes caused disturbances in British territory. Early explorations and surveys of the hill tracts in the 1840s, [12] however, revealed that the real cause of disturbances originated from the far interior which was predominantly inhabited by the Shindus*, who also pushed the Lushais towards the north. The Shindus thus became a common source of trouble to both the Arakan and Chittagong authorities. Neither of them had exercised control over them. Since the Chittagong authorities knew little of the tribes all efforts to curb raids had been left to the Arakan authority.
It was the policy of the Government of Bengal to avoid military expeditions to these unhealthy hill tracts which was clearly stated by Sir John Peter Grant the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal in 1858: “In addition to the extreme unhealthiness of the climate there would be great difficulty in distinguishing between those who are in the habit of committing these periodical depredations and those who are favourable and friendly to our rule”.[13] Very little was therefore known about the relationship between the British and the hill tribes except that raids were reported occasionally and a few expeditions had been sent against these hill tribes during the first half of the 19th century. In order to deal with the tribes and check their disturbances a separate administrative unit had been created in both Chittagong Hill Tract and Northern Arakan Hill Tract in the 1860s. Nevertheless, the Chin-Lushai hills remained under no control of the British till it was annexed in the late1880s.
[1] www.Zogam.com/document/1st World Zomi Convention, 1988. The Convention was partly organised by two political parties: People’s Congress of Mizoram and Zomi National Congress of Manipur.
* Zo is the generic name of the various tribes who were generally referred to as Chin, Lushai, Kuki and the like by colonial writers. The descendents of Zo in Mizoram are today generally known as Mizo; those in Manipur are known as Zomi or Kuki; and, in Chin State, Myanmar they are variedly known as Zomi, Laimi, Asho, Dzo and the like.
[2] For detail discussion, see Josef Silverstein “Civil War and Rebellion in Burma”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. XXI, No.1, March 1990, Singapore,
[3] www.Zogam.com/document/PNC, 1960
[4] T. Gougin, History of Zomi, Churachandpur, 1984 and Vumson, Zo History, Aizawl, 1986, have recently talked about the common identity of the Chin-Lushai people.
[5] www.Zogam.com/document/ Mizo Union, 1947
[6] Ibid., memorandum submitted to President Bill Clinton of America by leaders of the Zo Re-unification Organistion (ZORO) General Headquarters : Mizoram, Aizawl (India), 1993.
[7] The population of Chin State according to census of 2003 was 4,51,891 and that of Mizoram was 8,91,058 as per census of 2001.
[8] T. H. Lewin, The Hills Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers There in, Calcutta 1869, Reprint Aizawl 2004. p.31.
[9] Ibid., pp.32-33.
[10] National Archive of India (hereafter NAI), New Delhi, Foreign Political-A Proceeding, August 1872 No. 70; From J W Edgar, Civil Officer with the Cachar Columns of the Lushai Expeditionary Force to the Commissioner of Circuit, Dacca Division, 3 April 1872.
[11] Alexander Mackenzie, History of the Relations of the Government with the Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier of Bengal (hereafter Mackenzie), Calcutta, 1884, Reprint New Delhi, 2001, pp.288-289; Mackenzie further recorded the reasons for the Lushai raid: “Laroo (Lalrinha), whose name was mentioned in connection with the massacre of 1826, appears to have been a chief of some importance among the Poitoos. In the beginning of 1844 or end of 1843 he died, leaving his son Lal Chokla (Lalsuthlaha) to lead his tribe. Now no Kookie Chief could go on his last long journey unaccompanied by attendants to do his bidding in the unseen world. The affection of his clansmen was not, however, put to too great a strain. They had not themselves to go away before their time, so long as they could supply Bengali slaves, whose heads piled round the corpse of the Chief were earnest that their ghosts were keeping company with his. But slaves were scarce in the hills since the British Government had discouraged this trade; so Lal Chokla and his cousin, Botai (Bawtaia), hung their great relative’s body in the smoke, and set forth on the war path to slay the prescribed number of victims”.
[12] The earliest expedition was undertaken by Lieutenant Albert Fytche and Lieutenant Arthur Phayre in 1841-42 against the Walleng clan of the Khumi. This was followed by Hopkinsons’ in 1847-48 where he went up to Dalekmai and discovered that the real cause of the trouble was coming from the Shindu country. He therefore recommended that the only way to prevent Shindu pressure was to subjugate them and take control over their country.
* Shindu or Shendu is an Arakanese term which seems to have covered all the Haka Chin tribes and the Lakhers.
[13] Mackenzie, op.cit, p.340.
(Full paper has been published in the Indian Historical Review, vol. XXXIV, No.1 January 2007)
What was significant about the Convention is that the Zo people on both sides of the international boundary met for the first time over an issue that they had so long been airing separately. The event was coincided with the political upheaval in Myanmar which was triggered by the demonstrations of students of Rangoon Institute of Technology and townsfolk; the minority communities later joined with the people in the Myanmar heartland.[2]
Smaller tribal groups in Manipur who see themselves as part of the Zo group too had developed these ideas. The Paite National Council in Manipur, for instance, submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru urging him to take steps “to re-unite all the Chin tribes into one territory by rectifying the artificial demarcation/boundary between India and Burma”.[3] Later in the 1980s books[4] began to appear emphasizing the common ethnicity of these people.
The basis for such assertions had been brought out by the Mizo Union, the first political party in the former Mizo Hills District in 1947:
It is a great injustice that the Mizos having one and the same culture, speaking one and the same language, professing one and the same religion, and knit together by common customs and traditions should have been called and known by different names and thrown among different people with their homeland sliced out and given to others.[5]
The main body of this article examines the underlying problems of the settlements of the Zo people or the Chin-Lushai Hills as it was referred to during colonial rule, with special reference to colonial period. It looks into the possible factors responsible for the failure of the Chin-Lushai Conference of 1892 which has far-reaching effects on the socio-economic and political unity of the various tribes of Zo descendents on the Indo-Myanmar border areas in post-colonial period.
I
The hill tracts occupied by the Zo people, or Chin-Lushai people as they were referred to during colonial rule, lies between 92° and 95° longitude (East) and between 20° and 25° latitude North of Equator.[6] The whole area is roughly about 91,000 square miles with a population of almost one and a half million in 2003.[7] The south-western portion of these hills first came into contact with the British after the annexation of Chittagong in 1760. Trade route was opened with the hills of the Chittagong frontier which facilitated regular communication between the plain and the hill tribes who were generally known as Kukies. Early British reports noticed that these “large bodies of Kookie men who live far in the interior parts of the hills, who have not the use of fire-arms, and whose bodies go unclothed”[8], occasionally swooped down from their fastnesses into the plains causing innumerable disturbances. The Chief of Chittagong on one occasion requested Captain Edward Ellerker, commanding the 22nd Battalion of Sepoys, in November 1777, to send “for the protection of the inhabitants against some Kookies”.[9]
The annexation of Cachar in 1832 brought the British into close proximity with the Kukies of that region. These Kukies were actually driven northward by another powerful tribe which was later identified as the Lushais who were referred to as “so well armed and independent and residing from eight to ten days journey south of Cachar”. One official report says:
When we took possession of Cachar, and for many years afterwards, the families whose feuds attracted most attention, and from whose raids we suffered most, were the Thlangums, Changsels, Thadoes, and Poitoos. But somewhere about 1840, the Lushais, (a new family) made its appearance, which by degrees has reduced to submission, or driven out all the others, and for the last twenty years has kept possession of all the southern hills.[10]
It was apparent that the Lushais had been pushed from the south by the Pawi (also referred to as Lai) and they in turn pressed other tribes towards the Cachar border. About the same time there were also reports of friendly relations between the Lushais and Cacharis. They visited each other for trade and other purposes. This relationship, however, turned hostile when a Lushai chief Lalsuthlaha raided the Manipuri village of Kochabari in April 1844, killing twenty and six taken into captivity.[11] Subsequent raids by Chief Lallianvunga and his son Ngura deteriorated the situation.
The annexation of Arakan after the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-26) significantly established another hold of the British on the Chin frontier. Here the British again came into contact with the hill tribes who they saw on the other frontier. These hill tribes, referred to as Khumi, Khyeng, Mru and the like, sometimes caused disturbances in British territory. Early explorations and surveys of the hill tracts in the 1840s, [12] however, revealed that the real cause of disturbances originated from the far interior which was predominantly inhabited by the Shindus*, who also pushed the Lushais towards the north. The Shindus thus became a common source of trouble to both the Arakan and Chittagong authorities. Neither of them had exercised control over them. Since the Chittagong authorities knew little of the tribes all efforts to curb raids had been left to the Arakan authority.
It was the policy of the Government of Bengal to avoid military expeditions to these unhealthy hill tracts which was clearly stated by Sir John Peter Grant the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal in 1858: “In addition to the extreme unhealthiness of the climate there would be great difficulty in distinguishing between those who are in the habit of committing these periodical depredations and those who are favourable and friendly to our rule”.[13] Very little was therefore known about the relationship between the British and the hill tribes except that raids were reported occasionally and a few expeditions had been sent against these hill tribes during the first half of the 19th century. In order to deal with the tribes and check their disturbances a separate administrative unit had been created in both Chittagong Hill Tract and Northern Arakan Hill Tract in the 1860s. Nevertheless, the Chin-Lushai hills remained under no control of the British till it was annexed in the late1880s.
[1] www.Zogam.com/document/1st World Zomi Convention, 1988. The Convention was partly organised by two political parties: People’s Congress of Mizoram and Zomi National Congress of Manipur.
* Zo is the generic name of the various tribes who were generally referred to as Chin, Lushai, Kuki and the like by colonial writers. The descendents of Zo in Mizoram are today generally known as Mizo; those in Manipur are known as Zomi or Kuki; and, in Chin State, Myanmar they are variedly known as Zomi, Laimi, Asho, Dzo and the like.
[2] For detail discussion, see Josef Silverstein “Civil War and Rebellion in Burma”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. XXI, No.1, March 1990, Singapore,
[3] www.Zogam.com/document/PNC, 1960
[4] T. Gougin, History of Zomi, Churachandpur, 1984 and Vumson, Zo History, Aizawl, 1986, have recently talked about the common identity of the Chin-Lushai people.
[5] www.Zogam.com/document/ Mizo Union, 1947
[6] Ibid., memorandum submitted to President Bill Clinton of America by leaders of the Zo Re-unification Organistion (ZORO) General Headquarters : Mizoram, Aizawl (India), 1993.
[7] The population of Chin State according to census of 2003 was 4,51,891 and that of Mizoram was 8,91,058 as per census of 2001.
[8] T. H. Lewin, The Hills Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers There in, Calcutta 1869, Reprint Aizawl 2004. p.31.
[9] Ibid., pp.32-33.
[10] National Archive of India (hereafter NAI), New Delhi, Foreign Political-A Proceeding, August 1872 No. 70; From J W Edgar, Civil Officer with the Cachar Columns of the Lushai Expeditionary Force to the Commissioner of Circuit, Dacca Division, 3 April 1872.
[11] Alexander Mackenzie, History of the Relations of the Government with the Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier of Bengal (hereafter Mackenzie), Calcutta, 1884, Reprint New Delhi, 2001, pp.288-289; Mackenzie further recorded the reasons for the Lushai raid: “Laroo (Lalrinha), whose name was mentioned in connection with the massacre of 1826, appears to have been a chief of some importance among the Poitoos. In the beginning of 1844 or end of 1843 he died, leaving his son Lal Chokla (Lalsuthlaha) to lead his tribe. Now no Kookie Chief could go on his last long journey unaccompanied by attendants to do his bidding in the unseen world. The affection of his clansmen was not, however, put to too great a strain. They had not themselves to go away before their time, so long as they could supply Bengali slaves, whose heads piled round the corpse of the Chief were earnest that their ghosts were keeping company with his. But slaves were scarce in the hills since the British Government had discouraged this trade; so Lal Chokla and his cousin, Botai (Bawtaia), hung their great relative’s body in the smoke, and set forth on the war path to slay the prescribed number of victims”.
[12] The earliest expedition was undertaken by Lieutenant Albert Fytche and Lieutenant Arthur Phayre in 1841-42 against the Walleng clan of the Khumi. This was followed by Hopkinsons’ in 1847-48 where he went up to Dalekmai and discovered that the real cause of the trouble was coming from the Shindu country. He therefore recommended that the only way to prevent Shindu pressure was to subjugate them and take control over their country.
* Shindu or Shendu is an Arakanese term which seems to have covered all the Haka Chin tribes and the Lakhers.
[13] Mackenzie, op.cit, p.340.
(Full paper has been published in the Indian Historical Review, vol. XXXIV, No.1 January 2007)
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