UrraUvie: The Great British Betrayal of the Nagas’ Total Trust

Mazie Nakhro

When the British intruded into the Naga homeland in 1832, the Nagas suspected them of having an expansionist intent. Naturally, therefore, the Nagas responded with resistance. Among the Naga tribes, the Angami people were the first to do so---that is, we stood against their forced entry and bravely fought against their troops, which resulted in a lot of casualties on both sides. Because of this warlike situation at the time, the British were not able to set up even a single outpost in the heart of the Angami country from 1832 to 1879 (Sir Robert Reid). However, the British were still determined to use Naga-land as a passageway between Manipur and Assam for the purposes of communication, trade, and defense. It was only in 1880 that the British finally relented from aggression and agreed to meet for a peaceful settlement. The Naga party was led by PelhuDolie, a legendary warrior-statesman from Khonoma, who directed over 200 warriors and made his hideout in the Kenoma area. Since the British representatives refused to enter into any agreement without him being present, he finally obliged and came to Mezoma with two fellow warriors, who were adorned in Naga traditional gears and armed with spears and shields, escorting him. On meeting him, the leader of the British representatives appeared somewhat awed. So, as a gesture of deference, he offered his chair for Pelhu to sit. Then, the British party proposed for Pelhu’s consent to a written agreement. But the latter responded that if the British were in quest of peace, his word would be enough…so be it. Thus, a formal peace agreement was arrived at between the two peoples at Mezoma on March 27, 1880, in accordance with a Naga customary practice: uttering “our word as our bond” in the presence of many witnesses. As a symbol of sealing this peace agreement, the Nagas presented a native live bird, tragopan, to the British who in turn gave them a gun (cf. seized from SetuoDolie by the Indian Army in the late 1950s). And together, they took a photograph as well (cf. lost while in possession of Lhulienyü of Kewhima village). As a result, the Nagas formally ended their battle with the British, accepted them as our “avowed friends” (“Uso-ukhriethomia” in Angami), and allowed them to freely use our Naga-land as a passageway between Assam and Manipur. Sadly, even after 1880, the British still conducted their expeditions both in Ao and Sumi areas. Their stated intention, of course, was to stop raids and crimes of violence along the borders of the Naga Hills and Sibsagar districts under a policy called “The Political Control Area.” Now, why did some Nagas come to pay a house-tax to the British people? From 1888 onward, the Colonial Power started asking for a nominal tax from the Nagas. In certain villages, for example, each household had to pay Rs.3 per year, or in some cases just Rs.1, which the British claimed was a token-charge for providing protection to our people, although they could have been using that as a pretext for some other ulterior goal. Of course, some of our people stopped further payment as soon as the troops withdrew from their villages. But the majority of the Nagas then chose to pay as long as they could. Possibly, they thought that it was the reasonable thing to do: pay the British people for their services. After all, they were helping our Nagas by stopping our inter-village warfare, especially the practice of head-hunting. Furthermore, they were bringing some sense of order and law amongst the Nagas. Their officers, both armed and civil, were generally nice and friendly to our people. Not even a single soldier of theirs was known to have taken advantage of our women. Also, we had come to accept them as our avowed friends and welcomed them as from an ally nation. Since this was how the Nagas had come to view them, it could mean that they were simply paying the house-tax out of gratitude for the services of the British people. In other words, the Nagas were not paying taxes as British subjects. And undoubtedly, this house-tax was not a land-tax either, because the land-ownership had always been with our Nagas. As mentioned earlier, it seems obvious that the Colonial Power had a deceptive intent—to ultimately claim the Naga country as part of the British territory. But being very trusting by nature, our Nagas then failed to recognize this. They possibly viewed the presence of the British amongst them exactly the same way as we view the Indian occupational force in our homeland today: they could set up outposts, live amongst us, and move about freely, without assuming ownership of our land. At least, that was what they would have certainly believed. Not knowing that the British would one day betray our trust, the Nagas of that generation still willingly extended every possible help to the British during the World War II. Approximately 600 Nagas fought as part of the Allied Forces. Other Nagas guided their troops, collected intelligence information, ambushed enemy patrols, carried supplies, and brought in their wounded under heaviest of fire…often refusing any payment (Sir William Smith), thereby contributing to the British victory over the Japanese Forces, who were ethnically much closer to them. All these acts speak loudly of our culture of expressing our loyalty to those we regarded as avowed friends. The existence of Kohima War Cemetery and the Bye-Pass Road (also called Victory Road) are also visible reminders of our people’s hospitality to these people who needed our help. As a proud warrior race, this was how our Nagas of that time had undoubtedly acted all along in accordance with their customary law of honor in treating their friends. As such, the Nagas then could never have known that their trust would be betrayed. Otherwise, had they known at the time that the British were taking them as their “conquered subjects” or that these foreigners would one day claim our land as part of their “British territory” in the sense of transferred land-ownership, they would have never gladly sacrificed so much for the latter. In short, the Nagas of the past generation welcomed these foreigners who showed up in our homeland uninvited. They treated them as their avowed friends and ally nation. They gladly extended their hospitality and shared their space. They bravely fought their war to secure their victory. In return, what did these former friends do for our people? They only betrayed us as a people. On their way out from our homeland, they handed us to the Indian people despite our desperate plea to leave us alone as in earlier times---free and independent. As such, the Nagas are still left with some lingering questions in their minds: Is it morally right for the British to repay the Naga people this way? On what basis could the British government claim that the Naga homeland legally became theirs? Who gave them the authority or the rights to give away the Naga homeland to anyone they wanted? For that matter, is it justifiable for India to claim something that was illegally given to them by the British? As for the Nagas, their position has always been very clear and consistent: that they have never given up the ownership rights of their ancestral homeland to anyone else at any point in history, because they have always had an inseparable belief in UrraUvie, which literally means “our homeland is ours.”