Surveying and producing the frontier in nineteenth century Manipur: challenges and practices

ABSTRACT

The second half of the nineteenth century was a turning point in the history of modern Manipur when it collaborated with the British in the first Anglo-Burmese War of 1824. With the conclusion of the treaty of Yandaboo 1826, Manipur was transformed into a frontier zone. In this backdrop, the paper explores the pre-colonial notion of territory and how it competed with the European notions of space. Boundaries were fluid, and land was perceived more in terms of people and social relations. The paper also highlights the impact of state formation and territorialisation on identity formation by referring to the changes in the management of the hills and the valley after the 1891 Anglo-Manipuri War. Demarcation of land and boundaries submitted to the logic of rule and control which resulted in the classification of land and people into far more rigid categories like the separate management of the hills and the valley.

KEYWORDS:

• Frontier
• maps
• Manipur
• Burma
• territoriality
• boundaries
• demarcation
• Cheitharol kumpaba
• lalup

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Arambam, ‘Preface,’ ii.

2. Parratt, Notes on Meithei (Manipuri) Beliefs and Customs, 5–10.

3. Arambam, ‘Preface,’ iii.

4. Ibid., 4.

5. Arambam, ‘Manipur- A Ritual Theatre State (Coronation Model and Concept of Welfare),’ 57–58.

6. Singh, The Manipur Administration (1709–1907), 150.

7. Parratt, ‘Notes on Meithei (Manipuri) Beliefs and Customs,’ 138–140.

8. Winichakul, Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation.

9. Pemberton, The Eastern Frontier of India, 20.

10. Bahadur and Singh, ‘Epigraphical Records of Manipur,’ ii, iii, 26.

11. Rennell, Memoir of a Map of Hindoostan, 295.

12. Embree, Imagining India: Essays on Indian History, 80.

13. Barrow, Making History, Drawing Territory: British Mapping in India, C. 1756–1905, 1–2.

14. See above 9., 2.

15. Hall, Burma, 70.

16. Devi, British Political Agency in Manipur (1835–19,470), 52.

17. Allen, Naga Hills and Manipur: Socio-Economic History, 118.

18. Shakespeare, Manipur Under British Management, 1891–1907, 10.

19. Singh, The Manipur Administration (1709–1907), 174–175.

20. Johnstone, Manipur and Naga Hills, xxvii, 113–114.

21. Paratt, The Court Chronicle of the Kings of Manipur: The Cheitharon Kumpapa, 130, 134.

22. See above 16., 55.

23. Parratt, ‘Notes on Meithei (Manipuri) Beliefs and Customs,’ 123.

24. Thangjam, ‘Colonial Administration, Knowledge and Intervention: Colonial Project of Ethnicization in Manipur,’ 21.

25. Kamei, ‘Colonial Policy and Practice in Manipur,’ 1.

26. Ibid., 26–27.

27. Ibid., 18–19.

28. Foreign Dept., 26 October 1889, 5–7.

29. Foreign Dept., K. W., External A, August 1892, Nos. 231–243.

30. Foreign Department, External A, August, Nos. 268–277.

31. Rumanny, ‘The Nagas,’ 6–7.

32. Mackenzie, ‘The Northeast Frontier of India,’ 107.

33. Foreign Department, Political A, June 1873, No. 29–49.

34. Assam Secretariat Proceedings, File No. 159J of 1876.

35. See Hill and Hitchcock, ‘Anthropology’ where they argue that in terms of ethnographic mapping, parts of northeast India, along with southern China and Taiwan, belong to Southeast Asia, and David Zou, ‘Mapping Frontier History: The “Geo-Body” and Enclavement of Colonial Northeast India.’

36. Schendel, ‘Geographies of Knowing, Geographies of Ignorance: Jumping Scale in Southeast Asia,’ 647–668.

37. Horowitz, ‘Ethnic Groups in Conflict,’ 70.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thingnam Sanjeev

Dr Thingnam Sanjeev is an Assistant Archivist at National Archives of India, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, Janpath, New Delhi, India. He obtained his PhD from the Department of History and Culture, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. His main research interests are mostly on state-making, territory, boundaries, cartography, archival science, and military history.