View source for Mizoram, 1872: North-Eastern Frontier

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This article is an extract from <br/>


'''THE LUSHAI EXPEDITION '''  <br/>
1871-1872<br/>

BY<br/>
R.G. WOODTHORPE.<br/>
LIEUT. ROYAL ENGINEERS.<br/>

LONDON:<br/>
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, <br/>
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.<br/>

1873.<br/>
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[[Category:India|M ]]
[[Category:Places|M ]]
=North-Eastern Frontier=
The North-eastern frontier of India has 
ever been a fruitful source of trouble and 
expense to the Government of this Empire. 
The history of each district on this frontier, 
whether prior or subsequent to its annex- 
ation as a portion of British territory, is 
almost the same. Bordered by, or forming part 
of hill districts, inhabited by fierce and predatory 
tribes for ever making raids on their neighbours' 
villages, burning and plundering them, and 
carrying off the inhabitants — it was not to be 
supposed that those under our protection should 
escape. 

When, in consequence of outrages on British 
subjects, the Indian Government has been forced 
to take steps for their protection, its policy 
towards the offenders has generally been one of 
conciliation rather than retaliation. The success 
which has usually followed the adoption of this 
policy seems to be the best argument in its 
favour. 

While, at the same time, establishing and 
maintaining frontier guards to check any out- 
rage as far as possible, annual payments are 
made to the chiefs of tribes, or, in the case 
of a democracy to the community — not in order 
to enable them to organize among themselves a 
force for the preservation of order, but that the 
well-disposed among them may influence the 
more turbulent spirits to the prevention of any 
infringement of the treaties or agreements made 
with them on granting the annual allowances. 

On the annexation of a district, the rights of 
the Hillmen are always scrupulously respected, 
any losses they sustain being made good to them ; 
and by opening up fresh avenues of trade and 
commerce to them, they are led to see that a 
peaceable attitude towards us is more profitable 
for themselves than one of aggression. 
==Uncivilized Tribes==

The allowances to those over whom we do 
not assume government, are supposed, in the 
words of the Indian Government itself, " to 
be sufficient to compensate the tribes, in their 
own estimation, for the advantage they might 
gain by the occasional plunder of a border 
village — an advantage which they well know is 
materially qualified by the risk of reprisals.’’

It appears that in the last century some fierce 
tribes, who had been the terror of the surround- 
ing country, and whom successive military 
expeditions had failed to subdue, were induced 
by an annual payment, conditional on good 
conduct, to become quiet and peaceable neigh- 
bours. 

" What is of the utmost importance in dealing 
with uncivilized tribes is patience. No one 
supposes that their civilization is to be effected 
in a few years, and no one expects that, in 
endeavouring to conciliate them, the Govern- 
ment will not meet with occasional disappoint- 
ment; but the policy is none the less on this 
account sound and intelligible." 

Thus spoke Government in 1865, and the 
policy thus indicated will be carried out with 
reference to the Lushais. Of course, a policy 
of conciliation would be ineffectual, without im- 
pressing on the tribes a conviction of our power 
to punish them if necessary; and in many 
cases, as in the present instance, we have been 
obliged to do so before adopting this policy 
of peace. 

The Government does not wish to extermi- 
nate these frontier tribes, but by converting 
them into our allies to raise a barrier between 
our frontier districts and other more distant 
races. Supposing a tribe to be utterly crushed 
or exterminated, we should find ourselves no 
better off than before — probably much worse, 
having merely removed obstacles to the assaults 
of a fiercer and more formidable foe, whose 
very remoteness would render it difficult for us 
to conciliate or punish him. 
==Cachar Proper==

I do not propose to enter into an account 
of the raids or consequent expeditions which 
have been made at various times in the different 
districts of our North-eastern frontier, but con- 
fine myself to a brief narrative of those which 
have taken place in Cachar since its annexation ; 
as to avenge the late raids there, and by securing 
the peace of that frontier, to enable the tea- 
planters, on Government grants, and their 
labourers, to follow their occupation in safety, 
were the objects proposed by Government to 
the Commanders of the Lushai Expedition of 
1871-72. 

The district of Cachar Proper, as it is called, 
was annexed to the British dominions about 
1832, after the death of its legitimate rajah, 
Gobind Chundra* It is bounded on the north 
by the hills known as the North Cachar Hills; 
on the west by the British district of Sylbet; 
on the east by the western bank of the Jiri 
River to its junction with the Barak, near 
Luckipur, and thence by the western bank of 
the Barak as far as Tipai Mukh, where a stone 
pillar, erected by the Revenue Survey, marks 
the tri-junction of Munipur, Cachar, and the 
Lushai hills. The coast boundary line on the 
south is still rather indefinite. 

The whole of the Northern half of Cachar is 
more or less under cultivation at present, and 
well populated. The country is tolerably 
level, broken here and there by low tilas (small 
hais) of about two hundred feet in height, and 
intersected by the Sonai, Rukni, and Dullesur 
rivers, which, rising in the southern hills, flow 
through Cachar to join the Barak. Large bheels, 
or swamps, high grass jungle, and bad roads, 
however, render communication between the 
different gardens a matter of some diffi- 
culty. 

To the East rises the great Buban range, 
which, commencing a little south of Luckipur, 
and running nearly parallel to the general course 
of the Barak towards the southern boundary 
of Cachar, attains at several points an eleva- 
tion of four thousand feet, and is clothed 
throughout with thick forest jungle. 

A few of the Lushai ranges rise in the south 
of Cachar, These are the'Noonvai and Reng- 
tipahar, and on the western boundary the lofty 
range of the Chatarchara; but between these 
the whole of South Cachar is a succession of 
dangerous swamps and low broken ranges, 
covered with the densest jungle. 
==Tea-Gardens==
The tea-gardens, which were originally con- 
fined to the northern part of the district, have 
of late years been sweeping further and further 
south, as enterprising individuals have been 
found to take grants from Government for the 
cultivation of the tea-plant. 

These isolated gardens, small clearings in 
the heart of the jungles, possessing few means 
of communication with the outer world, offer 
peculiar temptations to raiders ; especially as in 
the bungalows of many of the planters are 
kept large stands of ancient guns, to inspire 
confidence in the labourers in the gardens, but 
to obtain possession of which the Lushais would 
think few efforts and sacrifices too great; and 
it is in these gardens, as we shall see, that the 
principal outrages have of late years been com- 
mitted. 

The lofty hills to the south of Munipur, 
Cachar, and a portion of the territory to the 
south-west of Cachar, known as Independent or 
Hill Tipperah, have been held by various families 
of the Kookie tribe from the earliest times of 
which we have any record. 

The name Kookie has been given to this great 
tribe, as Mr. Edgar tells us, by the Bengalis, 
and is not recognized by the Hillmen them- 
selves. He says : — 

" I have never found any trace of a common 
name for the tribe among them,' although they 
seem to consider different families as belonging 
to a single group, which is certainly coex- 
tensive with what we call the Kookie tribe." 

The principal families with whom we first 
came in contact, were the Tangune, Chausels, 
Ladoe, and Poitoo Kookies. All authorities 
agree in stating that from a very early period, 
the tribes to the south have been gradually 
driving one another in a northern direction; 
formerly the Buban Hills and a portion of South 
Cachar were occupied by some members of a 
race called Nagas ; but these were obliged, by the 
Tangunes, to withdraw to the North Cachar hills. 

The Tangunes, occupying their ground, were 
in their turn dispossessed and driven to the 
northern hills by the Chausels and Ladoes. 
These have likewise been compelled to retire 
northward by the Lushais. 

The Poitoo Kookies inhabited the hills on 
each side of the valley of the Gootur river, and 
were supposed to be more or less subject to 
the Rajah of Tipperah. The relations existing 
between the Poitoo chief and the Eajah were, 
however, repudiated on occasion by each. 

The Lushais first appeared on the scene 
about the year 1840, the first chief of whom 
we had any knowledge being Lalal ; from whom 
are descended the chiefs who have lately been 
the cause of so much anxiety to the Indian 
Government. 

He had four sons. Of these, when we first 
hear of them, Mongpir was struggling in the 
west against the Poitoos, to establish himself on 
the Chatarchara range; Lalingvoom was ruling 
the villages south of the hill known as Peak Z, 
in the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India ; 
while Lalsavoong was striving with the Ladoes 
in the east for possession of the Chumfai valley 
and range to the north of it. 

In 1844, an attack was made on a village of 
Sylhet by some Poitoo Kookies, under a chief 
named Lalchokla, when twenty human heads 
and six live captives were carried off. It was 
said that the raid was made to procure heads 
to bury with a chief who had lately died. 

The Rajah of Tipperah was called upon by 
the Government to assist in punishing Lalchokla 
and recovering the captives; but as his co- 
operation was very unsatisfactory, and the steps 
he took manifestly inadequate to accomplish their 
object, a party of troops, under Captain Black- 
wood, proceeded vi& Koilashur, on the 1st of 
December, to attack Lalchokla's village. 

Assisted by a Kookie chief, our troops ar- 
rived at the village and surrounded it, and by 
destroying the grain in the country around, the 
Poitoo chief was speedily reduced to submission, 
and surrendered on the 4th. He confessed to 
the raid, but professed ignorance of the fact 
that it had been made on British subjects. This 
plea of ignorance was not admitted, and he 
was eventually transported for life. 
==Expedition Organized==
It has been said that one of the conditions 
of his surrender was that his life would be 
spared. This he took to mean a free pardon; 
consequently the Kookies looked upon his trans
portation as a breach of faith on our part. This 
is alleged as one reason for the difficulty ex- 
perienced during the late Expedition in inducing 
chiefs to come in personally to make their sub- 
mission. 

We next hear, in November, 1849, of some 
raids made simultaneously in Sylhet, Tipperah, 
and Cachar. The raid in the latter district was 
made by Lalingvoom's son. Mora, on some 
Ladoe villages not far from the station ; and 
to punish these outrages an Expedition was 
organized, and the command entrusted to 
Colonel Lister, Political Agent in the Khasia 
Hills, and Commandant of the Sylhet Light 
Infantry. 

The Expedition started from Cachar on the 
4th of January, 1850, and marching nearly due 
south, on the 14th, arrived at the large village 
of Mora or Moolla, which Colonel Lister at once at- 
tacked and destroyed. Most of the inhabitants 
managed to escape, but about four hundred 
captives were released; and proofs were found 
identifying the villagers with the Sylhet raiders. 
Colonel Lister remained a short time on the 
range, but deeming his force too small for any 
further operations, he returned to Cachar on 
the 23rd. 

The Lushais, during his stay, annoyed him 
by firing into his camp, endeavouring to cut 
off his communications, and when he retired, 
followed him, killing any straggling coolies they 
came across. 

Colonel Lister considered that, in order to 
make a permanent impression on the tribes, a 
force of not less than three thousand men would 
be required, " and to command their villages, 
a road would have to be carried into the heart 
of the country, along one of the ridges of hills 
which ran north and south. As a protective 
measure, the establishment of armed outposts 
of friendly Kookies along the frontier was 
advocated.'' 

This question of opening a road through from 
end to end of the country, is again being urged 
upon Government as one of the first things 
necessary, in order to reap permanent ad- 
vantages from the success of this last expedition 
of 1871-72. 
==Colonel Lister's Recommendattons==

Colonel Lister also recommended the forma- 
tion of a Kookie levy to be employed as scouts 
in the southern jungles, to collect information 
concerning the Lushais, and the events which 
were occurring on the other side of our frontier, 
as well as to keep a watch over the Kookies in 
our own territory and Munipur. 

Government approved of all Colonel Lister's 
recommendations, and suggested opening up ne- 
gotiations with the Lushai Chief* The Kookie 
levy was raised in June, 1850. 

The special objects for which it was raised 
seem to have soon been lost sight of, as we find 
the establishment of the Kookie scouts abolished 
in 1860, and the levy handed over to the police. 
In the endeavour to make them well drilled 
soldiers, they gradually lost their special quali- 
fications as scouts and trackers, and the Kookie 
constables who accompanied the left column, 
proved utterly useless for the work which should 
have been theirs, and for which they were ex- 
pressly intended. 

The consequence of the abolition of a body of 
scouts was the increasing ignorance on the part 
of the authorities of what was going on among 
the Kookies and Lushais — for information con- 
cerning whom they were obliged to rely upon 
one man, a kookie, named Maujihow, who, as it 
has since been discovered, deceived them on 
several important occasions. 

The results, nevertheless, of Colonel Lister's 
Expedition were very great, as no raids occurred 
either in Sylhet or Cachar till 1862 ; and in the 
meantime negotiations had been conducted be- 
tween the Cachar authorities and the Lushai 
chiefs. 

In October, 1850, five Lushai chiefs sent de- 
puties into Cachar with friendly overtures to the 
Superintendent, who sent a party down to meet 
the Lushais. This party returned, accompanied 
by the Muntri (ambassador) of Sukpilal, the 
great chief of the Western Lushais. 

When the Lushais returned to their own country, 
the Superintendent sent an emissary with them, 
with friendly messages to the chief, and as- 
surances that if he went into Cachar he should 
not be injured nor detained. 
==Sukpilal==
Sukpilal was supposed to have visited Cachar 
in December, but Mr. Edgar thinks, as this visit 
is denied by all the Kookies, that finding that 
presents would only be given to Sukpilal himself 
some one was got to personate that chief. The 
result, however, was the establishment of trading 
relations between the natives of Hyrapandy and 
the Lushais. 

In 1855, Sukpilal sent in to the Superin- 
tendent for assistance against some neighbour- 
ing chiefs. Government, however, refused to 
interfere in the quarrels of tribes living beyond 
our frontier. 

Mora also sent in a deputation for help to 
secure the exchange of prisoners between himself 
and the Munipuris, on whom some raids had been 
committed; and this help we were ready to 
afford him.