Sending out the spears:

Zeliangrong movement, Naga

Club and a nation in the making

John Thomas
Union Christian College, Aluva, Kerala

In the 1920s and 30s, the Naga areas comprising Naga Hills and the adjoining Naga inhabited
hill tracts of Manipur witnessed two important initiatives which were to become integral to
the imagining and making of a Naga nation: the movement among the Rongmeis, Liangmeis
and Zemes under the leadership of Jadonang and later Gaidinliu—popularly known as the
Zeliangrong movement—and the programmes and activities of the Naga Club. Both the
Zeliangrong movement and the Naga Club had a history and trajectory of their own but at
the same time, faced with situations that seemed to threaten their way of life, they envisioned
and anticipated a moment when Nagas would be united as a single political entity indepen-
dent from the kingdoms of the plains and other external political authorities. This article
looks closely at these initiatives, their shared and particular histories, how they made sense
of and negotiated with their existing reality, and finally the visions they had of their antici-
pated Naga nation. The article concludes by briefly looking at how and why the Naga na-
tional movement, in the later decades of twentieth century, came to privilege one initiative
over the other.

Keywords: Nagas, nationality movement, religion, north-east, colonialism

The Meiteis have their King, the Indian! (Tajongmei) have their rulers, why
should we not have our own King? The white men and we are all human beings.
Why should we be afraid of them? All men are equal. We are blessed people.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Tanika Sakar and Nandita Haksar for their valuable com-
ments and suggestions on this article. I would also like to thank those who commented on the
paper at the History Association Conference on Exploring the Margins at the Centre for Historical
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 3–5 September 2009, especially the discussant
of the paper, Prathama Banerjee.

The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49, 3 (2012): 399–437
SAGE Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DC
DOI: 10.1177/0019464612455274
400 / JOHN THOMAS

Our days have come. Our powerful weapons are kept hidden by god at Zeliad.
We shall pray and worship god. With His grace we shall become rulers.
—Jadonang1

You are the only people who have ever conquered us and, when you go we
should be as we were.
—A Naga Club member to the Simon Commission2

In 1880 the village of Khonoma, along with 13 other Angami villages, fought the
last decisive battle against the British. They besieged the British garrison in Kohima
but were compelled to retreat following the arrival of military reinforcements
from Manipur. Subsequently, although with much difficulty and suffering heavy
casualty, the British attacked Khonoma and razed it to the ground. The villagers
evacuated and moved further up the Barail range to a safer location. The British
claimed victory and consolidated its control over the Naga Hills. Unaccustomed
to living as subjects of any political authority, the Khonoma villagers waited pa-
tiently for another opportunity to strike back.3
Almost 50 years later, in the early-1930s, one such opportunity arose. Some
men from Khonoma had come in touch with a movement being organised against
the British in the north-west hill tracts of Manipur. It was led by a Rongmei Naga
named Jadonang. The Rongmeis were keen to extend their solidarity. After all,
Rongmeis and Angamis traced their origins to the same ancestor and had also
maintained close economic relations with one another. There was no reason why
the Angamis should not join them to overthrow the British. However, the Khonoma
village council remained rather hesitant to express its solidarity with the move-
ment. After a series of intense discussions, it resolved that an alliance with Jadonang
would be unwise. They felt that while it was legitimate to fight the British, the
whole concept of a kingdom that Jadonang proclaimed was inimical to the exist-
ing Naga political life centred on village councils. Eventually the British would
be driven out, but would it not be replaced by Jadonang’s rule rather than the kind
of village democracies that existed among the Nagas?4 Another factor that may
have hindered the village council from expressing its solidarity with the move-
ment could have been its preference for another initiative that was put forward
around the same time for forging greater integration among the Naga tribes and
working towards political independence: the Naga Club. Some of the Khonoma
villagers were part of the Naga Club and their influence would not have been
insignificant.
1
Quoted in Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 150.
2
Elwin, Nagaland, p. 49.
3
Johnstone, My Experiences in Manipur and Naga Hills, pp. 139–75.
4
Kamei, Jadonang, p. 40.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 401

Clearly, Khonoma was divided on who to express its solidarity with and how.
There was much speculation and debate. Khonoma was not an exception in this
regard. Many other villages bordering the Naga Hills and Manipur at the time
also grappled with similar concerns. While all agreed on the immediate political
need to forge unity among the Naga tribes and ward off colonial incursions, there
was much debate in each village on how this should be achieved and the nature of
the political entity they should be aspiring for. Pulled into the cultural and politi-
cal whirlwind of the time, triggered by colonialism, these debates pertaining to
their political future represented the birth pangs of a [Naga] nation in the making.
The movement among the Zeliangrong tribes—which included the Rongmei,
Liangmei and Zeme Nagas, under the leadership of Jadonang and later Gaidinliu—
and the initiatives taken by the Naga Club, a group comprising largely of the
emergent middle class, were two early attempts among Nagas to think of them-
selves as a modern political entity, which in subsequent periods came to be de-
fined as a nation. Both events occurred in the late-1920s and early-1930s. While
the movement among the Zeliangrong tribes occurred primarily in the Naga in-
habited hill tracts in the north-western region of Manipur, the Naga Club was
active in the adjoining Naga Hills. Although under two different administrative
jurisdictions, carved out by the British and the Manipur Raja in the nineteenth
century, the Nagas in both regions not only lived in close proximity, maintaining
close economic relations, but also drew their ethnicity from a common ancestor.
These two political initiatives have been written about widely.5 However, they
have most often been wrenched out of their contexts and written about indepen-
dent of each other, as if both inhabited two very distinct times and spaces, far
apart from each other, with no shared history, agenda or concerns whatsoever.
The Zeliangrong movement, for instance, has often been framed within the ‘tribal
history’ of India, along with various other tribal movements that came up in the
Indian sub-continent during the first half of the twentieth century, wherein it is
represented as a ‘nativistic’ movement seeking to ‘revive the pure and pristine
elements of tribal culture’.6 Moreover, based on some utterances made by Jadonang
in praise of Gandhi and his efforts to meet the latter, it is also appropriated within
the history of the Indian nationalist struggle against the British.7 The campaign
that Nehru and other Indian nationalists initiated for the release of Gaidinliu, who
was imprisoned by the British, and the close association she shared with the
Indian government after the 1940s has also contributed towards the appropriation
of this movement within the Indian nationalist narrative.8 The overtures of the

5
Some of the more notable works include: On Jadonang’s movement, Fuchs, Rebellious Prophets;
Kamei, Jadonang; Singh (ed.), Tribal Movements in India; Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British;
on the Naga Club, Elwin, Nagaland; Shimray, Let Freedom Ring; Yonuo, The Rising Nagas.
6
Singh, Tribal Movements in India, p. xii.
7
Mukherjee et al., ‘The Zeliangrong or Haomei Movement’, pp. 67–96.
8
Ibid., pp. 67–96.

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402 / JOHN THOMAS

Vishwa Hindu Parishad towards the Zeliangrong Heraka Association since the
late 1960s,9 with the objective of manufacturing age-old relations between the
Zeliangrong Nagas and a larger ‘Hindu’ civilisation, were also geared to lay claim
to this movement. The movement was represented as an attempt made by ‘Hindu’
Nagas, ‘anxious to preserve their traditional customs and religion’ in the face of
Christian proselytism.10 Finally, while Jadonang’s movement was clearly opposed
to both, the kingdoms of the plains and the British, and was one that declared a
‘Naga Raj’, there has also been an attempt to appropriate it within the larger his-
tory of Manipur and its struggle against the British. In this reading, Jadonang is
portrayed as the ‘pioneer freedom fighter of Manipur’ and his movement as one
that ‘stood for the cause of Manipur’. This is an appropriation that is most evident
in the school history text-books and other official histories produced by the Manipur
state.11
The programmes and activities of the Naga Club, on the other hand, have come
to be associated with the history of ‘insurgent movements’ in India.12 They
have often been portrayed as an instance of failure of tribals to integrate with the
Indian national self, a product of the Naga ‘inability to adjust themselves to
the emerging socio-political situations on the eve of Indian independence and the
impending withdrawal of British administration, which they thought gave them a
measure of special protection and some privileges’.13 Comprised largely of mis-
sion school educated Nagas and demanding a clear separation from the plains, the
Naga Club is represented as the ‘illegitimate’ heir of a tribal movement. Mean-
while, for the Naga national movement, the Naga Club has become the point of
departure for their national movement and consciousness, the first articulation of
a Naga political identity.14
As this article argues, both these initiatives were different from each other and
had distinct trajectories, which most of the time could not come to terms with
each other, and remained more or less autonomous. However, despite these dif-
ferences, both came from a shared material culture and historical experience.
Since the nineteenth century, people inhabiting the spaces of these events were
continuously drawn into a world that lay beyond their village communities—a
world controlled by forces and gods beyond their grasp. Thanks to the mediation

9
An organization formed by Gaidinliu to safeguard the religious faith called Heraka, which she
and Jadonang had developed.
10
Shukla, What Ails India’s North-East? p. 100.
11
Notice how Jadonang and his movement is commemorated by the ministers (primarily those
belonging to the Meitei community) of the Manipur state in recent years: http://www.northeasttoday.in/
our-states/manipur/80th-death-anniversary-of-freedom-fighter-haipou-jadonang/ and http://kangla
online.com/2010/08/haipou-jadonang-remembered-on-anniversary/, accessed 10 May 2012.
12
Dubey, ‘Inter-Ethnic Alliance, Tribal Movements and Integration in Northeast India’, pp. 1–25.
13
Das, ‘The Naga Movement’, p. 39.
14
Shimray, Let Freedom Ring, pp. 49–82.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 403

of the colonial state and the American Baptist missionaries, they witnessed their
villages undergoing vast changes, their existing ceremonial and cultural practices
fossilised or ridiculed, and the integrity of their traditions and community life
broken. In these circumstances, they were eager to find meaning in their own
existence and do all that was in their ability to re-define and articulate their
identity. In doing so, some found it useful to appropriate the discourses and tools
of the coloniser, while others found it more meaningful to draw and improve
upon their existing beliefs and traditions. It is in this shared historical context,
marked by the cultural and political strivings of a people trying to make sense of
who they are and what they want, that we need to locate the movement under
Jadonang and the Naga Club.

Contrary to Stephen Fuchs’ understanding, the Zeliangrong movement did not

originate among the Cacharis but among the Nagas.15 It began among the Rongmei
Nagas and later spread to the Liangmei and Zeme Nagas from the late-1920s
onwards. Tracing their lineage back to common parents, family and clan, the
Rongmeis, Liangmeis and Zemes collectively call themselves Zeliangrong. In
the first half of the twentieth century, the Rongmeis were found in the north-
western hill tracts of Manipur, the Imphal valley and the North Cachar Hills. The
Liangmeis were also found in the north-western hill tracts of Manipur and to a
small extent in the south-eastern region of the Naga Hills. The Zemes were found
in the south-eastern region of the Naga Hills and the North Cachar Hills. In colo-
nial writings, the Rongmeis are often referred to as ‘Kabui Nagas’, while the
Liangmeis and the Zemes as ‘Kacha Nagas’, though there were also instances
where all three were referred to as ‘Kacha Nagas’ (see Map A and Map B).
Following the Kuki Rebellion of 1917–1919, the colonial officials in Manipur
felt that ‘a change in the method of administration is necessary, so that the control
of Government over the tribes may be strengthened’.16 This led to the colonial
state asserting far greater control over the hill areas of Manipur. The hill areas
were divided up into three sub-divisions: south-west, north-west and north-east
areas with Churachandpur, Tamenglong and Ukhrul as their respective headquar-
ters. Each sub-division would be administered by a sub-divisional officer (SDO),
under the control of the president of the darbar and the political agent at Imphal.
The SDOs would either be British or Anglo-Indians.17 As the chief commissioner
of Assam, Nicholas Beatson-Bell indicated, ‘these men, working under the
British President, would reside in their areas all the year round, open up roads,
15
Fuchs, Rebellious Prophets, pp. 147–56.
16
Ogilvie, Revised rules for the future.
17
Reid, History of the Frontier Areas, p. 83.

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 Map A
Map Showing the Various Places and Regions in Assam, Manipur and Naga Hills 404 / JOHN THOMAS

The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49, 3 (2012): 399–437
Source: Johnstone, My Experiences in Manipur and Naga Hills.
 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 405

Map B
Map Showing the Regions Inhabited by Naga Tribes that Came Under
the Influence of Zeliangrong Movement, and Where Naga Club was Active

Source: Hutton, Angami Nagas, London, 1921.

administer simple justice, set up schools and hospitals, and generally act as
fathers to hillmen and restore their confidence in the British Raj’.18
The colonial officials felt that ‘one of the great obstacles to proper touring in
the hills, and therefore to proper dealings with the tribes, has been the difficulty
of moving at all owing to the want of roads and paths’.19 Therefore, opening up of
roads and bridle paths through the hills was highly recommended. And the state
would rely on the free forced labour of the villagers in the building of these roads.20
In the north-west sub-division, which was inhabited largely by the Rongmeis and
Liangmeis, the villagers had to render free labour for the repair and maintenance

18
Beatson-Bell, Chief Commissioner of Assam to the Viceroy.
19
Webster, Chief Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Assam.
20
Ibid.

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406 / JOHN THOMAS

of the Cachar Road from Bishnupur to Jirighat.21 Besides the building of roads
and bridle paths, promotion of education and medical facilities were seen as ef-
fective ways of creating an appreciation among the hill people for the British rule
and for this the chief commissioner hoped ‘to obtain aid from the missionaries
who already have a footing among the Tangkhul Nagas’.22
The imposition of a heavy taxation and the demands of free and forced labour
made on the villagers however represented the harsher physical experience of the
administrative incursions of the colonial state into the hills. The house tax of `3,
which was forcibly imposed and collected on all houses in the hills, and the levy
imposed on villages to meet the costs of government officials touring the hill
villages, known as pottang senkhai, was too high for most villagers to pay. Colo-
nial officials themselves admit that the revenue derived directly from the hill
tribes in the form of house taxes amounted to about `70,000 a year while the ex-
penditure on the hills ranged only between `17,000 and `19,000.23 Failure to pay
taxes and other levies was often met with imposition of forced labour. Earlier, the
Manipur kingdom practised a system called lallup, which imposed forced labour
on the hill people. Although the British abolished it, it was soon replaced by
another system of forced labour known as pothang begari, wherein villagers pro-
vided services to all touring government officials and soldiers. The services could
be from carrying the baggage to doing any other work the touring officials re-
quired them to do.24
Under the colonial state, the government officials who wielded real power and
related to the people at the local level were the lower-rung government officials
such as the lambus, road muhorrirs and peons. While the lambus were interpre-
ters or intermediaries between the colonial officials and the people, road muhorrirs
supervised the road building, repair and maintenance. Caste was prevalent among
the Meiteis because of which, as one of the colonial officials commented, ‘in the
eyes of a Manipuri, a hillman is on altogether a lower plane of human life’.25
Since most of the lambus and the muhorrirs were Meiteis, caste shaped their
oppressive attitudes and actions towards the hill people. It was common for the
muhorrirs to subject the people to flogging and other forms of physical abuse
during road repairs.26 Even prior to the British assuming control over the hills,
the lambus had already gained quite an infamous reputation. They were used by
the Manipur kingdom to extract as much tribute as possible from the people, to
supervise the lallup system, and they were instrumental in pitting one community

21
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, pp. 145–46.
22
Webster, Chief Commissioner of Assam to the Viceroy.
23
Ibid.
24
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, pp. 145–46.
25
Reid, History of the Frontier Areas, p. 87.
26
Ibid., p. 146.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 407

or village against the other when tributes were not paid.27 After the British as-
sumed political control over the hills, the lambus continued to be important state
functionaries in the administration of the hills. They had become immensely cor-
rupt and, as agents of colonial power, their ability to exploit and control the hill
people went unchecked.28
The migration of the Kukis towards Cachar, Manipur and the Naga Hills, and
the subsequent state policies towards the settlement of Kukis over the nineteenth
century also created much conflict and tension over land among the hill people. It
was in the seventeenth century, and even more prominently from the second half
of the eighteenth century, that the Kukis began migrating to the south-eastern
portion of what may be referred to today as Manipur.29 In the 1780s, the Manipur
Raja, Jai Singh, conducted two expeditions against the Kukis to dispel them from
the region. Although the Raja is said to have been victorious in his mission at the
time, the British captain, R.B. Pemberton, wrote in the 1830s that the Kukis had
taken up residence in the area stretching from the southern borders of the Manipur
valley to the northern limit of the kingdom of Arracan.30 By the 1830s, the Kukis
had reportedly migrated northwards, towards north-west Manipur, North Cachar
Hills and Naga Hills, in large numbers. Pemberton writes:

From the accounts of the Kupooee tribe it appears certain, that the Kookies
have been gradually advancing for years in a northerly direction, and have
hitherto established themselves on the ranges which were originally occupied
by more northern tribes, or committed such fearful aggressions upon the latter,
as to compel them to retire and leave an unoccupied tract between themselves
and these formidable opponents.31

Mackenzie cites the advance of a ‘more powerful people from the unexplored
country between British territory and Burma’, which most probably would have
been the Lushais, as the principal cause of this migration northwards.32 In the
nineteenth century, two major waves of Kuki migrations to the hills of North
Cachar happened, one in 1846–1847 and the other in 1851–1852. With the increas-
ing migration and remarkable changes in the demography, the colonial state was
keen to settle the Kukis and there was an overwhelming feeling among the colo-
nial officials that Kukis should be utilised as a ‘buffer’ or ‘screen’ between the
plains and the Nagas, especially the Angamis.33 As a result of which, in 1856–1857

27
Ibid., p. 88.
28
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 146.
29
Ibid., p. 63.
30
Pemberton, Report on the Eastern Frontier, p. 15.
31
Ibid., p. 17.
32
Mackenzie, History of the Relations, p. 146.
33
Ibid., p. 146.

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408 / JOHN THOMAS

Kukis were granted land to the east of North Cachar beyond the Langting river,
which would be rent-free for a period of 10 and later 25 years. Moreover, they
were also supplied with firearms and other ammunitions to ward off raids, prob-
ably from the Nagas.34 James Johnstone writes about massive migration of Kukis
into the hill tracts of Manipur in 1845, resulting in many of the older inhabitants,
primarily the Zeliangrongs and some others, fleeing the area.35 As in the case of
North Cachar, the political agent of Manipur at the time, Col. W. McCulloch,
used this moment to the advantage of the state. According to their numbers, he
settled and allotted the new migrants lands, sitting these quite critically in areas,
‘where their presence would be useful on exposed frontiers’.36 In other words,
they were once again used as a buffer that would ward off any threat the state
faced from the Nagas. Moreover, large sums of money were advanced to them
and different duties were assigned to them. While some were made into irregular
troops, others were drafted into carrying loads for the state.37
The settlement of the Kukis by the colonial state further reinforced the grow-
ing animosity between the Kukis and the Nagas. While the migration and settle-
ment of the Kukis was resented by the Nagas, resulting in armed confrontations
between the two over land and forests, the situation was exploited by the colonial
state to further its control over the hill tracts. In subsequent years, the colonial
state used the Kukis and the Nagas against each other in case one of the two re-
belled. For instance, Kukis were used to suppress the rebellion of 1879–1880
among the Angamis and many of the Nagas who had just returned after serving as
labour corps in France during the First World War were used to suppress the Kuki
rebellion of 1917–1919. Located within this larger history of conflict, the Kuki
rebellion, while being against the British rule and the Manipur kingdom, also
involved attacks on Nagas, especially the Zeliangrongs. Even during the initial
stages of the rebellion, several Zeliangrong villages were attacked and people
killed.38 Indeed, the use of Zeliangrong villages as bases by the Assam Rifles did
not help the situation. One of the Kuki chiefs, Tintong Haokip, raided the Rongmei
village of Awangkhul in retaliation for their assistance to the village of Lukhambi
where some Kukis were attacked and their guns confiscated. The raid that led to
the death of 30 people was carried out while the men were in the fields and only
the women and children were present. In retaliation, Akhui, a powerful Rongmei
village attacked a nearby Kuki village, killing about a dozen Kukis. The above
mentioned Kuki chief in response attacked Akhui village, destroyed it, and about
76 people were killed.39 And yet there were also instances of Nagas reaching an
34
Ibid., p. 146.
35
Johnstone, My Experiences, p. 25.
36
Ibid., p. 26.
37
Ibid., p. 26.
38
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 134.
39
Ibid., pp. 136–37.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 409

understanding with the Singson chiefs among the Thadou Kukis where despite
provocations, they remained at peace.40 However, in general, the suspicion and
fear among the two communities intensified during the Kuki rebellion.
From the early 1920s onwards, Baptist Christianity had also begun to make its
presence felt among the Zeliangrong tribes. Among the Rongmeis, under the leader-
ship of Namrijinpou and Jinlakpou, about 20 families of Kaikao village had con-
verted to Christianity by 1922. There was tremendous opposition to the new
religion among the villagers, which eventually led to the new converts being driven
out of the village and the exiled Christians establishing a new village called
Sempang, a quarter of a mile away from the older village. In 1923, the first church
among the Rongmeis was established in Sempang and about 73 came forward for
baptism and Christian instruction.41 Under the leadership of two others, Huruang
and Laibam, about 20 families of Tamenglong village turned to Christianity, built
their own village and constructed their first church in 1930. There was much
opposition to the construction of this church and with the support of the SDO,
R.H. Shaw, whose personal animosity towards Christianity was great, it was de-
stroyed.42 By 1930, there were about 150 Christians among the Rongmeis.43 By
contrast, missionary activities were virtually absent among the Liangmeis during
this period. The American Baptist missionary C.G. Crozier, visited a Liangmei
village in 1930 and commented that no evangelistic work ‘has ever been done in
these villages before’ and there were only two Christians among them.44 Among
the Zemes, Christianity came through the Zeme students who studied in the mis-
sion school at Kohima during the first decade of the twentieth century. The first
church was established at Benreu village as a result of their efforts. By 1913,
there was a full-time Angami evangelist working among the Zemes.45 In 1930,
Crozier writes about finding 200 Christians among the ‘Kacha Nagas’ in the Naga
Hills, which most likely would have been Zemes.46 As it is evident from the above
description, the rate at which conversions to Christianity took place among the
Zeliangrong tribes was slow and it hardly had any significant presence among
the Zeliangrongs in the 1920s. Yet, the people were aware about the develop-
ments that were taking place among the other Naga tribes around them, espe-
cially about the tensions and conflicts the new religion was creating in some of
the tribes and villages.
Not only was Baptist Christianity making efforts to establish itself in the hill
tracts of Manipur, there were also efforts by the Raja of Manipur to send in Hindu

40
Ibid., p. 137.
41
Downs, The Mighty Works, p. 175.
42
Ibid., pp. 176–77.
43
Missions, June 1930, CBCNEI, Guwahati, Assam, p. 327.
44
Ibid., p. 327.
45
Downs, The Mighty Works, pp. 146–47.
46
Missions, p. 327.

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410 / JOHN THOMAS

missionaries into the hills. It is not clear as to when exactly the Raja of Manipur
proposed Hindu missionary work among the hill tribes, but it was in a letter dated
21 November 1929 that the political agent agreed to the Raja’s proposal, albeit
with certain conditions.47 The political agent felt that missionary activity could
lead to trouble as far as political rule over the hill tribes was concerned. He there-
fore laid out some conditions regarding proselytizing work: the missionaries should
be Manipur state subjects or converted hill people, since foreigners were liable to
create disturbances. As in the case of Christian missionaries, the Hindu mission-
aries were not entitled to demand transport, supplies or accommodation from the
hill people, or demand right to entrance to any village where the elders and vil-
lagers had objection, although they were free to preach outside the village bound-
aries. There could be no compulsion put on the hill people to change their religion;
the converts to Hinduism could not interfere with any of the existing rights and
customs of the hill people, for instance, cow slaughter and eating of beef, which
is integral to the culture of the people, could not be disallowed. As in the case of
Christian converts, Hindu converts in Naga villages will be compelled to form
new villages, outside the village boundary, in order to avoid disputes over con-
verts refusing to observe traditional customs. Finally, Hindu converts would be
compelled, as anyone else in a village, to carry out their share of communal labour
such as providing transport for government officials and the building and mainte-
nance of roads.48 Although it is not clear how far any of these conditions were
followed nor to what extent Hindu missionary activities were effective at all in
the hill tracts, the endeavour certainly had the encouragement of the Manipur
Raja.
Considering that Hinduism itself had by this time become much more stand-
ardised, with its own clear set of canons and doctrines, just like Christianity, the
1920s witnessed the presence of two dominant religions planning evangelising
missions at the doorsteps of the hill tribes. In these circumstances, there was a
real fear among the hill tribes, especially the Nagas, that their existing customs
and ceremonial practices would soon be discarded or subsumed within these two
larger religious formations. The effect that the coming of missionary Christianity
had on villages and tribes where there had been conversions was already very
familiar.
It was in this context that a Rongmei mhu49 named Jadonang undertook the
project of redefining the culture and the existing belief system of the Nagas and

47
Higgins J.C., Political Agent to Maharaja of Manipur, 21 November 1929, H.H. The Maharaja
of Manipur’s Proposal to Carry Out Hindu Missionary Work among the Hill Tribes, R-1/S-B/90,
1929. MSA, Imphal.
48
Ibid.
49
Jadonang is generally referred to as a maiba, which is a Meitei term. According to T.C. Hodson,
a maiba is someone who has the ability to interpret dreams and omens, and heal people who are sick.
He is reputed with the knowledge of indigenous medicines and medical practices. He or she is not a
priest and his or her profession or status is not in any way hereditary. He largely owes his or her

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 411

integrating it with their immediate material and political needs. Born into an ord-
inary peasant family at Puiluan village (called Kambiron by the Meiteis) in 1895,
Jadonang had an early exposure to the changes taking place in the economic, pol-
itical and cultural landscape of the Rongmeis. As his village was located on the
Cachar–Imphal bridle path, he often encountered large numbers of travellers from
far and near, sepoys and government officials who requisitioned villagers to carry
their baggage. Since friendly relations existed between Zeliangrong villages and
the Kuki villages under the Singson chiefs in the area, neither Jadonang nor the
village of Puiluan was directly affected by the Kuki rebellion. But he was surely
a witness to the heavy troop movement in the Cachar–Imphal bridle path at the
time.50 His father passed away when he was one and their mother raised him and
his brothers. As the youngest, his mother was particularly affectionate and caring
towards Jadonang.51 As a boy, he is said to have been contemplative and with-
drawn but gentle, compassionate and sensitive towards his surroundings.52
From a very young age he was acknowledged as someone possessing abilities
to interpret dreams and heal those who were sick. It was common for him to go
into a trance and communicate with the gods and spirits around him. It was be-
lieved that the gods gave him the prescriptions and directions for solving the
many ailments and problems faced by the people during such occasions. Subse-
quently, he was recognised as a messenger of the gods. When he was older, he
had a dream in which he was taken to the Bhuban Hills in North Cachar, where
Bisnu, the god of Bhuban Hills, appeared to him and instructed him to become a
muh. Jadonang now travelled widely in the Zeliangrong region, treating the sick,
praying for the dead and interpreting dreams. Soon, his popularity as a healer
among the people increased.53
During his travels across the Zeliangrong region, covering Cachar, North Cachar
Hills, western hill tracts of Manipur and the south-east region of the Naga Hills,
Jadonang became more and more conscious of the myriad problems faced by the
Nagas, particularly the Zeliangrongs—the burden of taxation, the free and forced
labour services, the arrogance of the British and Meitei government officials, and
the growing insecurity over land. He felt that it was not in the interest of the gods
to see the people suffer. Moreover, as a messenger of the gods, it was his respon-
sibility to lead the people out of their misery, free them from the control of the

position to his or her talents to conquer the forces of nature, Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur,
pp. 140–42; however, here he is referred to as a mhu, which is a Rongmei term. According to
Gangmumei Kamei, mhu is a more apt term to describe Jadonang as he was not just someone possessing
knowledge of indigenous medicine, but he was also a prophet and someone who could communicate
with the god and be a mediator between god and humans. Kamei, Jadonang, pp. 18, 103.
50
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 147.
51
Ibid., p. 147; Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British Rule, p. 39.
52
Pamei, The Trail from Makuilongdi, p. 39.
53
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against British, pp. 56–57; Kamei, The History of Zeliangrong Nagas,
pp. 147–49.

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412 / JOHN THOMAS

British and the Manipur Raja—the primary cause of all their suffering—and pro-
claim a ‘Naga Raj’ (Makam Gwangdi) where Nagas would once again have the
freedom to determine the course of their life. By the mid-1920s, Jadonang began
preparations to launch a religious, cultural and political campaign. In the pro-
phetic and leadership role assumed by Jadonang he had historical precursors—
there was much that resembled U Tirot Sing, who resisted the British incursions
into the Khasi Hills during the 1820s and 1830s; U Kiang Nongbah, who spear-
headed the Jaintia uprising against the British during the 1860s; Pa Togan
Nengminza, who organised the Garos against the British during the 1870s; Taji
Mideren, who organised the Mishmis against the British during the early decades
of twentieth century; and many others who defended their land and people in the
north-east of Indian sub-continent.
Frantz Fanon once said that it is integral to the project of colonialism that
the culture of the colonised is ‘marked off by fences and signposts’.54 Among the
Nagas, colonialism had either tended to freeze the culture and religion of the
colonised, and reduce them to museum pieces as many colonial officials and an-
thropologists were prone to do; or to undermine it, and subject it to the ‘civilising’
instincts of the coloniser as many missionaries were eager to do. In the campaign
that Jadonang initiated, there was surely an effort to counter this process.
It was during his last meeting with Bisnu in the Bhuban caves, in January
1931, just before his arrest by the British authorities, that a new reformulated reli-
gion was revealed to Jadonang and Gaidinliu. However, through the late 1920s
and early 1930s, Jadonang had gradually begun putting into practice and promot-
ing certain fundamentals of this new religion. It was an attempt to reinvent the
existing belief system of the Nagas and in doing so Jadonang did not hesitate to
borrow a great deal from Christianity as it was being preached in Tamenglong at
the time and from Vaishnavism as it was being preached in Cachar and the plains
of Manipur. As will be seen, the objective of Jadonang was also to standardise the
existing belief system with its own set of liturgy, hymns, prayers and texts, of
some importance in the context of Christian and Hindu inroads into the hills.
The reformed religion that Jadonang developed put much emphasis on the wor-
ship of the supreme creator, Tingkao Ragwang. Generally, the Supreme Creator
was acknowledged for his original act of creation but he was not that important as
far as the immediate everyday life on earth was concerned. As T.C. Hodson, in
1911, says: ‘He is, it would seem, almost a metaphysical conception, originating
in the desire to find an explanation for the creation of the material world.’55 More-
over, he was considered one among the many gods and spirits that inhabited the
Naga cosmology. Jadonang made some significant changes to this conception by
amplifying those qualities of Tingkao Ragwang such as omnipotence, omniscience,

54
Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, p. 190.
55
Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 127.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 413

benevolence, justice, truth and kindness, and proclaiming that he was the most
important spiritual energy or force that permeates the whole world.56 People were
encouraged to offer a prayer to Tingkao Ragwang, either as individuals or in groups,
facing east with hands put together, every morning and evening. They were also
encouraged to construct temples for Tingkao Ragwang, to sing songs and hymns
in praise of him, and to direct all prayers and supplications to him. As Tingkao
Ragwang was given prominence, the people were dissuaded from attributing
too much importance to some of the lesser gods and spirits, although the import-
ance of acknowledging and respecting them continued to be stressed.57 This shift
towards a largely monotheistic and more centralised belief system was in many
ways an influence of Christianity and probably of Islam, as it was practised in the
plains of Cachar and Manipur.
Second, the new religion called for the abolition of numerous taboos and the
reduction of sacrifices, and gennas.58 While most of these were meant to appease
the gods, they had increasingly become regimented into time-consuming and ex-
pensive rituals and beliefs. Jadonang did away with many of the taboos and re-
duced the number of gennas and sacrifices, especially offered to the lesser gods
and spirits. For instance, he did away with taboos, gennas and sacrifices that were
associated with the birth of a child, presence of an animal on the roof of a house,
earthquake, felling of trees and landslides, injury from a spear or any other weapon,
etc. At the same time, he retained the observation of gennas for a good crop or
harvest; safety of the crops from rats, rodents and pests; and safety from attacks
of animals.59
Third, rather than giving too much importance to rituals and sacrifices, the
new religion emphasised the importance of living a life that was just, truthful and
pleasing to Tingkao Ragwang. In this respect, some of the traditional principles
like speaking the truth, having no fear of anything except god and tiger, loving,
respecting and honouring creation, etc., were given prominence.60 Moreover, a
denial or rejection of these ethical principles, which would eventually lead to a
breakdown of relationships and cause imbalance in the created world, was con-
sidered contrary to the wishes of the Supreme Creator.
Fourth, construction of temples where people could assemble and worship god
was encouraged. Temples were not part of the traditional belief system but was a
structure that increasingly gained significance with the coming of Vaishnavism
and Christianity in the neighbouring areas. In his statement in custody, Jadonang
said: ‘I built temples because the Bhuban god told me in a dream that there would

56
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 46.
57
Ibid., pp. 46–47; Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 274.
58
Genna is the collective or individual abstention from all work on a particular day or period.
59
Kamei, Jadonang: A Mystic Rebel, pp. 26–28.
60
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 50.

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414 / JOHN THOMAS

be prosperity and good health for every one if I did so, although it is not our
custom to do so.’61 Temples were called Kao Kai and the first of these was con-
structed at Kekru, and then at Puiluan, Nungkao and Binnakandi.
Finally, Jadonang resurrected the myth surrounding Bisnu and gave the latter a
prominence that was earlier absent in the religious cosmology of the Zeliangrongs.
Bisnu was central to the religious and political programme of Jadonang. He occa-
sionally visited the Bhuban Hills in North Cachar and took instructions from
Bisnu on every matter that affected the lives of his people. It was Bisnu who
urged him to reform the existing belief system, which was now unable to address
the changing needs of the times.62 It was Bisnu who proclaimed that villages
would prosper in rice and money if the villagers sacrificed mithuns.63 It was Bisnu
who instructed Jadonang to build temples so that there would be good health and
prosperity for everyone.64 It was Bisnu who revealed the new religion to Jadonang
during their last meeting in January 1931.65 Moreover, in the temple he constructed
at his village, Puiluan, the male god made out of clay, which occupied the upper
temple was Bisnu and the female god was Bisnu’s wife, whose name Jadonang
himself did not know.66
The name Bisnu here is not to be confused with the Hindu god Vishnu. While
the name itself, which is used mainly among the Rongmeis living closer to the
plains, may have been a variation on Vishnu, Bisnu belonged to the traditional
religious cosmology of the Zeliangrong tribes, and maintains a distinct identity
of its own. He is the eldest among the seven sons of Charasinglangpui, the sister
of Didampu, the god of earth. He is known among the Zemes as Munsanu, among
the Liangmeis as Munchanu, among the upper Rongmeis as Bonchanu and among
the lower Rongmeis as Bisnu. There was once a contest between Didampu and
the seven sons of his sister, which included stone throwing, javelin throwing and
wrestling. At the final contest of wrestling, Didampu was defeated by his young-
est nephew, whose victory was largely because of the partiality and favour shown
to him by his mother. Didampu now went underneath the earth and became
Banglagwang, the lord of earthquakes and the youngest nephew assumed the pos-
ition of Ragwang, the god of earth. Angered because the youngest brother as-
sumed the position of Ragwang, and that too, as a result of the favouritism he
received from his mother, the eldest brother, Bisnu went away to the south and

61
Statement of Jadonang, 23 March 1931, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
62
Kamei, The History of Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 148.
63
Statement of Jadonang, 23 March 1931, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal;
Mithuns are half domesticated bisons (Bos Fontalis).
64
Ibid.
65
Kamei, The History of Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 149.
66
Statement of Jadonang, 23 March 1931, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 415

lived on the Bhuban Hills of eastern Cachar. Subsequently, there was much ten-
sion and fighting between Ragwang and Bisnu, causing numerous natural cala-
mities. During this period, it was Tingpu Rengsonang, a contemporary of the
Supreme Creator, Tingkao Ragwang, who put all humankind into the bowels of
the earth and protected them from danger. Eventually, at the intervention of
Banglagwang, Ragwang and Bisnu were reconciled through marriage between
the daughter of Bisnu and the son of Ragwang.67 It is not clear why Bisnu was
given such prominence. It could be that by resurrecting the character of Bisnu
and rehabilitating him in the temples that were built in the hills, Jadonang was
making an attempt to reconcile and unify the two estranged gods of the Nagas,
and therein implicitly integrate the Nagas of Cachar with those living in Manipur
and Naga Hills. After all, the important need of the times was to unify the Nagas
spiritually and politically so that they would pose an effective resistance and
alternative to the external forces that were beginning to threaten their way of life.
It could also be that Jadonang was attempting to consciously privilege Bisnu over
his youngest brother, who as a result of the partiality shown by his mother,
defeated Didampu to become the Ragwang. An implicit injustice was read into
how the youngest brother assumed the position of Ragwang; it had to be cor-
rected so that the foundations of the new religion and kingdom may be built on
the restoration of justice.
The reformulation and standardisation of Naga religion was accompanied by
the invention of a standardised script. Largely dependent on speech and signs for
communication, the written word was absent among the Nagas. According to
J.H. Hutton, a tradition existed in different versions amongst the Naga tribes: in
the beginning the Supreme Creator gave the knowledge of reading and writing to
the Nagas and to the people of the plains. However, while the script given to the
people of the plains was recorded on stone or paper, the script given to the Nagas
was on a sheet of animal skin, which was devoured by a dog and lost.68 The sig-
nificance and power of the written word was amplified under the colonial state to
codify and legitimise their rule over the subject population. Missionaries used it
to recast existing Naga languages and reduce them into a written form using the
roman script. Jadonang was conscious of how language had become the terrain
of power and dominance within the colonial world. Hence, he began to invent a
new script and use it to write down his thoughts and songs. As an integral marker
of a superior identity, Jadonang brought the new script to the notice of the SDO
of north-west area, S.J. Duncan. The latter, however, found it to be nothing more
than the inanity of an ‘uncivilised’ subject and tore up the script to show his
contempt.69

67
Kamei, The History of Zeliangrong Nagas, pp. 26–27.
68
Hutton, The Angami Nagas, p. 291.
69
Yonuo, The Nagas Struggle Against British, p. 58.

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416 / JOHN THOMAS

Colonial anthropologists and officials contemptuously dismissed the attempts

of the Nagas to reinvent or reformulate their own existing culture and beliefs.
Thus, when Jadonang, under the direction of Bisnu, began to make changes in the
existing religious practices of the Zeliangrong Nagas, it was derided as the crafty
work of an individual to take advantage of the ‘superstitious minds of the Kabuis’
and exploit it for his own personal aggrandisement.70 The same attitude also in-
formed their disgust for the invention of a script. Any attempt on the part of the
colonised to define their religious and cultural life in their own terms, and draw
from it the resources to assert their identity was considered a threat to the main-
tenance of colonial relations.
Ultimately, the efforts to reform the existing religious and cultural life of the
Nagas was closely associated with the immediate need to drive out the British
and to carve out a political space that Nagas could call their own: in other words,
to establish what Jadonang would call Makam Gwangdi or the ‘Naga Raj’. In this
new political space, people would have to neither pay house tax nor provide free
labour and food to visiting government officials. All the lambus, government offi-
cials and others who took advantage of the people would be expelled from the
region; none would have to shut their opened umbrellas or remove their head-
gears or caps before a British official as a show of subservience and respect; and
Nagas would once again be free to decide their own destiny.71
The construction of a political alternative to colonial incursions was rooted in
an already existing prophetic tradition prominent among the Angamis, whose
origins could be traced to the Liangmeis and Zemes. This told the tale of a king
who was sleeping in a cave in North Cachar, and who would return one day to
drive out the British, and establish his rule over ‘all who eat from the wooden
platter’, meaning the Nagas. Jadonang fashioned himself as that king, anointed
by the god of Bhuban Hills.72 However, as Gangmumei Kamei indicates, the con-
cept of a kingship as a political system was traditionally alien to the Nagas. The
Zeliangrongs, like many other Naga tribes, had a more or less democratic polity
wherein village councils were considered the highest decision-making body. Each
village council had one or more matais or headmen; however, they did not have
any absolute power and were often guided by other members of the council.73
Within such a system, there was no space for a king. Therefore, Jadonang had to
first popularise the idea of a kingship.
One way in which he did this was to show the relevance of such a political
system within the context where other nationalities in the region had their own

70
Manipur Administration Report, 1931, p. 2, MSA, Imphal.
71
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 59.
72
Hutton, The Angami Nagas, p. 252.
73
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 116.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 417

kings and kingdoms. Any claim of equality with them had to be on the basis of the
Nagas having a king and kingdom of their own. Jadonang proclaimed:

The Meiteis have their King, the Indian! (Tajongmei) have their rulers, why
should we not have our own King? The white men and we are all human
beings. Why should we be afraid of them? All men are equal. We are blessed
people. Our days have come. Our powerful weapons are kept hidden by god
at Zeliad. We shall pray and worship god. With His grace we shall become
rulers.74

At that particular historical moment, as Kamei says, the idea of Makam Gwangdi
did offer a ‘fresh and attractive idea to his people who had been oppressed, perse-
cuted and victimised by the alien rulers’.75 However, as it shall be seen later in
this article, it was also to become a contentious issue especially when Jadonang
made attempts to reach out to other Naga tribes. If at all the Angamis had any
reservation with the movement among the Zeliangrong tribes, it was with
Jadonang’s claims of being the king of the impending Naga Raj.
In his self-fashioning as the king of the Nagas, Jadonang was also careful of
how he attired and presented himself while travelling. When he travelled the length
and breadth of the Zeliangrong region and at times even the Angami region,
Jadonang adopted a variation of the dress of the British official: a red hat, long
trousers, shirt, coat and shoes. Just as the British official did, he also made sure
that he travelled riding a pony.76 Jadonang’s mode of dressing and travelling was
surely an inversion of the existing symbolic world of relations, where wearing
trousers, shirt, etc., and riding a pony was the sole privilege of the British official.
More importantly, this selective appropriation of the coloniser’s cultural signs of
power for the construction of a new self, along with many other aspects of the
movement which have been looked at so far, challenges the notion that Jadonang’s
movement represented the revival of a pure and pristine ‘tribal’ culture. In fact,
rather than a return to tradition, it represented an effort to evolve an effective
alternative to modernity as constituted by colonialism. Similar movements that
appropriated the coloniser’s values, signs and institutions, democratised and ulti-
mately turned them against the coloniser himself can be found around the world.
Note, for example, the case of the Devi movement of 1922–1923 in South Gujarat,77
Jitu Santal’s movement of 1924–1932,78 the Ghost Dance movement among the

74
Ibid., p. 150.
75
Ibid., p. 150.
76
Information collected by S.D.O. North, S.J. Duncan, 10.2.31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/
200), MSA, Imphal.
77
Hardiman, ‘Adivasi Assertion in South Gujarat’.
78
Sarkar, ‘Jitu Santal’s Movement in Malda’.

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418 / JOHN THOMAS

Native American nations in the American West,79 the movement of Venancio

Kamiko among the Arawakan people in the Northwest Amazon.80
Jadonang’s construction of his own self did not fail to enrage S.J. Duncan, the
SDO of north-west area. The two met in 1928. The latter expected Jadonang to
remove his hat and dismount the pony as a show of subservience. But Jadonang
refused to do so and instead talked to the SDO as an equal about the impending
Naga kingdom and the end of British rule. Enraged, the SDO brought him to
Tamenglong, interrogated him and then ordered that he be imprisoned for one
week. However, as the people were restless about his arrest, he was released after
three days under the condition that he would discontinue his ‘seditious’ political
activities and confine himself to religious duties.81

II

Around the time that Jadonang was touring Naga villages, an organisation called
Naga Club, comprising teachers, government functionaries, elders and pastors
from an emerging Naga middle class, submitted a memorandum to the Simon
Commission. This was in the context of the latter’s agenda to propose constitu-
tional reform in India. The Naga Club had been formed in 1918 by a group of
mission school-educated Nagas from the Naga Hills. Some of them had just re-
turned from France after serving in the labour corps in the First World War. They
had come together to discuss and address the social and administrative griev-
ances of the Nagas. Alongside the movement initiated by Jadonang, this was an-
other important effort to forge unity and understanding among the Naga tribes,
cutting across village, clan, tribe and religious loyalties.82 There were three im-
portant factors leading to the formation of the Naga Club: the emergence of a
middle class who were the product of a mission-school education, the First World
War and emancipatory experiences of the Nagas in the wider world, and the grow-
ing urge to define Naga identity in contrast to that of their neighbours in the
plains.
The growth of a small but significant upwardly mobile middle class had an
important role to play in the formation of the Naga Club. The constituents of
this class were primarily a younger generation of Nagas who had converted to
Christianity at the turn of the nineteenth century.83 After graduating from mission
schools, many of them went for higher education to Jorhat, Shillong or Guwahati

79
Moses, ‘“The Father Tells Me So!” Wovoka: The Ghost Dance Prophet’.
80
Wright and Hill, ‘History, Ritual and Myth’.
81
Information collected by S.D.O. North, S.J. Duncan, 10.2.31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/
200), MSA, Imphal.
82
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 65.
83
Report of S.A. Perinne; Eaton, ‘Conversion to Christianity among the Nagas, 1876–1971’,
p. 21.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 419

and went on to become government functionaries, teachers, doctors, pastors and

evangelists. Their lives were marked by the introduction of new commodities and
technologies and vast social, economic and political changes ushered in by colo-
nialism. These included the introduction of money economy; the coming of the
roads; the resulting prevalence of new diseases and the quick spread of epidem-
ics; the undermining of traditional village authority and the propping up of
government-appointed gaonburas as the real wielders of power at the village
level. 84 All this had made them restless, and they were keen to fashion themselves
to meet the challenges posed by their times. In doing so, they often fell back on
the cultural values they were socialised into by the American Baptist missionar-
ies at school, the church and programmes such as the Christian Endeavour and
the Sunday school. They did not fail to acknowledge the culture and civilisation
of their American missionary teachers as morally superior and historically ad-
vanced than their own. Moreover, they saw themselves as the torch-bearers and
the architects of a modern Naga society.
In 1917, when the British issued orders for the recruitment of labour corps
from Naga Hills and Manipur for the First World War, these men were the ones
most receptive and ready to volunteer.85 An American Baptist missionary among
the Angamis, J.E. Tanquist, commented that: ‘It is gratifying that our Angami
Christians, as well as the non-Christians educated in our mission school, have
been foremost in answering the call of the government.’86 He went on to remark:
‘We often meet grown-up men who have never been ten miles from their place of
birth. Christianity together with education gradually makes them braver and more
far-sighted in this and other respects.’87
About 4,000 men, including Nagas and Kukis, were recruited and sent to France.
To begin with, the Nagas and Kukis were very hesitant to cross the seas and parti-
cipate in a war that meant little to them; many felt that in the search for volunteers
the government was plotting to steal their young men and properties. The Tangkhuls
described the land of the white people as the Ngaleingachaikazingngachai, the
place between heaven and earth, literally a place of no return.88 Eventually, some
of the Tangkhuls agreed to volunteer following the persuasion of the American
Baptist missionary, William Pettigrew. While the Semas and the Lothas responded
favourably to the recruitment, each sending 1,000 men, the Aos were slightly reti-
cent but eventually gave in to the demand by sending about 200 men. The Rengmas
sent 200 men; the Changs and other trans-frontier tribes sent another 200 men;
the Angamis, the Liangmais and the Zemes protested against the duration of their

84
Gaonburas were appointees of the British administration in each village to help with tax collection
and other administrative work.
85
Reid, History of Relations, pp. 162–63.
86
Tanquist, The Guide Book, p. 43, CBCNEI, Guwahati.
87
Ibid., p. 43.
88
Ruivanao, Biography of R.S. Ruichamhao/Haopha, p. 24.

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420 / JOHN THOMAS

prescribed enlistment. As a result, many of these recruits were diverted to assist

the military operations to contain the Kuki rebellion.89
For the recruits, the journey to France and the participation in the war had a
lasting impact on how they understood themselves, and in relation to the world,
both geographically and mentally. After a few weeks of rigorous physical train-
ing and classes on warfare, they were sent off to Bombay, from where they boarded
the ship to France. For many of the recruits, it was the first time that they had ven-
tured beyond their villages and they were torn between homesickness and curios-
ity in the world beyond their hills. Ruichamhao, a Tangkhul evangelist who had
been appointed the supervisor of the Manipur labour corps, recounts that on reach-
ing Piphema, en route to Dimapur, many of the recruits began to pine for their
homes and relatives they had left behind. During the long ship journey, with no
land in sight, many were overcome with depression and were taken ill. Some suc-
cumbed to their illnesses.90 Moreover, the experience of the war itself left many
emotionally and physically traumatised. Yet, the places and experiences they en-
countered, and the different races of people they met on their way, stimulated
their curiosity and excitement.91 This exposure to life and places beyond their
villages altered their sense of geography and their notion about themselves; they
could now place themselves as a people, in relation to the nationalities and places
in the world.
Concurrently, relations closer to home further structured the kind of Naga na-
tion that was being imagined. Relations between the plains and hills people, which
were always tense, were further strained during the British colonial period. The
Ahoms and the Meiteis, after the adoption of ‘Hinduism’ as their state religion,
increasingly looked upon the hill tribes as culturally and socially inferior to them.
Caste sensibilities intrinsic to doctrinal ‘Hinduism’, were further acerbated by
the British suppression of non-Brahman aspirations as in the Moamoria move-
ment of the eighteenth century.92 Subsequent British policies of containing and
controlling the hill tribes, for gaining land and protection for tea plantations and
the role played by the Assamese and Manipuri political elites in the effective
administration of Assam and Manipur further invited the animosity of the hill
tribes towards the plains people. Moreover, the clear administrative division that
the British had created between the hills and the plains, and the mediation of

89
Reid, History of Relations, pp. 162–63; Report of William Pettigrew, Baptists in World Service,
p. 113.
90
Ruivanao, Biography of R.S. Ruichamhao/Haopha, p. 29.
91
Ibid., pp. 29–30.
92
The Moamoria movement was a movement inspired by two lower-caste leaders, Sankni and
Madhit, who denied the supremacy of Brahmans and rejected the worship of Shiva. As their followers
grew in number and influence, the later Ahom rulers increasingly persecuted them, eventually leading
them to rise up in rebellion. The rebellion was crushed with the assistance of British in the late-
nineteenth century.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 421

movement and communication between the hills and the plains through measures
like the Inner Line system ensured that the people of the plains remain alienated
from the hill tribes and vice versa.
Given the strained relations, the growth and spread of the Indian national move-
ment in the plains from the 1920s onwards ignited fears over the political future
of the Nagas. In 1921, the Assam Provincial Congress Committee, under the leader-
ship of Kuladhar Chaliha and K.N.C. Bordoloi, was formed to assist the Indian
National Congress.93 In August 1921, Gandhi himself had come to Assam to inau-
gurate the Non-Cooperation Movement, which was followed by large public
meetings, boycott of courts, educational institutions and British goods, and re-
fusal to pay taxes.94 The Nagas were conscious of the heightened political agita-
tions against the British but they were also anxious about the future. There was
fear that the people of the plains, who had always looked upon Nagas as inferior,
may after all assume administrative control over the hills.
This fear became more pronounced when the Simon Commission included
Naga Hills within the proposed constitutional reform for India and visited Kohima
in January 1929. While the Indian nationalists called for boycott of the commis-
sion, the members of the Naga Club submitted a memorandum indicating their
concern about being included ‘within the Reformed Scheme of India’. The memo-
randum began with the plea that ‘our Hills be withdrawn from the Reformed
Scheme and placed outside the Reforms but directly under British Government.
We never asked for any reforms and we do not wish for any reforms’.95 The memo-
randum went on to state that prior to the coming of the British, ‘we were living in
a state of intermittent warfare with the Assamese of the Assam valley to the North
and West of our country and Manipuris to the South’. Moreover, they ‘never con-
quered us, nor were we ever subjected to their rule’.96
The memorandum listed the way in which Nagas were ‘backward’ and dif-
ferent from the people of the plains. For instance, ‘our education is poor’; ‘our
population numbering 102,000 is very small in comparison with the population
of the plains districts’, which, in the democratic logic of things meant less repre-
sentation in provincial councils. ‘Our language is quite different from those of
the plains’, the memorandum stated, we have ‘no social affinities with the Hindus
and Mussalmans’, whereas ‘we are looked down upon by the one for “beef” and
the other for our “pork” and by both for our want in education’.97 There was also
the fear that in the new reformed scheme, ‘new and heavy taxes will have to be
imposed on us, and when we cannot pay, then all lands will have to be sold and in
93
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 17.
94
Ibid., p. 18.
95
Memorandum to Simon Commission, 10 January 1929, The Naga National Rights and Movement,
p. 9.
96
Ibid., pp. 9–10.
97
Ibid., p. 10.

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422 / JOHN THOMAS

the long run we shall have no share in the land of our birth and life will not be
worth living then’. They appreciated that ‘though our land at present is within the
British territory, Government have always recognised our private rights in it’.
But, if they were ‘forced to enter the council of majority’ they feared the imposi-
tion of ‘foreign laws and customs to supersede our own customary laws which we
now enjoy’.98 Therefore, the memorandum concluded by stating:

We pray that the British Government will continue to safeguard our rights
against all encroachment from other people who are more advanced than us by
withdrawing our country that we should not be thrust to the mercy of other
people who could never be subjected; but to leave us alone to determine our-
selves as in ancient times.99

Although the memorandum was signed by representatives of Angami, Zeme-

Liangmei, Kuki, Sema, Lotha and Rengma tribes, it was stated that it also repre-
sented the concerns and aspirations of ‘other regions of Nagaland’. The signatories
included about 10 interpreters, one clerk, one peon, one potdar, one peshkar,
one sub-overseer and one treasurer working for the colonial administration; one
doctor and three teachers, of whom two were pastors.
In response to the plea made by the Naga Club, the Simon Commission recom-
mended that the Naga Hills be excluded from the constitutional reforms being
proposed for India and it be treated as an ‘excluded’ area. The ‘excluded’ areas
would be enclaves ‘protected’ from outside encroachments, where there would
be ‘security of land tenure, freedom in pursuit of their traditional methods of
livelihood, and the reasonable exercise of their ancestral customs’.100 The said
areas were also excluded from the provincial and federal legislatures, and the
governors were given the powers to administer the area in their discretion. The
Simon Commission recommendations were implemented in 1937 and the Naga
Hills District, the North-East Frontier Tract, the Lushai Hills and the North Cachar
Hills were demarcated as ‘Excluded Areas within the Province of Assam’.101 While
meeting some of the principal demands of the Naga Club, the paternalism impli-
cit in these administrative changes anticipated the urge of Indian administration
after 1947 to forcefully ‘protect’ the Nagas, much against their wishes. Moreover,
while the British administration at the time was keen on meeting the demand of
the Naga Club for ‘protection’, as it withdrew from the region in the subsequent
decades, it remained non-committal with regard to the important plea that if the

98
Ibid., p. 10.
99
Ibid., p. 11.
100
Quoted in Elwin, Nagaland, p. 36.
101
Ibid., p. 39.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 423

British were to leave the region, ‘we should not be thrust to the mercy of other
people who could never be subjected; but to leave us alone to determine our-
selves as in ancient times.’.

III

Following his first imprisonment and release, just a month before Naga Club
submitted its memorandum to the Simon Commission, Jadonang became even
more popular among his people. The fact that the colonial official could not do
anything to him convinced them even more of his invincibility. Jadonang gradu-
ally recruited an army of men and women, known as Riphen. Besides grazing
cattle, cultivation, pounding of paddy and collection of fuel and firewood, these
young men and women were trained in military tactics, making of gun powder,
knowledge of which was current among Nagas even before the British came, and
handling of weapons such as daos, spears and muzzle-loader guns.102 They often
travelled with Jadonang, took part in the religious ceremonies he conducted and
were his couriers in search of alliances, allegiances, and fresh recruits for the
impending war against the British. It is said that at the peak of these preparations,
the Riphen consisted of about 500 young people.103 Alongside military prepara-
tions, efforts were also made to raise funds for the purchase of arms and the main-
tenance of the Riphen; to put in place an efficient intelligence system, and train
people in passing secret messages; and to teach them a repertoire of songs and
dances praising their land and struggle, largely composed by Jadonang himself
and taught by his disciple, Gaidinliu.104
Having organised an army, Jadonang reached out first to all the Zeliangrong
tribes. Then, he began to reach out to other Naga tribes, particularly the Angamis,
Chakhesangs, Rengmas, Maos and Marams with the intention of forging a greater
unity among the Nagas to fight the British.105 To each village, spears were sent out
as a request for alliance or allegiance. If a village accepted the spear, then it
meant its allegiance to the movement was assured and subsequently it would
offer tributes to Jadonang. In certain areas, especially those belonging to other
tribes, Jadonang went in person seeking alliances. For instance, there were re-
ports from some Rongmei Christians about him travelling with some Angamis in
the Naga Hills, inviting the people to join the struggle against the British.106 The

102
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 151.
103
Ibid., p. 151.
104
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 60.
105
Ibid., p. 63.
106
Report received from Kuki residents of Tamenglong saying that they were informed by the
Kabui Christians of Tamenglong that Jadonang had sent word to all the Kabuis as follows, Naga
Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.

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424 / JOHN THOMAS

Zeliangrong tribes, including the Rongmeis, the Zemes and the Liangmeis, in-
habiting the North Cachar Hills, Naga Hills and the Tamenglong sub-division of
Manipur were quick to express their allegiance to Jadonang and many of them
gave mithuns as tributes.107 Other Naga tribes were attracted to the idea but had
certain reservations based on their own suspicions and fears. For instance, in the
Angami village of Khonoma, as was mentioned earlier, there was an intense dis-
cussion in the village council on whether to support the new king or not and it
was resolved that since accepting the suzerainty of Jadonang would only lead to
a change of masters and not necessarily an achievement of total freedom, they
would not offer support.108 Considering there had been many headhunting raids
between the Zemes and the Angamis in the past, there was a history to such fears
and suspicions. Moreover, a sizeable section of the Angamis may have been more
at ease with the strategy adopted by the Naga Club rather than that of Jadonang, a
fact proven by the large representation of Angamis in the Naga Club.
Yet, despite the decision of the Khonoma village council and much to the an-
xiety of the colonial officials, many Angamis did come forward in support of
Jadonang’s struggle.109 Some of the Kukis reported deliberations among Angamis,
Liangmeis and Zemes to fight the British and all the Kukis of the Saipimol range
who might inform on them and support the British.110 In another instance, in
December 1930, a few Angamis from Khonoma, including a gaonbura, visited
the Liangmei village of Tharon in Tamenglong sub-division. They killed a mithun
for Tharon, and asked the villagers not to pay any taxes the following year
(1931–1932), as they would also not be paying it.111 The Angamis also distributed
spears to many Naga villages in Manipur as a show of solidarity.112 The colonial
officials in the region were anxious about the alliances being built with other
tribes, especially the Angamis who were always looking for an opportunity to
attack the British. The SDO of north-west sub-division requested J.P. Mills, the
District Commissioner of Naga Hills, to ensure that villagers from Khonoma did
not enter either the North Cachar Hills or the Tamenglong area through Henima
or any other route through the hills but only through Imphal, where they would
be supplied with a guide.113 It was further decided that any Angami seen in the

107
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 152.
108
Ibid., p. 152.
109
Report received from Kuki residents of Tamenglong, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200),
MSA, Imphal.
110
Report from P.M.S.D., 19-2-31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
111
Information collected by S.D.O. North, S.J. Duncan, 10.2.31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-
C/200), MSA, Imphal.
112
Letter of a group of Kukis to the President, Manipur State, Imphal, 1-3-31, Naga Movement,
1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
113
Information collected by S.D.O. North, S.J. Duncan, 10.2.31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-
C/200), MSA, Imphal.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 425

region would be immediately arrested and sent to Imphal since ‘it is extremely
likely that any Angami in that area at present are up to no good’.114
There was growing concern and fear among the British towards the beginning
of 1931 regarding the events that were unfolding in the hills. This was largely
because colonial officials had received information that Jadonang was planning
to declare war against the British by the end of that year. A Kuki mauzadar at
Henima informed the D.C. of Naga Hills, J.P. Mills, that since the beginning of
the year, Zemes and Liangmeis of Naga Hills had been expressing their alle-
giance to Jadonang with presents of mithuns. There were rumours circulating
among them that the day was near when there would be a sound in the air and the
region would be covered with white clouds—that would be the sign of war. Till
that portent was seen, everyone should prepare themselves for self-defence. They
were also informed that the Zeliangrong Nagas in the Naga Hills had already
stopped all household work in preparation for the war.115 Jadonang had also in-
structed the people not to pay any more taxes to the Manipur state from the fol-
lowing year 1931–1932 onwards but instead to pay taxes to him.116 Several secret
meetings were held at various villages and guns were also gathered.117
Under the leadership of Jadonang, the Nagas were involved in a civil-
disobedience movement of their own around the same time Gandhi was leading
one elsewhere in the plains of the Indian subcontinent. Jadonang had known of
Gandhi through some of the Rongmeis who lived in Silchar and other parts of
Cachar where Congress influence was strong. He appreciated and respected the
efforts made by Gandhi to drive out the British from India and he, as the leader of
the Nagas, even wished to meet this leader of India. Having known that Gandhi
would be visiting Silchar in January 1927, Jadonang had also made arrangements
to take hundred Naga boys and hundred Naga girls to welcome him and dance in
his honour. Unfortunately, Gandhi could not make it to Silchar at the time and
Jadonang also could not meet him.118 This admiration for Gandhi, however, is not

114
J.C. Higgins, Political Agent, Manipur to J.P. Mills, D.C., Naga Hills, Imphal, 20 February
1931, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
115
Report from Lhoupo Kuki, Mauzadar of Henima to the Deputy Commissioner, Naga Hills,
5 January 1931, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
116
Information collected by S.D.O. North, S.J. Duncan, 10.2.31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-
C/200), MSA, Imphal.
117
Letter of J.C. Higgins, Political Agent, Manipur to Chief Secretary to the Government of India,
Assam, W.A. Cosgrave, 14 February, 1931, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal;
Report received from Kuki residents of Tamenglong saying that they were informed by the Kabui
Christians of Tamenglong that Jadonang had sent word to all the Kabuis as follows, Naga Movement,
1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
118
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, pp. 63–66; Kamei, The History of Zeliangrong
Nagas, pp. 151–52.

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426 / JOHN THOMAS

sufficient reason to integrate Jadonang into India’s national struggle for independ-
ence.119 Jadonang was clearly leading a movement for liberating the Naga Raj
from the control of the British and the plains, and his admiration for Gandhi and
the Indian national struggle was only an expression of political solidarity with a
neighbouring ‘kingdom’ that was also fighting the British.
By February 1931, the British officials in the region had decided to arrest
Jadonang and suppress the movement once and for all. S.J. Duncan, S.D.O. of
North Western Area, suggested that Jadonang and other leaders of the movement
be immediately arrested and imprisoned for a period of not less than a year.120
Subsequently, his whereabouts was sought. As he was returning from Bhuban
hills along with Gaidinliu and 600 of his other followers, Jadonang was arrested
under Section 108 of Indian Penal Code and was imprisoned at Silchar Jail on
19 February.121
The news of Jadonang’s arrest spread to the hills and there was much unrest.
Nagas began to move about in large armed bands, all work in the fields was sus-
pended, villages were barricaded and watch was kept through the night.122 An
attack from the hills seemed so imminent that the Sub-Inspector of Police at
Lakhipur gave instructions to the Inspector of Police at Jhiribam in Manipur to
ensure that no Nagas from the hills were allowed into the plains and all routes
leading to the plains were blocked.123 Besides, Nagas and Kukis alike were pro-
hibited from walking around with spears and guns, or in large groups.124 Mean-
while, the political agent at Manipur, J.C. Higgins, reached Puiluan village,
destroyed the temples that were constructed there, desecrated the idols and shot
the pythons in the temple dead. Higgins claimed he was doing this in defence of
‘animism’ and against the threat Jadonang posed for the ‘animist’ religious prac-
tices of the Nagas.125 Moreover, he arrested the elders, confiscated all the guns
and imposed heavy fines on the villages. The total sum that was levied from vari-
ous villages amounted to `2,970.126 Higgins and the column of Assam Rifles then

119
Mukherjee et al., ’The Zeliangrong or Haomei Movement’, in Singh (ed.), Tribal Movements
in India, pp. 67–96.
120
Information collected by S.D.O. North, S.J. Duncan, 10.2.31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-
C/200), MSA, Imphal.
121
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 76.
122
Memo by the Sub-Divisional Officer, North Cachar Hills, Haflong, 25-2-31, Naga Movement,
1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
123
Letter of Sub-Inspector, Lakhipur, to The Inspector, Police, Jhiribam, Manipur, 21-2-31, Naga
Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
124
Memo by the Sub-Divisional Officer, North Cachar Hills, Haflong, 25-2-31, Naga Movement,
1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
125
Extract from the Tour Diary of the Political Agent in Manipur for the month of February,
1931 (2nd half) and March, Unrest among Kabui Nagas in the North West of the Manipur State,
File No. 144-P, Foreign and Political, 1931, NAI, New Delhi.
126
Manipur Administration Report, 1931–32, p. 3, MSA, Imphal.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 427

proceeded to Jirighat, where Jadonang was handed over to them by the police at
Cachar. Rather than going directly to Imphal, Higgins decided to take Jadonang,
bound up in chains, through the hills, through Tamenglong, just so that he could
demonstrate to the Nagas that Jadonang does not possess any divine powers and
that none were invincible in front of the British.127
On 19 March 1931, Jadonang was finally brought to Imphal and was impri-
soned in the Imphal Jail. While in jail, he was thoroughly interrogated by Higgins.
Jadonang denied all the charges that were brought against him. In fact, reluctant
to give the many secrets of the movement away, he denied having told the people
not to pay taxes to the Manipur government or to rise up in arms against the
British.128 Higgins had interrogated Gaidinliu and the elders of the village earlier,
but his efforts were futile as none of them gave any information away.129 As the
investigations went on and as Jadonang languished in Imphal jail, Jinlakpou, a
road muhorrir who was also one of the first Christian converts in Tamenglong,
informed the government about a murder of four Meitei traders that took place in
Puiluan and alleged that those murders were done at the behest of Jadonang.130
Without even investigating the veracity of such a charge, an unfair trial held on
13 June 1931 prosecuted Jadonang for the murder of four Meitei traders.
Without any legal aid, Jadonang explained how the traders were killed, his ab-
sence during the murders, and how it was the result of a collective decision taken
by the whole village and not any individual. Higgins summoned some villagers
as witnesses and made them testify under duress that Jadonang was responsible
for the murders. None of the defenders were granted the right to counsel and
finally Jadonang was convicted and sentenced to death, while the real perpetra-
tors of the act were sentenced to life imprisonment.131 The fact that the murder of
four traders was just a pretext to frame and hang Jadonang is made clear by Higgins’
entry in the Manipur Administration Report for that year. He writes:

Although these punishments had nothing to do with those that would have
been awarded to Jadonang and others of his followers for the disturbances
which they were instrumental in causing in the Hills, it was hoped that they
would be taken as such, and serve as a deterrent for other who might aspire to
similar fame.132

127
Letter of J.C. Higgins to W.A. Cosgrave, Imphal, 24-2-31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/
200), MSA, Imphal.
128
Statement of Jadonang, 23-3-31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/200), MSA, Imphal.
129
Letter of J.C. Higgins to J.P. Mills, Camp Nungkao, 13-3-31, Naga Movement, 1931 (R-1/S-C/
200), MSA, Imphal.
130
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 156.
131
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, pp. 69–70; Manipur Administration Report,
1931–32, p. 3.
132
Manipur Administration Report, 1931–32, p. 3, MSA, Imphal.

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428 / JOHN THOMAS

On a Saturday, 29 August 1931, at 6 in the morning, by the banks of Nambul

River behind Imphal Jail, Jadonang was hung to death. Before his death he once
again declared that he had done no wrong and all that he did was for his people.
Later, his body was taken to his village, Puiluan, and was buried according to the
traditional rituals and customs.133
There was a strong feeling among the colonial officials that once Jadonang
was captured and hung, the movement would eventually cease to exist. But, as
Higgins himself admits, ‘unfortunately this has not been the case, and the trouble
far from being eradicated has spread over a large area.’134 The hopes of a Naga
Raj were still aflame and the hanging of one leader had produced an array of
leaders encouraging people not to pay taxes and to rise up against the British. The
leading figure among them was Jadonang’s trusted follower, Gaidinliu, who at
the time was just 16 years of age.
Gaidinliu was the third daughter of Lothonang, of the Pamei clan. As she grew
into her adolescence, she increasingly began to encounter a particular goddess
who looked just like her and who she later recognised to be the daughter of Bisnu,
the god of Bhuban Hills. She had also begun to see many visions and dreams
about the future. Her parents and clans people were convinced that there was
something special about her and recognised her to be a muh-pui.135 In one of her
dreams, the goddess she had befriended took her to the cave of Bisnu in the Bhuban
Hills, where she met Jadonang. She had already heard about Jadonang and his
powers to interpret dreams, to heal people, and his efforts to improve the lives of
the Nagas and now she had become all the more keen to work with him and learn
from him. In 1927, she went to meet Jadonang in Puliuan and became his dis-
ciple. Over the next four years, she became one of the most trusted disciples of
Jadonang and was given the responsibility of training the young women who
joined the Riphen.136
Following Jadonang’s death, she assumed leadership of the movement. As
Jadonang was languishing in Imphal Jail, Gaidinliu, accompanied by about 50
young people, went into hiding, and following his execution, she covertly visited
every village, especially in western Tamenglong region, and encouraged the people
to rise up in revolt. There was also a rumour afloat that Jadonang had come
back to life and was visiting his subjects again, and there were huge festive gather-
ings around an empty throne in every village. Outsiders were barred from enter-
ing the villages.137 Gaidinliu urged the people not to pay taxes and to prepare

133
Yonuo, Nagas Struggle Against the British, p. 79.
134
Manipur Administration Report, 1931–1932, p. 4, MSA, Imphal.
135
Muh-pui is a female prophet who can communicate with the gods and spirits, and be a mediator
between gods and humans; Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, pp. 157–58.
136
Ibid., p. 158.
137
Copy of a D.O. No. 3-C., dated the 13th February 1932, from J.P. Mills, Deputy Commissioner,
Naga Hills, Unrest among Kabui Nagas in the North West of the Manipur State, File No. 189-P,
Foreign and Political, 1932, NAI, New Delhi.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 429

themselves with daos and spears for the impending war with the British. As in the
case of Jadonang, she too became very popular and the people ensured her safety.
As Mills points out, ‘With very few individual exceptions indeed every man and
woman in the affected villages is an active sympathizer’. Moreover, ‘even among
those who do not sympathize I doubt if more than a dozen men in the Naga Hills
are prepared to give information against Gaidiliu and then only with the utmost
secrecy’.138
The people had developed an efficient system of concealing her presence. Mills
reported that, they ‘are kept most carefully concealed in villages. They travel
with strong escorts, moving at night when there is any risk of detection. Villages
are barred against Kukis and suspicious strangers...’139 In February 1932, Gaidinliu
organised an attack on the Assam Rifles outpost at Hungrum, North Cachar Hills.
Armed with just daos and spears, but filled with the conviction that the bullets
fired by the soldiers would turn into water, about 50 to 60 Hungrum villagers,
with reinforcement from Bopungwemi village, attacked the Assam Rifles outpost
at dawn.140 The Assam Rifles shot back and there were many casualties. About six
Assam Rifles soldiers and eight Zeme warriors were killed, the Bopungwemi
village was burnt down, and many were injured.141 Gaidinliu continued to seek
alliances with other Naga tribes such as the Maos, Marrams and the Angamis.
Although not much military support came from these tribes, they remained sym-
pathetic to her efforts. Khonoma village, which was earlier indecisive about any
alliances with Jadonang’s movement, now became more supportive.142 Cornered
by the British, Khonoma did state its position in ambiguous terms: ‘we would tell
you if Gaidiliu were in our village, but we would not arrest her for you.’143 The
residents of Khonoma were indirectly stating that despite knowing her where-
abouts, they would refrain from revealing it. Gaidinliu had people working for
her right down to Kohima, and the Naga Hills were increasingly a safe hiding
place for her.144
Unable to suppress the movement either politically or militarily, Mills, who
had been entrusted with the mission of capturing Gaidinliu, realised that only
through effective propaganda and exploitation of contradictions among the people
could the British suppress the movement. He stated the policy as thus:

138
Note by J.P. Mills on Gaidiliu Movement, Kohima, 9-5-32, Unrest among Kabui Nagas in the
North West of the Manipur State, File No. 189-P, Foreign and Political, 1932, NAI, New Delhi.
139
Extracts from letters received from the Deputy Commissioner of the Naga Hills, Henima,
29 January 1932, Naga Movement, 1932, R-1/S-D/228, MSA, Imphal.
140
Letter from G.E. Soames, Chief Secretary to the Govt. of Assam, to the Political Secretary,
Govt. of India, 5th April 1932, Shillong, Unrest among Kabui Nagas in the North West of the Manipur
State, File No. 189-P, Foreign and Political, 1932, NAI, New Delhi.
141
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, p. 160.
142
Ibid., p. 163.
143
Note by J.P. Mills on Gaidiliu Movement, NAI, New Delhi.
144
Kamei, Jadonang: A Mystic Rebel, p. 69.

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430 / JOHN THOMAS

The pressure must be in no way relaxed and Kacha Nagas and Kabuis must be
made to realise that Gaidiliu’s promises to bring prosperity are worthless and
that to listen to her is to court trouble. No possible means of obtaining infor-
mation must be left untried, and the more inconspicuous the means are the
better.145

Mills sent out propaganda teams into the villages in Naga Hills and he in-
structed the S.D.O. of North Cachar to do the same in the villages under his juris-
diction.146 Besides, he announced a reward of `500 to anyone providing information
leading to her arrest; the Manipur State Darbar announced a reward of `200; and
Dr Haralu, a Christian convert from Pulomi village, announced a reward of `100.147
Subsequently, Mills also suggested to the government that any village that would
bring Gaidinliu in or hold her in custody and send word for an escort to take her
over be promised remission of house tax for ten years.148 Finally, another effec-
tive way in which the colonial officials turned the situation to their advantage was
by consistently portraying the movement as more anti-Kuki and less anti-govern-
ment. For instance, Mills states: ‘Against us there is no bitterness at all, but the
Kukis are hated.’149 This was far from the truth. That it was primarily a movement
against the British was admitted by colonial officials who noted in another in-
stance that it was not just the Kukis who were suspect (and kept out of Naga vil-
lages) but even those Nagas who worked in any capacity for the government.150
The colonial portrayal of the movement as anti-Kuki, however, was successful in
raising a state of panic among the Kukis and therein further sharpening the div-
ision among the hill people and making it easier to subjugate the Nagas. In many
respects, colonial policies such as these, which exploited the contradictions within
existing society, anticipated the Indian state’s counter-insurgency measures in
the region following the 1950s.
Following the Hungrum incident, and with the British forces strengthening the
hold over its operations, Gaidinliu confined herself to the Naga Hills. In October
1932, she reached the village of Pulomi, where the people welcomed her and

145
Note on the state of the operations against Gaidiliu, Kohima, 9-5-32, Naga Movement, 1932,
R-1/S-D/228, MSA, Imphal.
146
Report of J.P. Mills for the week ending, Camp Dhakekedzumi, 2-7-32, Naga Movement,
1932, R-1/S-D/228, MSA, Imphal.
147
Notice from the Office of the DC, Naga Hills, 3-6-32, Gaidinliu, R-1/S-B/53; Notice from the
Manipur State Darbar, 11-6-32, Gaidinliu, R-1/S-B/53; Notice from the Office of the DC, Naga
Hills, 18-7-32, Gaidinliu, R-1/S-B/53, MSA, Imphal.
148
Letter of J.P. Mills to Commissioner, Surma Valley & Hill Division, Silchar, 12-8-32, Gaidinliu,
R-1/S-B/53, MSA, Imphal.
149
Note by J.P. Mills on Gaidiliu Movement, NAI, New Delhi.
150
Copy of a D.O. No. 3-C., dated the 13th February 1932, from J.P. Mills, Deputy Commissioner,
Naga Hills, Unrest among Kabui Nagas in the North West of the Manipur State, File No. 189-P,
Foreign and Political, 1932, NAI, New Delhi.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 431

ensured her protection. Pulomi was perceived to be one of the strongholds of the
movement. However, Dr Haralu, a newly converted medical doctor from Pulomi
who practised in Kohima, the same doctor who had announced `100 as a reward
for information on Gaidinliu, came to know about her presence at Pulomi. He
immediately informed the Extra Assistant Commissioner at Kohima, Hari Blah,
who informed Mills. A column of 100 soldiers of the Assam Rifles under the
command of Captain Macdonald was sent to Pulomi. About 100 coolies were
also sent to Khonoma on the way to Henima. On 19 October, the column of Assam
Rifles arrived at Pulomi and Gaidinliu was arrested and taken to Kohima. Subse-
quently she was taken to Imphal for trial. She was sentenced to life imprison-
ment and was put in Guwahati Jail, followed by Shillong, Aizwal and finally
Tura Jail.151
Much to the anxiety of the colonial officials, however, the movement contin-
ued to spread even more widely. Now there was no longer one leader, but mul-
tiple ‘maibas’ and ‘maibis’,152 prophesying and drawing people together, and filling
them with hope to continue their struggle. The Manipur Administrative Report
stated:

Numerous ‘Maibas’, or prophets have sprung up in various villages all over

the affected area, and these profess to have special powers of leadership, and
make their respective villages obey them and disregard the ordinary village
elders. It is difficult at present to know exactly what connection they have with
Gaidinliu, and whether they are not mere opportunists, who seeing the gulli-
bility of the ignorant mass of villagers, think they themselves will make an
attempt at following a lucrative profession! There is no doubt however that,
first Jadonang and then Gaidinliu, embued them with the whole idea of the
new cult, and until the latter is brought to book there is little likelihood of quiet
coming back to the Hills, and these erstwhile prophets subsiding.153

Colonial anxiety over the presence of a chain of prophets was also expressed
by Mills. In his notes on the state of the operations against Gaidinliu, he wrote:

The capture of Gaidiliu will not end the agitation...She will be succeeded by
one or more ‘mediums’. To be a ‘medium’ is not an offence under any law. Yet
they will continue to keep the people in a state of constant excitement, and
Nagas will continue to be set over against Government and Kukis.154

151
Kamei, The History of the Zeliangrong Nagas, pp. 163–64.
152
Maibas and Maibis were names coined by Meiteis and colonial writers to refer to priests/
medicine-men, who could also be mediums between human beings and the spirit world.
153
Manipur Administration Report, 1931–32, p. 4, MSA, Imphal.
154
Note by J.P. Mills on the state of the operations against Gaidiliu, Kohima, 9-5-32, Naga
Movement, 1932, R-1/S-D/228, MSA, Imphal.

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432 / JOHN THOMAS

During the 1930s, several military operations and arrests were carried out to
suppress all those ‘mediums’ that emerged proclaiming the end of British rule
and the coming of a Naga Raj. Yet, even in 1940, there seemed to be no dearth of
prophets and visionaries, proclaiming matters that were uncomfortable for the
British ears. The Secretary to the Governor of Assam wrote to the Political Agent:
‘His Excellency is disturbed by the fact that, though eight years have passed since
the arrest of Gaidinliu, rumours of prophetesses and so forth still crop up among
the Kacha Nagas, a whole generation of whom is growing up in an atmosphere of
unrest’.155

IV

The movement among the Zeliangrong tribes and the programmes and activities
of the Naga Club represented two important, concurrent initiatives towards forg-
ing greater integration among the Nagas and negotiating their independence from
external political controls. Both initiatives involved the becoming of a new social
self. However, as it is evident, there were marked differences between the two,
largely on how each understood colonial power and expected to confront it. Al-
though both initiatives would have been aware or conscious of the activities and
presence of the other, especially considering their geographical proximity, there
is no evidence of any debate or dialogue between them at the time and both seemed
to have a life and trajectory of their own. It may be worthwhile to take a brief look
at some of the differences between the two.
There was a marked difference in terms of the socio-cultural composition of
the Naga Club and the movement initiated by Jadonang. While the former were
beneficiaries of the colonial system, either as part of the governmental apparatus
or products of colonial education and missionary work, the latter had resisted the
colonial state and the missionaries, were suspicious of colonial education and
relied upon their customs, beliefs and practices as modes of political mobilisation.
Their differences in socio-cultural composition played an important role in their
assessment and responses to colonial power.
From the memorandum to the Simon Commission, it is evident that the Naga
Club was more veiled in their criticism of the British. Although never entirely
endorsing British rule, they nevertheless articulated their preference for British
rule and protection from the rule of the plains. One of the Naga elders is supposed
to have told E. Cadogen, one of the members of the Simon Commission who
visited Naga Hills:

155
Letter of the Secretary to the Governor of Assam to C. Gimson, Political Agent, Manipur,
14 September 1940, Rani Gaidiliu Case File, 1930–35, R-1/S-B/35, MSA, Imphal.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 433

‘We hear that a black king is going to come to rule over India. If that is so, for
goodness sake’—or whatever corresponds to the expression ‘goodness sake’—
‘do not let it be a Bengali’. They ended by saying that they much preferred
Queen Victoria.156

They also acknowledged the fact that the British were always protective of
their customary law and land relations, and by bringing modern education among
them, were a cause of ‘advancement’. The paternalism that was integral to the
British colonial project among the Nagas was successful to the extent that this
class of Nagas had begun to look up to the paternal care and protection of the
British as a necessary means of curbing the incursions of plains rule, which they
feared the most.
This attitude of the Naga Club was in contrast to how Jadonang understood the
colonial problem. Jadonang did not distinguish between the colonial incursions
of the British and that of the plains people, or in their respective impacts. As far as
he was concerned, both eventually affected the spiritual, cultural, economic and
political integrity of his people. It caused an imbalance in the creation that Tingkao
Ragwang, the Supreme Creator, had designed. Therefore, it was important to re-
sist any attempt to impose external political control, so that a new political and
economic arrangement could be reclaimed in harmony with the values of the
Ragwang and their own cultural and spiritual terms. The development of an alter-
native spirituality, script and set of cultural practices through a creative appro-
priation of available resources from both their own traditions and elsewhere have
to be seen in the light of the organised political resistance against the British and
the existing governmental apparatus in the hills.
The two movements also differed in the means they adopted to achieve their
respective ends. The constituents of the Naga Club saw themselves as a class
apart, gifted with the art of writing the coloniser’s language, and therefore, assum-
ing the responsibility to represent the ‘illiterate’ masses within a public sphere
generated by colonialism. The memorandum to the Simon Commission began by
stating: ‘We the undersigned Nagas of the Naga Club at Kohima, who are the
only persons at present who can voice for our people...’.157 The political practice
of the Naga Club was also framed within colonial notions of ‘civility’, where
petitioning to address their grievances was increasingly seen as the more ‘polite’
and ‘civilised’ means as opposed to the ‘violent’ and ‘savage’ ways they had left
behind, especially through the mediation of the American Baptist missionaries.
Jadonang’s movement, on the other hand, was located within an existing pro-
phetic tradition prominent among the Angamis, but whose origins could be traced

156
Elwin, Nagaland, p. 50.
157
Memorandum to Simon Commission, 10 January 1929, The Naga National Rights and
Movement, pp. 9–11.

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434 / JOHN THOMAS

to the Liangmeis and Zemes. This spoke of a king who is believed to be sleeping
in a cave in North Cachar, who would return one day to drive out the British, and
establish his rule over ‘all who eat from the wooden platter’, meaning the Nagas.158
As an appointee of the god of Bhuban Hills and as a witness to his revelation in
the Bhuban caves, Jadonang claimed to be this king, in the process privileging
kingship over earlier traditions of collective leadership. He had assumed the pos-
ition of the one who would empower and organise the people to rise up in armed
rebellion against the British and dispel all those who nurtured ambitions to rule
over the Nagas. Jadonang was aware that this immediate change in the existing
political status quo would not happen through petitioning. In fact, all his attempts
to negotiate with the British authorities directly, whether it is regarding the rec-
ognition of the newly developed script or the need to usher in changes in the
existing political structure, were either ridiculed or silenced by the British, leav-
ing him with the sole option of organising an armed resistance against the British.
In their own times, the Naga Club and the movement among the Zeliangrong
tribes in the late 1920s and early 1930s represented two ways in which the Nagas,
drawn into the vortex of colonialism, tried to imagine and work out a political
space that could be their own. Surely, there were differences between them, yet
both emerged out of the immediate and shared need among the Nagas to carve out
their political identity in the context of colonial incursions at that particular mo-
ment. However, in the subsequent decades, clear differences had emerged in how
Nagas came to remember both these initiatives, and this had a lot to do with the
manner in which the Naga national movement under the leadership of the Naga
National Council and the Zeliangrong movement under the leadership of Gaidinliu
developed in the period after the 1950s.
The Naga national movement, which gained momentum with the formation of
the Naga National Council in 1946, awarded a lot of prominence to the Naga
Club as its precursor. But, it remained rather silent about the movement led by
Jadonang and Gaidinliu in the late-1920s and early-1930s.159 The discourse of the
American Baptist missionaries had a lasting influence on many Naga national
leaders leading to a portrayal of the movement initiated by Jadonang as nothing
but anti-Christian and against establishing ‘Nagaland for Christ’. These senti-
ments were boldly articulated by the church historian, Frederick Downs, in his
oft-quoted book, The Mighty Works of God. He characterised the movement as
‘explicitly and often violently anti-Christian’.160 This characterisation was a prod-
uct of the fear and suspicion of the missionaries towards any initiative that was
‘non-Christian’. It contributed in generating a consensus among Naga Christians
158
Hutton, Angami Nagas, p. 252.
159
Every historical account of the Naga national movement begins with the Naga Club and its
memorandum to Simon Commission. It then moves on to the formation of Naga National Council
and the subsequent struggle under its leadership for independence.
160
Downs, Mighty Works of God, p. 147.

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 Zeliangrong movement, Naga Club and a nation in the making / 435

against the movement. Since a sizeable section of the early converts to Christianity
in the region were state functionaries and informants, some of whom were di-
rectly responsible for the arrest of key leaders of the Jadonang movement, there
was much hostility against these collaborators. But this sentiment never took an
anti-Christian campaign in its own time, and to interpret these hostilities as anti-
Christian would be far from the truth.
The allegations made by the missionaries and the local Christians not only
contributed towards how the Naga National Council wrote the history of the Naga
national movement but also how its political engagement was structured espe-
cially in relation to what remained of the Zeliangrong movement in the 1950s and
1960s. The first constitution of the Naga National Council, adopted in 1958, clearly
stated that ‘Nagaland shall be a kingdom for Christ’, and from thereon Christian
proselytism became an important part of the political campaign of the Federal
Government of Nagaland and the Naga Home Guards.161 This raised the ire of
those who had been followers of the Heraka faith, the religion founded by Jadonang
and later developed by Gaidinliu, as the Naga nation seemed to exclude them
on the grounds of religious persuasion. This ultimately led Gaidinliu to form her
own army and government that paralleled the Federal Government and Naga Home
Guard: she gave up the idea of an independent Naga homeland and confined her
demand to an autonomous district for the Zeliangrong tribes within the Union of
India. This, in fact, not only marked a break from the political stance of the Naga
National Council but also a departure from the initial aspiration aired by Jadonang
himself: to forge unity among all the Naga tribes, not just the Zeliangrongs, and
establish an independent Naga kingdom. The late-1950s and the first half of the
1960s witnessed many skirmishes between the two groups.162 Later, in 1968, the
Naga National Council, realising the disunity caused in the name of religion,
amended its constitution and stated that ‘Protestant Christianity and Naga Reli-
gion are recognised Religions in Nagaland’.163 While this temporarily reduced
the tension, the suspicions between the two groups remained.
The growing attempts of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to assimilate the Heraka
faith into the larger Hindu tradition since the 1960s further contributed in gener-
ating a rift between what remained of the movement initiated by Jadonang and
the Naga National Council.164 Paradoxically, it was the rhetoric of the mission-
aries about the anti-Christian character of the Zeliangrong movement that made
the task of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad much easier. It succeeded in portraying
the Zeliangrong movement as largely a religious and cultural movement against

161
Kamei, The History of Zeliangrong Nagas, pp. 213–14.
162
Ibid., pp. 213–15.
163
The Yezhabo of Nagaland, reproduced in Haksar and Luithui, Nagaland File, pp. 95–110.
164
For the work of Vishwa Hindu Parishad among the Zeme Nagas of North Cachar, see Longkumer,
Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging.

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436 / JOHN THOMAS

Christianity rather than as a movement that began as a call for a Naga Raj inde-
pendent of all external political control.
Thus, two political initiatives which began around the same time, in close geo-
graphical proximity, originating in a shared material culture, ethnicity and his-
tory of encountering colonialism, were separated from each other and came to
possess divergent political aspirations. The recollections of scholars, mediated
by missionaries, the state and organisations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad,
recalled these movements only from their moment of divergence and used them
to structure their own political agenda. This article was an attempt to reconnect
these histories that had been estranged, to rehabilitate them within their shared
temporal and spatial terrain without glossing over their differences.

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