Special Centre for the Study of North East India
School of Social Sciences
Jawaharlal Nehru University
Fire-arms and state-making:
Connections across the Indo-Burma borderlands
Joy L.K. Pachuau
Centre for Historical Studies
School of Social Sciences
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Abstract
The paper is an attempt to understand pre-colonial ‘state’ systems in the Indo-Burma borderlands, more specifically in the borderland areas of the Lushai and Chin Hills. The paper will show that the chiefs in these areas in the immediate pre-colonial period were on their path to establish more stable state systems such as Ava, Manipur, Cachar and others that surrounded them. These attempts were of course thwarted with the arrival of the British. The push of tribes east to west, as well as the incessant warfare amongst tribes mentioned in colonial records should be seen in the context of the attempt to create more powerful lineages and thereby states. In this, the role of firearms was important. The paper will trace the avenues through which firearms arrived in the region and contributed to state-making processes. The movement of firearms can also be a means to understand the connected histories of the region that went beyond the boundaries that we know of today.
DATE: October12, Friday, 2018
TIME: 3:00 pm to 5:00 PM
VENUE: Room No.324, 3rd Floor, SSS-I, JNU
All are invited