BRITISH POLICY ON THE NORTH-EAST FRONTIER OF INDIA, 1865 - 1914 Deba Pro sad Choudhury Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at University of London 1970 ProQuest Number: 11015915 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11015915 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ACKN C WLED GEMENT S I am thankful to my supervisor, Professor K. A. Ballhatchet, under whose supervision this thesis was written. My thanks are also due to the staffs of the India Office Library, Public Record Office, Cambridge University Library and the National Library of Scotland. ABSTRACT The purpose of the present thesis is to analyse British policy on the north-east frontier of India between 1865 and 1914* The recent dispute between India and China over this area gives added significance to this subject. Until the early years of the twentieth century, the govern­ ment was concerned with the local problem of dealing with the tribesmen of the frontier. There was no pressure of a foreign power to make this frontier a subject of international importance. The government’s main objective at this time was to maintain peace­ ful relations with the tribes by means of a policy of non-inter­ ference. Troubles with the tribes were however a familiar occur­ rence, and the government tried to deal with the situation by economic and military measures. But the British never tried to occupy and directly administer the tribal country. This policy might have continued well into the twentieth century, had not 1he frontier witnessed Chinese pressure from the north after the Chinese seizure of Lhasa in 1910. This new situation forced the British to part with the former policy which was not suited to meet an international tension here. Although they were still reluctant to administer the area directly, they decided to bring it under a sort of political control. The culmination of this new policy was the negotiation of the Indo-Tibetan boundary in 1914 during the Siml a Conference. Besides published sources, the relevant Private Papers and the archives of the India Office Library and Public Record Office 1 have been utilised for the present study. 5 CONTENTS page Ackn o wl e dgem en t s ........................... 2 Abstract 3 Contents ................ .. .. .. .5 Introduction 6 Chapter I The People and Economy of the Frontier ............ 11 Chapter II The Policy of Non-Interference (Until 1911)... ........... 56 Chapter III Prom Non-Interference to Political Control (19II-I914) 102 Chapter IV Chinese Threat and Countermeasures .. .. 136 Chapter V The Boundary Line in theMaking ............ 188 Conclusion ........................... 259 Appendix ........................... 268 Abbreviations ........................... 271 Bibliography ........................... 272 Map s ........................... 288 INTRODUCTION Until recently the concept of the north-east frontier of India did not have a precise geographical connotation. In the nineteenth century and even in ihe early twentieth century this term often meant the tribal areas of Assam and sometimes even the northern border of Bengal. In the present study we shall use it to mean only that tribal area in the eastern Himalaya which stretches from ihe western boundary of Bhutan to the tri-junction of India, Burma and Tibet, and lies between the Brahmaputra valley in the south and the highlands of Tibet in the north. It roughly corresponds with the present N.E.F.A.^ area of India. Scenically this is one of the most magnificent countries in the wrld with the rich natural splendours of the eternal snow on the high Hima­ layan range, deep gorges, torrential rivers, dense forests teeming with wild life, and many colourful, warlike tribes. It is more varied and possibly more impressive than the far-famed north-west frontier of India. Yet until very recently it remained relatively unknown to the outside world. The only reason was that, unlike the north-west frontier, it was never in the past a gateway of invasions into the heartland of India. From the remote past, waves of Invasion had ^North East Frontier Agency. come into India through the north-west frontier. Any central power in northern India had to take this fact into account, and we find a kind of balance of power between India and Central Asia resting on the hinge of the north-west frontier. While some like the Imperial Guptas succeeded in repulsing the invading hordes, others like the Mauryas, Kushanas and Mughals extended their sway far beyond the north-west frontier. But whenever the central power in India was weak, the foreign invaders forced their way through the frontier. During the British period also the import­ ance of the north-west frontier continued due to the Russian ad­ vance In Central Asia. But -the north-east frontier of India has never in the past enjoyed so great an importance in -the long drama between India and Central Asia, since there was no comparable press­ ure of a hostile power behind it. Only in the twentieth century has it faced such a pressure first in 1910-14 and then from the 1950s onward. On both occasions this pressure has been the direct consequence of Chinese invasion of Tibet. While the threat in 1910-14 was a short lived one, the present danger after 1950 seems likely to remain for a long time to come. The recent Chinese challenge to India1s right to this frontier has created an explosive inter­ national issue and has already led to a frontier war between the two countries in 1962. In his Romanes Lecture in 1907 Curzon said, "Frontiers are indeed the razor*s edge on which hang suspended the modem issues of war or peace....M^ In view of the present tension on India* s north-east frontier we can reasonably say that the weight of this comment has not diminished in spite of the passage of more than half a century. Nor does it seem likely to diminish for some decades, so far as this frontier is concerned. The India-China quarrel over this frontier has recently aroused a great interest and elicited a spate of writings on the history of this frontier. An understanding of the present situation is im­ possible without a proper knowledge of the history that lies behind it. But often these writings are sadly inadequate. Mostly these are confined to the events which took place in 1910-14 consequent to the Chinese pressure. Although these events have a direct bear­ ing on the present international character of the problem, a review of them alone cannot provide us with a full view of the history of this frontier. Nobody can properly understand this frontier with­ out a fair knowledge of the tribal people of the area - their eth­ nic origin, migrations, economic life and relations with the plains. Though the tribes are different from one mother in many respects, they have one thing in common - they are all different from the Assamese of the plains. When the British came into contact with this frontier on the annexation of Assam, they faced serious tribal problems which mostly arose from the contacts between the tribesmen ^Curzon, Frontiers, Oxford, 1907, p.7. and the plains. As we shall see later, the measures adopted by the British in the beginning to meet these problems resembled in essence those which had been devised by their Ahom predecessors. The tribal problems which were strictly speaking local in charact­ er were the only problems which the British had to deal with on this frontier till the end of the nineteenth century. It was not until the twentieth century that to these local problems was added the international problem of this froqtier due to the sudden appearance of a Chinese threat. Yet, in tackling the international problem, the government had to bear in mind their experience of the tribal people. The reason why they took certain measures rather than others apparently more effective to meet Chinese intrusions lay at least partly in the history of British relations with the tribesmen. Thus no realistic attempt to understand the history of this frontier can afford to ignore the tribesmen and the problems which they posed for the government. But, even when writers confine themselves to a study of the events in the early twentieth century consequent to the Chinese in­ vasion of Tibet which finally led to the making of what is now called the ^"Mdflahbh Line, they often do not go into the details. Yet the details are important in the intricate history which lies behind a very delicate international issue of our time. As this V area has become a subject of heated claims and aounter^claims, Chapter I THE PEOPLE AND ECONOMY OF THE FRONTIER The north-east frontier of India is the homeland of a number of hill tribes. A brief study of these tribes is essential for an understanding of the present subject. But to give a realistic idea of tribal life during the period under study solely on the basis of nineteenth century accounts is extremely difficult if not impossible. These accounts are not only inadequate but are often not corroborated by later accounts. Those who wrote them were not trained anthropologists.