Reluctantly the Governor-General heeded. Reluctantly, because a relatively small number of hill peoples had apparently managed to keep British forces at bay for several years. A force of 500 soldiers, and even more ‘coolies’, was assembled and took to the hills under the headship of several British officers in 1850. First taking up position in Mezoma, a village the British had brought under their nominal control during earlier expeditions, they then advanced to Khonoma, propelling mortar after mortar into the village whilst attacking its stockades. The shelling and fighting continued until Khonoma’s warriors finally accepted the futility of their spears and shields against the much superior weaponry tried on them, and fled the village at night. An official report concludes: “Thus fell one of the strongest Forts ever seen in Assam, after a siege of sixteen hours’ duration.”
While Khonoma had finally succumbed, the ten punitive expeditions into the Hills had incurred tremendous expenditures and energy on part of the British, and which made Major Butler reflect:
The experience of this expedition has shown very clearly the great difficulties that have to be encountered in carrying on warfare in this woody and mountainous country. Unable to move with less than 600 coolies, if opposed, we should suffer serious loss without the possibility of being able to injure the enemy.
With the job of reducing Khonoma accomplished, Major Butler retired to the plains to appraise the Agent to the Governor, but ordered Captain Reed to stay put in the hills to await final orders. To the Government, Major Butler advised against any permanent occupation of the hills as this would require “the employment of at least a regiment of 500 men, with several European officers, guns and mortars; and the enormous expense attendant on such a measure”. In the present state of affair, so he continued, “I do not recommend violent measures, unless we are openly opposed. We have driven the enemy from his stronghold, and he must now be sensible of our power; and it is a question to be considered, whether it would not be more advisable not to interfere with the internal affairs of the Nagahs.”
Soon, the commercial production of tea etched itself at the forefront of colonial policy-making towards the Naga.
While Major Butler tried to persuade the Government into adopting a Non-Interference Policy towards the Nagas, Captain Reed, up in the hills, used his time and the forces at his disposal to trot eastwards, towards the country of the Eastern Angamis (today known as Chakhesang), in order to secure their submission to British rule. However, soon sensing hostility all around him, he put up camp and “resolved on not proceeding to make further discoveries”, but to await the much anticipated Government order allowing him to return to the plains. However, just as Captain Reed had firmly resolved to close his campaign, on 5 February 1851 two heralds from Kikrüma came to seek his audience. They carried with them an open challenge to the British Government from its villagers.
***
If in pre-colonial days, the village of Khonoma controlled much of the foothills directly adjacent to the Assam plains, and often executed raids on the plains, Kikrüma had established itself as a powerhouse deeper inside the hills, closer to the plains of Manipur than to the Brahmaputra Valley. The village’s location, perched on a hilltop, while of inconvenience in several ways, had helped the village grow to supremacy; enemies could be spotted from afar while the steep, rocky slope made for a natural defence wall. While the village had not been visited by a British officer, a report estimated it to consist of approximately 1000 houses. Its warriors were many, and were known and feared widely for their daring, determination and ferocity. Over the years, they had exerted their control over a large number of villages in its vicinity, extracted tribute from them, and raided and pillaged those reluctant to accept its sway. British officers were aware of Kikrüma standing and strength: “[Kikrüma] was said to contain about 1,000 houses, and they were dreaded by all around as a bloodthirsty people, who think nothing of murder for the sake of plunder: they boasted of having a man in their village who had killed seventy men.”
True to its reputation, and ever confident of its prowess, Kikrüma warriors had anxiously anticipated an opportunity to confront the strange-looking invaders, certain that they would defeat them. However, to their frustration the British-led troops failed to advance into its vicinity, and with them now showing signs of retreating, the villagers resolved to take over the initiative. The words spoken by the two messengers have been translated and preserved in the colonial archive. Addressing Captain Reed, they invited him “to come and prove who had the greatest power in these hills, they [Kikrüma] or our government.” The Manipuris from the Imphal Valley, under the leadership of Gumbheer Singh, the messengers further stated, “were afraid to fight them”, and the British now “seemed afraid also”. They spoke with confidence and remained unperturbed at the sight of the muskets, mortars and guns stalled out in the camp. “Your Sipahees are flesh and blood as well as we, and we will fight with spear and shield, and see who are the best men.” Before departing, they presented Captain Reed with a specimen of their weapon, a handsome spear.
It all confounded Captain Reed. While both circumstances and the anticipated policy change towards non-interference hardly favoured another battle in the hills, he reasoned that was he to withdraw his forces, Kikrüma would certainly take it a sign of weakness and cowardice. Thus, Captain Reed was “determined at once to uphold the name and honour of the Government by accepting the challenge” and told the two messengers to inform their fellow villagers that “they would soon have an opportunity”.
He immediately started making preparations and dispatched a messenger to order Lieutenant Campbell, who was camping in Mezoma village, to join him with 50 more men. This brought the tally of forces and weaponry at Captain Reed’s disposal to “150 muskets, two three-pounders and a mortar, and about 800 friendly Nagahs to fight on our side with their spears.” These so-called ‘friendly Nagahs’ belonged to surrounding villages which had by then pledged allegiance to the British. Not a few of these villages had previously suffered at the hands of Kikrüma, whose warriors had repeatedly raided them, killed and maimed several, or had extracted heavy tribute. In a characteristic exercise of ‘divide and rule’, British officer used their long-lingering antipathy and desire for revenge against Kikrüma to mould them into a strongly motivated fighting force.
Having assembled and readied his forces on 9 February, Captain Reed guided them to the village of Kidima, situated at about two miles from Kikrüma. From here they could see the village, and saw Kikrüma warriors labouring hard to put in place impediments, barriers, and traps on the path leading to the village, which moreover looked so steep and difficult to scale that it made Captain Reed resolve to alter his strategy. Instead of approaching the village via the south end of the hill as initially planned, as well as anticipated by the villagers, he directed his troops about a mile north. This move puzzled and worried the Kikrüma villagers. Their north gate was not as strongly fortified compared to the south entrance to the village, and with the troops already on their advance there was no time left to strengthen its northern defences.
***
On 11 February 1851, at break of dawn, Captain Reed’s forces started its ascent towards Kikrüma. Encountering few obstacles on its way up, its advance guard soon reached an elevated ground from which they started firing their rifles into the village. Kikrüma warriors, a colonial report on the battle reads, “hotly engaged with our friendly Nagahs, fighting with the greatest desperation, and in the heat of battle attempted to cut off the heads of the Nagas as they killed them.” However, if in face-to-face encounters Kikrüma warriors had proven near undefeatable, the spears and shields they carried provided little protection against the bullets fired at them. The report noted:
The Sipahees of the 1st and 2nd Assam Light Infantry, however, soon drove them out of the village, killing and wounding many of them. The guns were fired, which created the utmost consternation, and the enemy fled in every direction, utterly discomfited, leaving 100 slain on the field of battle, including many of their most noted warriors.
With Kikrüma warriors withdrawing to the jungles and fields beyond, the so-called ‘friendly Nagahs’ saw their opportunity, venting their anger long held back. They wrecked the village, looting it, setting fire to its thatched roofs, destroying the granaries, and pursuing any remaining villagers, killing as many as they could. Characteristically eloquent in tracing genealogies, village elders today can tell names of those ancestors killed in the onslaught, and narrate with great detail the story of the battle as they had heard it from their elders. “Do you see this path in front of my house?” an elder asked me and pointed his finger. “Earlier this was a small stream. During the battle, I heard, the water streaming down was reddened by blood.”
By the time the ‘friendly Nagahs’ were done, the village was reduced to ruins and smouldering ashes, except for six houses in the slightly elevated centre of the village; it was where the troops sought shelter for the night. Sleeping however little they could as the remaining Kikrüma warriors refused to surrender:
So determined and hostile were the enemy, that several times during the night they attempted to attack the troops, and it was found impossible to procure water for the troops during the night without great risk, the enemy lying in ambush in all directions. Even in the evening, when the Sipahees were on the alert, and when the mortar was being fired, a cook sitting close to it was wounded by a spear being thrown at him.
If many Kikrüma warriors had fallen during the first attack, another and more lurid massacre was to follow the next morning. Having declared victory, the troops, while vacating the village through its south-west gate, noticed hundreds of old men, women, and children hiding themselves in a secluded paddy-field. Showing no mercy, the ‘friendly Nagahs’ immediately initiated an assault, significantly increasing the body count. All in all, estimations have it that “about 300 [Kikrüma] Nagahs were killed and wounded upon this occasion; and doubtless many women and children were murdered by our ruthless barbarian allies, who show no mercy in battle, and delight in bloody warfare, exterminating young and old.”
On 12 February, the British-led troops returned to their outpost in Mezoma village, and “Thus fell Kekre-mah, after one of the most bloody battles over fought in Assam.” While the Colonial Government, after being intimated about the battle, considered the attack “unavoidable” and “most creditably conducted by Captain Reed”, it simultaneously stated how “the expedition itself seemed scarcely to have been called for” and the burning of the village, “an unnecessary piece of severity”.
***
Hardly a month after the battle of Kikrüma, Major Butler’s persistent advice was promoted into policy, and a non-interference approach was formally adopted to guide the British’ dealings with the upland Nagas. Certainly the fierce and determined resistance offered by villages as Khonoma and Kikrüma in large parts contributed to this decision. Kept at bay, it took the British at least a few more years to return to a ‘Forward Policy’. For Kikrüma, the consequences of the battle, the loss of lives, houses, and grains stocked up was severe and long felt. Yet, the village proved resilient and gradually grew back to its earlier prominence, although with the eventual British pacification of the hills, it ceased its raids on surrounding villages and slowly surrendered its claims on tribute.
Today, well over 160 years on, the story of the battle lives on amongst the Kikrüma villagers, who can’t but feel awe at their forefathers daring and determination to challenge the British Empire. It was a decision that cost them dearly. And yet, Kikrüma’s challenge to the British remains a monumental act of resistance against colonial rule: a remarkable story of a single Naga village taking on the British Empire. It is a story that deserves to be remembered, shared much more widely, and indeed, given its rightful place in the history of colonial resistance.
Writer’s note: Apo Kühüpoyo Puro has long worked locally to preserve the tale of the battle of Kikrüma, and this writing only builds upon his insights. I remain deeply grateful to the villagers of Kikrüma, in whose midst I stayed for well over year as part of a doctoral project I am pursuing, and whose never failing hospitality and kindness is unforgettable.
~Jelle J P Wouters is a lecturer at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan, and a PhD candidate at North-Eastern Hill University, India. Previously he taught at Sikkim University and Eberhard Karls University.
Wish the story made into a film soon
this is one of the best articles i’ve read on Naga history….i had not been aware that a village neighbouring mine had such a powerful and poignant story to tell..thank you for bringing alive their history and memories.
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Great article. Such heroic stories would gradually disappear from literature unless preserved. Well done
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I Heard about this through my grandfather who lived more than a hundred year and he was the oldest man in our village during his time. Lt. Khatu puro. I heard the story from himas if the battle just took place yesterday. He would even pose and act sometimes how the bloody battle took place.We Would like to thank JJ for bringing up the reality and history which needs to be shared. Proud to be from this village.
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