Understanding Margins, State Power, Space and Territoriality in the Naga Hills

The Naga Hills frontier of British India, located between present day India and Burma, should not only be seen as a geographical or political construction, territorialized by states' administrative and political practices, but as a space of culture and resources. In this paper I argue that the colonial frontier of the Naga Hills does not present a homogenous “out-of–the-way” place, but is mediated by the practice of colonial territorialization, based on the politics of “cultural difference” and the construction of the “other.” The notion of a uniform state space is contested in the present reading of Naga Hills as a frontier. Indeed, I seek to show how multiple, contingent spaces exist, which are the converse of a homogenous marginal state space. Further, I argue that the practices of territorialization are to be located against the backdrop of the late 19th century global economic transformation (the establishment of world markets through trade and monopoly through plantation farming) and territorial portioning and redefinition, and based on ethnic classification or “ethno-genesis” (the classification of hill people as opposed to the plains). The present analysis is of relevance to world regions, as it helps us to understand the colonial strategies of territorialization that have shaped contemporary ethnic identity struggles within borderlands.