Paper short abstract:

The paper is an attempt to enquire into the mechanism adopted by British Raj to employ tribal groups needed for construction works in colonial North East India. Deploying the various sections of hill tribes into collective identities helped the British to control the coolie labour force.

Paper long abstract:

The scholarship on colonial labour regime had been preoccupied by various forms of labour recruitment for tea plantation. Labour recruitment of coolies for colonial road construction has so far remains unstudied. This paper looks at how colonial official deployed collective identities to control the available local coolie labour and non-local labour needed for construction of roads and railway lines in colonial North East India. Different groups of local sources of labour were identified and mobilized along tribal lines such as the Nagas, the Khasis and the Kukis (Khongjais) which are collective identities. The colonial idea of conscription was contested and resisted by local people in two ways: (a) Armed resistance by the Khasis, (b) indirect protest by desertion. This resulted in acute shortage of local labour supply. The labour shortage was supplemented by non-local sources of labour. This included imported migrant labours like Santhalis (coolies), Nepalis (earthwork & stonework) and Pathans (mascular & good at blowing up rocks). Most of these migrant labours were sourced through labour contractors since the late nineteenth century. Prior to this period, the Rajas and local tribal chiefs were pressed into service to act as labour contractors but they were ultimately rejected in favour of more professional class of labour contractors. Tribal labours conscripted were extensively used in colonial pacification campaigns in North Eastern Frontier of India and global wars (both WWI and WWII). Colonial practices of raising Naga, Khasi, Garo, Lushai labour Corps had impact on ethnic formations in post-Independence India.