The North-East Frontier of India

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Alexander Mackenzie, the author of the present volume, was more a seasoned administrator than a historian. The book has its genesis in his Memorandum on the North- East Frontier of Bengal which made a general survey of the political relations of the then British Government of India with the hill tribes of Assam, Cachar and Chittagong which proved extremely useful to the local administrators as well as to the Foreign Department of the then British Indian Government.

He later developed this document into a memorable book after a close scrutiny of piles of the Government files, proceedings and records, coupled with his own notes which he had been diligently preparing and compiling. He finally published, in a book form, his painstaking research in 1884 under the title History of the Relations of the Government with the Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier of Bengal as till then Assam and the entire North-East formed part of Bengal. From all accounts it is a unique work and its reprint under the title The North East Frontier of India, is most timely. The Prefatory Introduction written by Late Prof. B.K. Roy Burman, an anthropologist of world renown and an un disputed authority on North-East of India, adds to its importance and usefulness. In Prof. Roy Burman's own words: "Mackenzie was a chronicler of events which were relevant from the point of view of colonial administration of the time. As one goes through the book, one feels that he has done the job competently. He has provided materials which no historian or even no ethno-historian interested in the region can afford to ignore". The matter in the volume, which is no doubt of great historical value, has been organised into three parts. Part I deals with Sub-Himalayan region from Bhutan to the Siang District of present day Arunachal Pradesh. In Part II & III there is a graphic account of the dealings of the then British Government of India with the tribes of the south of the Brahmaputra and Surmah Valleys and the Chittagong Hill Tracts. The conclusions and observations drawn by the author are of absorbing interest. No doubt the present volume is an imperishable chronicle of the period under study.

SIR ALEXANDER MACKENZIE (1842-1902) was Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. He joined Indian Civil Service in 1862; was Under-Secretary to Local Government, Bengal in 1866; Home Secretary to Government of India in 1882; helped to shape Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885; became C.S.I. in 1886 and Chief Commissioner of Central Provinces (1887-90), and of Burma (1890-95) and became K.C.S.I. in 1891. He suppressed hill tribe raids and restored order in 1892. As Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal (1895-98) he did a sanitary survey of Calcutta, enlarged powers of Bengal municipalities, co-operated with Assam in Lushai expedition of 1895- 96; expedited land settlement operations in Bihar and Orissa, dealt efficiently with the famine and the plague of 1896-97. He published History of the Relations of Government with the Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier of Bengal in 1884 (the present book). After his retirement he became Chairman of the India Development Company. He died on Nov. 10, 1902.

FROM 1866 to 1873 I had immediate charge of the Political correspondence of the Bengal Government. In 1869, at the request of the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir William Grey, I wrote for office purposes, and as I could snatch the time from other more pressing work, a "Memorandum on the North-East Frontier of Bengal." Since Pemberton's Report in 1835, no general survey had been taken of the political relations of the Government with the hill tribes of Assam, Cachar and Chittagong; and my Memorandum' proved to be extremely useful, both to the local officers and to the Foreign Department of the Government of India. It was, however, at best, a mere Sketch; and was wanting in those precise references to the original records which are essential for many official purposes. Accordingly, in 1871, I began a fresh and detailed examination of all the records from 1780 up to date, both of the Bengal Secretariat and of the Foreign Department, which bore in any way upon the political history of the North-East Frontier. I made full notes and references as I went along, and in 1873 I saw my way, as I thought, to preparing, when I could find leisure or get leave, a work, which, while treating exhaustively of all the frontier tribes in that quarter, in respect of their relations to the Government, their manners, customs, and ethnological affinities, would at the same time serve as a permanent hand-book for the Government and its local officers. But the close of 1873 brought us face to face with the Famine, and in the vortex of "special duty" arising out of that, all personal plans sank out of view. In 1974 my sight gave way under the pressure of compiling Famine Narratives; and my leave, when it came, was spent in absolute severance from pen, ink, and type in every form. Since my return to India in the end of 1875, I have been unremittingly engaged in duties far too arduous to warrant any dream of authorship. Meantime my Memorandum has gone out of print, and the Foreign Department has repeatedly suggested that a fresh and revised edition of it was very desirable. Hitherto I have evaded compliance with all hints of the kind, hoping against hope for leisure to compile a work in which the public as well as the offices of Government might take some interest. But the pressure has of late become more severe; and finding that, if the Foreign Office could get nothing better, they meant to re-print the old Memorandum, I volunteered to supplement and expand this, for official purposes only, by such of my notes, so long lying by me, as could in this way be utilised. The task of working these in has been much heavier than I anticipated, and when the Press had got fairly started the labour was doubled by a request that I would bring down the Narrative, as best I could, to the present time, or at any rate to the year 1882. This involved an examination of the Bengal Government monthly Proceeding volumes for about six years, for which I had no notes, and of the Assam Proceedings for nine years, besides the reading of numerous heavy files kindly supplied by the Foreign Department. Under the circumstances, I have felt justified in borrowing freely for these later years from the text of the Annual Administration Reports; but every paragraph has been verified, and much additional matter introduced. The whole has been prepared and carried through the Press in little over five weeks-side by side with the full ordinary work of the Home Department. I mention these facts, not by way of boast, but because I wish emphatically to disclaim any literary pretensions for a volume produced under such conditions. It is meant to be useful to Government and its officers, nothing more. For any inferences or comments not avowedly quoted from the records I alone am responsible.

**Contents and Sample Pages**