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In 1936, while preparing to leave for Aijal (Aizawl) from Shillong, Beatrix Scott hardly knew what to make of a telegram that said “Bring cat. Local cat dead, house infested with rats.” Amidst the flurry of departure, a female kitten was acquired, whose “tremendous force of character” was something to contend with. Beatrix’s husband, Walter Scott, had just been appointed superintendent of the Lushai Hills, a post he had greatly wanted. The Lushai Hills as described by Beatrix Scott was “a sparsely populated and extremely inaccessible series of ridges of hills rising from low foothills in the east to the 7,000 to 8,000 ft mountains on the Burmah Border”. From Shillong, where the Scotts were posted at the time, Aijal, the headquarters of the Lushai Hills, was an eight-day journey on horseback from the railhead at Silchar. To get to Silchar from Shillong was another 36 hours by train.
Once at Silchar, the onward journey had to be planned meticulously. Heavy baggage and supplies were sent by country boat on a journey that could take up to a month. The Scotts’ cavalcade consisted of cows, ponies, calves and coolies — with Twopence, a fox terrier, heading the procession “wild with excitement”. Beatrix Scott reported that the first view of Aijal was dramatic — and no doubt welcome, as it came at the end of an arduous and at times scary ride through the wilderness. It looked like a homely little place with rambling roses climbing all over the fences and well-kept gardens, including that of their home to be — “a singularly inconvenient and loveable house”. Soon, commissariat difficulties were upon them as everything apart from garden vegetables, milk from the cows and fowl and rice from the villagers had to be ordered from Calcutta, a two-month passage away. The rains were the only source of water and understandably the supply was soon seriously depleted; leaking kerosene tins and a boat that sank with another supply of the precious fuel meant “the joys of black-out” for days on end. Camp life — an integral part of a district posting — had its own share of surprises, some more tiresome than others. In part, this was owing to the fact that a white person had rarely been seen in the remote Lushai Hills.
Beatrix Scott’s amusing account of how she dealt with a bodily inspection by a chief’s wife while on tour, listing of assaults by mosquitoes, blue bottles, leeches as well descriptions of how the entire community waited anxiously for the arrival of the monsoons can be read against the backdrop of the rich Digital Archives of Joy L.K. Pachuau and Willem van Schendel. Gleaned from libraries, archives and “hundreds of private albums from Mizoram, Tripura, Manipur, Delhi and the UK”, a recent exhibition of photographs (The Camera as Witness — Capturing Mizo Pasts) eschewed the exotic and showed instead how over a century and a half, those from the Lushai Hills(present-day Mizoram) coped with their environment. The photographs provided the viewer with a history marked not only by political, educational and religious change, but also emerging dress codes, growth of music, the cult of the motorbike and influence of cowboy culture. The curators, Pachuau and Schendel, had much to choose from as the entire archive consists of over 20,000 images.
For the British, who finally annexed the Lushai Hills in 1889-90, the existing system of village chiefs was a convenient model to adopt. In no time, the number of autonomous village chiefs (lals) had gone up from 60 to 259, of whom the Sailos were the single largest group. This pre-annexation image of 18 Lushai chiefs posing with guns during their visit to Calcutta in 1872 becomes an important signifier of relations between the British and independent chiefs.The caption that was available from the donor of the image identified the chiefs as Vanhnuaia (of Pukzing village, sitting on the chair on the left), Rothangpuia (of Belkhai village, on the chair to the right), Lalngura (on the middle chair), Lalngura (squatting on the left),and Lalchema (of Laisawral village, squatting on the right). It went on to add that “these independent chiefs made the trip at the behest of T.H. Lewin, the British officer who was stationed at the border of their domain”. There is no mention of the tension that had clearly built up by then, following Lushai raids into British India, including the kidnapping of six-year-old Mary Winchester. Her tea planter father had been killed in one of the raids. In retaliation, the punitive Lushai Expedition of 1871-1872 was organized, of which Lewin was very much a part. Mary was rescued unharmed and as villages came under siege, a truce was forged with the Mizo chiefs to abstain from further attacks. The British built frontier posts to protect the border, and bazaars were opened to encourage the Lushais to trade — and give up militancy.
Thus this photograph is an important testament of troubled times. As it is dated 1872, it is likely to have been taken after the Expedition and perhaps during the days of truce-making. Each chief is holding an indigenously made gun. Composition-wise, it combines a directed pose — that of the three senior persons who are seated — with a certain randomness for the rest of the assemblage. What is most evident, however, is a certain tension in the body language of all. The occasion as well as the long journey — no doubt made on foot, horseback and perhaps by train — could not have made for easy and relaxed posing. It is possible that the photo shoot was a “first” for some who might have been ill at ease with the entire long-drawn-out proceedings that involved the photographer disappearing behind a black shroud, many instructions barked out on how to stand or sit, and the final moment. The donor of the image was clear that Lewin had organized the photographic event — and might even have taken the image. By this time, cameras and requisite equipment were provided to officers in key positions as by the last decades of the 19th century, visual testimony (finger prints, mug shots and so on) had become an integral part of British surveillance, cataloguing and record keeping.
The image of the Lushai chiefs was clearly an exception as the exhibition had few images taken by the rulers. In addition, as colonial ethnographers had not found their way to this remote part of the country, the Mizos were not subjected to ethnographic objectification by the camera. However, the earliest photographs were indeed those taken by foreign eyes, that of the missionaries — Presbyterians, Baptist Missionary Society and Lakher Pioneer Society — and a few by professionals hired by those who could afford the luxury of a “home shoot”. The early missionaries were seen taking charge of children, a Mizo kitchen was showcased and there were singers, young and old. Singing and music — particularly using string instruments — became important ways of imparting Christianity.
The selection of photographs emphasized that by the 20th century, the camera had become a significant feature of Mizo life, recording changing aspirations and trends.Even though studio photography had come to the area by the 1890s — a good half-century after its appearance in the three Presidencies — it was quickly incorporated into the lives of those who could afford it, memorializing family events, the conjugal couple and much else. The photograph allowed for fantasy, for role-playing. In a section on “cowboys”, there are photographs of young Mizo men who had adopted cowboy-inspired styles of dressing about the same time that they discovered the guitar and American pop music. For many young men between the 1960s and ’80s, the guitar and cowboy hat came to symbolize a certain Mizo oeuvre. Thus Thangsailova strikes a James Dean pose while, at a more sombre level, the outfit was also adopted by Mizo guerilla fighters between 1966-86, the years of the Troubles. Imposing Assamese on a people to whom it was an alien language was only one of the issues that underlay the years of alienation and insurgency.
Women’s sartorial styles, too, had changed, as a number decided to experiment with the traditional puan (sarong) while others also took to Western dress. This is clear from a number of well-composed shots of women in stylish clothes, posing self-consciously for the camera, both within the studio as well as for friends and relatives.The most striking contemporary image on display in terms of the staged photograph was that of young Zonusanga who locked hands with a male friend — while a demure young woman looked on. The photograph was from the protagonist’s private collection and the caption added that the moustache he sported was added later — a tribute to the marvels of the digital age. Such images, of which The Camera as Witness has quite a few, remind us that photographs give a new salience to received wisdoms and the written word, often providing insights into little-known histories, be these the lives of colonials such as the Scotts, Lushai chiefs under siege or the world of the likes of Zonusanga. |
