Rescuing Imagined Slaves: Colonial State, Missionary and Slavery Debate in North East India (1908–1920)

Abstract

Although the colonial State and the Christian missionaries shared the same colonial space pursuing their modernist respective projects, they did not really share similar ideas on modernity and civilization. The result often was open conflict. One such event occurred in war-time (1908–14) Lushai hills (Mizoram) when a radical Welsh missionary demanded that the colonial administration abolish an institution which he saw as ‘slavery’. The administration denied the existence of any such institution and in turn expelled the missionary for interfering in tribal life. This article examines the construction of ‘slavery’ and larger implication of understanding of indigenous socio-cultural institutions by westerners, but also intervenes on the larger debate of using enlightenment-rationalist paradigms in disrupting indigenous traditions and institutions.