This chapter examines colonial and postcolonial depictions of jhum cultivation in the Naga Hills and the policies (sporadically) pursued. It teases out the tensions distinctive to this region as the political and administrative frontier of British India. In the nineteenth century, the discovery of tea, minerals, notably coal and petroleum, and the expansion of the Assam–Bengal railway along the Naga foothills adjoining the Assam plains (in the Sibsagar District) added to the complexity of fixing the boundaries between the hills and the plains as the ‘tea frontier’ and the ‘Inner Line’ – the political and administrative divide between the two worlds, hills and plains – edged further into the hills. In 1873 the arrival of a new player, the Forest Department, added further issues. The colonial administration was constantly confronting local settlers, both Naga and non-Naga, who by now had become part of the tea frontier. Beyond the ‘Inner Line’ boundary, in the territory of the administered Naga Hills District, the local colonial administration devised policies of ‘least interference’ – or indirect intervention – by which a thinly administered area could be effectively managed by interacting with Naga customs and traditions (as understood by the administration). This chapter concentrates on explaining how this broad political stance was decisive in formulating colonial policy on jhum cultivation, not only in the nineteenth century, but also in the twentieth.

‘Non-interference’ did not mean there were no interventions with respect to jhum. On the contrary, in the name of ‘progress’ and ‘improvement’, colonial officials initiated a number of schemes. However, the crucial point is that jhum policy in the region was above all dictated by political–administrative concerns determined by the local exigencies of rule: to establish political control through ‘moderate’ forms of political administration. The patronage system established by hill officers with village headmen and chiefs was highly important (see also Chapter 5), as were attempts to transfer existing local methods of cultivation between tribes, which in turn depended on the approval of and adoption by the local headmen and chiefs. In this way, local administrators followed a policy of adopting and replicating local ‘best practice’ for jhum ‘improvement’. Drastic change was seen as detrimental to effective administration of the Naga way of life in this politically contested frontier