Introduction

Until the late nineteenth century, when the British established control over parts of the Naga Hills1 and Ao Nagas were exposed to Christianity, the Naga society was non-literate. Unlike other parts of the Indian subcontinent that had prior exposure to collection of information by premodern states and could influence early colonial statistical categories and practices to some extent (Peabody 2001; Guha 2003), Nagas were first exposed to statistics only in the late nineteenth century beginning with the record-keeping of the Baptist Church and colonial administration. Yet within a generation, numbers and written documents became key ingredients of political debates in the Naga Hills and began to play an important role in the Naga nationalist discourse.

The Memorandum on the Naga Hills to the Simon Commission (1929), the foundational document of the Naga political history (Timeline 2.1), contains arguments based on government statistics and statistical comparisons. The memorandum notes,

The adjusted 1921 population of the Naga Hills district was 158,801 after accounting for the transfer of the Diger Mauza from Kohima subdivision to North Cachar subdivision in 1923 (NSA, 2:587). Furthermore, according to the 1921 Census, the population of the Naga tribes of Assam, including Nagas outside the Naga Hills district, was 220,619 (Marten 1923: 160). The members of the Naga Club who submitted the memorandum belonged to Angami (including Eastern Angami, that is, Chakhesang), Kacha Naga, Kuki, Sumi, Lotha and Rengma tribes. The population of the speakers of the corresponding ‘vernaculars’ was 121,759 (ibid.: 98). The figure quoted in the memorandum is, however, close to 102,402, the 1901 Census population estimate (Allen 1902: 32; McSwiney 1912: Table II).