Imagining Frontier Spaces: The Frontier Tribal Areas in Imperial Defence in the Northeast of British India

Abstract

This article concerns the northeast frontier of British India during the last years of British rule. It explores how the conundrums of the Second World War led to the reconfiguration of the northeast frontier as a strategic space in the empire’s geopolitics. This reconfiguration was pushed by contestation over the frontier spaces by different powers—threatened by the Japanese during the Second World War and, later, the possible post-war reification of Chinese and Tibetan expansionist policy towards India’s northeast frontier and the impending Indian independence. The colonial state’s strategic interest led the frontier officials to reimagine the northeast frontier, whereby the region and its local populations came to be regarded as integral to the preservation of the colonial state’s dominance.