The Naga Hills District was a former district of the

Assam Assam (, , ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

province of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

. Located in the

Naga Hills The Naga Hills, reaching a height of around , lie prominently on the border of India and Myanmar. They are part of a complex mountain system, and the parts of the mountain ranges inside the States and territories of India, Indian states of Naga ...

, it was mainly inhabited by the Naga ethnic groups. The area is now part of the state of

Nagaland Nagaland () is a States and union territories of India, state in the northeast India, north-eastern region of India. It is bordered by the Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north, Assam to the west, Manipur to the south, and the Naga Sel ...

History

British colonial rule

The Naga Hills district was created in 1866 by the Government of British India. Its headquarters were located at Samaguting (present day Chümoukedima). In 1875, the

Lotha Naga Lotha Nagas, also known as Kyongs, are a major Naga ethnic group native to Wokha District in the Northeast Indian state of Nagaland. Origins Scholars have presented several theories about the migration of the Lothas and the other Naga peo ...

region was conquered and annexed to the district. An administrative center was established at

Wokha Wokha is a town and municipality in the Indian state of Nagaland. It is the headquarters of Wokha District and is located about 75 km north of the state capital, Kohima. Wokha literally means ''head count'' or ''census'' in the Lotha l ...

; this center was shifted to

Kohima Kohima (; Tenyidie: Kewhira ()) is the capital of the North East Indian state of Nagaland. With a resident population of almost 100,000, it is the second largest city in the state. Kohima constitutes both a district and a municipality. The m ...

in 1879. In 1889, the Ao region was fully annexed to the Naga Hills District as a subdivision. The boundaries of the District were further extended to include most of the Sümi Naga (Sema Naga) territories (1904) and the Konyak Naga region (1910). In 1912, the Naga Hills District was made part of the

Assam Province Assam Province was a province of British India, created in 1912 by the partition of the Eastern Bengal and Assam Province. Its capital was in Shillong. The Assam territory was first separated from Bengal in 1874 as the 'North-East Frontier' ...

. The

Government of India Act 1919 The Government of India Act 1919 ( 9 & 10 Geo. 5. c. 101) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was passed to expand participation of Indians in the government of India. The act embodied the reforms recommended in the report ...

declared the Naga Hills District as a "Backward Tract". The area was to be treated as an entity separate from the

British Indian Empire The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent, * * lasting from 1858 to 1947. * * It is also called Crown rule ...

. In the early 1930s, some of the ethnic groups in the region rebelled against the British rule under the leadership of

Haipou Jadonang Jadonang Malangmei (1905–1931), popularly known as Haipou Jadonang, was a Naga people, Naga spiritual leader and political activist from Manipur, British India. He established the ''Heraka'' religious movement, which was based on the ancestral ...

and Rani Gaidinliu. As per the

Government of India Act 1935 The Government of India Act 1935 (25 & 26 Geo. 5. c. 42) was an Act of Parliament (UK), act passed by the British Parliament that originally received royal assent in August 1935. It was the longest act that the British Parliament ever enact ...

, the area was made an "Excluded Area", administered by the

Governor of Assam This is a list of governors of Assam, and other offices of similar scope, from the start of British occupation of the area in 1824 during the First Anglo-Burmese War. The governor of Assam is the nominal head of the Indian state of Assam. The ...

. The Deputy Commissioner of the district, CR Pawsney, established the Naga Hills District Tribal Council in 1945, which later evolved into the

Naga National Council The Naga National Council (NNC) was a political organization and a tribal government of Naga people in the erstwhile Naga Hills District, British India, Naga Hills district of Assam (present-day Nagaland) in Northeast India. It was active from th ...

in the 1945.

Deputy commissioners of the Naga Hills District

* 1912 – 1913: J. K. Webster * 1913 – 1917: H. C. Berners * 1917 – 1935:

John Henry Hutton John Henry Hutton Order of the Indian Empire, CIE Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, FRAI (27 June 1885 – 23 May 1968) was an English-born anthropologist and an administrator in the Indian Civil Service (ICS) during ...

(b. 1885 – d. 1968) * 1935 – 1937:

James Philip Mills James Philip Mills CSI, CIE, FRAI (1890 – 1960) was a member of the Indian Civil Service and an ethnographer. Early years James Philip Mills was born on 18 February 1890, younger son of James Edward Mills and his wife Ada Smith. He was educat ...

(b. 1890 – d. 1960) * 1937 – 1947: Charles Ridley Pawsey (b. 1894 – d. 1972)

Post India independence & attaining statehood

Under the leadership of A. Z. Phizo, the Naga National Council unsuccessfully led a secessionist movement. When the

Constitution of India The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India, legal document of India, and the longest written national constitution in the world. The document lays down the framework that demarcates fundamental political code, structure, procedures ...

was first released in 1950, the Naga Hills District was placed in "Part A" category of tribal districts as per the Sixth Schedule. The Part A areas were supposed to be governed by the Government of Assam in collaboration with the Autonomous District Councils. However, the Naga leaders refused this scheme. Subsequently, the Naga Hills District, along with the Tuensang Division (then a "Part B" area in the

North-East Frontier Agency The North–East Frontier Agency (NEFA), originally known as the North-East Frontier Tracts (NEFT), was one of the political divisions in British India, and later the Republic of India until 20 January 1972, when it became the Union territory, U ...

) were made a new administrative unit under the Ministry of External Affairs in 1957. After negotiation with the secessionists, this administrative unit was later made a full-fledged state called

References

External links

Gazetteer Of Naga Hills And Manipur
(1905) edited by Allen, B. C. {{coord, 25.46, N, 93.46, E, region:IN_type:landmark_source:kolossus-svwiki, display=title Districts of British India History of Nagaland 1886 establishments in British India 1957 disestablishments in India