A review of the book 'His Majesty’s Headhunters: The Siege Of Kohima That Shaped World History' written by Mmhonlümo Kikon.
Surprisingly little is known about the siege of Kohima, considered a game-changing event that altered the course of world history during the Second World War. His Majesty’s Headhunters adds to our understanding of this battle and shows how it redefined a whole era.
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Coming up: A review of the book 'His Majesty’s Headhunters: The Siege Of Kohima That Shaped World History' written by Mmhonlümo Kikon.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Mmhonlümo Kikon was born in Kohima, Nagaland, and studied literature at the University of Delhi. He is the author of three books of poems, The Penmi Poems (2018), The Village Empire (2019) and Slingstones (2021). Mmhonlümo was a legislator in the Nagaland Legislative Assembly for two terms, from 2013 to 2023.
Let me read what is written on the inside flap of the book cover:
QUOTE
Surprisingly little is known about the siege of Kohima, considered a game-changing event that altered the course of world history during the Second World War. His Majesty’s Headhunters adds to our understanding of this battle and shows how it redefined a whole era.
Providing a unique perspective of Nagaland and its warriors, this book uncovers the untold story of the siege, regarded as one of the more celebrated battles of D-Day and often referred to as the ‘Stalingrad of the East’ by Western scholars. Historians even believe that this was the last battle of the British Empire and the first battle of the ‘New India’ .
However, that is just the tale told so far by everyone except the Nagas. The real history of this battle—which involved the Japanese Army, led by Lieutenant General Sato, and the Allied forces—is yet to be recounted. As Lt Gen. Sato is said to have remarked, if it were not for the Naga people, the Allied forces would have been defeated in Kohima, and the Japanese Army would have easily secured the Dimapur railway station and moved victoriously towards Bengal via Assam, thus reversing the outcome of the war.
This rare and deeply researched historical account, drawing on records left by the officers and soldiers who fought in Kohima, is a page-turner. It brings to light the valour and spirit of the Naga ‘headhunters’, who made the supreme sacrifice to protect the honour of their people.
UNQUOTE
Now, coming to the book review, the author has divided the book into two parts. In the first part, Kikon narrates the British expeditions to the Naga Hills region beginning in the 1830s, the role of the British East India Company in efforts to control Nagas and other tribes in the area, the establishment of British military posts, brutal and savage raids against British forces by Nagas and other tribes followed by equally brutal British reprisals, assassinations of British military leaders, and the establishment of successive British political administrations in several villages, culminating at Kohima in 1878.
The political agent of Manipur in 1937, Captain George Gordon, was the first to come up with the idea to allow American missionaries into the Naga Hills. Proselytization as a tool to assist colonial domination was mooted.
Towards the end, the author rightly says that the violence perpetrated on the Nagas by the colonial forces and their allies that led to the colonization of the Nagas and the consolidation of their rule was aided by the work of the missionaries through the schools and the churches they planted.
The second part deals with the Battle of Kohima. Various books written on the battle vividly portray the part played by the British forces in defeating the Japanese but also the entire Burma Campaign during the Second World War.
In fact, the British National Army Museum voted the Battle of Kohima and Imphal in 2013 as ‘Britain’s Greatest Battle’ over and above the Battle of Waterloo, the Normandy landings and Stalingrad.
The difference between the British and the Japanese in their dealings with the Nagas was the key. The steep terrain of the battlefield was daunting for the British soldiers and if not for the Nagas, who carried water on their head for them, brought down the wounded on stretchers, walked for hours without much rest, navigated the forest paths without a map, but still ensured that the service was rendered with diligence, things would have been different for the British.
The British sent a mind-boggling 40 million cigarettes to the battlefields of Kohima and Imphal. By the sheer numbers, cigarettes seem to have been the main item of demand for the soldiers. The First and the Second World War had seen cigarettes being rationed to soldiers to calm their nerves while in the trenches.
The cigarettes and the food enlivened the camaraderie during the three months of fierce fighting. Pork is an integral part of the Naga diet and pigs are reared in the backyard in a village home is a delicacy. When the Japanese ran out of supplies, they would simply snatch any pig they saw in the villages and take it by force to eat.
In the initial days, the Japanese paid for the vegetables and the food they bought from the Nagas. As their supply and provisions ran out and the war raged on, they started taking whatever food they could get by force. The Japanese pushed the Nagas right into the arms of the British.
The British were well organized and dealt with the locals in a proper manner, as almost all the Nagas would testify. For every service rendered, they paid well and were never short of supplies to share.
Many Nagas remember to this day that it was not just the simple sight of aircraft spraying bullets from their machine guns on the Japanese that both mesmerized and fascinated the Nagas, but it was also the sharing of supplies in times when food was scarce that rejected the theory of brotherhood based on race proposed by the Japanese. Veterans say that the war was won not just by the surplus of food available with the British but because the Allied forces could convert the best locally available human resource to their side.
Conclusion:
The book is just under 150 pages and moves at a very brisk pace. The author has done a commendable job in covering the history of the period in a nice and easy to read manner. Hopefully, someday, the Battle of Kohima will get an entry into our school textbooks. The book is very well produced in Hardcover format with 8 pages in colour showing inscriptions, epitaphs of soldiers at the Kohima War Cemetery and the village where Japanese soldiers stayed. The author has provided the timelines of the British Expeditions to the Naga Hills and of the Battle of Kohima, 1944.
Kikon concludes the book by paying tribute to the Naga display of “courage and fortitude in the face of a determined force” and the “Naga spirit” which helped “change world history”. With more than a touch of hyperbole, Kikon writes, “The Samurai surrendered to the Naga Dao.” I give the book a rating of 4.5/5.
The book is available for around Rs. 450/- on Amazon India and for around Rs. 390/- on Flipkart. And it is available for $19.99 USD on Amazon USA where it is available for pre-order as it is scheduled to release only on the 12th of March, 2024. I will provide all the respective buy links in the show notes. Please check them out for the latest prices.
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