5 - Administration

Summary

This chapter centres on case studies from the Assam frontier and Baluchistan, arguing that key logics of colonial frontier administration originated in these regions rather than along the Punjab frontier. It identifies two distinct moments and forms of British administrative intervention in frontier regions. The earlier mode of ‘frontier governmentality’ involved the relocation of entire frontier communities to fully governed state territory. This policy intermingled ideas of ‘improvement’ with logics of punishment and incarceration. They were also notably unsuccessful on their own terms, generating substantial resistance from their subjects and either collapsing or dwindling shortly after their creation. The second set of case studies examines the types of administration implemented with the colonial state’s permanent expansion from the late 1860s onwards into Baluchistan and uplands to the south of Assam. Government in these regions took on exceptional forms, with state sovereignty rooted in the discretionary authority of individual administrators.