Mission, Empire, and Labour: William Pettigrew and the Recruitment of the 22nd Manipur Labour Corps in World War I

Pamkhuila Shaiza

doi:10.63363/aijfr.2025.v06i06.1441

Mission, Empire, and Labour: William Pettigrew and the Recruitment of the 22nd Manipur Labour Corps in World War I

Author(s)	Ms. Pamkhuila Shaiza
Country	India
Abstract	This paper investigates the recruitment of the 22nd Manipur Labour Corps during World War I, situating the episode within the intersecting forces of colonial coercion, princely politics, missionary mediation, and indigenous agency. While the British Empire mobilized over a million soldiers from India, the extraction of labourers from frontier communities such as the Tangkhuls, Kukis, and Mao Poumei reflects the imperial logic of using “tribal” bodies as expendable units in global warfare. Maharaja Chura Chand Singh, bound by subsidiary alliances, acquiesced to British demands, while Reverend William Pettigrew assumed a central role as mediator, leveraging his missionary authority to secure participation from his Christian converts. Although more than 2,000 men were dispatched to France and other theatres for non-combatant work such as trench construction and logistical support, recruitment was marked by deep ambivalence. Many tribal groups resisted conscription as an extension of existing exploitations under house taxes and begar (forced labour), while others accepted under promises of wages, travel, and lifelong exemption from local obligations. Interpreters and mission-trained elites such as Kanrei Shaiza emerged as key figures, embodying the paradox of colonial modernity: both products of missionary education and agents of indigenous intellectual and cultural transformation. Drawing on Subaltern Studies and postcolonial theory, this paper interprets resistance as a form of non-hegemonic politics and participation as a negotiated engagement with imperial power. It further demonstrates how colonial biopolitics, through drills, wage hierarchies, and symbolic appeals, regulated subaltern bodies for imperial purposes, while simultaneously opening avenues for new cultural identities, Christian public spheres, and global exposure. By recovering the overlooked experiences of Manipuri labourers, the paper contributes to broader debates on militarized labour, missionary complicity, and the hybrid subjectivities forged within the crucible of empire.
Keywords	Manipur Labour Corps; World War I; Colonialism and Missionaries; Indigenous Agency; Subaltern Studies
Field	Arts
Published In	Volume 6, Issue 6, November-December 2025
Published On	2025-11-23
DOI	https://doi.org/10.63363/aijfr.2025.v06i06.1441
Short DOI	https://doi.org/hbdsw3

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Mission, Empire, and Labour: William Pettigrew and the Recruitment of the 22nd Manipur Labour Corps in World War I

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