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British imperial dynamics in India s North-East frontier is centred on the hypothesis of strategic security against the expanding empires like Russia and China in the lofty heights of the Himalayas and the commercial interests of the colonial state in India beyond its geographical divide in Burma, Tibet and China. The operational area for both was coincidentally focussed on the northern and southern frontier of Arunachal Pradesh. In the north Tibet s tryst for independence and the consequent crisis caused by Russian advance and Chinese intransigence was very well intersected by the strengthening of the colonial state power in Assam from the south. Sandwiched between the operations of both the forces were the tribes of Arunachal in India s N.E. frontier, who reacted in a varied format from their primitive modes, only to be overwhelmed by the dominant forces of imperialism and colonialism that typically explains transformation of Arunachal Pradesh from the status of a terra incognita to that of the most strategically important region of the British Empire and consequently of Independent India.

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M.A. (Utkal), Ph.D. (Rajiv Gandhi University), Srinibash studied in the Universities of Utkal, Orissa and R.G.U., Arunachal Pradesh, teaches History at Jawaharlal Nehru College, Pasighat, (R.G.U.), as Associate Professor. He is presently nominated as Member National Commission for Monuments and Antiquities (State-Level Committee, Arunachal Pradesh).

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