Date: Tuesday, 06 August, 2024
Time: 4 p.m. onwards
Venue: HSS Department Seminar Hall
Title:
Was Sarengla a Japanese Soldier’s Lover, or an Agent?――Gender, Imperial Frontier and the World War II in Naga Hills, Manipur
Abstract
During the Second World War, a young woman named Sarengla from the Tangkhul Naga community was asked to serve as an interpreter for a Japanese army officer. She spent several months with him and helped him communicate with the local people. The officer was later killed on his way back to Burma. This story became well-known among the people of the Tangkhul Naga community, who came to understand the woman as the officer’s wife or mistress. There are still folk songs in the area about the love and relationship they had during the war.
Sarengla got married after the war and lived until the 1990s. Her family and relatives believe that she did not have a relationship with the officer, and have expressed discontent about their love story. Furthermore, from the archival documents, it became clear that she was taken by an intelligence officer of Japanese army to help him collecting local information. Through official documents, it has been revealed that there were severe competitions between the British Indian army and the Japanese army to recruit local people to collaborate with them. The Britishers recruited hill tribes as “V force,” and asked them to gather information and employ guerilla operation if necessary. The Japanese has an intelligence unit called “Hikari Kikan” which oversaw dealing with Indian National Army and recruiting local hill people during the War.
Through the oral testimony and official records, this presentation seeks to explore how women’s roles are recognized differently compared to that of men. It also seeks to reveal the experience of the WWII by the people in hill areas of Manipur.
Speaker Bio
Makiko Kimura studied at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) for her PhD degree. She was a postdoctoral research fellow (2004–2007) of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science and research associate (2007–2011) at the International Peace Research Institute, Meiji Gakuin University (Tokyo). She is an associate professor at the Tsuda University (Tokyo) and teaches transnational sociology.
Her research interests include ethnic movements and conflicts, memories of war and conflicts, and migration and xenophobia in Northeast India. Her publication includes The Nellie Massacre of 1983: the Agency of Rioters (Sage, 2013).
