The Mizoram unit of INTACH said that the two pieces of artillery displayed at the Assam Rifles battalion headquarters since 1892 were taken away in 2003 by their custodian, the First battalion of AR, to Tuensang in Nagaland.
P Rohmingthanga, a retired IAS officer and convener of the state’s INTACH said that the two historic cannons were placed at the Assam Rifles battalion headquarters here by Lt Colonel J Shakespeare in 1892.
Shakespeare, in his book ‘The Making of Aijal’ (as Aizawl was known in those days) published in 1939 wrote that the cannons were among those used by the Duke of Wellington’s troops which were part of the combined armies of the Seventh Coalition to defeat French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the battle of Waterloo. He wrote that they were part of armament of a Burma-bound warship that was docked in the Chittagong Port (now in Bangladesh) in 1857.
“When the detachment of the 34th Native Infantry mutinied on November 18 that year as part of the Sepoy Mutiny, the cannons were thrown overboard to prevent them from falling in the hands of the natives and were fished out after crushing the mutiny and brought to Aizawl,” he wrote.
“Though Shakespeare was an army officer, he was also the civilian administrator of the then North Lushai Hills, the northern part of the present Mizoram state,” Rohmingthanga said.
He claimed “anything installed by the civilian head of a district could not logically belong to the armed forces, certainly not by the Assam Rifles, which came into existence only in 1917.”
“Historically and legally the cannons belong to the people of the state and have high heritage value and not to the central para-military forces,” he said, while conceding that the Assam Rifles could have custody of the artillery pieces, but they must be kept in Aizawl.
However, the Assam Rifles and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the controlling authority of all the country’s para-military forces, do not agree with the contention of the Mizo INTACH.
“The cannons are war trophies that changed hands from the British Indian Army to the Assam Rifles,” the MHA officials held.
The MHA, in a note on June nine, 2009 said that as per service norms, war trophies were kept by respective units and formed an integral part of the battalion’s history and legacy.
“These (the cannons) are kept with honor and pride by the Assam Rifles and it is proposed to shift them later to the Assam Rifles museum,” the note added.
The museum is situated in the Assam Rifles headquarters on the outskirts of Shillong in Meghalaya.
The MHA stuck to its guns even after Yogendra Narain member-secretary of the INTACH intervened on behalf of the Mizoram unit saying that Mizos were robbed of the heritage cannons by the Assam Rifles.
A top AR official, however, said, “the Assam Rifles has been in existence since 1835 though it was not known as the Assam Rifles then, but we do not want to get into any argument on anything that belongs to us.”
The INTACH Mizoram unit, on the other hand, refused to budge from its stance with Rohmingthanga saying that he has written again to the MHA and spoken to the Union Home Secretary. “We also sought the help of Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, who is also a member of the INTACH, to ensure that the cannons are back at their original place in Aizawl,” he said.
“The cannons belong to the people of Mizoram, not to the para-military forces. Let them (Assam Rifles) have the custody of the cannons, but they must be in Aizawl.”
Mawia, a 61-year-old resident of Aizawl said that the two cannons displayed in front of the historic Quarter Guard of the Assam Rifles battalion headquarters at a place now known as the Mahatma Gandhi Square was a prize possession of Aizawl.
“It was said that if you point a finger at the two cannons they will be fired on you, so as young boys, whenever we went past the Quarter Guard we pointed our fingers inside our trouser pockets so that the cannons would not know that we were pointing fingers at them,” Mawia chuckled.
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