Although order had been restored for the present, it was evident to the Chief Commissioner that the Chins had yielded to the climate rather than to fear. They had escaped punishment; and as they had burnt villages and returned home with many captives the campaign in their eyes must have seemed successful.
It was necessary to protect the Yaw Valley which was our territory, and the Kalè country, the Sawbwa of which was our dependent and too weak to help himself. A proposal was made by the local officer to simplify matters by taking the Kalè State under direct administration. It was argued that as we were obliged to defend Kalè, we might as well administer the country and receive the revenues. Looking, however, to its effect on the minds of the people, this appeared to be a mistaken policy. Every Sawbwa in the Shan States might have been degraded on similar grounds. The Kalè man, so far as was known, had not been disloyal. In the early part of 1887 he had acted well, and in the present affair he had not acted badly. If he had not been well informed regarding the movements of the Chins, he was no worse than the British officers in the district. He was suddenly surrounded and seized. In procuring his liberty by consenting to join the insurgents he took the best course, or what he thought the best course, for himself. He lost no time in sending information to the nearest officer, and he attacked the rebel gathering with his own men. To remove him under such circumstances would have been unfair, and might have alarmed others whose fears it was not good policy to arouse.
It was decided, therefore, by the Chief Commissioner not to absorb Kalè, but to leave a military or police guard at or near Indin, with supports at Kalewa. An ultimatum was sent to the Tashons, ordering them to deliver up the Shwègyobyu Prince and other leading rebels, as well as the leaders of the Chins who captured the Sawbwa of Kalè and raided his villages. On the 21st of July, 1888, the Chief Commissioner (in a minute submitted to the Government of India) recounted the events which have been narrated, and gave his opinion that there could be no peace until the Chin tribes had been subdued. He asked permission to take the matter in hand as soon as the dry weather set in, and to subjugate the Chins once for all.
The first step in the plan of campaign was to occupy in force and permanently the difficult country lying below the Chin Hills, and to bring it under efficient administrative control.
For this purpose the Chief Commissioner in June, 1887, asked the Government of India to raise a frontier battalion in India for the Yaw Valley. It was assumed, in framing the plan of campaign, that this battalion would have been ready before the rains ended, and that it would have been possible to hold this district firmly. To have attacked the Chins and to have withdrawn the troops would have been to leave the villages in the plains exposed to the vengeance of the hill-men.
The next step was to march an expedition into the Chin Hills. The force was to be divided into three parts. The Siyin and Sagyilain tribe was to be invaded from the Kalè Valley by a force of the Kabaw Valley military police, brought down for the duty. The Tashon country was to be entered simultaneously by a column of regular troops with two guns, having its base at Sihaung on the Myittha River, to which place the men, their baggage, and supplies, could be brought by water. At the same time a force collected at Gangaw was to threaten the Yokwa Haka and Thatta Chins, to prevent them from helping the Tashons.
Haka Chins.
A Chin "Zu" drink.