author

Sir James Johnstone

1841–1895

A British army officer and colonial administrator, he is remembered for a vivid late-Victorian memoir about Manipur and the Naga Hills. His writing mixes travel narrative, political recollection, and close observation of a region he knew through years of service.

1 Audiobook

My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills

My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills

by Sir James Johnstone

About the author

Born in 1841 and later titled Major-General Sir James Johnstone, K.C.S.I., he served in British India and became closely associated with Manipur, where he was political agent from 1877 to 1886. A school in Imphal was founded by him and still bears his name, reflecting the mark he left on the region.

His best-known book, My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills, was published in 1896 after his death, with an introductory memoir. In it, he set out to record the events he had been involved in and the life he had seen in Manipur and the surrounding hills, combining personal memory with descriptions of local politics, frontier campaigns, and everyday colonial life.

Read now, the book is both engaging and historically revealing. It offers a firsthand account of a borderland world in the late nineteenth century, while also showing the attitudes and assumptions of the imperial system he served.