2026/06/10 by Aditya Kiran Kakati · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Military History and Strategy #South Asian Studies and Conflicts #Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/03086534.2026.2677926
openalex publication_date 2026/06/10 · openalex created_date 2026/06/11 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/12
This article examines the selective and dissonant memorialisation of violent conflicts during the Second World War (WWII) and the early postcolonial era among Zo communities along the British India–Burma (Myanmar) borderlands. Such contested commemorations obscure and legitimise asymmetric violence against civilians, couched in moral rhetoric that embeds violence in postcolonial democracies globally. This phenomenon becomes stark by using ‘total war’ as a lens, departing from its Eurocentric moorings to study hegemonic commemorations and narratives of imperial conflicts and postcolonial counterinsurgency. I argue that selective memorialisation of total warfare during and after WWII obscures Zo experiences of late-colonial violence and postcolonial nation-building. Such remembrance starkly diverges from older memories of Zo anti-imperial struggles, reframing themselves as ‘loyal’ British subjects to gain political currency in negotiating post-war self-determination. The article shows how manipulating memories and renaming conflicts obscures violent legacies, particularly legitimising violence against civilians during imperial total war and decolonial counterinsurgency. These legacies remain relevant for understanding contemporary conflicts along the Indo-Myanmar border and globally, where moral rhetoric of ‘good’, ‘humane’ and ‘just wars’ morally rebrands and justifies violence. The article offers a broader understanding of how violent legacies are historically embedded yet commemoratively obscured in democratic nation-states.