Since the first recorded visit in 1889 of an outsider to the Ziro valley by HM Crowe, a tea planter of Joyhing Tea Estate in Assam, there are records of sporadic similar visit to the area till India attained independence. Though a provisional base was established at Ziro when the now famous anthropologist Furer von Haimendorf was in the area in 1944, the official base was in Kimin at the foothills for a long time. The journey from Kimin to Ziro those days involved several days of perilous journey through pestilential forests. It was on March 24, 1952 that Ziro township was formally established by R. G. Menzies, Political Officer, and divisional headquarters of Subansiri Frontier shifted to Ziro. And on August 15, 1960, the headquarters was shifted to Hapoli.
Today, the part of Ziro called Hapoli is a town whereas Old Ziro still retains the status of a rural area. And true to its status, little has changed over the dedades, except for some concrete building standing like odds men out in the old Old Ziro.
The initial headquarters of the entire Subansiri Frontier Division, comprising of today's Upper Subansiri, Lower Subansiri, Kurung Kumey and Papum Pare districts has an airfield (constructed in 1951 also under the supervision of R. G. Menzies), the office of the Block Development Officer (BDO) and a Community Information Center (CIC) to reckon with.
Kanno, In one of the comments posted for you, I requested yoou to discover out these historical monuments. Thanks for posting. it is interesting to retrek our history with such evidences.
ReplyDeleteAlso try to find out if any remnant evidences of washing ghat in Hong and kalung villages are still existing till today. Please make an appeal to the concern authority and public in general to preserve these historical evidences of our development.
Also try to locate the "Nenchang Dulyang" somewhere near by trijunction of ziro-hapoli-hija agya and post it please.
Wonderful write-up. Even more wonderful web-page design. Keep it up.
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