Manipur: Kuki History Struggles To Break Out Of Colonial Tropes And Majoritarianism

Who are the Kukis and where have they come from? Have they always lived in the hills of Manipur or are they native to Myanmar? Or are they colonial “implants” brought in by the British to counter the aggressive Nagas? These questions may sound like they are based on anthropological curiosity but, raised in the background of the ongoing ethnic clash in Manipur, the responses to them have politically loaded implications on the current socio-politics of the hill state where Kukis and Meiteis are locked in a historic “clash of clans”. These questions, in fact, are being used by one group to question the very legitimacy of the other’s existence, let alone their fight for rights.

The hill-dwelling tribal Kuki groups have been up in arms against the valley-dwelling and socio-politically “advanced” majority Meitei population in an ethnic clash that has, since its inception on May 3, claimed at least 180 lives so far. While the conflict has led to widespread displacement of both Kukis and Meiteis, the former who have been driven out of the “mainland” areas of Imphal by the Meiteis, claim that there is a concerted effort to villainies the Kukis and to discredit their history and rights as Manipuris. 

Such efforts can be seen in a recent FIR against Kuki academics who had authored a book on the 1917-19 Anglo-Kuki War in 2019. The FIR alleges that the book misrepresents a Kuki “rebellion” as a war of resistance. In an interview with news portal The Wire, Pramot Singh who heads the notorious Meitei Leepun group accused of anti-Kuki violence had called the Kukis “outsiders” and “tenants” in Manipur. These narratives have been used by several Meiteis to propagate hate against the tribal community. 

What do “who”, “when” and “where” mean when assessing the ethnographic roots of indigenous populations like the Kukis, or Nagas or Meiteis - the three biggest population groups - of Manipur? All these groups have long histories of migration in the region and even have similar linguistic and racial roots. Their movement from one place to another began long before the political borders that we know today. Do these questions of ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ matter now, in the 21st century, specifically in the middle of an ethnic clash? These answers are crucial to explain the fourth question - the “why”. Why do these narratives matter now? Why are the Kukis and Meiteis fighting? Why are the Kukis being called “outsiders”, even though both Kukis and Meiteis have similar histories of migrating into what is today the Indian territory? 

Let us begin by looking at a brief history of the Kukis to answer the first three questions - who they are, where they came from, and when. 

Kukis In British Accounts

Present-day Manipur is home to thirty-three Scheduled Tribes and seven Scheduled Castes. Most of the tribes under the recognised ST list identify either as Kuki or the Naga. “Many of the Naga and Kuki clans were individually listed and recognised as Scheduled Tribe in 1956,” Ngamjahao Kipgen writes in his paper “The Politics of Identifying with and Distancing from Kuki Identity in Manipur”.

Manipur has historically been an independent kingdom ruled by dynasties of Meitei rulers. “At one time in history, the river Chindwin in present-day Myanmar formed Manipur’s natural eastern frontier,” Kipgen notes. The Treaty of Yandaboo fixed the boundary between Manipur and Burma in 1826. Nevertheless, several regions in the borderlands including the Kabaw valley remained contested areas between Manipur and Burma until Manipur joined India as a ‘C’ state in 1949. After being categorised as a Union Territory in 1956, Manipur attained full statehood in 1972. 

This shift in borders is perhaps important to understand the contiguous history of Kukis. 

Much of the history that we know about the Kukis is through colonial records. The name “Kuki” was perhaps used for the first time in British documents in 1777 when the British Governor General Warren Hastings was asked for help against Kuki raids from the hills by the chief of Chittagong. 

Incidentally, these tribes were also called Lushais by the British and Chins by the Burmese. Historians believe that the name “Kuki” itself is an exonym, meaning that it was a name given by outsiders of a community or group of communities and not one native to the communities themselves. Some believe that accounts state that Bengalis used the name “Kuki” to refer to the tribes that inhabited the Lushai Hills mountain range that runs between India and Myanmar through present-day Mizoram and Meghalaya. 

As per the 1881 Census conducted by the British administration, there were 30,000 to 40,000 Kukis and Nagas in present-day Manipur. The British also further subdivided the tribes/groups identifying as Kuki between “Old Kuki” (tribes that traditionally lived in the state) and “New Kuki” who migrated from Lushai Hills in the south during the early 19th century (also referred to sometimes as Kongjai Kukis by Meiteis).

The 1886 Gazetteer of Manipur which was based on this census data further recorded approximately 8,000 "old Kukis" in Manipur, who traditionally lived in the state, and about 17,000 "new Kukis" who migrated from Lushai Hills in the south during the early 19th century.

These tribes, which later came to be identified and referred to as Kuki-Chin groups had similar linguistic and cultural affinities and their populations are found in all northeastern states of India today (apart from Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim). 

De-Colonising history 

In a critique of the largely colonial historiography of the Kukis, other historians and researchers, especially indigenous academics, have found this view of Kukis as painted by colonial writings as deeply erroneous and one-sided.

Anecdotes about the exogamous origins of the word “Kuki” which some colonial accounts dubbed as a “Bengali word” and the “perceived notion that they (Kukis) were immigrants from the south in the latter half of the 19th century remains the “most erroneous view” of a deeply subjective colonial historiography,” noted Haoginlen Chongloi in his paper “Wave Theory Kuki Perspective on Migration”. Professor Gangumei Kabui also noted the same in his seminal paper ‘History of Manipur’. 

The Kuki people are today divided by the political boundary of India and Myanmar. But groups that identify as Kuki are said to have migrated and settled in what is present-day Manipur as early as the pre-historic times along with or after the Meitei advent in Manipur Valley, explains Ngamjahao Kipgen, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. 

Kuki academic Thongkholal Haokip adds that Buddhist literature written by Lama Taranatha during the 15th century also has accounts of Kukis (Ko-ki) in their present habitat. 

Incidentally, Pooyas, traditional records maintained by Meitei Kings mention how “two Kuki chiefs named Kuki Ahongba and Kuki Achouba were allies to Nongba Lairen Pakhangba, the first historically recorded king of the Meithis [Meiteis], in the latter’s mobilization for the throne in 33 AD,” Haokip wrote in a 2010 paper. 

“The question of their citizenship undebatable”. 

Chongloi adds that Kukis followed a wave pattern of migration and these patterns can be traced with respect to the location of the purported “khul” or cave to which the Kukis mythologically trace their origin. 

The question, then, should perhaps not be about when the Kukis came to Manipur but instead framed as “Who are the people who identify as Kuki and since when?” Such a probe seems to better describe the complexities of the historical narratives surrounding Kukis. 

Kuki history in myths and symbols 

In Kuki mythology and cultural history, the Kuki-Chins emerged from a cave called ‘Sinlung’, or a rock called ‘Chhinlung’, or from the ‘khul’. While the location of this khul or its actual existence has remained unverified, the place is real in the collective memory of the Kuku-Chin people and an important aspect of their identity-building process. 

“In their self-perception, the Kuki-Chin groups believe that all of them originated from the same place and that they have a common social origin and share descent,” Kipgen writes.

This myth of social origin from a "Khul" is important to understand the present-day groups/subtribes of Kukis are formed by descendants of the mythical heroes (like Chongthu) who escaped from the subterranean bowels of the earth ruled by a person named Noimangpa. For instance, many Kuki groups believe the mythical folk hero Gaalngam to be their progenitor. His “history” is recorded in material artefacts like footprints, pawmarks, engravings on rock slabs, etc. Present-day Churachandpur district of Manipur, a stronghold of Kukis, is said to house the footprints of the mythical Gaalngam and his herds of Mithun and there is even a memorial on the spot to mark the place by the Hmar Kuki tribe that refers to him as their “grandfather”

While these myths cannot really be verified, as with myths of other religions, they play an important role in building the cultural identity of Kukis and find resonation in songs, art, poetry, cultural events and even bedtime stories of Kukis. 

They also help us in a way understand the call for a separate state given by Kukis following the conflict with Meiteis which has left them ostracised from the valley around which all infrastructural and cultural developments have centred. 

Among the Kukis, there has been a perception of a single homeland for all Kukis tribes- Zale’n-gam. While the physical demarcations of this homeland might not be found on any map, the place exists in the memories of the Kuki ancestors. 

“Zale’n-gam is an ideological concept propounded by PS Haokip, the President of the KNO, which means ‘freedom of the people in their land’,” Kipgen explains. 

Haokip propagated the ideology of Zale’n-gam as the means to unite the erstwhile ancestral domain of the Kukis prior to the British rule and restore the Kuki nation Zale’n-gam. It encapsulates and expounds the essence of Kuki history and nationalism and the restoration of the erstwhile Kuki territory in the pre-colonial period.

“There has been a desire to unify all the Kuki inhabited areas into a single administrative unit. Currently, their demand is for a separate homeland/Kukiland within the framework of the Indian Constitution,” Kipgen states, referring to the demand for separate administration raised by Kukis following the May 3 violence. 

Why history matters 

However, Kipgen highlights that despite the Kukis’ search for Zale’n-gam beyond the Meitei kingdom of Kangleipak (Manipur), the two communities have coexisted peacefully for time immemorial and did not interfere in each other’s internal affairs, even offering help in the face of common enemies. 

“The Kukis and Meiteis have more or less followed the principle of peaceful co-existence. This can be necessitated from the assistance extended to the Meitei maharajah by the Kuki chiefs in the erstwhile period,” he states.

It is at this juncture that events that occurred in 1891 (Khongjom War also known as the Anglo-Manipur War) and in 1917–1919 (Anglo-Kuki War) in which the Meitei’s land (Kangleipak/Manipur) and the Zale’n-gam were subjugated and conquered successively by the British colonial state which put them under the same administration, become important. 

The currently contested “Anglo-Kuki War” refers to the Kuki revolt against the British state in 1917 when Kuki chiefs refused to send their men to fight for the British in World War I (1914-18). The entrance to Churachandpur boasts of a war memorial erected in memory of the two-year-long revolt. The Kuki resistance has been mentioned in several colonial records and accounts. Dismissing the Anglo-Kuki war as a “Kuki uprising” dismisses their contribution to the Indian freedom movement. 

Pitting one group as foreigners is also essential for the ideological aspect of the Kuki-Meitei fight which is essentially a fight for land. Projecting Kukis as “immigrants” and the historical Kuki settlements as as recent “imports” justifies their ostracisation from Manipur, their labelling as “illegal Myanmar immigrants” and the redistribution of their ancestral land among the “original” settlers of the land. 

Instead of pitching Kukis and Meiteis at constant loggerheads, their shared past is littered with incidents of coexistence within their spheres and a united stand against a common enemy, be it the British or the Burmese before that. 

An example of this amity was noted in 1810 when the then Meitei King Chourajit sought help from Kukis to fight the Burmese army. Historians also state that Kuki chiefs supplied irregulars to guard the Meitei Maharajah and his Kingdom which was resisting the merger agreement on the eve of Manipur’s annexation to India in 1949 when the kingdom was merged with the Indian Union.

This merger nevertheless led to a wider gulf between the hill dwellers and the plainsmen. “Under this new system, various hill areas under the British administration became a ‘Scheduled Area’ and the Acts forbid the plain peoples (Meiteis) to settle in tribal areas/the hilly region. This clearly alienates the Meiteis and the tribals (the Nagas and the Kukis),” Kipgen adds. 

Kuki identity, however, has also undergone changes with several Kuki groups claiming tribalistic self-assertion. The Hmars, an old Kuki tribe, claim to identify neither as Naga nor Kuki while some other Kuki tribes like Anal, and Monsang, are assimilating Naga identity. These shifts, however, will bear the effect of the ongoing violence between Kukis and Meiteis in Manipur, which has put the Kuki identity at the centre of controversy and further complicated Kuki identity as it fights a violent battle for legitimacy against the dominant majority of the land.