In the discourse of political legitimacy, few concepts are as sacrosanct and as frequently weaponized as the claim to ancestral land. The recent postulations advanced by the World Kuki Intellectual Council (WKZIC), an organization constituted in October 2024, merit rigorous deconstruction. These arguments, which seek to establish a primordial homeland for Kuki communities within the Naga Hills of Manipur, collapse under the weight of empirical history and legal precedent. What emerges is not a testament to indigeneity, but a carefully curated narrative designed to transfigure colonial migration into autochthonous right.
I. The Colonial Genesis: Strategic Implantation on Naga Lands
The archival record, particularly British administrative accounts documented by figures such as Sir James Johnstone and Colonel William McCulloch, presents an incontrovertible chronology. The “Kookies” were systematically relocated by the British Raj from the hills of Burma into the Naga Hills during the early to mid-19th century. This was not migration but strategic implantation. Sir James Johnstone, Political Agent of Manipur from 1877 to 1886, records definitively: “The Kookies… were first heard of as Kukis, in Manipur, between 1830 and 1840” (Sir James Johnstone, My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills, 1896, p. 25).
The motivation was explicitly strategic. Johnstone continues: McCulloch, observing waves of Kuki immigration that “began to cause anxiety about the year 1845,” responded with a policy of “settl[ing] them down, allotting to them lands” wherever “their presence would be useful on exposed frontiers” (Johnstone, My Experiences, 1896, p. 26). B.C. Allen, in his authoritative Naga Hills and Manipur, corroborates that the Kukis originally “live in the southern hills, and are pushing their villages into Kapui (Zeliangrong) on the west and the Tangkhul country on the east” (B.C. Allen, cited in Dr. Tuisem Ngakang, “Naga-Kuki Conflict: The Search for Definitions,” Eastern Mirror, September 11, 2018).
The lands upon which Kukis were settled were not vacant. They were the ancestral domains of Naga peoples. B.C. Allen explicitly notes: “by 1845 the British administration in Manipur faced problems when the Kukis began to come in great numbers and started to ‘drive away’ many of the older inhabitant” (Allen, cited in Ngakang, 2018). This dispossession was deliberate colonial strategy, designed to use Kukis as a buffer against Burmese incursions and “recalcitrant Nagas and Lushais tribes” (Dr. Lal Dena, cited in Ngakang, 2018). Dr. Tuisem Ngakang, a Naga scholar, summarizes the foundational injustice: “Land was given to the Kukis and they were allowed to establish villages under their chief. This policy of colonial administrators allowing Kukis to settle in the land that belonged traditionally to the Nagas was designed to use them as a buffer against the raids on Manipur. This sown the seed of enmity between the Kukis and the Nagas” (Ngakang, Eastern Mirror, 2018)
The 1881 census recorded approximately 25,000 Kukis in Manipur, distinguishing between “Old Kukis” (tribes integrated since the 16th century) and approximately 17,000 “New Kukis” whose presence dated from the 1840s. A demographic presence established in the 1840s cannot supersede the continuous habitation of Nagas who have occupied these highlands since time immemorial. As Ngakang observes: “In the process of helping the British to subdue the Naga unrest, the Kukis also took undue advantage of acquiring land for themselves in Naga areas… they were met with stiff opposition from the Naga villages, although some Kukis could avail some land for settlement by paying royalty to the Naga villages concerned. In all such Kuki villages, the names of the new Kuki villages were prefixed by the names of the Naga villages concerned” (Ngakang, cited in “Panel discussions on ethnic conflicts in Manipur held,” The Sangai Express, October 30, 2018). This practice of paying royalty to Naga village chiefs for settlement rights fundamentally undermines contemporary Kuki claims of primordial ownership. The very structure of these transactions constitutes an implicit admission that the lands were not theirs to occupy without Naga consent.
The legal status of Kukis in Naga areas was formally codified. T.A. Sharp, President of the Manipur State Darbar, issued a Standing Order explicitly declaring that “Kukis in the Naga Areas in Manipur are Aliens and Refugees” (Standing Order, cited in Sira Kharay, “Naga-Kuki Conflict: A case of Kuki aggression,” E-Pao, 2018). Standing Order No. 2 dated July 23, 1941, stipulated that “the kukis shall obtain prior permission from the Chief of Naga village for settlement and pay House Tax to the Naga Chief” (cited in Kharay, 2018).
The Court of the President, Manipur State Darbar, in Shangreihan Khulakpa of Leishan Village vs. Manvom Kuki of Mollen Village (April 20, 1931), recorded: “Manvom admits he will pay Rs. 50/- as Lausang… Manvom has already been allowed to settle at Leishan, but he must not consider that by paying Rs. 50/-, he has purchase the land outright” (cited in Kharay, 2018). This judicial pronouncement affirms that Kuki settlements were conditional, requiring payment to Naga chiefs, and such payments did not confer absolute ownership.
The Government of India itself recognized refugee status, sanctioning a “Refugee Relief Fund for rehabilitating the Kukis… vide Memo No. P3/9/66,” with payments released through the Government of Manipur in three installments: first payment April 22, 1957; second payment July 7, 1959; third payment February 28, 1966 (cited in Kharay, 2018). This official recognition stands as powerful corroboration of their status as recent migrants, not primordial inhabitants.
The 1935 Kuki Chiefs Protest: Context and Counter-Evidence
The WKZIC memorandum claims that the Kuki Chiefs Association (KCA), founded in 1935, resolved to send 250 Kuki chiefs to protest at Kangla Fort against the inclusion of “Kuki Hills” within Manipur. This assertion, even if accepted, must be weighed against contemporaneous legal documents that contradict any claim of Kuki territorial sovereignty.
The same decade that allegedly saw this protest also produced the Standing Orders of the Manipur State Darbar (1931, 1941) formally classifying Kukis in Naga areas as “Aliens and Refugees” requiring permission from Naga chiefs for settlement and payment of house tax to those chiefs. The Darbar’s judicial pronouncements affirmed that payments by Kukis to Naga chiefs did not constitute purchase of land outright. If Kuki chiefs genuinely believed their territories lay outside Manipur State jurisdiction, this belief was not reflected in the official records of that State, which continued to exercise administrative authority over Kuki settlements and to codify their conditional status vis-à-vis Naga village chiefs.
Moreover, the claim of protest must be situated within the broader context of the 1930s, when the future of princely states under British paramountcy was increasingly uncertain. Expressions of political preference by chiefs do not constitute evidence of territorial sovereignty, particularly when contradicted by the documentary record of the State within which they resided.
II. The 1947 Constitution and 1949 Merger: A Foundational Illegitimacy
The WKZIC asserts that Kuki Hills were “mistakenly merged along with Manipur into the Indian Union at Shillong, 1949 under no constitutional provisions.” This claim contains a truth that the Kukis have correctly identified but fundamentally misapplied. The merger was not mistaken; it was deliberate. But its deliberateness does not render it legitimate from the perspective of the hill peoples. The error lies not in the act of merger itself, but in the unexamined assumption that the Maharaja of Manipur possessed any authority to speak for the Naga hills, which were never under his rule and whose peoples never consented to his sovereignty.
The Colonial Administrative Reality: Separate Administration, Naga Sovereignty Unceded
After the 1891 rebellion, the British took direct control of Manipur’s administration. While the Maharaja was retained as nominal head of state, real power rested with the British Political Agent and an official appointed as the President of the Durbar. Critically, the hill regions inhabited by Naga peoples were taken out of the jurisdiction of the Maharaja and administered by the President using Assam regulations. The Rules for the Management of the State of Manipur enforced in 1933 codified this arrangement: “The supreme authority was the political agent acting on behalf of the Government of Assam and the Maharaja was to be assisted by a Durbar headed by a President, an officer specially selected by the Government of Assam. The budget was also to be approved by the Government of Assam and the hill tribes were to be administered by the President in accordance with rules framed by the Government of Assam.”
This is documented administrative fact. The Naga hills were never under the Maharaja’s jurisdiction after 1891. They were administered separately, under different regulations, by officers appointed by the Government of Assam. The hills and the valley coexisted within a single colonial administrative unit, but they were not governed as a unified sovereign territory under the Maharaja’s rule.The Imperial Gazetteer of India confirms the separate status of the Naga Hills, which were formed into a separate District under a Deputy Commissioner in 1867. The Gazetteer notes that these hills “border the territory of the Rájá of Manipur” and that British policy “towards the Nágás has uniformly been directed to establishing political control rather than direct government.” The Naga Hills bordered Manipur; they were not part of it in any sovereign sense.
Historical scholarship further confirms that “the hill tribes were never ruled by the Manipur raja and no attempt had ever been made to set up a regular administrative arrangement, even among the few villages of the hill tribes where he could, from time to time, forcibly wrest portions of their harvest in the form of taxes. In fact, the British engaged with them indirectly through their political agent, from 1835 till the Kuki Rising (1917-19). Thereafter, the hill areas were annexed and directly administered.” The Maharaja’s periodic extraction of tribute from certain hill villages no more constituted sovereignty than a robber’s extraction of payment constitutes legitimate governance.
The 1939 Agreement: The Maharaja’s Own Acknowledgment
The most devastating evidence against any claim of Maharaja’s sovereignty over the Naga hills comes from the Maharaja himself. With the introduction of the Government of India Act 1935, Manipur entered negotiations with the Government of India regarding federation. One of the main subjects of controversy was the administration of the hills, which cover over 7,000 square miles out of the State’s total area of about 8,000 square miles. The British adjudged it unsafe to leave the administration of the hill areas within the jurisdiction of the Manipur Durbar.
After lengthy negotiation, on July 21, 1939, the Maharajah of Manipur agreed “to federate on terms which covered the exclusion of the hill from his direct control.” The Maharaja himself acknowledged that the hills were not under his jurisdiction and agreed to their exclusion from his direct control as a condition of federation. This was a negotiated settlement in which the Maharaja conceded what was already administrative reality: the Naga hills were not his to rule.
The Manipur State Constitution Act, 1947: An Assertion Without Authority
In December 1946, with British withdrawal imminent, the Maharaja ordered the formation of a Constitution Making Committee. This committee produced a draft enacted as the Manipur State Constitution Act in May 1947. Section 2 stated: “This Act shall extend to the whole of the Manipur State inclusive of the Hill Areas saving that it shall not apply in any matter where a specific reservation of powers is made to any Authority in the Hills under the provisions of the Manipur State Hill (Administration) Regulation, 1947.”
The Act purported to extend to the hill areas, but with a critical saving clause that revealed the underlying reality: the hills would continue to be regulated separately under the Manipur State Hill (Administration) Regulation, 1947. This Regulation was not a compact negotiated with Naga peoples; it was a document drafted by others, continuing the colonial administrative framework that had governed the hills through Assam regulations since 1891. The Act assumed jurisdiction that had never been established and claimed authority over Naga lands that had never been ceded.
The composition of the Constitution Making Committee itself betrayed the exclusion of Naga peoples. The committee had five members selected from consultation with “educated men” of the Hills, five members elected from the valley, two members nominated by the Maharajah and Chairman of the Chief Court, and three nominated by the Durbar. The committee was chaired by F.F. Pearson, a British civil servant who was Chief Minister of Manipur from 1945. The hill representatives were selected, not elected; they spoke for themselves alone, not for the Naga peoples whose ancestral lands were being disposed of by instruments they had never seen and would never ratify.
The Act’s provision for two of six elected ministers to be “representatives of the Hill people” was a concession, not a consent. Representation within an existing structure is not consent to that structure’s authority over one’s lands. The fundamental question by what right did the Maharaja, or the British before him, claim authority over Naga lands was never answered. The Act simply assumed jurisdiction that had been exercised by the British colonial administration and transferred it, through the Maharaja’s signature, to a new constitutional order. The consent of Naga peoples was neither sought nor obtained.
The Merger of 1949: Coercion and the Absence of Consent
On October 15, 1949, Maharaja Bodhchandra Singh signed the Instrument of Accession, merging Manipur with the Indian Union. The circumstances are well documented. The Maharaja was summoned to Shillong and presented with a prepared merger agreement. When he refused to sign without consulting his council of ministers, he was placed under house arrest. Simultaneously in Imphal, Indian forces encircled the palace, seized control of telephone and telegraph lines, and isolated the Maharaja from his people.
The Maharaja’s personal assistant recounted that the Maharaja had promised to sign but requested to consult his ministers first. This was never conceded. Nari Rustomji’s account in Enchanted Frontiers describes consulting the ailing Sardar Patel, who queried, “Whether we had not a Brigadier in Shillong.” The meaning was unmistakable: military force could be used if necessary.
The Governor of Assam himself had written to Patel in March 1949 stating that “in Manipur, the general sentiment appears to be against the merger. The only proponents of the merger were the state Congress” (Indian Express, August 12, 2023). Despite this knowledge, the merger proceeded through coercion. The Manipur State Constitution Act, 1947, and the elected Assembly it had created, were dissolved.
The Deeper Question: No Written Agreement Between Maharaja and Naga Peoples
But even if the Maharaja had signed freely, a deeper question remains: what authority did he have to sign for the Naga hills? The British had never vested him with sovereignty over Naga peoples. The 1891 settlement explicitly placed the hills under separate administration. The 1933 Rules confirmed that arrangement. The 1939 federation negotiations resulted in the Maharaja’s own agreement to exclude the hills from his direct control. The 1947 Act was never ratified by Naga peoples.
There was no written agreement, no treaty, no compact between the Maharaja and Naga peoples ceding their sovereignty or consenting to his rule. The hills were administered alongside the valley as a matter of colonial convenience, not as a matter of Naga consent. The British administered; the Maharaja did not rule; the Nagas never agreed.
The Manipur State Hill (Administration) Regulation, 1947, was not a compact with Naga peoples. It was a document drafted by others, continuing the colonial administrative framework that had governed the hills since 1891. It purported to grant autonomy, but autonomy is not sovereignty, and a grant implies a grantor with the power to grant. That power had never been established.
The Kuki Position: A Correct Observation, A Radically Wrong Conclusion
The WKZIC is correct to question the legitimacy of the 1949 merger as it affected the hills. The merger was executed without the consent of the hill peoples, under circumstances of coercion, and rested on the demonstrably false assumption that the Maharaja possessed authority to speak for them. The Manipur State Constitution Act was never submitted to the peoples of the hills for ratification. They had no voice in the constitution-making process, no representation in the negotiations, and no opportunity to consent. There was no written agreement ceding their sovereignty. The hills were administered, not ruled; administration is not sovereignty.
In this sense, the Kukis share with the Nagas a status as peoples whose political future was decided without their participation. The merger’s fundamental flaw was the failure to obtain consent from the indigenous peoples of the hills.
But here the Kuki argument must part company with the truth it has glimpsed. For the question arises: consent from whom? The answer cannot be “everyone living in the hills in 1949,” for that would erase the prior sovereignty of those who were there first and whose presence was not conditional on others’ permission.
The hills were, and always had been, Naga ancestral lands. The Kukis were not co-equal inhabitants. They were, by the Manipur State Darbar’s own Standing Orders, “Aliens and Refugees” in Naga areas. Their settlements were conditional on permission from Naga chiefs and payment of house tax to those chiefs. Judicial pronouncements affirmed that payments did not constitute purchase of land outright. They were settlers, not sovereigns.
The right to consent or withhold consent to political incorporation belongs to those who held original title to the land the Naga peoples, who had inhabited these hills since time immemorial, whose chieftainship governance structures predated both colonial rule and Kuki settlement, and whose prior sovereignty had never been ceded to anyone.
The Kukis are correct that something went profoundly wrong in 1949. But they are wrong about what that something was. The wrong was not that “Kuki Hills” were merged without Kuki consent for there were no “Kuki Hills” in any sovereign sense. The wrong was that the Naga hills were merged without Naga consent. The Kukis, as conditional settlers on Naga lands, cannot position themselves as the beneficiaries of a sovereignty that was denied to all hill peoples. They share in the illegitimacy of the process they, too, were denied a voice but they do not share in the original title to the land.
III. The Paradox of Identity: Ten Lost Tribes and Political Convenience
To assert indigeneity is to claim an unbroken connection to land predating recorded history. Yet a parallel narrative within these communities posits descent from the “Lost Tribes of Israel.” This is organized doctrine with documented origins. The Bnei Menashe are documented as “a community of immigrants from the Eastern Indian states of Manipur and Mizoram” who “claim to be descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, cut off from other Jews for 2,700 years.” Scholarly research confirms they “stem from a number of Christian groups of the Indo-Burmese borderland, some of whom back in the 1950s declared their descent from the Lost Tribes of Israel” (Yulia Egorova, “Redefining the Converted Jewish Self: Race, Religion, and Israel’s Bene Menashe,” American Anthropologist, Vol. 117, No. 4, 2015).
The historical timeline is telling: “The movement began in 1951, when a tribal leader reported having a dream that his people’s ancient homeland was Israel; some tribal members began embracing the idea that they were Jews” (Wikipedia contributors, “Bnei Menashe,” 2025). Before the movement’s start, “the community was largely a Christian one.” According to Lal Dena, the Bnei Menashe came to believe the legendary Hmar ancestor “Manmasi” was the Hebrew Menasseh. During the 1950s, this group founded a Messianic movement, adopting Jewish observance from books in the early 1960s, with no connections to other Jewish groups (Wikipedia, 2025).
The WKZIC’s invocation of “Manmasi” as a “proto-historical” identity collapses under scrutiny. The term appears in no pre-colonial Naga or Meitei chronicles; it is a 20th-century theological construct. A claim originating in the mid-twentieth century, among a then-predominantly Christian community, cannot establish primordial indigeneity.
The theological assertion was formally recognized only in 2005, when “Israel’s then-Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar recognised this population as ‘Zera Yisrael’ (Seed of Israel).” However, this recognition required individuals to “undergo formal ritual conversion” (Wikipedia, 2025). Several thousand have emigrated to Israel since the 1990s.
The Kuki-Chin National Front has explicitly asserted that “Kukis here are the Zo people believed to be the descendents of one of the ‘lost tribes of Israel’” (KNF public statements). The Israeli government has approved “bringing the remaining 5,800 Bnei Menashe to Israel by the end of 2030” (The Week, December 27, 2025). One cannot simultaneously be the autochthonous son of Manipur soil and the diasporic heir to a Middle Eastern exodus requiring formal conversion under the Law of Return.
Dr. Shalva Weil, senior anthropologist at Hebrew University, notes that “although there is no documentary evidence linking the tribal peoples in northeast India with the myth of the lost Israelites, it appears likely that… the concept was introduced by the missionaries as part of their general millenarian leanings.” As Egorova notes, the migration occurred “against the backdrop of multiple colonial contexts,” locating the narrative within colonial encounter, not ancient heritage (Egorova, 2015).
The INA Participation Claim: Context and Significance
The WZIC memorandum asserts Kuki participation in the Indian National Army under Subhas Chandra Bose, citing a “Kuki-INA Pact (1943)” and claiming 80 Kukis from Manipur served in the INA. This claim, even if verified, does not advance the argument for Kuki territorial indigeneity. Individual participation in the freedom movement does not establish collective territorial right. Many communities and individuals across India contributed to the struggle; such participation is not a basis for territorial claims against other indigenous peoples.
The INA recruited extensively from Indian communities in Southeast Asia. That some Kukis joined is plausible and, if true, honorable. But it cannot be retroactively transformed into evidence that Kuki settlements on Naga lands constituted a sovereign territory requiring separate accession in 1949. The legal status of Kukis was established by decades of administrative practice and judicial decisions classifying them as conditional settlers, “Aliens and Refugees” requiring Naga permission not by individual acts of military service.
The WKZIC’s invocation of the INA also sits uneasily with its simultaneous claim that Kukis fought the British in the Anglo-Kuki War (1917-1919). A community cannot simultaneously claim anti-colonial resistance through warfare against the British and military service alongside the British (in World War I) and then against the British (in World War II) as proof of consistent political identity. These shifting narratives reveal the instrumental use of history.
IV. Reinterpreting the Anglo-Kuki War (1917-1919): A Reckoning with Atrocity
The WKZIC’s invocation of the “Anglo-Kuki War” as a foundational myth of anti-colonial resistance requires historical audit. The terminology is contested. Many Naga groups oppose the term “war,” holding it was a “rebellion” as in British records.
The conflict must be understood within the longer pattern of Kuki violence against Naga communities that predated and accompanied it. Dr. Tuisem Ngakang provides archival documentation: “Between 1880-1890s, the Kukis attacked many Naga villages without provocation. In 1880 Chingsow, a Tangkhul village was attacked, killing 45 people (20 men and 25 women). In another incident, 286 people were killed in a single night in Chingjaroi, another Tangkhul village, 187 of whom were women and children. There were many accounts where the Nagas were captured and carried off by the Kukis as slaves… Many Kabui villages were burnt down, hundreds were killed, grains were looted, pigs, buffalos were slaughtered and carried off” (Ngakang, Eastern Mirror, 2018).
Sir James Johnstone’s diary entry of February 25, 1880, records: “Today I received the news of an attack by the Chassad Kookies… on the village Chingsow (Chingsui)” (Johnstone, cited in Kharay, 2018). Johnstone notes the attack occurred because “a demand has been made by Tonghooj the Chussad Chief, that the Chingsow Nagas should submit to him and pay tribute, but they, of course, refused” (Johnstone, My Experiences, p. 185).
According to accounts compiled by Sir Robert Reid, Kuki raiding parties massacred approximately 176 persons of Goitang village, razing 76 houses. More than 250 Kharam villagers were butchered. Approximately 70 of Makoi villagers were massacred. About 10 of Dailong villagers were butchered, over 70 houses torched. The whole of Mongjarong Khunou village was razed and approximately 39 villagers massacred (Reid, cited in Kharay, 2018). According to B.C. Allen, Kuki raiders attacked “Swemi” (Chingjaroi) Naga village in approximately December 1892, massacring more than 600 villagers (Allen, cited in Kharay, 2018).
Dr. Khole Timothy Poumai documented that “with the swelling of the Kuki immigrants, the Kukis began to populate some pockets of Naga areas where they became dominant. In the latter half of the 19th century, many raids were organized by the Kukis in the Naga villages.” He further noted “the most heinous inhuman acts perpetrated by the Kukis on the innocent Nagas were the killing of over 600 villagers of Chingjaroi (‘Swemi’) in 1892 and the ‘Haokip War’ (‘Tingtong rih’) wherein the Kukis killed over 1000 Rongmei Nagas in 1917 during the ‘Anglo Kuki War’” (Dr. Khole Timothy Poumai, cited in “Panel discussions on ethnic conflicts in Manipur held,” The Sangai Express, October 30, 2018).
This historical pattern establishes that Kuki raids were systematic. The violence during 1917-1919, far from being purely anti-colonial resistance, included the massacre of over 1,000 Rongmei Nagas. To present this period as solely anti-colonial resistance while omitting documented violence against Naga communities is selective historiography.
As Ngakang observes, “The observing of Black Day and Requital Day will only increase bitterness between the communities” (Ngakang, Eastern Mirror, 2018).
V. The Geopolitics of Victimhood: Foreign Funding, the Weaponization of Narrative, and the 1990s Conflicts
The pursuit of a “homeland” by the WKZIC appears less an act of self-determination and more a calculated strategy of political appeasement and external manipulation. Academic research has documented broader patterns of foreign involvement in Northeast Indian insurgencies.
The rhetorical strategy employed by Kuki organizations in international forums has been documented. Ngakang observes: “The term like holocaust, genocide, ethnic cleansing etc are wrongly used to describe the conflict of 1990s in many writing by Kukis organizations and individual” (Ngakang, Eastern Mirror, 2018). Such terminology is inappropriate because in the Naga-Kuki conflict “both the communities were victim, there was no victor, they suffered, and they feel the pain and anguish and see the trauma.”
The 1992-1997 Conflicts: Acknowledging Complexity and Suffering
The WKZIC memorandum lists “1993-1997 (Kuki Genocides)” among historical persecutions. This demands acknowledgment of the multi-sided violence that engulfed Naga and Kuki communities.
Kuki civil society organizations have documented that from 1992 to 1997, approximately 1,000 Kukis were killed and over 300 Kuki villages uprooted by armed cadres of the NSCN-IM, rendering more than 100,000 villagers refugees. The “Joupi Massacre” of September 13, 1993, in which 108 to 115 Kuki villagers were killed, is commemorated as “Sahnit Ni” (Kuki Black Day) (Hemzathang Khongsai, cited in Indian Express, September 13, 2021).
These are genuine grievances demanding acknowledgment. However, the framing of these events as unilateral “genocide” must be situated within broader context. As Ngakang observes: “If the Kukis suffered the loss of 961 precious lives in the conflict, the Nagas loss not less than the number of lives! The Zeliangrong Naga alone claim that during the 1991-1995 Naga Kuki conflict 123 Zeliangrong people were killed by Kukis, 201 were injured, 940 houses were burnt down and 1500 people were displaced. Villages of both the communities were uprooted and people rendered homeless” (Ngakang, Eastern Mirror, 2018). Terminology of unilateral victimhood is inappropriate.
The Kuki National Organisation has sought to distinguish between the NSCN-IM and other Naga communities, reiterating “the age-old cordial relations between the Nagas and the Kukis” (T Stephen Kuki, cited in Morung Express, May 22, 2024). This distinction is crucial: armed groups cannot be attributed to entire communities.
The SC/ST categorization of 1956, which the WKZIC cites as dividing Kukis into “22-23 tribes,” reflects administrative classification for affirmative action. The MMTU has raised constitutional challenges to Kuki ST status, arguing that “foreign nationals and refugees cannot be included” and that “individuals who are not indigenous cannot be included in the ST list” (MMTU statement, October 2024). These legal questions remain unresolved.
As the Naga Scholars Association noted, the Kuki observation of ‘Sahnit’ represents “painting a lopsided picture” by “playing the victim card of the whole episode” (cited in Morung Express, October 30, 2018). A constructive approach would acknowledge suffering on all sides.
VI. The Naga Resistance: A Record of Fierce Independence
While Kuki relations with colonial power were shaped by settlement and security concerns arriving as migrants, serving as mercenaries, settling on Naga lands the Naga legacy is one of sustained anti-colonial resistance. The burning of Khonoma and leadership of Rani Gaidinliu stand as testament to a people who fought the British Empire not as mercenaries but as defenders of their own freedom.
Rani Gaidinliu Pamei (1915-1993) led a revolt against British rule. As documented in Asoso Yonuo’s authoritative work, her resistance was both spiritual and political. At 13, she joined the Heraka movement of her cousin Haipou Jadonang, which turned into a political movement seeking to drive out the British.
She openly rebelled, exhorting the Zeliangrong people not to pay taxes. The Governor of Assam dispatched the 3rd and 4th battalions of the Assam Rifles against her, with monetary rewards declared for information leading to her arrest. Arrested in October 1932 at 16, she was sentenced to life imprisonment. Jawaharlal Nehru met her at Shillong Jail in 1937, gave her the title “Rani,” and promised to pursue her release. She served 14 years in various prisons before release in 1947. Her fight became so well known that after World War II, individuals in England made frantic attempts to locate her, as her resistance had been discussed in the British House of Commons.
The Naga struggle was for sovereignty and freedom. This fundamental difference between those who fought to defend ancestral lands and those who arrived under colonial protection continues to inform the present impasse. The Government of India honored Rani Gaidinliu with the Tamrapatra Freedom Fighter Award (1972), Padma Bhushan (1982), Vivekananda Seva Award (1983), a postal stamp (1996), and a commemorative coin (2015).
Conclusion: The Arithmetic of Truth
Repetition does not constitute historical truth. The WKZIC memorandum presents a carefully constructed narrative that selectively deploys historical sources while omitting inconvenient facts. The evidence yields an irrefutable conclusion.
Colonial records document Kuki migration to Manipur beginning 1830-1840, with strategic settlement on Naga lands without Naga consent (Johnstone, 1896; Allen, cited in Ngakang, 2018). The Manipur State Darbar formally classified Kukis in Naga areas as “Aliens and Refugees” requiring permission from Naga chiefs and payment of house tax (Standing Orders, 1931, 1941, (cited in Kharay, 2018)). Judicial orders affirmed payments did not constitute purchase of land outright (Shangreihan Khulakpa vs. Manvom Kuki, 1931, (cited in Kharay, 2018)). The Government of India sanctioned refugee relief funds for Kukis in three installments between 1957 and 1966 (Memo No. P3/9/66, (cited in Kharay, 2018)).
The 1949 merger was executed without the consent of the hill peoples, under coercion, and rested on the false assumption that the Maharaja possessed authority to speak for them. The Maharaja himself had acknowledged in 1939 that the hills were excluded from his direct control. There was no written agreement between the Maharaja and Naga peoples ceding their sovereignty. The hills were administered separately by British officers under Assam regulations; they were never under the Maharaja’s rule.
In this sense, the Kukis are correct to question the merger’s legitimacy. They share with the Nagas a status as peoples whose political future was decided without their participation. The merger’s fundamental flaw was the failure to obtain consent from the indigenous peoples of the hills.
But here the Kuki argument must be separated from the truth it has glimpsed. Consent from whom? The answer cannot be “everyone living in the hills in 1949,” for that would erase the prior sovereignty of those who were there first. The Kukis were, by the Manipur State Darbar’s own Standing Orders, “Aliens and Refugees” in Naga areas. Their settlements were conditional on permission from Naga chiefs. They were settlers, not sovereigns. The right to consent belongs to those who held original title the Naga peoples, whose prior sovereignty had never been ceded.
The Kukis are right that something went profoundly wrong in 1949. But they are wrong about what that something was. The wrong was not that “Kuki Hills” were merged without Kuki consent for there were no “Kuki Hills” in any sovereign sense. The wrong was that the Naga hills were merged without Naga consent. The Kukis, as conditional settlers on Naga lands, cannot position themselves as beneficiaries of a sovereignty denied to all hill peoples. They share in the illegitimacy of the process but not in the original title.
Theological claims of Israelite descent, originating in the 1950s, undermine assertions of primordial indigeneity (Egorova, 2015; Weil, 2004). Individual INA participation does not establish collective territorial right. The “Anglo-Kuki War” rests on contested terminology, with documented Kuki raids on Naga villages predating and accompanying the conflict, including the massacre of over 1,000 Rongmei Nagas in 1917 (Ngakang, 2018; Poumai, 2018).
The 1992-1997 conflicts inflicted profound suffering on both communities. Justice lies not in competitive victimhood but in mutual acknowledgment. As the Kuki National Organisation has affirmed, historic bonds between Nagas and Kukis predate these conflicts and offer a foundation for reconciliation.
The claim to a homeland cannot be built upon another’s ancestral village, nor sustained by selectively edited history. The Kuki quest for political recognition will remain an illusion until it makes peace not just with the Government of India, but with the Naga people the true indigenous inhabitants of the hills and reconciles with the factual history of its own arrival. The path forward lies not in competing claims to a flawed inheritance, but in mutual recognition. The Nagas’ prior and continuing sovereignty must be acknowledged. The Kukis’ legitimate interests as long settled communities must be addressed through negotiation with those who hold original title. And the Government of India must reckon with the compromised origins of its jurisdiction over the Naga hills, opening archives and supporting processes that allow the peoples of the hills to determine their political future through genuine consent.
Markson V Luikham
(The views and opinions in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of Rural Post)
