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The Kuki people are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group native to Northeast India, northwestern Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Historically, Chin and Lushai were described as a collection of Kuki clans.
Linguistically they belong to the Kuki-Chin branch. G. A. Grierson in Linguistic Survey of India Vol. III, Part III classified Hmar, Bawm, Paite, Simte, Darlong, Gangte, Vaiphei, Zou, Kom, Aimol, Maring, Chawngthu, Chorei, Biate, Chiru, Anal, Koireng and Lushai under the Kuki-Chin group.[1]
History
[edit]Kuki settlements were historically autonomous hilltop villages practicing jhum cultivation. Origin narratives centre on emergence from a cave called Khul or Chhinlung.[2]
The Rajmala, chronicle of Tripura, records Kukis as hill allies from the 15th century onwards.[3]
Tibetan historian Lama Taranatha mentions "Ko-ki" in his History of Buddhism in India (1608).[4]
Anglo-Kuki War 1917-1919
[edit]In 1917, the Government of Assam ordered recruitment of Kuki labour corps for France. Kuki chiefs refused. Led by chiefs including Chengjapao Doungel and others, villages across Manipur and adjoining hills declared non-cooperation. The British declared war in December 1917. The campaign included destruction of villages and internment of chiefs at Sadiya. The war ended in May 1919.[1][3]
During World War II, Kuki volunteers supported the Indian National Army in the 1944 Imphal Offensive. The INA Memorial Complex at Moirang lists Kuki names among freedom fighters from Manipur.[5]
Independent Hill Country and British maps
[edit]Before British annexation, the tract between the Manipur Valley, Cachar, Chittagong Hill Tracts and Upper Chindwin was recorded as an independent hill country. Early colonial maps up to 1889 describe this zone as Independent Hill Tracts or Unadministered Area.[1]
Grierson defines the Kuki-Chin group as occupying a continuous belt from the Lushai Hills and Chittagong in the west to the Chin Hills and Upper Chindwin in the east.[1] The volume includes a fold-out map titled Map of the Kuki-Chin-Burmese Speaking Area.
This cartography is corroborated by Carey & Tuck (1896) and Shakespear (1912).[3][2]
Zo and Zomi
[edit]The term Zo in its contemporary political usage is traced by scholars to the popularization of Mizo. Its modern ethnonymic use as Mizo was institutionalized after 1947. The political organization Mizo Union, formed in 1947, and later leader Laldenga during the period 1950-1960, consolidated the name Mizo as a common identity for Lushai and associated clans in the then Lushai Hills, later Mizoram.[6]
The term Zomi in its present organizational form is of recent origin. It was formally adopted on 21 February 1993 at a convention in Champhai in the Indo-Myanmar border region.[7]
Its use as a formal political nomenclature emerged in the early 1990s and is therefore not found in pre-1950 British colonial records such as Grierson 1904, Carey & Tuck 1896, or Shakespear 1912, where the same population is recorded under Kuki.[1]
According to the Kuki History & Identity Protection Committee (KHIPC), these colonial classifications indicate that Zo and Zomi are recent nomenclatures for groups historically documented under the umbrella term Kuki.[8]
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 Grierson, G. A. (1904). Linguistic Survey of India Vol. III, Part III. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, pp.1-6.
- 1 2 Shakespear, J. (1912). Lushei Kuki Clans. London: Macmillan, p.2.
- 1 2 3 Carey, B. S. & Tuck, H. N. (1896). The Chin Hills, Vol. I. Rangoon: Government Printing.
- ↑ Taranatha (1608). rGya-gar chos-'byung.
- ↑ INA Memorial Complex, Moirang. Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India.
- ↑ Hluna, J.V. & Tochhawng, Rualkhuma (2013). The Mizo Uprising: Assam Assembly Debates on the Mizo Movement, 1959-1961. New Delhi: Concept Publishing.
- ↑ Haokip, T.T. (2018). Ethnicity and Identity Politics in Northeast India. In: Tribal Studies in North East India, Springer.
- ↑ KHIPC (2024). Clarification on Colonial Ethnographic Records and Nomenclature.