In 1870, Captain T.H. Lewin, the Deputy Commissioner of the Chittagong Hill Tracts at the time, described the Kukis as a “powerful and independent” people who “touch the borders” of the Hill Tracts. “They extended in numberless hordes North and Northeast until they reach Cachar (Assam) on one hand and the frontiers of Burma on the other,” the official wrote of the Kukis in his account. Other accounts of Kuki origins also describe the Kukis as groups inhabiting “both sides of the mountains dividing Assam and Bengal from Burma”. The records point to the traditional Kuki patterns of moving through large tracts of land as land ownership was passed on only to the eldest son of the village chief, leading to expansion, dispersion, and formation of new pastures by other men in the family.
The Kukis are an ethnic group including multiple tribes originally inhabiting the Northeastern States of India, including Manipur, Mizoram and Assam; parts of Burma (now Myanmar), and Sylhet district and Chittagong hill tracts of Bangladesh.
Zooming out into the present, when the State of Manipur has been the epicentre of widespread communal clashes since May 3, non-tribal Meitei organisations have described Kuki tribes as “foreigners” and “illegal immigrants”. They are holding Kuki-Zomi groups responsible for the ethnic clashes that have claimed more than 120 lives and displaced more than 50,000 people. The Kuki-Zomi groups have denied the allegations, insisting the tribal communities have been systematically targeted for ethnic cleansing. They accuse BJP leader N. Biren Singh’s Government of treating them as “outsiders”.
