IMPHAL, NOVEMBER 17: The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an umbrella group of civil society organizations, said today that the assertion of indigeneity and ancestral land rights by the Kukis, as advanced by the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) and United People’s Front (UPF), lacks historical validity, legal foundation, and cultural authenticity. “Their identity is a colonial construct, and their settlement was facilitated by British policy sanctioned by the Manipur State authorities”, the COCOMI said in a memorandum submitted to the Prime Minister of India.
“This memorandum is submitted to provide a comprehensive rebuttal to the recent statement made by leaders of the United People’s Front (UPF) and Kuki National Organisation (KNO) during their meeting with the Home Ministry Officials on November 6 and 7, 2025 in New Delhi. The assertion that the hill areas of Manipur were never under the rule of the Maharaja of Manipur is a deliberate misrepresentation of historical and legal facts, specifically designed to justify the demand for a separate Kuki administrative territory; on the contrary, historical records, the Manipur State Darbar Rules (1907), and post-independence judicial rulings (1963 and 1979) unequivocally affirm that the entire territory of Manipur, including the hill areas, remained under the continuous and lawful jurisdiction of the State and its successors,” the memorandum of the COCOMI pointed out.
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On the “Kuki presence in Manipur: a colonial-era phenomenon”, the COCOMI said the claim to ancestral land rights by Kuki groups in Manipur is fundamentally challenged by the historical timeline and the nature of their settlement, which was primarily a colonial-era phenomenon.
According to “colonial settlement policy”, Kuki migration and settlement into the hill tracts of Manipur began around 1840 following the British victory in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824-1826), the COCOMI said. It added that this movement was not spontaneous but an outcome of a carefully calibrated British colonial frontier strategy designed to secure the volatile eastern frontier.
Regarding the “geopolitical engineering by McCulloch”, the COCOMI pointed out that Lieutenant Colonel William McCulloch, British Political Agent in Manipur (1844-1863), played a pivotal role. His administration systematically settled Kuki villages to achieve three objectives which were to create a human buffer zone against raids from the Lushai Hills; to bring extensive land under organised, revenue-generating agricultural use; and to employ the population as a source of labour and auxiliary forces (McCulloch, Account of the Valley of Manipur, 1859).
The COCOMI said there was a lack of pre-colonial continuity, It elaborated that the settlement was a deliberate act of geopolitical engineering. This mid-nineteenth-century episode contrasts sharply with the continuous and well-documented habitation of Meiteis and other indigenous hill communities for over a millennium, it also said. As both the settlement and the nomenclature are products of colonial policy, the Kuki claim to indigeneity fails to meet the fundamental condition of pre-colonial continuity required by definitions such as the UN’s Martinez Cobo Working Definition, the COCOMI added.
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The COCOMI then said the term “Kuki” is a colonial construct. The COCOMI explained that a crucial dimension of this issue is the very origin of the term used to assert group rights.
The COCOMI said the designation ‘Kuki’ is not indigenous to Manipur. It was a colonial construct, an exonym applied by the British for administrative convenience to collectively describe a diverse group of clans and tribes inhabiting the Chin-Lushai Hills and adjoining tracts, the COCOMI added.
The COCOMI then said prior to British intervention, these groups were identified by distinct clans or tribal names. The homogenisation under the nomenclature ‘Kuki’ was a product of colonial ethnographic classification, not an indigenous evolution, it stated.
The COCOMI also said, consequently, the use of the term ‘Kuki’ as a foundation for asserting indigeneity or ancestral claims over land in Manipur is both historically and linguistically untenable.
The COCOMI then said the claim by UPF/KNO is definitively refuted by documented historical records and binding legal precedents that confirm the integral nature of the hills to the Manipur State:
The COCOMI further said the entire territory of Manipur, both hills and valleys, was always under the administration of the Kings of Manipur, the State Darbar, and later, the State Government. The Rules for the Management of the State of Manipur (1907) explicitly established the Darbar as the administrative authority for both regions, managing land, forests, and taxation, it also said. British officers and administrators consistently recorded that the forests and territories were the property of the Maharaja, the COCOMI added.
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Upon Manipur’s merger with India, according to the COCOMI, the ownership of all such lands lawfully vested in the State Government. This administrative and legal continuity was meticulously safeguarded by Article 372 of the Constitution, the Part C States Laws Act (1949), and the Merged States Laws Act (1949), which preserved the validity of all Darbar Notifications and Resolutions, the COCOMI also said.
On the judicial affirmation of state ownership, the COCOMI said this legal framework was robustly upheld by the judiciary: a) The Manipur High Court (1963) affirmed the general principle that the Darbar’s rules, which governed the administration of the entire State, continued to remain in force after the merger. b) The Gauhati High Court (1979) directly addressed the ownership issue, ruling that the entire territory, including the forest areas in the hills, was the property of the State, and that ownership had lawfully vested in the State Government of Manipur.
On the usufructuary vs. proprietary rights, the COCOMI said the judicial rulings confirmed that tribal villages possessed only customary usufructuary rights for livelihood (e.g., jhum cultivation, grazing) within limited areas. These practices were recognised for subsistence but never conferred proprietary ownership or control over the larger forest tracts, it added.
“These decisions prove that the entire territory of Manipur has remained under continuous and lawful governance by the State, legally invalidating any modern assertion of ancestral or independent rights over any part of the hill areas”, the COCOMI stated.
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The COCOMI then said the assertion of indigeneity and ancestral land rights by the Kukis, as advanced by the KNO and UPF, lacks historical validity, legal foundation, and cultural authenticity. “Their identity is a colonial construct, and their settlement was facilitated by British policy sanctioned by the Manipur State authorities”, added.
The COCOMI then urged the Government of India and the Ministry of Home Affairs to dismiss these claims, “which are ahistorical and contrary to the documented legal and administrative continuity of the State of Manipur”. Granting such demands would be an act of rewarding historically untenable claims, thereby undermining the territorial integrity and legitimate rights of the indigenous people of Manipur, the COCOMI stated.