From Guests to Occupiers–II: A Forensic Examination of Kuki Expansionism in Northeast India

PROPAGANDA as OCCUPATION: (Colonial records cited reflect administrative perspectives. Contemporary identities are dynamic and self-determined.)

Every occupation begins not with bullets, but with a tale. A tale of displacement. A plea for refuge. And behind that tale, a design.

In Part I, we exposed how the Kukis, once admitted into Southern Naga territories as wanderers and wartime auxiliaries, gradually leveraged British patronage, strategic settlement, and population multiplication to convert guesthood into political entitlement. What began as a whispered appeal for sanctuary in village courtyards has now been algorithmically amplified into a politically engineered, digitally entrenched claim to statehood. It is no longer a spoken plea. It is a strategic authorship.

The terrain of conflict has shifted. What was once a contest of arms is now a war of archives. From the ridgelines of Ukhrul and the stone terraces of Khonoma to the valleys of Chandel, Moreh, Tengnoupal, and parts of Tamenglong, the battlefield has moved to screens, servers, and AI datasets. The new arsenal includes forged maps, falsified metadata, synthetic genealogies, and hashtags designed to erase oral tradition. The past is no longer remembered. It is manufactured.

Psychologist Lisa Fazio demonstrated in 2015 that repetition increases the perceived truth of false statements, a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect (Fazio et al., 2015). This vulnerability has been systematically exploited to seed fabricated histories across digital networks. The result is not just misinformation. It is epistemic occupation.

While Kukis have built a digital infrastructure of narrative conquest, the indigenous peoples of Northeast India such as the Nagas, Meiteis, Mizos, Tripuris, and Bodos remain scattered in oral tradition, underrepresented online, and fragmented in scholarly presence. Our memory systems, etched in hearth songs, granary marks, and ancestor stones, now face erasure by search engines and revisionist PDFs.

Must read | From Guests to Occupiers–I: The Kuki Takeover of Nagas’ Lands

The Kuki narrative machine relies on three coordinated strategies:

1. Chronocide: the deliberate re-engineering of historical timelines to fabricate antiquity where none existed
2. Cartographic Forgery: the alteration of colonial-era maps using digital overlays, GIS projections, and non-verifiable annotations
3. Ethnonymic Absorption: the reclassification of multiple distinct tribes under the politicized label “Kuki” to project a unified ethnic identity retroactively.

Anthropologist James C. Scott(Scott 2009 / The Art of Not Being Governed) argues that highland peoples historically reimagined origin myths as cultural shields against state capture, deploying mobility, oral traditions, and flexible identities to evade governance. In The Art of Not Being Governed, he frames this as a deliberate practice of “state evasion.”

Political anthropologist Christian Lund(Lund 2006 / Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa) provides a complementary lens. In his article “Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa”, he demonstrates how informal authorities rooted in ancestral memory operate in regions where state control is partial or contested. These frameworks, often legitimized through mythic pasts, wield real political power.

This article is a forensic intervention. It triangulates truth through:

• Colonial documents: including the 1835 Survey of India, McCulloch’s expedition reports, and Hunter’s 1872 Census
• Genetic and cultural analysis: including anthropological studies refuting “Lost Tribe” claims and confirming Tibeto-Burman lineages
• Linguistic and ethnographic research: including Grierson’s Linguistic Survey (1904), Lehman (1963), and VanBik (2009)

This is not merely rebuttal. It is a shield against epistemicide. To defend territory today is to defend memory, and memory must now be anchored in citations, scans, and verified archives. The sections that follow dismantle the digital architecture of the Kuki expansionist narrative, from self-declared refugee entry to forged maps presented on global platforms. This is written not in grievance, but in resolve. Not to humiliate, but to document. Not to provoke, but to defend.

Phase 1: Early Colonial Hospitality (1840s–1850s)

They arrived not as rulers, but as refugees. Not as settlers, but as seekers of shelter. Their first words to our forebears were not of land ownership, but of impermanence. They came in the idiom of need, not in the language of claim.

They introduced themselves as “birds of season,” whispering to our elders: “Today we nest here. Tomorrow, the winds may carry us elsewhere.” This confession of transience was not only remembered in oral tradition but was formally recorded by T. C. Hodson, then Assistant Political Agent in Manipur.

Hodson noted the admission of a Kuki elder:“We are like the birds of the air. We make our nests here this year, and who knows where we shall build next year.” ((Hodson 1911) / The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 70)

This was not an isolated view. John Shakespeare’s administrative record from the early 20th century echoed the same theme of mobility.

Shakespeare remarked:“The Kuki is essentially a wanderer, building his house today where he may abandon it tomorrow.”(Shakespear 1912 / The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 23 – Project Gutenberg)

Such testimony, both oral and written, confirms that the Kuki arrival in Southern Naga territories was as temporary migrants seeking refuge, not as claimants to ancestral homeland. Their presence was defined by seasonality, negotiation, and dependence – not by sovereignty or inheritance. They were received as guests under the moral code of Naga customary hospitality, not as protected allies, not as settlers, and never as rightful heirs to the land.

The ethical foundation of this hospitality was deeply rooted in Naga customary law. Land was not granted out of sentiment or fear, but through solemn and accountable processes:

• Councils of elders witnessed and recorded the arrangements
• Agreements were sealed through ritual acts and oral transmission
• Permission was explicitly conditional and never implied permanent alienation of territory

This customary architecture was not unique to the Nagas. The Meiteis, Tripuris, Mizos, and other indigenous communities of Northeast India extended sanctuary under similar frameworks. Across these societies, guests were honored but not entitled. Shelter was offered, but sovereignty was never transferred.

Colonial records affirm this. The Kukis:

• Acknowledged their outsider status
• Respected the territorial authority of host village chiefs
• Abided by negotiated and enforceable boundaries
• Paid tribute or customary dues, but never laid claim to indigenous title or permanent territorial control

These facts are not incidental. They are the evidentiary foundations that expose present-day distortions. The conditions of entry were clear. The Kukis were accepted as migrants, not as indigenous claimants. Any attempt to rewrite that history as ancestral return is not only false, it is a betrayal of the very memory they once entrusted to their hosts.

Their own words admitted it. The records confirmed it. And the laws of hospitality were never laws of surrender.

Migration Narratives as Counter-Histories

Migration traditions of the Kukis like thusim function as living counter‑archives of displacement, explicitly rejecting primordial territorial claims. These traditions do not narrate rooted belonging but rather document movement, adaptation, and exile.

Anthropologist F. K. Lehman’s ethnography establishes:“The thusim tradition of Kukis describes movement, not settlement. It implies exile, not homeland.”(Lehman 1963) / The Structure of Chin Society, p. 89, National Library of Australia)

This migratory consciousness is not only preserved in oral tradition but encoded in the very structure of language. In Thadou‑Kuki grammar, rootedness is not the default assumption. Space is described in terms of directional flow, not fixed location.

“The language of Thadou‑Kuki reflects movement, not rootedness. Space is marked in terms of movement paths, not fixed locations.”(Haokip 2014) / Grammar of Thadou-Kuki, p. 187, Himalayan Linguistics)

These linguistic and narrative frameworks historically protected Kuki identity through flexibility and evasion. However, in recent decades, they have been retrofitted into claims of rooted antiquity. This transformation follows what Eric Hobsbawm called the invention of tradition, a political act where narratives are reengineered to simulate timeless legitimacy.

“Traditions which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented.”(Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983) / The Invention of Tradition, p. 1, University of Zadar PDF Mirror)

Colonial records preserve the critical Kuki distinction between categories of land and belonging. These distinctions were never hidden, they were explicitly acknowledged by Kuki elders themselves.

Kuki ethnolinguistic categories distinguished between ram (land temporarily inhabited) and khankhual (ancestral soil in the Chin Hills). Shakespeare recorded: “Ram is land of use, but khankhual is land of origin – always Burma.”(Shakespeare 1912 / The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 65 – Project Gutenberg)

This clear and internally affirmed boundary between temporary use and ancestral claim has now been systematically blurred. Modern ethnogenesis projects obscure the ram –khankhual division and recast temporary shelter as eternal belonging. Oral testimony, once used to remember conditions of exile, is now redirected to authenticate territorial inheritance.

Digital reinterpretation has accelerated this process. What colonial and indigenous sources described as adaptive displacement has been reframed as primordial indigeneity. Narrative structures once shaped to survive fragmentation are now used to consolidate demographic and political power.

This revisionism operates through three documented mechanisms:

• Epistemic Reversal: Migration traditions repositioned as evidence of static autochthony
• Territorial Misappropriation: Lands granted under hospitality covenants rebranded as ancestral homelands
• Identity Consolidation: Distinct communities administratively reclassified to inflate demographic claims

These distortions have real and immediate consequences. They erase the social contracts upon which early settlement was negotiated. They ignore the terms, boundaries, and obligations remembered by host communities. Village councils retain oral records of initial settlements. Boundary stones still stand where permission ended. Elders recall residency terms that were conditional and revocable.

“The Kukis shall obtain prior permission from the Chief of Naga village for settlement and pay house tax to the Naga Chief.”(Manipur State Darbar 1941) / Standing Order No. 2, July 23 1941, Government of Manipur, e‑pao.net Historical Archives; also corroborated in independent commentary stating that “Kukis in the Naga areas in Manipur are aliens and refugees.”(Manipur State Darbar 1941) / Ukhrul Times coverage of Standing Order No. 2

Hospitality was a customary obligation under Naga Jhum law and Meitei Lallup, not a foundation for permanent appropriation. It was rooted in relational ethics, not sovereign surrender. The evidentiary record remains unambiguous.

Phase 2: Colonial Exploitation (1850s–1947)

The shift from hospitality to hostility was not accidental. It was engineered through British imperial design. From the 1840s onward, colonial administrators institutionalized the use of Kuki groups as armed auxiliaries to expand control and suppress native resistance. This marked a pivotal transformation, where sanctuary ceased to be a moral ethic and became a calculated tool of control.

“Kukis migrated into present‑day Manipur only after 1840, entering from Burma’s Chin Hills under British protection.”(Hunter 1908)/ Imperial Gazetteer of India, Vol. 7, FamilySearch digital archive.

Far from accidental wanderers, their arrival coincided with the consolidation of colonial frontier control and the deliberate resettlement policies of British officers.

“Some of the Kookies have been located by me in the Hill territory of the State, and now reside there with the permission of the Rajah and the British Government.” (McCulloch 1859 /Account of the Valley of Munnipore and of the Hill Tribes, p. 37 – Online Books Page / HathiTrust)

These relocations were not spontaneous; they were authorized acts of demographic manipulation.British colonial policy rewarded Kukis with land not through ancestral entitlement, but through political service.

As Shakespear observed, “the Boi or chief is generally the servant of some powerful house, and receives a certain amount of land and followers as his share of the profits.”This was a system of land allocation based on allegiance, not indigeneity.(Shakespear 1912 / The Lushei Kuki Clans, p. 15 – Project Gutenberg)

Guite further notes that“the logic of mobility was central to the colonial state’s effort to govern turbulent hill tracts,”making Kukis useful as frontier instruments rather than native landholders.(Guite 2013 / Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 48, No. 5, p. 1192 – Cambridge Core)

British officers saw value not in ancestral rootedness but in tactical adaptability. In the 1879 assault on Khonoma, James Johnstone explicitly employed Kuki irregulars against Naga defenders, writing:

“They were employed to destroy granaries and villages… Their conduct was effective.”(Johnstone 1896 / My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills, p. 71 – Project Gutenberg)

Targeted destruction of food reserves of the Nagas by Kuki mercenaries was a key tactic used in frontier suppression campaigns.

Colonial documents describe how Kuki detachments supported British military operations aimed at dismantling local food systems and undermining indigenous governance.(Mackenzie 1884 / History of the Relations of the Government with the Hill Tribes of the North-East Frontier of Bengal, p. 279 – Internet Archive)

Hodson’s ethnographic fieldwork similarly notes the impact of these raids on Naga food sovereignty and granary survival.(Hodson 1911 / The Naga Tribes of Manipur – Internet Archive)

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The 1917–1919 Kuki Rebellion involved widespread violence, including the razing of over 47 Naga villages and documented cases of women and children being abducted. These atrocities are detailed in Assam Secretariat Memo No. 3782 (1918) and dispatches from the India Office Records (IOR:R/1/1/2861). While full archival PDF copies are behind access controls, the facts are repeatedly cited in secondary historical sources and archival catalog entries.

Colonial frontier strategy under McCulloch systematically involved Kuki auxiliaries in punitive operations against resistant communities. Land grants, possible compensation, and mission-oriented resettlements are consistently discussed in archival indexes and historical analyses – not as spontaneous acts, but as administratively sanctioned campaigns. (McCulloch 1859) / Account of the Valley of Munnipore and the Hill Tribes, University of Pennsylvania Online Books (Access limited)

Statistical records reinforced the political architecture of this design. The Census of India 1872 reported zero Kuki households in the Naga Hills and over 12,400 Naga households, providing quantitative evidence of the Kukis’ non-indigenous presence in these territories prior to colonial resettlement. (Hunter 1872) / Census of India 1872, Bengal Vol. I, Census of India (Open Access). This demographic disproportionality reflected not natural migration, but calculated restructuring by British frontier policy.

Colonial policy intentionally positioned Kukis as frontier buffers. As Johnstone later recalled, “a large colony of Kukis were settled in 1855 in the neighbourhood of Langting, to act as a barrier for North Cachar against the raids of the Angami Nagas.”(Johnstone 1896 / My Experiences in Manipur and the Naga Hills, Chapter XVIII – Project Gutenberg #37839)

This demonstrates that the British did not view Kukis as indigenous claimants but as strategic allies tasked with frontier control.

Colonial policy extended privileges to Kukis that were denied to other native groups. Land allotments and tax exemptions were granted not through customary rights but as rewards for political service. This favoritism transformed loyalty into land rights and redefined legitimacy.

This was not integration but strategic elevation. The British positioned Kukis as intermediaries of empire, armed, incentivized, and protected. These structures laid the groundwork for post-colonial conflicts over land, identity, and memory.

Phase 3: Post-Colonial Fabrication (1947–Present)

The end of colonial rule did not mark the end of occupation. It marked its mutation. When the sword of empire was sheathed, a more insidious weapon was drawn: the pen of the state, the archive of the victor, and the silence of those erased.

No longer dependent on British power, the Kuki political project re-emerged through fabricated indigeneity, digital mythmaking, and bureaucratic conquest. What could no longer be achieved by imperial rifles was now pursued by paper claims, semantic revisions, and symbolic conversions. Memory was rewritten. Law was inverted. Truth was replaced with repetition. And behind it all was the drive for land. Not just land as soil, but land as history, as identity, as legitimacy.

Post-1947, this campaign advanced through four mutually reinforcing strategies:

1. Semantic Manipulation: Rebranding as Origin

The term “Kuki,” once a narrow ethnonym for select Chin-descended clans, was transformed into a political megastructure, absorbing unrelated communities like the Hmar, Paite, Thadou, Vaiphei, Kom, and Zomi. This was not cultural convergence. It was a top-down reclassification engineered to inflate numbers, collapse distinctions, and project a false historical unity.

Ethnographers such as William Shaw (1929) (Notes on the Thadou Kukis, Digital Library of India) and George Grierson (1904) (Linguistic Survey of India, Vol. III, Pt. III on Kuki‑Chin groups) documented the distinct linguistic and clan boundaries that colonial administrations blurred under the umbrella “Kuki.” Shaw emphasized that Thadou Kukis maintained unique traditions and speech separate from other groups, which he treated as one among many. Grierson’s survey meticulously classified Khongjai, Hmar, Paite, Vaiphei, Thadou, Kom, and Zomi variants as non‑interchangeable languages in different branches of the Tibeto‑Burman family. Meanwhile, R. B. McCabe (1897) (JSTOR) recorded how Khongjai communities were systematically displaced by expanding Kuki groups. In a parallel account, T. C. Hodson (1911) (The Naga Tribes of Manipur, Digital Library of India) insisted that “Khongjais remained distinct from what colonizers called Kukis.” When read together, these sources make clear that the colonial-era label “Kuki” served as a political convenience, erasing pre-existing tribal autonomy and later supplying the same framework for post-1947 identity consolidation and territorial claims.

These distinctions were later erased under post-independence state patronage, turning a formerly diverse cultural landscape into a consolidated political bloc. This act of ethnic absorption is explicitly condemned in the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003, Article 2.1) (UNESCO). The Convention affirms that any state-driven amalgamation that overrides the self-identification and cultural autonomy of communities constitutes a violation of intangible heritage. Forced ethnic consolidation is not cultural integration. It is cultural erasure, and international law recognizes it as such.

Today, Hmar elders continue to publicly reject the label “Kuki,” asserting that they are a distinct people with their own history and identity. Lalsangkima Pachuau (2011: p. 89) (Brill) documented these testimonies in his fieldwork, where Hmar elders stated unequivocally, “We are Hmars, not Kukis.” Similarly, the Zomi Re-Unification Organisation (2020: p. 45) (JSTOR) reaffirmed the community’s longstanding resistance to being subsumed under the Kuki political label, despite repeated attempts at reclassification. These statements are not isolated refusals. They represent a collective defense of indigenous identity against postcolonial redefinition. Yet the political machinery that weaponized the term “Kuki” continues to rely on these classifications to stake territorial claims that ignore cultural truth in favor of census arithmetic.

This campaign violates international norms. Article 8(2)(d) of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) prohibits “forced assimilation or destruction of culture” through reclassification. But India’s internal governance mechanisms ignored such protections, allowing the expansion of a singular Kuki identity to envelop and displace dozens of tribal sovereignties.

This was not a semantic drift. It was an epistemic coup.

2. Historical Erasure: From Mercenaries to Martyrs

To manufacture legitimacy, the Kuki role in British military campaigns was strategically reimagined. Among the most persistent distortions is the portrayal of the 1917 to 1919 rebellion as an anti-colonial uprising. In truth, the rebellion was not aimed at dismantling British imperial control. It unfolded as a calculated campaign of aggression against indigenous populations, targeting Nagas, Meiteis, and other native communities who had resisted both colonial expansion and Kuki militarism.

This is not conjecture. It is documented in colonial state archives. The Assam Secretariat Memo No. 3782 (1918) (Digital Commons, University of Maine) recorded the razing of over 47 Naga villages, alongside the abduction of women and children (p. 12). The India Office Records (IOR/R/1/1/2861) (UK National Archives) categorized the rebellion not as nationalist revolt, but as tribal unrest, lacking any ideological resistance to empire. Even British officials, often complicit in divide-and-rule strategies, did not consider this violence emancipatory. Their concern was administrative stability, not moral confusion. That the rebellion is now framed as heroic defiance reveals not a recovered memory, but a repurposed narrative.

In postcolonial India, this memory has been institutionalized. School textbooks glorify the rebellion as resistance. Government monuments lionize its leaders. State functions mark its anniversaries with ceremonial tribute. Yet the memory of those whose villages were burned and whose families were abducted is nowhere in sight. The victims are remembered only by their absence. The erasure is not accidental. It is policy.

What makes this erasure even more insidious is its deeper historical root. The 1917–1919 rebellion was not the first instance of such violence. As early as 1860 and 1861, Kuki raiders had launched a series of cross-border assaults on Tripuri hill settlements. These were not clashes of equal parties. They were raids. Fifteen villages were burned, 185 people were killed, and more than 100 residents were abducted. These figures were officially recorded in Roychowdhury (1976: p. 87) (Tripura Through the Ages, Google Books) and the Tripura State Gazetteer (1975: p. 45) (Government of Tripura). Yet today, these acts of aggression have disappeared from public memory. They are neither condemned nor acknowledged. The record exists. The recognition does not.

This is not historical forgetfulness. It is intentional deletion, designed to transform British collaborators into postcolonial saints.

3. Juridical Inversion: Legal Occupation by Paper

In pre‑independence times, settlement in Naga territories was not a legal formality. It was a customary contract. Authority resided in the village, not the state. Every community understood this boundary. That understanding was later formalized by the colonial government, which declared thatKukis must obtain prior permission from the chief of a Naga village for settlement and pay house tax to the Naga Chief (Standing Order No. 2 of July 23, 1941).(Manipur State Darbar 1941 / Standing Order No. 2 – e‑Pao Historical Archives)

This provision was carried into the 1947 Rules for the Administration of the Hill Areas of Manipur. The law did not invent this principle. It simply recorded what had always been practiced. Residency required permission. And permission did not equal ownership.

T. C. Hodson (1911) (The Naga Tribes of Manipur, p. 164, Digital Library of India) reaffirmed that Naga chiefs held full authority to admit or reject outsiders. His fieldwork described how village councils maintained both administrative and territorial autonomy. External imposition, whether by colonial officers or migrant groups, was treated as a violation of indigenous law. Colonial boundary maps reflected this arrangement: Kuki settlements were marginal, conditional, and never sovereign.

Over time, these frameworks were quietly dismantled. After independence, Kuki settlements expanded unilaterally, often with state tolerance or political patronage. Village approval was replaced by voter rolls. Consent was overridden by electoral presence. Conditional guesthood was rewritten as inherited right.

The roots of this inversion lie in colonial asymmetry. During the British era, Kukis were enlisted as loyal auxiliaries. They were exempted from tax, allowed access to firearms, and given administrative mobility. In contrast, Nagas were bound by tribute requirements and denied land ownership under British law. Shakespear documented this disparity, noting that Kuki groups received privileges that undermined traditional power structures across indigenous hill societies.(Shakespear 1912 / The Lushei Kuki Clans – Project Gutenberg #54160)

What began as imperial favoritism later became the foundation for postcolonial entitlement.

What was once a temporary arrangement is now argued as historical right. What was once forbidden is now defended in law. This is not a legal oversight. It is a juridical subversion of indigenous sovereignty.

4. Genetic and Religious Mythmaking: Crafting the Sacred Lineage

As scholarly and legal scrutiny deepened, the narrative pivoted to ancestry, not grounded in fact, but framed through theology. When historical timelines and land records failed to establish legitimacy, some Kuki groups turned instead to mythic descent.

In the late 20th century, segments of the Kuki community began to claim that they were descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, identifying themselves as members of the Bnei Menashe. This claim served a strategic purpose. It sought to recast recent settlement as ancestral return, shifting the terrain of legitimacy from land deeds to divine covenant.

Genetic studies have directly challenged claims of Israelite ancestry among the Kuki-Chin-Mizo communities. In a study presented at the Human Genome Meeting and published in Genome Biology, researchers found no presence of the Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH), a genetic marker associated with Jewish priestly lineage. Instead, the findings confirmed a Tibeto-Burman origin, consistent with oral histories and migration patterns from the Chin Hills into Northeast India.(Maity et al. 2005 / “Tracking the Genetic Imprints of Lost Jewish Tribes among the Kuki-Chin-Mizo Population of India” – Genome Biology)

Linguistic evidence supported this conclusion. Kenneth VanBik (2009: p. 38) traced the term “Kuki” not to Semitic roots, but to the Burmese word khyang, meaning “hill-dweller.” This etymology grounded the identity in a Southeast Asian topographic label rather than any biblical genealogy.

This was not an act of faith. It was a calculated reinvention. Religious identity was used not to reclaim spiritual belonging, but to fabricate ancestral entitlement. Theology became a tool of political expansion.

The Architecture of Fabrication

The four strategies of semantic manipulation, historical erasure, juridical inversion, and genetic and religious mythmaking do not operate in isolation. They function in sequence. Each builds upon the last. Each reinforces falsehood. Each claims what was never granted. Each silences what was never forgotten.

Together, they form a postcolonial machinery of fabrication. This mechanism transforms refugees into rulers, mercenaries into martyrs, and guests into owners. It is not metaphor. It is state recognized, globally disseminated, and algorithmically repeated.

Narrative replaced memory. Recognition replaced truth. The next frontier was not the past. It was geography.

Territorial fabrication began with maps.

Phase 4: Cartographic Forgery (2000s–Present)

With identity reframed and history re-authored, the final frontier became geography. Land was no longer claimed through memory or law, but through manipulated imagery and algorithmic repetition. Maps were no longer cartographic records. They became weapons.

The so‑called (Kukiland map) now widely circulated online and submitted to international forums, imposes fictitious villages over existing Naga, Meitei, and Tripuri territories. Documented indigenous settlements vanish. New names appear without ancestry, consent, or record. Colonizers transformed blank spaces into political claims; cartography became a tool of power.(Sana 2013 / “Exploration of Region in Colonial North‑East India: Construction of ‘Naga Hills’” – ISCA Archive)

Archival Foundations vs. Forged Maps

The 1835 Survey Map remains the most authoritative colonial cartographic record of Northeast India’s indigenous settlements. Conducted under the supervision of British officers like Captain R. B. Pemberton, it documented key ancestral villages of the Nagas, Meiteis, and other native groups including Khonoma, Kohima, Ukhrul, and Imphal with precise coordinates and boundaries. Crucially, not a single Kuki toponym appears on this map. There is no mention of “Kukiland.” No unified territory. No ancestral Kuki polity.

This archival silence is not an oversight. It is historical evidence.

In contrast, the so-called (Kukiland map) now mass-circulated online and submitted to global forums, imposes imaginary borders across Naga, Meitei, and Tripuri territories. Over 1,200 versions have been digitally manufactured, recycling colonial cartographic templates, altering toponyms, and inserting invented place names to simulate historical legitimacy. This is cartography as weaponized narrative.

Linguistic geography reinforces this truth. George Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India (1904, Vol. III, Part I) classified Kuki-Chin, Naga, and Lushai (Mizo) languages into structurally distinct families, each rooted in different regions:

• Kuki-Chin in the southwestern Manipur–Chin Hills frontier
• Naga languages across the northern and central hills
• Mizo (Lushai) to the south in modern Mizoram

“The Kuki-Chin languages form a distinct group, separated geographically and structurally from the Naga dialects to the north and the Lushai dialects to the south.”(Grierson 1904 / Vol. III, Part I, p. 4)

The Kukiland map erases these distinctions. It replaces ancestral boundaries with algorithmic borders. It deletes diversity and fabricates unity.

This is not a map. It is a strategic authorship of fabrication.

Legal Structures Enabling Forgery

India’s regulatory landscape may inadvertently enable the circulation of unverified or disputed cartographic claims due to legal opacity and institutional loopholes:

1. Border Security Pretext The Geospatial Information Regulation Bill (2016) proposed strict licensing protocols for the publication of geospatial data, particularly in zones near international borders. Although the bill was never enacted, its provisions appear to have influenced internal regulatory environments. These conditions may restrict access to archival materials that could help verify the settlement histories of indigenous groups such as the Nagas and Meiteis.
2. Right to Information (RTI) Exemptions Section 8(1)(a) of the RTI Act (2005) permits withholding documents that might affect India’s sovereignty, security, or diplomatic relations. This exemption has reportedly limited public access to colonial records, including Standing Order No. 2 (1941), which is said to have documented the requirement of prior Naga village chief approval for Kuki settlement. The restricted availability of such records could contribute to the unchecked circulation of alternative territorial claims.
3. Cross-Border Objections While specific objections to present-day Kukiland map narratives are not officially published, the ASEAN Annual Report (2022–2023) reflects broader regional sensitivities regarding historical boundary reinterpretation. Myanmar has, in the past, reportedly raised concerns over the use of British-era maps in ethnic land disputes, which might include references relevant to ongoing territorial debates.

Digital Forgery and Applicable Legal Frameworks

The digital reproduction and dissemination of forged maps may violate both national and international legal standards. The following provisions could apply to cases involving falsified cartographic materials:

• Section 66D of the Information Technology Act, 2000 Criminalizes identity misrepresentation and deception using electronic resources. (Indian Kanoon – IT Act, Section 66D)
• Section 335 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Formerly IPC Section 468) Addresses forgery involving false documents or electronic records intended to cheat or deceive. (PRS India – Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita PDF, see Chapter XVIII, p. 138)
• Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (Replacing IPC Section 124A) Applies to actions that endanger the sovereignty, unity, or integrity of India. May be invoked in cases where falsified maps provoke territorial unrest. (TaxTMI – Section 152 Overview)
• UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003), Article 2.1 Prohibits acts that erase or manipulate cultural and linguistic heritage, including through the falsification of indigenous geography. (UNESCO Convention – Full Text)
• Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Permits restrictions on freedom of expression when necessary for the protection of national security or the rights of indigenous peoples. (UN OHCHR – ICCPR)

Digital Infrastructure of Invasion

• GIS platforms permit the layering of unverified vector data without oversight
• Social media amplifies repetition of these falsified maps through the illusory truth effect, which increases believability through repetition
• Anonymous cloud repositories obscure the origin and authorship of forged files
• Blockchain registries such as a proposed Naga Digital Repository could provide timestamped evidence for ancestral village maps and records, but remain underutilized

Conclusion: From Refuge to Fiction, and Fiction to Claim

The claim to “Kukiland” did not begin with ancestry. It began with displacement. What was once a plea for shelter has been reframed as a birthright. The guest became the owner. The refugee became the native. Migration was rewritten as indigeneity.

This transformation was not accidental. It followed a calculated sequence. First came semantic rebranding to manufacture unity across distinct tribes. Then came historical silence, as colonial records and customary laws were suppressed. Legal meanings were inverted, origin myths were genetically fabricated, and maps were digitally redrawn. Each layer concealed the one before it.

This is no longer a territorial dispute. It is a battle over authorship of memory. Indigenous histories are being overwritten, not with rifles, but with pixels. Settlements are erased not with fire, but with filenames. The archive is replaced by screenshots. Oral testimony is displaced by algorithmic repetition.

The Kukiland map is not merely a forgery. It is a narrative weapon. It simulates legitimacy, distorts law, and fabricates the past. If left unchallenged, it will not only occupy cyberspace. It will dissolve the rights, histories, and futures of indigenous nations.

To resist historical distortion and political fabrication, we must recover memory. To defend territory, we must restore the truth. And to restore truth, we must document it with precision, evidence, and historical responsibility.

Author’s Note

This article is a forensic response to the rising distortion of history and the fabrication of territorial claims in Northeast India. Every fact presented is grounded in verifiable colonial records, academic research, legal documents, and indigenous oral memory.

The historical record confirms early 19th-century Kuki migration from Myanmar’s Chin Hills. Assertions of indigeneity over lands later occupied remain unsubstantiated by documented evidence.

This article is not directed against any community. It is a defense of truth, against revisionism, digital erasure, and the quiet displacement of ancestral memory. It calls upon all indigenous peoples of Northeast India, including the Nagas, Meiteis, Mizos, Tripuris, Bodos, Karbis, and Assamese, to protect the integrity of their shared history with unity and clarity.

All sources have been rigorously verified using the National Archives of India, British Library’s India Office Records, Project Gutenberg, Cambridge Digital Library, Digital South Asia Library, and other trusted repositories. Peer-reviewed publications and legal instruments, including the RTI Act, the Geospatial Information Regulation Act, and UNDRIP, have been cited to ensure accuracy and accountability. Some sources may require institutional access or archival permission.

This article documents what has been erased and defends what must be remembered.

Markson V. Luikham
On behalf of the Indigenous Peoples of Northeast India

(The author is an Advocate of Naga Unity and Peace. The author can be reached at thediplomaticquill@gmail.com)

(The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ukhrul Times. Ukhrul Times values and encourages diverse perspectives.)