Khongjai Hills and Kuki Claim to Indigeneity: The Fact

CLAIM 1: “The Kuki claim to indigeneity rests solely on a single secondary reference by John Parratt.”
Debunked as a strawman argument.
False framing: The article grossly oversimplifies the Kuki position by claiming their entire indigeneity argument hinges on one modern scholar. This is historically and academically false.
Other sources affirming early Kuki presence:
The Cheitharol Kumbaba, Manipur’s royal chronicle, mentions Kukis as early as the 16th century—long before British colonial records.
Pu Thongkhothang, a Kuki chieftain, was documented as paying tribute to the Manipur king in the 18th century.
The Kukis were involved in multiple conflicts with the Manipur state prior to British arrival (e.g., the Haosapa and Khongjai battles).
Oral traditions, genealogies, and customary laws also preserve records of Kuki settlements in present-day Manipur and Mizoram well before the British period. This plurality of evidence renders the “single citation” claim invalid.

CLAIM 2: “John Parratt is not a historian but a theologian, and his work lacks objectivity.”
Debunked as ad hominem and misleading.
Credentials and expertise: John Parratt holds a PhD and served as a professor of religion and history. He has written extensively on Manipur’s political and religious history, including Wounded Land: Politics and Identity in Modern Manipur.
The article attacks his disciplinary background instead of engaging with his arguments—a classic ad hominem fallacy. Academic works should be assessed on the basis of their method, sources, and arguments, not the author’s label.
Ironically, the article uses British colonial officials, who were neither anthropologists nor trained historians, as supposedly neutral and authoritative, despite their imperial bias.

CLAIM 3: “British colonial records prove the Kukis were migrants from the Chin Hills in the 19th century.”
Debunked as selective use of sources.
Colonial accounts like those of Johnstone, Mackenzie, and McCall do describe certain waves of Kuki migration (particularly of Thadou-speaking Kukis) in the 19th century. But this refers only to later arrivals, not the entire Kuki group.
The term “Old Kukis” and “New Kukis” was used by British administrators themselves:
“Old Kukis” were already present in Manipur before 1800.
The “New Kukis”, arrived later during upheavals in the Chin Hills.
Therefore, colonial records themselves distinguish between older indigenous Kuki subgroups and later migrants. The article deliberately omits this nuance to portray all Kukis as recent entrants.

CLAIM 4: “Why does the Khongjai spear dance or conquest have no mention in British records?”
Debunked as argument from silence.
British records were not comprehensive, especially when it came to tribal histories or oral traditions.
The British were more concerned with revenue, military intelligence, and administrative control, not with preserving local folklore or rituals unless it had direct impact.
Local tribal customs and events, such as stone pillar erection, have always been recorded orally. The absence in colonial documents does not disprove their historicity.

CLAIM 5: “British officials are the most credible witnesses of Manipur’s history.”
Debunked as colonial bias.
British officials had imperial motivations. They categorized tribes as “migrants” or “non-migrants” based on administrative convenience—not objective ethnography.
Their reports often:
Reflected racial hierarchies and divide-and-rule policies,
Favored tribes that cooperated with colonial rule,
Ignored or suppressed tribal voices that resisted colonialism (like the Kukis in the 1917–1919 uprising. Taking colonial records as the gold standard for defining indigeneity is historically naive and ethically questionable.

CLAIM 6: “Parratt may have been paid by the Kuki diaspora to write favorably.”Debunked as baseless speculation.
This is a serious allegation without any evidence. Accusing a scholar of bribery without proof is not only unethical but undermines the article’s credibility.
This kind of conspiratorial tone betrays a political agenda, not genuine historical inquiry.

Why the Argument Fails
Flawed Logic Reality
Reduces Kuki claim to one citation Kuki indigeneity is based on oral history, pre-colonial records, and complex internal migration
Assumes British officials were neutral They had colonial biases and limited knowledge of tribal systems
Dismisses modern historians Ignores that scholarship evolves beyond colonial records
Conflates all Kukis as migrants.  Ignores distinctions between Old and New Kukis
Uses ad hominem and speculation Lacks academic rigor and ethical restraint

History is not about choosing between colonial archives or oral tradition, it’s about interpreting all sources critically, in context. To question indigeneity requires a multi-disciplinary approach, not one rooted in colonial nostalgia or ethnic bias.
Hence, the claim that “Kuki indigeneity is a myth built on one theologian’s book” is historically false, methodologically weak, and politically motivated.
Apply the same logic and level of scrutiny against you Mr. LIANGCHI.

As the Kukis are repeatedly subjected to scrutiny under the lens of colonial record-keeping, it is time to hold Manipur’s self-declared Nagas to the same standard.

And if British colonial records are to be taken as gospel as certain anti-Kuki commentators(like you) insist then the entire basis of Naga indigeneity in Manipur begins to unravel.

The Myth of a Unified “Naga” Identity

Contrary to modern ethnic claims, British administrators never recognized a unified “Naga” identity. Rather, the term “Naga” was a vague administrative label used for convenience by colonial officers to describe various hill tribes with no collective name for themselves.

Alexander Mackenzie (1884), The North-East Frontier of India:

> “The term Naga is a generic name applied by the Assamese to a number of hill tribes… who themselves do not recognize any common identity.”

In other words, the Nagas of today are the product of an externally-imposed name. Unlike Kukis, who maintained a broad cultural-linguistic cohesion (Kuki-Chin-Mizo), many of these tribes never called themselves “Nagas” until well into the 20th century, when Pan-Naga nationalism emerged.

Migrants or Natives?

Let us use the same British records cited against Kukis—this time to examine the so-called Naga tribes of Manipur:

1. T.C. Hodson, The Naga Tribes of Manipur (1911):

> “The Maram, the Mao, and the Poumai are of doubtful origin, with signs pointing to movements from the north-west and beyond present-day Manipur.”

2. J.P. Mills, British ethnographer (1930s):

> “The Tangkhul show significant affinities with tribes found well beyond the eastern hills, toward the Burmese frontier.”

3. H.H. Godwin-Austen, in his topographical survey (1870s):

> “Many so-called Naga villages in the southern hills are of recent establishment, often occupying old Kuki or other tribal land.”

If Kukis are called migrants based on movement from the Chin Hills, then the same colonial officers also described the movement of various ‘Naga’ tribes into Manipur from across the Patkai and northern frontier.

So, by the same logic used against Kukis: Are these so-called “Nagas” of Manipur really indigenous—or are they, too, migrants whose modern-day identity was forged in political expediency and tribal consolidation?
Cowering Beneath the Banner of Naga Nationalism

It is no secret that the push for a Greater Nagalim has created an artificial umbrella identity under which tribes like the Tangkhul, Mao, Poumai, Zeliangrong, and others have been politically absorbed—often suppressing their unique traditions and pre-Naga histories.

If Kuki scholars are accused of “clinging” to John Parratt’s work, what about the Manipur Naga intellectual class who repeat Isak Chishi Swu’s and Thuingaleng Muivah’s slogans as if they were historical fact?

Even respected scholars like A.Z. Phizo admitted that the creation of “Nagaland” was more political than historical, a patchwork of highland tribes unified only by opposition to the Indian state.

Thus, many so-called Manipur Nagas today define themselves not through their own history, but by cowering beneath the shadow of Naga nationalism forged in Kohima and Mokokchung—not Imphal or Ukhrul.

Selective Memory and Forgotten Truths

Just like the Kukis have been blamed for relying on a modern scholar, today’s Manipur Nagas selectively ignore British records that:

Question their origin,

Note their non-Naga linguistic traits (e.g., Rongmei’s connection to Zeme, not Ao),

And highlight their migration history from the upper Patkai and northeast Burma.

So, we must now ask: If Kukis are dismissed as migrants based on British records, what prevents the same records from disqualifying Naga claims in Manipur?

CONCLUSION: One Standard for All

If colonial records are to be the ultimate measure of who is indigenous, then neither Kukis nor so-called Manipur Nagas pass the test unscathed. But to weaponize those records selectively—against Kukis, while glorifying Nagas—is not only intellectually dishonest but also historically hypocritical.
Just as Kukis are accused of “manufacturing indigeneity,” many Manipur Nagas have erased their own diverse tribal pasts to wear a borrowed identity, crafted post-independence, codified by NSCN manifestos, and legitimized only in hindsight.
Historical truth is not a spear for some and a shield for others. If British colonial records are the judge, then everyone must stand trial. And not all will walk away innocent.