TCI asserts Manipur's multi-ethnic identity
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By Our Staff Reporter
IMPHAL, Jan 20: The Thadou Community International (TCI) has categorically rejected portrayal of Manipur as a so-called “tri-ethnic State” comprising Kuki, Naga, and Meitei.
This narrative is a deliberate fabrication with grave consequences. It is factually incorrect, historically indefensible, and politically dangerous, it said in a statement.
Manipur is a multi-ethnic State, comprising the Meitei, Meitei-Pangal, Scheduled Tribes, and other communities who have lived in Manipur for generations. This is not a matter of opinion but a historical, Constitutional, and demographic fact. Any attempt to compress Manipur’s complex indigenous reality into an artificial tri-ethnic framework constitutes ethnic erasure, undermines peace, corrodes social cohesion, and obstructs genuine progress, it said.
The persistent misuse of ethnic labels—particularly the coercive and blanket application of “Kuki” to non-Kuki Scheduled Tribe communities such as Thadou, Paite, Vaiphei, Hmar, Mizo, Simte, Gangte, Zou, Aimol, and Kom—despite their repeated rejection of the "Kuki" label, constitutes a grave injustice, causes deep and lasting harm, and has been a key structural factor in the 2023 Manipur crisis as well as in past ethnic conflicts, it asserted.
Colonial-era administrative distortions, created for convenience rather than truth, cannot be invoked today to justify continued misidentification. Such practices have erased distinct indigenous identities and inflicted profound collective trauma, particularly on the Thadou people. This is not a semantic error; it is ethnic coercion and discrimination, it said.
The communities, including Thadou, must be identified accurately and respectfully by their own names, TCI added.
The level of radicalization among Kuki-identifying individuals of all ages—including youths, children, Church leaders, and members, as well as Kuki CSO and militant leaders and members—by violent Kuki ideology is a grave and growing threat, it said.
The TCI urged the Central and State Governments, security agencies, academic bodies, and the media to immediately abandon the politically engineered tri-ethnic framework in administration, recruitment processes, data classification, and official discourse.
This construct institutionalizes division, entrenches mistrust, and directly undermines peace-building efforts, it said.
It added, there is no indigenous ethnic group called “Kuki” in Manipur.
Officially, the term appeared only under the unconstitutional and undefined category “Any Kuki tribes,” created in 2003 for political purposes, which recorded a population of just 28,342 in the 2011 Census. “Kuki” is neither a community nor an indigenous group; rather, it represents a violent political and supremacist ideology, intertwined with pseudo-Christian cult narratives involving Kuki militant and church groups—such as the KNO, KCC, and KWS—and enforced through manipulation, coercion, force, violence, cancel culture, and political power, it said.
This artificial and dubious category cannot be used to erase the distinct identities of Manipur’s diverse indigenous peoples or to impose a homogenized label upon them, it added.
An analysis of major violent ethnic conflicts since the 1990s—including Kuki–Thadou, Kuki–Naga, Kuki–Zomi, and Kuki–Meitei conflicts which lasted for an extended period of time—reveals a consistent pattern: misidentification driven by Kuki supremacist and separatist agendas has been a core factor, the TCI said.
It is a well-documented fact that the Thadou and other indigenous communities of Manipur are recognized ethnic groups in Myanmar, with a long-standing historical presence. In contrast, the term “Kuki” carries no recognized ethnic status in Myanmar, it added.
Until ethnic communities are accurately identified and Manipur is recognized as a multi-ethnic society, all efforts will merely treat the symptoms rather than addressing the root causes of the conflict, said the TCI.
IMPHAL, Jan 20: The Thadou Community International (TCI) has categorically rejected portrayal of Manipur as a so-called “tri-ethnic State” comprising Kuki, Naga, and Meitei.
This narrative is a deliberate fabrication with grave consequences. It is factually incorrect, historically indefensible, and politically dangerous, it said in a statement.
Manipur is a multi-ethnic State, comprising the Meitei, Meitei-Pangal, Scheduled Tribes, and other communities who have lived in Manipur for generations. This is not a matter of opinion but a historical, Constitutional, and demographic fact. Any attempt to compress Manipur’s complex indigenous reality into an artificial tri-ethnic framework constitutes ethnic erasure, undermines peace, corrodes social cohesion, and obstructs genuine progress, it said.
The persistent misuse of ethnic labels—particularly the coercive and blanket application of “Kuki” to non-Kuki Scheduled Tribe communities such as Thadou, Paite, Vaiphei, Hmar, Mizo, Simte, Gangte, Zou, Aimol, and Kom—despite their repeated rejection of the "Kuki" label, constitutes a grave injustice, causes deep and lasting harm, and has been a key structural factor in the 2023 Manipur crisis as well as in past ethnic conflicts, it asserted.
Colonial-era administrative distortions, created for convenience rather than truth, cannot be invoked today to justify continued misidentification. Such practices have erased distinct indigenous identities and inflicted profound collective trauma, particularly on the Thadou people. This is not a semantic error; it is ethnic coercion and discrimination, it said.
The communities, including Thadou, must be identified accurately and respectfully by their own names, TCI added.
The level of radicalization among Kuki-identifying individuals of all ages—including youths, children, Church leaders, and members, as well as Kuki CSO and militant leaders and members—by violent Kuki ideology is a grave and growing threat, it said.
The TCI urged the Central and State Governments, security agencies, academic bodies, and the media to immediately abandon the politically engineered tri-ethnic framework in administration, recruitment processes, data classification, and official discourse.
This construct institutionalizes division, entrenches mistrust, and directly undermines peace-building efforts, it said.
It added, there is no indigenous ethnic group called “Kuki” in Manipur.
Officially, the term appeared only under the unconstitutional and undefined category “Any Kuki tribes,” created in 2003 for political purposes, which recorded a population of just 28,342 in the 2011 Census. “Kuki” is neither a community nor an indigenous group; rather, it represents a violent political and supremacist ideology, intertwined with pseudo-Christian cult narratives involving Kuki militant and church groups—such as the KNO, KCC, and KWS—and enforced through manipulation, coercion, force, violence, cancel culture, and political power, it said.
This artificial and dubious category cannot be used to erase the distinct identities of Manipur’s diverse indigenous peoples or to impose a homogenized label upon them, it added.
An analysis of major violent ethnic conflicts since the 1990s—including Kuki–Thadou, Kuki–Naga, Kuki–Zomi, and Kuki–Meitei conflicts which lasted for an extended period of time—reveals a consistent pattern: misidentification driven by Kuki supremacist and separatist agendas has been a core factor, the TCI said.
It is a well-documented fact that the Thadou and other indigenous communities of Manipur are recognized ethnic groups in Myanmar, with a long-standing historical presence. In contrast, the term “Kuki” carries no recognized ethnic status in Myanmar, it added.
Until ethnic communities are accurately identified and Manipur is recognized as a multi-ethnic society, all efforts will merely treat the symptoms rather than addressing the root causes of the conflict, said the TCI.