Guwahati: Manipur’s predominant tribe, the Thadou, rejected the colonial-era classification and post-independence bureaucratic nomenclature designating it as a constituent of the Kuki group asserting that this label was arbitrarily imposed without its explicit consent.
The Thadou Convention 2024, which concluded in Guwahati on Saturday, said among all those who fell victim to the tragic violence in Manipur since May 3, 2023, the Thadous were the most affected yet silenced victims, due to mistaken identity or getting caught up in the violence.
The convention extended its deepest empathy to the survivors of the violence and their families and also affirmed its solidarity with the Thadou people of Myanmar, who were affected by the ongoing political unrest in the country.
The “Declaration” of the Thadou Convention states, “Thadou is a distinct ethnic group of people, with our own distinct language, culture, traditions, and great history. Thadou is not Kuki, or underneath Kuki, or part of Kuki, but a separate, independent entity from Kuki.”
The participants also affirmed that the Thadou people constitute an independent, indigenous community among Manipur’s 29 native tribes, as recognised by the 1956 Presidential Order. “Thadous have always been known and recorded as Thadou, without any prefix or suffix to it, and it has been the single largest tribe in Manipur consistently since the first census of India in 1881 till the latest census in 2011 that recorded the Thadou population at 2,15,913,” the declaration states.
The convention also called for the removal of “Any Kuki Tribe” from the ST list of Manipur, stating that “there is no Kuki other than the ‘Any Kuki Tribes’ (AKT) that came into being fraudulently in 2003 for political reasons. Removal of AKT will do great justice and right the wrong and is critical to solving or preventing related problems now and in the future.”
It stated that the Thadou reject and disown the term “Kuki,” which was "coined by the colonial rulers, supposedly known as a conglomerate of several constituent tribes, without which it is non-existent and irrelevant. The term has never been accepted by any of the other kindred tribes (Aimol, Gangte, Hmar, Kom, Mizo, Paite, Simte, Vaiphei, Zou, etc.). Thus, any attempt to conflate or confuse Thadou identity with Kuki will be construed as the imposition of Kuki upon Thadou with divisive and malicious intentions, and it will never be acceptable to Thadou people.”
The gathering denounced organisations that use “Thadou-Kuki” or similar combinations, declaring them unauthorized to represent Thadou interests.