Unveiling the Kuki-Zo Heritage: Tracing Roots and Navigating Contemporary Challenges

The Kuki‑Zo community is a resilient transborder community of South and Southeast Asia. Members live across the hill regions of Manipur, Nagaland, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram in India, as well as in parts of Myanmar and Bangladesh. As part of the wider Zo ethnic family—which includes the Mizo of Mizoram and the Chin of Myanmar—the Kuki‑Zo community shares interlinked languages, oral traditions, and kinship networks. Together, these ties narrate a living story of migration, adaptation, and continuity amid shifting borders and evolving identities.

Origins and Migration

Kuki‑Zo oral histories speak of Sinlung (Chinlung), a symbolic place of emergence that anchors community memory and identity. While this origin story is central to cultural imagination, linguistic and anthropological perspectives suggest connections to East Asia, with successive movements through Myanmar’s Chin Hills and into Northeast India over time.

These migrations unfolded in complex regional contexts. The Kuki‑Zo community’s traditional practice of shifting cultivation often required new land, at times bringing communities into competition for resources with neighboring groups such as the Nagas and Meiteis. Colonial policies in the 19th century further reshaped local dynamics; Kuki settlements were sometimes positioned along frontiers and trade routes, which contributed to inter‑community tensions that reverberate in various forms today.

By the time of the Anglo‑Kuki War (1917–1919), the community was widely recognised for a strong sense of autonomy. The resistance to colonial policies—including recruitment measures during World War I—reflected an emerging collective political consciousness, even though the uprising was suppressed. That spirit of self‑determination continues to inform Kuki‑Zo identity.

Culture and Transformation

Traditional Kuki‑Zo society has been clan‑organized, with village leadership historically vested in hereditary chiefs and supported by communal institutions such as the Sawm (youth dormitory focused on learning and community life) and the Lawm (youth cooperative groups). Oral traditions—songs, folktales, and epics—remain vital to transmitting histories of migration, kinship, and resilience.

Religious life has also evolved. While many ancestors practiced animist beliefs, large segments of the community embraced Christianity in the late 19th and 20th centuries through missionary engagement and community choice. This shift coincided with growing literacy, modern education, and organisational networks that the community has used to navigate changing political and social landscapes.

Despite religious transformation, cultural continuity is evident in festivals, dances, and clan affiliations. Cross‑border kinship with Chin and Mizo communities reinforces a sense of belonging that transcends administrative boundaries.

Struggles and Survival

Historical change has brought both opportunity and precarity. From displacement during colonial expansion to identity debates in post‑independence India, the Kuki‑Zo community has continually negotiated its place in a complex regional mosaic. Over time, different subgroups have described themselves in varied ways—some earlier Kuki subgroups aligned with Naga organisations in the 1950s, while others adopted identifiers such as Zomi in the 1990s—illustrating the fluidity of ethnonyms and political affiliations in the region. Through these shifts, a core self‑understanding—resilience, dignity, and community cohesion—has remained.

This resilience has been deeply tested in recent years. Violence in Manipur beginning in May 2023—following a solidarity march related to debates about Scheduled Tribe status—escalated into prolonged inter‑community conflict. Reports indicate that by mid‑2025, more than 260 people had lost their lives and nearly 60,000—many of them from the Kuki‑Zo community—were displaced. Villages were burned, places of worship and public infrastructure were damaged or destroyed, and arms looted from police armories reportedly circulated in both hill and valley areas, entrenching militarized fault lines. The psychological toll has also been profound, with stigmatising narratives portraying the Kuki‑Zo community in dehumanising terms.

A Humanitarian Crisis

The displacement has produced urgent humanitarian needs. Tens of thousands of community members are living in relief camps, including in church compounds and other community facilities, often with limited access to food, sanitation, and healthcare. Restricted mobility and the fracturing of administrative services have complicated access to hospitals and public benefits.

Education has been severely disrupted. Destroyed or shuttered schools have left many children without consistent learning environments, while adolescents and university students face uncertainty about examinations, admissions, and long‑term prospects. For many, the loss of homes, documents, and livelihoods compounds the humanitarian crisis and heightens vulnerability as both an ethnic and, for many, a Christian minority.

Politics of Recognition and Autonomy

In response to the violence and longstanding grievances, several Kuki‑Zo organisations and leaders have renewed calls for separate administrative arrangements—ranging from a Union Territory to enhanced autonomous councils under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Their demand for autonomy reflects a desire for dignity and justice in a fractured landscape. Moving forward, sustainable empowerment, inclusive dialogue, and recognition of their identity are key to transforming adversity into lasting peace.

Douminlal Kipgen

Geopolitics and International Relations