IMPHAL, Oct 10: As the state of Manipur is celebrating its sixtieth years of existence under the Indian Union, the KNO expressed its concern over the ‘increasing militarization’ by the world’s largest democracy; the swarming of ‘outsiders’ from one of the most populous nations and ‘gross human rights violations’ in the name of counter insurgency operations in the land, informed a statement issued by, H. Lenin Kuki, secretary, publicity and information, government of Kuki Zale’n-gam.
The statement said that on the fateful day of September, 21 1949 at Shillong, the Hindu-ized Meitei Maharaja Budhachandra, with the pressure and support of the Nikhil Manipuri Hindu Mahasabha, signed away the sovereignty of the Meiteis along with that of the Kuki Zale’n-gam (ancestral land of the Kukis). It further claimed that even before the signing of the treaty, the Kuki chiefs thronged the palace gate in Imphal so as to prevent the Maharaja from signing the merger agreement, but to no avail, however the assemblage of hundreds of Kuki chiefs clearly indicated their sense of patriotism, love for freedom and self-rule it said and asserted that it was a historical, and yet irrefutable, fact that the land of the Meiteis was known by various names which includes Muwapalli, Poirei Meeteileibak, Meitrabak, Cassay, Kathe, Mahe, Mekley, etc all before the embracing of the Sanskritic term ‘Manipur’ in the early eighteenth Century. The imposition of Vaishnavism as the state religion in 1714 AD by the then Maharaja Gharib Niwaz alias Pamheiba was totally unacceptable upon the Kuki people as the Kukis and Meiteis lived separately within their respective domains with distinct cultures, belief systems and traditional governance, i.e. Kingship and Chieftainship.
However the shared colonial experiences by the Meiteis and the Kukis is clearly manifested in their fight against the British separately for the protection of their respective sovereignty and lands in the Khongjom War (1891) and the Kuki Rising (1917-1919). But unfortunately, despite the provision of the right to self-determination under UN’s charter and other Conventions to those “conquered states and subjugated nations” the colonized Kuki people were denied their ‘right to self-determination’ leave alone to call a lebensraum of their own when the colonial British empire shattered and left them, ripping them apart in North-west Burma, Southern part of NE India and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh.
The statement also further asserted the Kuki people yearn for a lasting peace and development, the KNO, as of now, believes that a negotiated peaceful solution within the democratic framework of the Constitution of India would blossom out of the ‘peace deal’ made with the state and Central governments.


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