Leaders representing the diaspora Meitei community and select leaders of Manipur’s Thadou community on Friday (March 7, 2025) met in New Delhi to arrive at a “community understanding” for peaceful coexistence in the State, besides issuing a joint press statement in this regard at a press conference.
While the Thadou community is one of the Scheduled Tribes of Manipur that has commonly been understood to be part of the Kuki-Zo group of communities involved in the ongoing ethnic conflict, the leaders representing the Thadou Inpi Manipur (TIM) insisted that they are “separate” from Kukis.
However, the Thadou leaders who attended the meeting in New Delhi and later issued the joint press statement, asserted at the press conference: “This is not a peace agreement. It is a community understanding.”
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The General Secretary of TIM, Michael Lamjathang Haokip, and the President of TIM, James Thadou, were present at the meeting, which was held with representatives of the Meitei Alliance, a coalition of civil society organisations representing Meitei people outside of Manipur.
At the press conference, Mr. Haokip said that their body is not particularly opposed to the idea of a separate administration, the principal demand of the Kuki-Zo communities, saying, “Any community can demand peacefully what they want in terms of democratic rights. Other communities are doing the same too. Let them pursue it.”
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In the joint statement, the Meitei Alliance and TIM said they had agreed on preserving Manipur as a “cohesive and harmonious multi-ethnic society” and to updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) so that “original inhabitants of Manipur, including all its original communities” can be recognised. The statement also called for the deletion of “any Kuki tribes” from the ST list of Manipur.
The Thadou Inpi Manipur had in November 2024 also held a convention in Guwahati, resolving to declare their community as separate and distinct from the nomenclature of “Kuki” tribes in Manipur. At the time, Meitei civil society organisations had supported the move but other civil society organisations representing Thadous in Manipur had decried the formation of TIM and disowned the organisation and its leaders.
The Thadou Inpi General Headquarters, which is a constituent member of the Kuki-Zo Council, had at the time said that it held the formation of TIM as “invalid” as it was initiated without the knowledge and consent of the TI-GHQ. Both the TI-GHQ and the TIM call themselves the apex body of the Thadou tribe.
On Friday’s meeting and joint press statement, several leaders associated with civil society organisations in Manipur told The Hindu that the meeting was “uncalled for”. Another senior leader associated with the KZC said, “There is no reconciliation or peace pact signed between the two warring communities. So, it is premature and wrong to sit together in front of the press.”
Mr. Haokip said that within the Thadou community in Manipur, there are divisions, and that “many of them out of ignorance are with the ‘Kuki’ ideology”. He explained that the nomenclature of the Kuki community had enveloped smaller tribes’ identities, further asserting that Thadou had been their indigenous identity even before the nomenclature of Kuki came in. He added, “We are not afraid of NRC.”
He went on to assert that the Thadou community was among the largest Scheduled Tribes in Manipur and that asserting the Thadou identity as “separate” from Kuki was key to begin resolving the crisis in the State.
