The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) has placed a comprehensive memorandum before the Prime Minister, firmly contesting the claims made by the United People’s Front (UPF) and the Kuki National Organisation (KNO) regarding historical jurisdiction and ancestral land rights over Manipur’s hill areas.
The document follows the UPF-KNO meetings with Home Ministry officials on November 6 and 7 in New Delhi, where the groups reportedly contended that the hill regions had never fallen under the authority of the Maharaja of Manipur. COCOMI described the assertion as “misleading” and said the need to present historical records and judicial rulings had become unavoidable.
Drawing on colonial-era documents, administrative papers and court judgments, the organisation argued that both the valley and the hill areas formed part of the Manipur State’s jurisdiction. It highlighted the Manipur State Darbar Rules of 1907 to show that the administration recognised an integrated territorial structure. COCOMI further referred to judgments from 1963 and 1979 which, it said, reaffirmed the State’s authority over forests and other lands in the hills after Independence.
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The memorandum also took aim at the Kuki groups’ claim to ancestral authority over the hill areas. It said British officers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries facilitated the settlement of several Kuki villages as part of their frontier management strategy. COCOMI cited the writings of William McCulloch, then British Political Agent, to argue that the community’s migration into Manipur was largely a colonial-period development.
It added that the term “Kuki” itself emerged as an administrative label during the colonial period, and not as an indigenous identity rooted in Manipur’s early history. This, it said, weakened the case for claims of indigeneity and ancestral proprietorship.
COCOMI maintained that while tribal communities had long exercised customary rights over land and forests, these were usufructuary rights meant for sustenance, not legal ownership as understood in the statutory framework of the time.
Concluding its submission, the organisation urged the Centre to reject what it termed “ahistorical claims”, warning that any acceptance of such arguments would undermine Manipur’s territorial integrity. The memorandum was signed by COCOMI convenor Khuraijam Athouba.
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