Statement on the 92nd Kuki Uprising - LD June 2011

Commemorating the historic Kuki Rising 1917-1919 on its 92nd Anniversary, the Kuki Students’ Democratic Front do hereby reaffirm our commitment to fight, in the same spirit of our forefathers, the Anglo-Kuki War warriors, for the Kuki peoples’ collective rights as an indigenous and ethnic nationality of the present day Burma.
Ninety-two years ago on this day, our forefather had to concede the defeat by the colonial British the then super power of the world after a long drawn out war in the Kuki heartland. In the present day map, the event of the Anglo-Kuki war covered both the hills of Manipur and Nagaland states of Northeast India and the upper Sagaing division of Burma.
Cause of the Rising:
Not only in the physical confrontation but also in historical accounts, the British committed fallacy by presenting the Anglo-Kuki War as one in which the Kuki subjects merely resisted their colonial master’s recruitment of labours for employment with the British army in France during the First World War. The fact, however, was the manifestation to the invading force of independence, freedom, sovereignty, culture and identity within their domain. The fact that Kukis were able to sustain the conflict for nearly three years stands testimony to their spirit of unity, courage and valour emanating spontaneously from their inalienable rights and liberty inherent in them. It also demonstrates the Kukis’ inseparable relationship to their land and their legitimate status as a nation.
Result of the Rising:
Having engaged in the resistance warfare without cultivation for two consecutive years, and being surrounded on all fronts, the Kukis whose arms and food supply ran out had to surrender and concede the British superiority. The systematic measure the colonial British had taken up for containment of the Kuki activities is so effective that it prevents another rising till date. No doubt, the efficacy can be accorded the highest grade.
First, the prominent fourteen Kuki chiefs in the western territory were put in Sadia Jail in Assam state of India from where they were later transferred to the Andaman and Nicobar Island while the other twelve chiefs in the eastern front were imprisoned at Tongyi Jail in Shan state of Burma. As per the British Advisory Committee’s recommendation, each of these leaders was to serve fifteen years period of restrain except Pu Tintong, chief of Laijang who received a penalty of twenty years.
Second, the Kuki territory was divided into two halves of which the eastern half was brought under the administration of the British Burma while the western half, under the British India. While the partition under the British government had politically nothing consequential beyond the colonial administration, this however when consolidated as international boundary in the post independent era has now a stranglehold on the Kuki polity. No act of the British has greater impact on the Kuki people than the partition which truly is a political ostracism.
Under the administration of two different independent nations, the socially and politically minoritized, marginalized and deprived Kukis are further subjected to all forms of discriminations. Those under the democratic government of India, the world’s second most populous country, where number matters, their relatively small population makes their voices and concerns negligible in the corridors of power. The demand for their identity recognition in the form of statehood still remains a far cry. Still worse is with those in the upper Sagaing Division of Burma under the military regime which in the name of Khadawmi Operation, indiscriminately torched the Kuki villages and forced displaced over twenty thousand people in 1967. Again in the early nineties, in the name of Frontier Area Development Project, Burmans from the mainland were brought en masse into the Kuki areas and were given settlement at the site of uprooted Kuki villages and also at the newly built villages.
While tracing the origin of all these present day political quagmire of the minoritized, marginalized and economically deprived Kuki people to the hostile policy adopted against them by the colonial British rule, both the government of India and the successive military regime of Burma are equally responsible for not only perpetuating but also multiplying the myriads of their suffering. This enduring trail of injustice which the Kuki people have been left to live with is completely a violation of human rights. Nevertheless, astonishingly irresponsible government of Britain, which was solely responsible for causing the plight of the Kuki people deplorable, has so far remained completely silent.
Our Appeals:
Condemning the unethical and imperialistic British incursion into our territory and the enduring trail of its ill effect, and reaffirming our commitment in the spirit of our forefathers to continue the fight for our peoples’ collective right on this 92nd Anniversary of the Kuki Rising (Anglo-Kuki War) 1917-19, the Kuki Students’ Democratic Front do hereby:-
1) make fervent appeal to the present government of Burma:
i) to recognise the Kuki people as a distinct ethnic nationality of Burma on the basis of our distinct custom and culture, history and tradition.
ii) to recognise our political and collective rights and grant us separate statehood composed of the land areas under our habitation and protection since our forefathers’ time.
iii) to release all political prisoners in Burma and ensure freedom of movement, political activities and expression.
iv) to transfer power to the democratically elected majority party, NLD of the 1990 General Election.
2) make fervent appeal to the government of Britain:
i) to own up the cause of the present day Kuki peoples’ all political quagmires as the genesis of these being the partition of our territory in wanton disregard of our rights by your hostile, divisive and imperial colonial government administration.
ii) to initiate a corrective measure to remove the Indo-Burma boundary off our territory as the partition, consolidated from the colonial British government initiated-demarcation, becomes a giant political blockade to our identity resurrection.
                                  OR
To mediate the Kuki peoples’ political settlement by acts of merger that recognises the distinct identity of and accords statehood to each of the Kuki people on either side of the partition i.e. to accord one state each in India and  Burma respectively.