Leaders and delegates at the Thadou Convention 2024 held in Guwahati
Amid tension between the Meitei community and the Kuki tribes in Manipur, the Thadou tribe in the state has said it is a distinct tribe with its own separate language, culture, tradition and history. The Thadou Tribe Convention, billed as a "historic" event, in a statement said they will support the National Register of Citizens (NRC) if the Centre decides to carry out the exercise in Manipur.
They also voiced support for the Manipur government's 'War on Drugs' campaign, and asked the government to "implement it more effectively with a greater community engagement and better planning and a clear goal for the best socio-economic and environmental outcomes for now and the future."
The Thadou tribe has been struggling to assert its distinct identity, the convention said, adding Thadous have always been known and recorded as Thadou, without any prefix or suffix to it, and it has been the single-largest tribe in Manipur consistently since the first census of India in 1881 till the latest census in 2011.
"We are not part of the Kuki tribes but a separate, independent entity from Kuki," the Thadou Convention held in Assam's Guwahati said in a statement on the last of the two-day event on Saturday.
The convention said Thadou is one of the original 29 native/indigenous tribes of Manipur and they were recognised as independent Scheduled Tribes under the 1956 Presidential Order of the government of India.
It rejected and condemned all "colonial and post-colonial connotations and writings that gave rise to the misidentification of Thadou as Kuki and the continued imposition of Kuki on Thadou."
"Today, there is no Kuki other than the 'Any Kuki Tribes' (AKT), the fake Kuki tribe (designed for any people from anywhere in the world) that came into being fraudulently in 2003 for political reasons," the Thadou Convention said in a statement.
It repeated the demand for removing AKT from the Scheduled Tribes list of Manipur "in the larger interest of the Indian nation and of the indigenous/native tribes and people".
"We fervently call for peace in Manipur and hope for a future defined by peace, justice, non-violent resolutions, and respect for each other's rights... We honour the memory of all those who have fallen victim to the tragic violence in Manipur since May 3, 2023, of which Thadous are the most affected yet, silenced victims, due to mistaken identity or getting caught up in the violence, and extend our deepest empathy to the survivors of the violence and their families," the statement said.
Kuki groups such as the Churachandpur-based Indigenous Tribal Leaders' Forum (ITLF) and the Kangpokpi-based Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) have not given any statement on the developments linked to the Thadou Convention. Sources said these Kuki groups are deliberating on responding to the statements by the Thadou tribe.
Other smaller tribes have accused the two Kuki groups of forcefully clubbing them under the all-encompassing term 'tribal'.
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The All Tribal Students' Union of Manipur (ATSUM), which participated in a rally on May 3 last year against the Meiteis' demand to be included under the Scheduled Tribes (SC) status, had distanced itself from the ITLF and the CoTU after violence broke out, though the ATSUM held the BJP government led by Chief Minister N Biren Singh responsible for the outbreak of the crisis.
Former ATSUM members had told local media on March 18 this year that the ITLF and CoTU do not have the mandate of all tribes in Manipur, but represent a single tribe.