Ethnic Churning : CHIKUMI Style
- Part 2 -

Lalthlamuong Keivom *

Lalthlamuong Keivom : 1st Indian Foreign Service Officer from Manipur :: Pix - http://keivom.blogspot.com

* Delivered at the 10th Arambam Somorendra Memorial Lecture titled "Ethnic Churning: Chikumi Style" at the Lamyanba Shanglen, Konung Lampak on June 10 2015

Part Two: The Chikumi World

When my friend Dr. Lokendra Arambam unexpectedly telephoned and asked me if I could deliver the 10th Arambam Somorendra Memorial Lecture on the issue of identity, integration and national aspirations of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo (Chikumi) peoples of the Indo-Burma-Bangladesh region, I readily accepted the honour for two reasons. First, the event has to do with the Arambam family with whom I came in contact during my days in D.M. College and second, the topic is my pet subject. What never even remotely occurred to me, however, was that I would not be able to do justice to the memory of the departed leader as other invitees have done except raise some perennial questions which, unless we find the right answers, will continue to reverberate to the depth of our graves. These nagging questions will form Part Three of my lecture.

Chin-Kuki-Mizo Group

In the process of human evolution, we assume various names and epithets to identify ourselves from others. Nations collapse and new nations are born. Our attachment with the old and our hopes and aspirations for the future play a big role in shaping every individual and nation from stage to stage. We struggle not only for individual, family, community, ethnic and national survival but also towards achieving a world of perfection, for we are both biological as well as spiritual beings. We cannot escape from this eternal hold. And the rule of the game is never changed, which is - survival of the fittest.

Our ethnic group who inhabit the fringe hilly territories bordering India, Myanmar and Bangladesh covering about 60,000 square miles is one of the largest linguistic ethnic groups on earth. We have two full-fledged federated states, Mizoram in India and Chin State in Myanmar. Those who settled in the mountain fastness of the Chin Hills after their Kabaw Valley settlement were called "Chins" by the Burmese which means people carrying bamboo baskets on their backs. Those who migrated further west to the coast of Bay of Bengal and came in contact with the Bengalis were known by them as "Kukis" and this terminology came to be used to identify this ethnic group living on the side of modern India.

Later, another group, headed by the Lusei (Lushai) tribe migrated and entered Mizoram at around 1700 A.D. Under their united hand, they gradually welded the various tribes inhabiting the present Mizoram into a homogeneous entity speaking a common Duhlian dialect which became the Lusei language and then gradually the "Mizo language" since 1972.The area occupied by them became Lushai Hills under the British rule and those living in it came to be known as "Lushais" (Lusei) and no longer Kukis.

When India became independent, the political leadership felt that "Lushai" being the name of one of the tribes amongst them, it would better serve the cause of ethnic harmony if the name were changed into a more inclusive term "Mizo", which for generations had become the generic term used in the community, to cover all the ethnic lineages. Hence, the term "Mizo/Zomi" are coterminous. In my writings, I prefer to employ a more inclusive term "Zo" to refer to the ethnic group. In the present emotionally-charged atmosphere, it may even be more appropriate to use the acronym – CHIKUMI (which collectively refers to Chin, Kuki andMizo/Zomi).

Communities of this group now spread over Northeast India, westerly Chin and Rakhine States and the Sagaing Division of Myanmar and the Chittagong Hill Tracts (now Chittagong Division) of Bangladesh. The exact population of this group is not known due to various reasons. One of the factors is the remoteness of some parts of the region inhabited by them. Another reason is the constant churning of the ethnic political cauldron where every imaginable tribe or community has at one time or the other claimed and fought for a separate identity.In the process many got swallowed up by the more aggressive and organized groups from outside their parent community. For example, a sizeable community from the Zo ethnic group settled in Manipur has already declared themselves as Naga for political expediency and for sheer survival. Linguistic maps change with the change of political contours.

When the Linguistic Survey of India was conducted by the British Raj between 1894 and 1928 under the direction of G.A. Grierson, the Zo group was classified as Tibeto-Burman Family: Kuki-Chin and Burma Groups" under Volume III Part III. Therein, their total number was estimated to be between 6,00,000 to 10,00,000 which included 2,40,637 Meiteis. As per B. Lalthangliana'sbook "MizoChanchin", the Tibeto-Burman groups recorded in the 1901 census were: Tibetan 2,35,229; Himalayan 1,90,585; North Assam 41,731; Bodo 5,94,411; Naga 2,47,780; Kachin 1,25,585; Kuki-Chin 6,24,149; Burmese 74,98,794.

A memorandum submitted by the Mizo Union to His Majesty's Government in 1947 after the Lakhipur Conference in November, 1946 put the population (based on the 1941 Census) at around 5 lakhs. J.T. Vanlalngheta, author of "The Concise Learner's Dictionary of Mizo" (2010) puts the population at "about ten lakhs of people" excluding those akin tribes living in areas other than Mizoram who speak the Mizo dialect. Vumson puts it at about 2.5 million covering a contiguous region of about 60,000 square miles. LaltluanglianaKhiangte places it at 2.6 million. Taking into consideration biological growth factor alone, it may be safe to put the population of this linguistic group at around 3–5 million, one of the largest dialect groups on earth like the Hmongs (Miao) in China.

The Linguistic Survey of India mentioned above identified more than 40 Zo dialects of which the Duhlian-Lusei dialect now known as "Mizo language" is the most developed and understood and gradually and surely evolving to become the lingua franca of the Zo people. And considering her size of population, Mizoram perhaps is one of the most active States in India in publication of books, magazines and newspapers. Mizoram State on an average produces between 150–200 new books annually in addition to dozens of souvenirs, periodic magazines and daily newspapers churned out in Mizo and allied vernaculars by the people living outside Mizoram. The biggest linguistic cauldron in the Zo world is Churachandpur town in Manipur where as many as nine out of eleven major Zo dialects are spoken and understood along with Manipuri, Hindi and English.

Sinlung Tradition

Popular tradition of the Zo people holds that their earliest known settlement was a large cave with a big stone lid called Sinlung/Khûl somewhere in China. Conjecturally, the presumed ancestral homeland could have been located somewhere in and around the Stone Forest near Kunming in the Yunan Province of China during the Nanchao Dynasty. With the collapse of the Nanchao rule, many tribes fled its stranglehold, some heading southward like the Karens, the Siams (now known as Thais) and other kindred tribes and the rest towards the west like the Shans, the Burmans, the Kachins, the Arakanese, the Meiteis, the Naga group of tribes, the Zo group of tribes and many other tribes presently inhabiting Northeast India.

The first major dispersal from Yunan took place in the early 9thcentury A.D.and the second wave between 13th–14thcentury. The Burmans' first known settlement at Kyaukse near Mandalay was established at around 849 A.D. and then moved to Pagan on the eastern bank of the IrrawadyRiver where the Burman King Anawarahta in 1044 A.D. founded the famous Pagan Dynasty. The modern history of Burma (Myanmar) began from that era.

The Zo ancestors, however, chose to follow the call of the unknown and continued to head further west into the Chindwin River and the Kabaw Valley then already under the suzerainty of the Shan princes (Swabaws), some of whose disparate groups later established the Ahom Kingdom in Assam. From there some headed southwest and spread over to the present Rakhine (Arakan) State in Myanmar and the Chittagong Hills Tract in Bangladesh.

But the major bulk of them continued to move westward, climbed the rugged Chin Hills and settled in its mountain fastness undisturbed by outside forces for a period long enough to establish their own pattern of settlement and administration, socio-cultural norms and practices, beliefs and rituals, myths and legends, folk tales, music and dances and many other customs and traditions which they handed down from generation to generation to the present time.

Zo Dispersal

It was during the settlement in the Chin Hills that the linear strata became more defined and clanism more emphasized as each clan and sub-clan moved and settled in groups subsequently resulting in the formation of new tribes and sub-tribes. In this way, the Zo group of tribes, clans and sub-clans speaking varied Zo dialects were born. As they spread out over different hills clan by clan and moved along, they became more and more isolated from each other and their loyalty concentrated more and more on their respective clans.

Consequently, they became fiercely insular, loyal to their clan only and fought each other to gain supremacy over others as well as to defend their lands and honor from intrusion by others. In the absence of a centrally controlled authority, inter-tribal rivalries and wars were common, leaving a trail of bitterness and hate. This was basically the condition when the British arrived and subjugated the Zo world and its people.

To be continued...