SPECIAL ARTICLE April 3, 2010 vol xlv no 14 EPW Economic & Political Weekly 56 A Historical Study of the ‘Zo’ Struggle David Vumlallian Zou A post-colonial liberal polity like India does not seem to be at ease in managing the stark reality of identity- related interests today. In spite of disavowal by the Indian state, current international debate on indigenous tribal peoples may serve as a crucial point of departure to historicise the self-definitions of indigenous tribes and also to document little known struggles of non- dominant internal minorities like the Zo people who inhabit India’s eastern borderland. There are significant historical anomalies specific to the “hill tribals” of Manipur. Foregrounding such singular conditions may explain, at least in part, why and how Manipur remains in a state of siege, especially since the 1980s. Perhaps a degree of compromise may be required, if not desirable, between liberal regimes that represent dominant interests on the one hand, and indigenous collective claims to some sort of redress for past wrongs – especially when they have the force of justice behind them, on the other hand. The author is indebted to L Lam Khan Piang, B Lalzarliana, H Kham Khan Suan for sharing valuable information and materials. David Vumlallian Zou (davidlalzou@gmail.com) is an independent scholar who recently finished his PhD from Queen’s University, Belfast, UK. R egardless of the definitional problems associated with the term “indigenous peoples”, it is one of self-identifica- tion for several hill tribes of north-east India. Therefore, the concept is a useful heuristic tool in documenting little known struggles of the so-called “Zo peoples” – named Chin-Kuki-Lushai in the colonial register. While foregrounding the historical condi- tions that shaped the current hill tribal unrest along India’s eastern border, this essay attempts to provide insights into the complex process of ethnic identity formation. Attentive to the politics of naming, it traces the rich genealogy of the hybrid term, “indigenous tribal peoples” in the colonial census, academic dis- courses and international conventions. In a way, this is related to the indeterminate disputes on naming among the “Zo people”. While one faction insists on using the “right” indigenous collec- tive nomenclature, another faction favours continued usage of colonial names like Chin-Kuki-Lushai, at least for official pur- poses – regardless of their real or imagined derogative overtones. It also takes note of the disputed interpretation in India on how indigenous “populations” transmuted into “peoples”. Colonial policies and practices – at times unintentionally – conspired with missionary print culture to shape later indigenous solidarity movements since the 1950s in the borderland spanning north- east India and Upper Burma. However ill-conceived these strug- gles may be as political projects, they certainly deserve careful study to gain a deeper understanding of the troubles in India’s north-east region, especially in modern Manipur. ‘Indigenous Tribal Peoples’ 1 Part of the ancestry of the hybrid phrase “indigenous tribal peoples” may arguably be traced back to the 18th century when the terms “tribe” and “caste” were used interchangeably. The 1881 Census of India referred to “forest tribes” as a unit of wider pastoral castes; but then there was no direct reference to “tribes” per se (Xaxa 1999: 1519). For the first time the 1901 Census under Risley and later the 1911 Census under Gait defined “forest tribes” as “animists”. This colonial British naming practice echoed E B Taylor’s enquiry into the origin of religion in North America where he coined the term “animism” ( anima means “soul”) to iden- tify the “primitive” belief in the existence of soul. Marten merely made the religious tinge explicit when he discarded “animism” in favour of “tribal religion” as a census category in 1921. Given the terms of the colonial discourse, the “primitive” forest/pastoral tribal animist in India was predictably categorised neatly as the other of the “civilised” sedentary caste Hindu peasant society. At the dawn of India’s independence, the idea of cultural dif- ference between tribal animists and caste Hindus continued to inform Verrier Elwin’s polemical tract, The Aboriginals (1943).