Kuki-Zo Council objects to ‘renewed attempts’ to implement law taking away tribal chiefs’ land rights

The Kuki-Zo Council (KZC) on Monday (December 1, 2025) expressed “strong objections” to what it called “renewed attempts” by the Manipur Government to operationalise a decades-old law that takes away land ownership rights of tribal chiefs in the Hill areas of Manipur.

The KZC, a coalition of Kuki-Zo civil society organisations set up in the shadow of the ongoing ethnic disturbance in the State, cited a letter dated November 24 this year from the Home Department of the Manipur Government.

As per this letter, the Home Department had asked authorities in the Land Resources and Tribal Affairs and Hill areas departments to take up this issue at the “earliest”, based on a representation from the Manipur Meetei Tribes Union (MMTU)

The representation from the MMTU called for the implementation of the Manipur Hill Areas (Acquisition of Chiefs’ Rights) Act, 1967. This law took away the traditional land ownership of Scheduled Tribe chiefs in the hill areas of the State and stopped the hereditary transfer of land ownership from one chief to the other. While the law received Presidential Assent in the same year, it was never operationalised.

The KZC said, “The very notion that a non-tribal organisation is proposing fundamental changes to tribal land governance highlights deep disregard for tribal rights.” The Council said that this was coming when Manipur was still in a “state of conflict and displacement” and that such a “destabilising” move was “deliberate” and “risks further escalation”.

“We urge the Hon’ble Governor of Manipur to intervene urgently and ensure that this matter is not taken forward under present circumstances,” the KZC said in their statement.

Even after the ethnic conflict began, erstwhile Chief Minister N. Biren Singh had in 2024 said in Parliament that his government would speed up the implementation of the law, following which BJP MLA Rajkumar Imo Singh had also called for the same on social media.

Furthermore, the KZC said, “We are equally concerned by the North Eastern Council’s announcement on 27 November 2025 that 2.13 crores has been sanctioned for a Hill chiefs’ Guest House at Palace Compound, Imphal — a location where Kuki-Zo chiefs and citizens cannot safely enter today.”