In Northeast India, indigeneity represents much more than questions of lineage or the practice of maintaining culture. Instead, it is wrapped up in a deeply political statement that interplays with everyday life, rights, and survival. Where international discourses often render indigeneity as something like ancestry and practice of culture, here it speaks to lived and ever-evolving identity anticipated by a history of marginalisation, resistance, and adaptation to colonial and postcolonial pressure.
It denotes that area of shifting borders and contested sovereignties, underlining how identity is not a static entity but a continuous negotiation and assertion.
While the UN Special Rapporteur José Martínez Cobo’s posited definitions of indigeneity may serve bureaucratic purposes, they hardly capture the complexity of Northeast India, where the dividing line between “indigenous” and “non-indigenous” is constantly rewritten through political struggle.
To the local communities, land meant more than a livelihood; it was a memory, a legacy of struggle, and a metaphor for identity. Hills, forests, rivers, and rivulets have been the battlegrounds upon which such histories of resistance against rules outside their own have been inscribed.
Beneath this landscape of plural diversity lies a history of fraught settler colonialism that has disrupted demographic balances and relegated natives to the sidelines. Hundreds of ethnic groups with their traditions and speech populate the Northeast, resisting reduction by the simplifying categories of the state.
Some are classified as “Scheduled Tribes” in Indian law, while others are not, an artificial division reflecting state concerns rather than historical processes.
Indigeneity in northeast India is a dynamic identity forged in the crucible of colonial and postcolonial challenges. It contests the edifices of the modern state, which seeks to homogenise it within the reductionist framework of bureaucratized recognitions.
Drawing on James Scott’s insights into “state simplifications,” one may trace how Indigenous communities resist this forced categorization and marginalisation in their tale of belonging and resistance.
Indigeneity remains essentially the quest and struggle over a continuous process of autonomy, recognition, and survival in a state that is being kept to oblivion by the nation-state. From the territorial claims in Manipur-about which the Meiteis and the Zo (Kuki-Zomi-Mizo-Zomi) communities negotiate boundaries through conflict and custom-to the demographic pressures faced by the Tripuri in Tripura, every act of preservation of culture and every assertion of land rights becomes an act defiance against erasure. Ultimately, indigeneity in Northeast India will only be acknowledged through the recognition of this history of resistance that unravels the various accounts challenging hermetically the state’s vision of nationhood.
Tripura: Settler Colonialism and the Erosion of Indigenous Autonomy
This finds manifestation in the story of the Tripuri people in Tripura, whose indigenous sovereignty has confronted encroachment onto their ancestral lands, now submerged in a larger political framework dominated by settlers.
The Indigenous Tripuris conventionally enjoyed an inextricably linked relationship with the land, their customary laws guiding community accountabilities as part of a decentralised system of government.
However, the Partition of India in 1947 triggered a demographic change in this small state, permanently altering the power equations. Waves of Bengali refugees crossed into Tripura, and the demographic composition changed with rapidity and on a scale that overwhelmed the indigenous Tripuri population and transformed the social and political landscape into what could be termed a form of settler colonialism.
The marginalisation of the Tripuri people was not only a product of migration; it had been further consolidated by policies that favoured settlers’ rights, who gained political power quickly, thereby redefining the place of the Tripuri in their homeland. Through various means—land acquisition policies, practices relating to resource allocation, and privileging of settler-driven economic development—the settlers were granted rights which, in effect, reduced the control of the Tripuri over territory and resources.
The process is one that, in this sense, parallels what Professor James Scott might call a “state simplification” project if complex locally-rooted indigenous practices and systems became subsumed into a centralised, Settler-dominated standardised state logic, privileging the bureaucratic and extractive.
It resulted from a sophisticatedly interwoven tapestry—the original Tripuri land stewardship practices entwined with the social organisation—which was gradually destroyed and supplanted with one that viewed Indigenous lands as resources to be owned, divided, and exploited.
Autonomy in Name, Not in Practice: The case of TTAADC
The Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council, in TTAADC, emerged as a supposed remedy to cure the degree of local governance and autonomy that the indigenous Tripuri population had lost due to the simmering discontent and demands for indigenous rights in Tripura. However, in reality, the structural limitation has made the latter more symbolic than substantive.
This latter aspect of “authoritarian high modernism”—a term Scott applies to top-down, state-driven efforts at the ordering of societies—describes the limited autonomy of the Council. On paper, the TTAADC comes with powers related to several areas of local self-government; in real life, the authority of the Council is hampered by the pervasive presence of the state government, which keeps for itself the most important aspects of administration and finance.
This shallow version of autonomy only serves as a daily reminder to the Tripuri of the contrast between nominal rights and real, substantive control over their affairs. Lack of financial independence for TTAADC, coupled with restricted legal authority, means that it often cannot implement policies to attain Indigenous needs, protect traditional land ownership patterns, or take any cultural preservation effort forward.
Instead, the interests of the state override or even negate the mandates of the Council, as most of the policies and programs are tilted toward settler-driven agendas. Such constrained autonomy would reflect the strategy of the state to contain dissent without effectively empowering Indigenous communities.
The state creates an appearance of local self-governance while maintaining substantial control; it diverts attention from the structural inequalities that continue to marginalize the Tripuri people.
In this aspect, the perennial impacts of settler colonialism in the case of Tripura foreground the insufficiency of traditional notions of indigeneity and autonomy. Indigeneity here is not a relic of the past but a living, resistant identity forged through the continuous struggle for meaningful self-governance.
Thus, the retention of cultural, linguistic, and political heritage is an act of interest in preservatives for the Tripuri and also one of defiance against a state structure that privileges settler identities all too often.
Therefore, this struggle for genuine autonomy generates some of the limits of state-sponsored frameworks in which it seeks to regulate indigenous voices within the contours of state-defined diktats and mere token reforms.
The Meitei and Zo Dynamics: Competing narratives
In Manipur, indigeneity is more than an identity marker; it is a weapon to wield in a contest over land, autonomy, and survival. The Meitei concentrated in the Manipur Valley, and the Zo communities, mostly inhabiting the hills, represent two variegated conceptions of being Indigenous.
Each mobilises its version of history and territory into a claim for political power and validation of its existence. To the Meiteis, the valley is both cradle and crown—a landscape they say has been integral to their civilization for centuries. The connection with the land here is not about mere historical residence but belonging, which they believe legitimises their dominance over the state’s governance.
However, the Zo communities reflect on indigeneity from a rather different perspective. The claims of hill tribes are undergirded by a relationship of communities with the harsh topography in which they live, where traditional systems of governance survive and where the inroads of the state are resisted.
The Zo hills are sacralized territories connected with their myths, ritual activities, and social hierarchies. They counter the expansionist discourse of the Meitei and the advance of the valley into hills as an assault on their self-determination and identity.
The Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act is a double-edged sword in this contested ethnoscape. Originally enacted to protect the hills from outside exploitation by restricting land rights to tribal groups, the law has entrenched divisions instead; the Meitei advocates for broader access to hill territories, stirring fears of assimilation among the Zo.
The Meitei have expanded these legally and politically, which is reflected in the ILP system in Manipur.
Even as this is prima facie a regime meant to restrict the entry of “outsiders,” this enforcement is also a protective mechanism for the Meitei—the valley is kept out of the reach of others as an exclusive domain.
This state-sponsored boundary gives the valley the most strength as a bastion for Meitei identity—a place sheltered from extraneous forces, where their dominance is nothing if not spatial.
In contrast, Zo communities frame their indigeneity in terms of an ongoing resistance rather than a historical legacy. Their stories of rebellion against British rule and their present demands for autonomy through Separate Administration bestow upon the picture a meaning that is less of abstract historical moments than of continuous efforts at self-control over their lands.
To them, indigeneity is a lived struggle to be confronted day in and day out. In this sort of tug-of-war, indigeneity as a category in Manipur assumes the shape of the new political reality it is subjected to. To the Meitei, indigeneity is a claim to historical primacy, the right to define the poles of the state’s political landscape.
To the Zo, it is a line in the sand, a bulwark against perceived erasure. Both groups recognize that indigeneity in Manipur is a currency of power, which each deploys strategically, claiming not only who they are but also who has a right to rule.
Religion as a marker
Religion, far from being a private belief system, forms a part of essential undercurrents in forging alliances, opinion building, and group identity in the complex socio-political landscape of Manipur. Here, the difference in faith telescopes ethnic divides by interlocking spiritual beliefs with political ideologies and historical grievances.
In the case of the Hindu Meitei, religious identity is inextricably interwoven within the broader Indian nationalist framework, thereby enabling them to share an affinity with the Hindu majoritarian narrative of the central government. This shared affinity strengthens their claims of indigeneity within the Indian state and encapsulates their position in the valley as one that is not only historic but spiritually ordained and nationally legitimate.
For the Zo communities, their conversion to Christianity has differentiated them from both the Meiteis, on the one hand, and also from the Hindu nationalist discourse. The spread of Christianity, mainly driven by missionary activities during the 19th and 20th centuries, gave the Zo an alternative cultural foundation that ties it with a more extensive network of Christian organizations and support systems.
While Hinduism is usually imposed and viewed with suspicion by the Zo, Christianity is embraced as an empowering force, linking them to transnational Christian networks that give a moral and financial scaffold to their resistance.
The Meitei mind suspicious of Christianity as a “foreign influence” is not a religious critique per se but a political one. But to them, the church’s intrusion into the hills symbolises an outsider stepping into what they consider their natural domain.
This religious divide is not merely theological but helps dictate each group’s political strategy and sense of belonging within Manipur. The Meitei—with their Hindu heritage—align more readily with the Indian state, which increasingly champions Hindu values as part of a national identity.
By pitting themselves against this narrative, the Meiteis consolidate both symbolic and political capital, reinforcing claims to the valley and bolstering their position as the rightful stewards of Manipur.
In contrast, Christianity for the Zo communities is a shield and banner both: their churches are sources of spiritual succour but also centres of community resistance—a space wherein the narrative of autonomy is fostered and disseminated. As an institution, the church becomes a counterbalance to the Meitei’s Hindu-centric assertions by providing the Zo with a cohesive cultural identity that rejects the homogenising pressures of the state.
It is a territory where religion is less about spiritual salvation than territorial rights and group survival. Hinduism is, for the Meitei, a kind of connective tissue to the Indian state, a way of staking claim to their valley as part of the national whole. For many of the Zo, Christianity represents a bulwark against such an encroachment, a necessary reminder that their identity is distinct and worth preserving.
The faith of each group thereby becomes a political statement: for the Meitei, an assertion of indigeneity within the larger fabric of Indian Hindu identity; for the Zo, it is an assertion of autonomy, a statement of belonging resisting the homogenising pressure of the state.
Ultimately, the religious fault line that runs through Manipur cuts more profound than a question of belief: it speaks to a division that reaches to the very core of the struggle of this region—to be or not to be—over land, identity, and power.
Expanding the framework of Indigeneity
The cases of Tripura and Manipur, on the other hand, illustrate how rigid legal concepts of indigeneity—in the form of Cobo’s definition—fail to take into account the particular socio-political configuration of Northeast India. This one-size-fits-all approach deems irrelevant the very substance that makes the Indigenous experiences richly varied, with roots in regional history, legacies of settler colonialism, and complex intra-state power relations.
In this region, Indigenousness is neither nominal nor fixed but rather an ebbed flow between continuity and historical marginalisation, active resistance against cultural erasure.
Policies and academic discussions that adopt a region-specific approach are needed to address the inadequacy of such pronouncements. The required approach would be flexible to the recognition that indigeneity in Northeast India has gone beyond ancestry and cultural expressions of persistence but is.
Instead, an evolving identity powerfully impacted by the contemporary struggle for autonomy, land rights, and self-determination.
However, it is crucial to acknowledge that, in India, Indigeneity lacks formal legal recognition. Indian sociologist Andre Beteille contends that everyone can be considered Indigenous, suggesting that in this context, indigeneity is not merely a legal discourse but possesses a potent moral and political force. This perspective complicates the discussion, as it positions indigeneity as a concept that resonates deeply within societal and political arenas, even if it does not find expression in legal terms.
Although it is not officially recognized as a category for legal or welfare rights in India, the concept has trickled down to state politics, especially as political rhetorics are used by state representatives, which then force legal and political outcomes often in favour of dominating groups within a state.
Indigeneity as a concept of immense moral force is here to stay; what is needed is its rigorous interrogation to bring its discourse back to the actual emphasis of Indigeneity as a concept of cultural justice.
This thus demands, on issues of indigeneity, a paradigm shift in engagement—from the level of scholarship to the perspective of policy—from an abstract to a living and breathing category. What is needed, therefore, are flexible frameworks that are inclusive, resonating with the peculiar complexities brought about by unique community historical and socio-political contexts.
In doing so, we engage with the various manifestations of indigeneity in Northeast India while reinforcing fewer simplistic assumptions. This further nurtures a rich appreciation of the various cultural diversities and their struggle for recognition and rights in the region.
In a nutshell, indigeneity in Northeast India has to be gauged beyond the restricting legal definitions. It is a layered, evolving identity relating to historical continuity, the impact of settler colonialism, regional power dynamics, and the effects of religion and gender.
Taking the examples of Tripura and Manipur, the discussion pinpoints the need for a sensitive framework that would respect the socio-political realities of indigenous communities in the region.
This will require that all future policies and academic discourses transcend the rigid, simplistic legal conceptions toward a practice that embeds the diverse meanings of indigeneity within this complex landscape.
With such inclusiveness and elasticity, the framework can respond to the predicaments of indigenous communities in Northeast India and support their continuing struggles for cultural preservation and political autonomy. In that process, we are not only respecting their identities but also their rights to self-determine their futures.