In the Indian state of Manipur today, there is a group of people who, although they are under the control of India as a whole, are significantly different from the Indians in terms of language, culture, living habits, and even ideology.
They are the Kuki, about 30 million or so people Kuki, who consider themselves inextricably linked to the Chinese and call themselves "descendants of the dragon."
So why are they, as citizens of India, so similar to the Chinese in various cultural beliefs? Or even a self-metaphor for "Chinese"?
Although he is Indian, he has Chinese blood
First of all, an important factor is ethnicity and bloodline.
Since ancient times, China has a vast land and abundant resources, especially after many great ethnic integrations in history, the blood of the Chinese nation has been enriched and developed, and this is also an important reason why the mainland is still able to ensure ethnic diversity and national unity to the greatest extent today.
It is precisely because of the strong attraction that blood is thicker than water that the people of all nationalities have an unshakable consensus and recognition of the big family of the Chinese nation in their ideological consciousness.
Especially in the Yuan Dynasty during the Mongol rule, the expeditions that began with Temujin sowed the seeds of the Mongols in the places they passed, such as the Kuki people in the Indian state of Manipur, although they belonged to the Indians in terms of national division, but their ethnic origins were closely related to China.
The most popular and convincing theory is that the Kuki are in fact descendants of the Mongols, also known as the "Mongols" who live in the Indo-Burmese border region.
From the living habits of the Kuki people today, we can also see that they are very similar to the Mongols in China.
For example, instead of using the Indian calendar, the Kuki people have been using the Tibetan calendar, and they also regard the Tibetan New Year as an important festival for their people.
Although India is a country with a strong emphasis on cultural unity, even the government and the army are helpless against the Kuki people, who have a very strong faith.
In addition to being out of step with Indian officials on the calendar, the Kuki people also have festivals very similar to those in China, such as dragon boat racing and eating rice dumplings during the Dragon Boat Festival like the Chinese, and they still insist on it even when the Indian government does everything possible to obstruct it.
Not only that, but the Kuki people are almost indistinguishable from the Chinese in terms of body shape and appearance.
As we all know, there are very few real indigenous Indians, because India has gone through many stages of alien domination and assimilation in history, and the Indians living today are also mixed races of Europeans and Asians.
Therefore, we can see the shadow of Europeans in the appearance of Indians, but the Kuki people of Manipur are not similar to Indians in any place, on the contrary, they have yellow skin, black hair, black eyes, no so-called high nose bridge, deep eye sockets, and their appearance is no different from the current Chinese.
Although the appearance can be changed by plastic surgery, tens of millions of groups may not be realistic to say that plastic surgery, which is the confirmation of the same blood in the bones and blood, so they still have a certain basis for thinking that they are Chinese.
Linguistically, the Kuki behaved arguably more irritating to the Indian government. Because today when we talk about a country, the language is often the first, just like China uses Chinese, the United Kingdom uses Japanese, and even the EU countries, although the official language is English, it can be said that each country has its own national characteristics.
In the case of India, it must be Hindi, and of course English is also the official language, but the first language of the Kuki people is Tibetan, and the second language is not Hindi or English, but Chinese.
So today, if Chinese pass through the Kuki people's living area, there is no problem at all in communicating in Chinese.
It can be seen that the Kuki people have the characteristics of Chinese in terms of language and customs.
The reason why the Kuki people, who originally had their own national characteristics, were forcibly "requisitioned" by India was because of their extremely deep historical origins, and the main culprit was the British.
It was not a tribal will, and it was reduced to a vassal
Although Manipur is an administrative division under the jurisdiction of the northeastern region of India, it has become a part of India, which contains extremely strong hegemonic and power politics colors.
Historically, Manipur was once an independent city-state for more than 2,000 years and has had a glorious history of development, such as during the Manipur Kingdom.
However, with the advent of modern colonialism, Manipur has begun to gradually decline, and the key is that it has a very important strategic position in the northeast of India, which is connected to the Indian state of Assam in the southwest, Myanmar in the east, Mizoram in the south, and Nagaland in the north.
In the modern history of the world, the existence of the East India Company helped Britain to extract economic benefits in Asia and promoted the establishment of the empire on which the sun never sets.
It was not until 1947, after the end of World War II, that Manipur was finally able to regain his freedom, but this was not a moment to celebrate, because less than two years after its independence, the British left behind a historical problem in order to destabilize the situation in Northeast India, that is, the forcible annexation of Manipur to India, which made it lose the possibility of independence.
Some people say that the king of Manipur at that time was actually forced by the British to do so, but in short, the sudden annexation of Manipur to India was not only an abnormal situation.
However, it is true that Manipur has a very important strategic position, and the Indian government also attaches great importance to it, especially in order to prevent the Kuki people from becoming more independent, the Indian government has adjusted the structure of Manipur several times.
For example, in October of the year when Manipur was incorporated into India, it became a Union Territory of India, and in 1950, Manipur was classified as a C-state by the official government, which was governed by the central government, and became a Union Territory again in 1956.
Manipur's multiple structural changes underscore the importance that India's central government attaches to the state and the official government's concern about the instability of the Kukis.
Although the Kuki people lost their right to independence under the persecution of the British, they knew that they were not of the same race or blood as the Indians, so they always adhered to their national habits and would not forget their national beliefs and habits, and at the same time they also showed a very strong rejection of India.
People of Chinese descent do not associate with Indians
Regardless of the policy of assimilation of the official Indian government, the Kuki remained unmoved.
More crucially, the stronger the assimilation of the Indian government, the more obvious the Kuki people's sense of resistance, and to this day the Kukis still do not intermarry with the Indians, and even daily communication is very limited.
The refusal to intermarry with Indians indicates that the Kuki do not want their bloodline to be influenced by Indians, and they want to maintain a pure Chinese bloodline.
After all, the Kuki people have always considered themselves to be descendants of the Chinese, so they are different from the Indians everywhere in terms of culture and customs, and they are very conscious and strict to distinguish themselves from the Indians, and take the initiative to get close to the Chinese culture.
Originally, the Kuki were incorporated into India because they did not want to do so, so they rarely interacted with the Indians in their daily lives, especially in terms of language and writing, almost both sides were in a strange state, so the language and writing barrier made the Kuki people even more alienated from the Indians.
In addition to this, we know that India still maintains the caste system that has been prevalent for thousands of years, and this system cannot be said to be completely bad, but it is definitely an unfair system, which divides people into three or six or nine classes according to their social status and property, and the lowest Shudras are always discriminated against and insulted by the rest of society.
On the contrary, there has never been a caste within the Kuki people, they are united and stable within themselves, and they work together, and whenever they encounter difficulties, they often unite to face them together, which is very similar to the Chinese nation.
Although the Kuki people living in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur have lost their independence due to hegemonism in history, they have never forgotten their ethnic origins, their bloodline, and their language, writing, and customs in the decades of life in other countries.
In all respects, the Kukis firmly believe that they are descendants of the Chinese, and even in the face of the coercion and inducement of the Indian government, even when India sent troops to suppress them, they remained humble and obedient to their ancestral teachings.