ABSTRACT
This chapter foregrounds the question of land claims and salt springs that frequently crop up in the colonial correspondences related to the Kuki rising, known as ‘Zou Gal’ in parts of Manipur. Petitions filed by a Guite chief in the aftermath of the Zou Gal indicate the existence of internal competition for arable land of Behiang and the salt springs of Tonzang village. By the late 1910s, enterprising chiefs were already eyeing for wastelands to be reclaimed for wet-rice cultivation. The supply of arable land was getting scarce even then. Competition for colonial patronage in land claims is an important consideration for those who resisted the Raj (the Zou chiefs) and those who collaborated with the Raj (the Guite chiefs). But the British decided not to interfere with land regime as it existed on the eve of the Zou Gal. The British did not confiscate any landed property in the interest of a stable political order. This claims settlement invests a degree of sanctity to real property in the hill areas of colonial Manipur even when formal land titles did not exist.
