About Us

In Makuiluangdi and yonder the lush hills and mountains surrounding the village, the cradle of Luangdimai/ Zeliangrong-Inpui civilization/culture, the echo of Hozam sounded by its patriarchs thousands of years ago can still be heard. This echo informs and inspires the descendants to seek to come together and overcome the barriers working against their interests.

Driven by the common origin, bloodline and socio-cultural system of the descendants of Makuiluangdi, Luangdimai Citizens Forum (LCF) believes in augmenting and dovetailing the common future and destiny of the people. Towards achieving this goal, LCF put a firm footing on their unity through a common point of reference. In one of the steps towards this goal, LCF members met in Shillong 2017 and took a reformative step by seeking to reorder the exclusivity in the 1947 nomenclature “Zeliangrong” by introducing ‘Luangdimai’, the inclusive name for the people and descendants of Makuilongdi Village who are located in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland. At the 2017 meet Zeliangrong Citizens Forum (ZCF) was renamed as Luangdimai Citizens Forum (LCF).

LCF is of the opinion that the prevalence of divergent identities and interests articulation among the descendants of Makuilongdi, premised on questionable narratives, had been accentuated by segregated thinking in the society for a long time. LCF is of the conviction that segregated thoughts and actions must not become bottleneck in the people’s efforts to reclaim the past glory of Makuilongdi or towards reaching our goal.
With this conviction and commitment, LCF is happy to sound the clarion call to the descendants of Makuiluangdi, who are now spread across the contiguous ancestral settlements in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland and beyond to rebuild our collective identity, take strong and determined stand in order to understand our past, reshape our present and brighten our future.

The Luangdimai, also called Zeliangrong people who live in four different states of India: Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram trace their roots to a single common mega-village known as Makuiluangdi in Senapati, Manipur. The term “Luangdimai” means people of the Makuiluangdi village, coined and started to use by Zeliangrong Theological  Forum, who later changed its name to Luangdimai  Theological Forum in 2010. Makuiluangdi is where Luangdimai ancestors lived prosperously, liken to a “Golden Era” and according to oral tradition the village had a number of households touching a magical 7777 at one point of time. From thereon, they dispersed to different directions in succession in search of better pastures and are now settled Luangdiram in the North Eastern part of India.

Owing to long separation from one another, regional dialects emerged which are now known as Zeme (Northern & Southern), Liangmai, Rongmei, and Inpui even though same blood lines run deep in these Luangdilat variant groups. Despite the regional and linguistic variations, all the groups fondly cherish and preserve the history of common ancestry, folktales and cultural practices. Centuries have passed, generations were gone, but Luangdimais never forget the history of   Makuiluangdi traditions. Accordingly, Luangdimai people returned and re-established Makuiluangdi village in 1979. Today, people from all the Luangdimai linguistic groups, namely Zeme, Liangmai, Rongmei, and Inpui are back and settled at Makuiluangdi.

Luangdimai people produced heroes and legendary figures from time to time. Haipou Jadonang emerged as one in the early part of 20th century who bravely fought against the oppressive hegemony of the British colonial power in our Luangdimai territory. Soon after his martyrdom, Rani Gaidinliu followed suit and carried forward the resistance movement against the foreign ruler and later led the Zeliangrong Homeland movement.

With the coming of the British Colonial Rule and its alliance with the local princely states, Luangdiram (Zeliangrong ancestral land) had been balkanized and the people are made into a subaltern community spread across a dozen districts in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram today. Although numerically they constitute one of the largest tribal communities in the North East they are one of the most underprivileged peoples due to their minority status. Hence, their present society is marked by large scale land and resources alienation, underdevelopment, poverty, illiteracy and social disparity. Further, the Naga political conflict took a heavy toll in the land settled by Luangdimai people.

As a result big waves of Luangdimai youth migrations to India’s metro-cities in search of educational and employment opportunities come as one of the latest challenges the community faces. Such young Luangdimai migrants in the cities share many of the traditional oral narratives and historical accounts of their undivided country and they in collaboration with many existing social organisation leaders in their home states formed Zeliangrong Citizens Forum (changed to Luangdimai Citizens Forum in 2017)  in 2011 at New Delhi with the following objectives:

1.   Bring awareness to the Luangdimai people about their common origin and history.

2.   Work for Luangdimai unity and integrity.

3.  Work for all round development in socio-economic, cultural and educational pursuits of the Luangdimai people.

4.   Continue to work for the realization of the forum’s motto i.e “ONE PEOPLE, ONE VISION, ONE VOICE”