[2] In India, the Zou are officially recognized as one of the thirty-three indigenous peoples within the state of Manipur,[3] and are one of the Scheduled tribes.

[citation needed] Linguists classified the Zou language as Tibeto-Burman, with only small differences between Zote and Paite.

Cope, made an attempt to trace the pre-colonial history of the Chin Hills in a church journal, Tedim Thu Kizakna Lai.

[7] The journal (edited by Cope) provides a glimpse of the Zomis in Chin Hills before the arrival of British imperialism.

The old Sakhua used to provide a satisfying explanation of the pre-colonial world; but the Zou colonial encounter exposed cracks in the old system.

The experience of many young Zomis as a labour corps in World War I made them more open to Western education.

By the time of India's independence, many neo-literates among the Zous were convinced about the power of western education and medicine, perceiving these things as synonymous with Christianity itself.

Their solution was to embrace the local Church Movement by preserving the unity of the Zou community ironically through mass conversion.

"[11] Recent scholarship, however, pointed out that Bible translations among the tribes of North-East India have become a victim of dialectal chauvinism[12] Multiplying Bible translations in closely related but slightly different dialects have canonized and hardened ethnic divisions within the tribal groups of Manipur.

For instance, the Zou language itself constitutes dialectal variants like Haidawi, Khuangnung, Thangkhal, Khodai and Tungkua.

[15] A handful of Zou women (such as Dim Kho Chin, Ning Hoih Kim, and Ngai Vung) graduated in theology in the 1980s.

There is limited space for women theologians within the formal church structure which is jealously guarded as a privileged male enclave.

[16] However, women are encouraged in fundraising projects where they have made excellent contributions through strategies like antang pham (handful of rice collection), thabituh (annual labour targets), and veipung (profitable micro-investment).

The idea was originally imported from Mizoram where women like Chhingtei of Durtlang and Siniboni (a Khasi lady) were instrumental in introducing the practice, sometime in 1913.

But this political entrepreneur soon transcended the narrow interests of his own 'tribe' to launch a pan-Zo or pan-Zomi solidarity movement to mobilise his co-ethnic members in Manipur, Mizoram and Myanmar.