How could such a serious matter like the Scheduled Tribes’ demand via a writ petition from some Meitei organisations be taken up without any tribal person or organisation knowing about it or raising a voice asking for being a respondent or party and seeking time?
How is it that the advocates from the tribes working in the High Court, and the public at large, were not alerted and allowed such a serious matter having long-term ramifications to slip through their sight/knowledge when they have the cause list for the next day?
In this particular case, it appears the order was dictated in court on March 27, 2023, i.e, the date of hearing of the motion and the order was passed on the same day. It was, however, uploaded on the High Court’s website only on April 19.
Why are our student leaders, civil society organisations and activists so isolated from information that they were blind-sided by this earth-shaking High Court event? I wonder at the rush for the High Court to decide on the matter at the motion stage on March 27 without hearing the affected party.
I wonder what the respondents, particularly the administrative Secretary of the Department of Tribal Affairs & Hills, (TA&H) Minister concerned and the Chief Secretary were doing. Was it brought to the knowledge of the Chief Minister and Minister in charge of TA&H? Was there inaction on the part of the state government
The Hill Areas Committee (HAC) came out with a resolution on April 20, wrongly understanding that the order was passed on April 19, the date when it was digitally verified and uploaded to the Manipur High Court website urging the state government to file an Appeal. But will the state government go to court on this matter?
The order of the High Court can destabilise the government and cause tension in society, besides creating communal disharmony.
It would not be wrong to say that Manipur has entered a phase fraught with danger.
As far as tribals of Manipur are concerned, such an incident indicates that most of our leaders and intellectuals are sleeping most of the time. But we cannot blame them solely for this state of affairs. The voters must also take a share of the blame as they have brought such a situation upon themselves by electing leaders who have no vision and lack the ability to lead and protect people’s interests.
The shortsighted tribesmen are to be blamed as most of us became corrupt during elections and compromised our choice of leaders for short-term consideration.
In light of many things happening adversely for the tribes of Manipur, it is tempting to say that most of our leaders have myopic visions limiting their ability to see the future. The tribes of Manipur are suspicious of each other that they often focus all their attention on each other’s various moves and forget what the main adversary is doing. Distrust and hatred for each other have kept the various tribes apart and disunited.
The various assaults for dominance from the Meitei society that the tribes have experienced and condescended to in the past, one of them being the lack of strong opposition to the inclusion of the Meitei language in the 8th Schedule of the constitution, is indeed a sad commentary of the lack of foresight by our leaders from all walks of life.
The tribes of Manipur are now further disadvantaged as Manipuri/Meitei Lon has recently become one of the approved regional languages for the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) recruitment examination. Meitei language has already been allowed as a language in the Combined Civil Services Examinations giving the Meitei a competitive advantage and many of them have been made into various services now under the OBC reservation quota.
Now the possibility of the advanced Meitei community becoming ST is looming large, and if it happens, they will corner all ST-reserved jobs/educational seats in the state as well as the country as they have now become advanced people. This happened for the Meena tribe of Rajasthan.
While other unfortunate non-Meena STs of Rajasthan suffered, most, if not all, Meenas grabbed most of the government jobs and seats in educational institutes for STs.
To this, if we add the Meitei ST factor and if it takes place, there will be nothing left for other STs across the country. The STs from other states also need to wake up to the emerging danger and oppose the attempt of a dominant community to become a Scheduled Tribe to obtain the benefits of jobs in government and seats in higher educational institutes.
Apart from the overt design to grab all ST reserved jobs etc, the hidden agenda of the demand for ST status by Meitei is “Land”. They are after the land in the hill areas, and when they become ST, they can buy land from the poor tribal brothers.
The Meiteis have numerous rich people, engineers, doctors, lawyers, businessmen, etc., and they can generate enough resources to make the system work in their favour. So beware of the innocuous moves of the Meiteis.
The tribes of Manipur have been outclassed and outsmarted by the Meiteis. We have lost on all fronts. Politically, we have only 20 MLAs when it could be closer to 50% considering the population in the Hill Areas if delimitation is allowed, but it has been sadly scuttled by the state government dominated by the Meiteis.
Administratively, we have the outdated and ineffective Autonomous District Councils in the Hill Areas, which is autonomous only in name. The Manipur tribes spearheaded the demand for the Sixth Schedule. But it was stalled by the usage of insincere words like subject to certain “local adjustments and amendments”. What did it mean? The Government of India never never clarified this.
The demand for the Gorkhaland and the Bodoland territorial councils, which are more powerful entities than the sixth scheduled district councils, came much later. But they have been achieved and succeeded through tough political fights and bloodshed.
In Manipur, it has not been possible to even resurrect the demand for the sixth schedule made in the 1990s as leaders are dissuaded by the unspoken whisper emanating from the peace parleys that such concessions will be given when there is a peace talk settlement for the Nagas and Kuki-chin groups.
But alas! such settlement has become a mirage; the closer we get to it, the mirage vanishes and resurfaces at a further distance. Everyone is exhausted with no end in sight as the people continue to suffer from another onslaught from the Meiteis.
Now, to add further to the misery of the tribes of Manipur, the dominant community appears to have added a feather to their cap with the judiciary giving their demand a much-needed fillip, thereby precipitating an issue that the state government was procrastinating for fear of disturbing the social equilibrium in Manipur and triggering social disharmony.
The ultimate sufferer in this case too would again be the tribes of Manipur as the prosperous Meitei community have resources to open many doors in their quest for ST status.
The onus lies with the state government to go for review or appeal against the order of the High Court. It would be the role of the HAC to ensure that action in the matter is taken by the state government. The department of TA&H especially the Minister cannot shirk its responsibility on this matter.
Regardless of the expectation that the state government would go for an appeal or review on the matter, the tribal organisations should ensure that a similar appeal or review or any legal recourse against the High Court order is filed by them separately.
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The tribes of Manipur are lost, people. Like the Israelites, the tribes will have to wander in the wilderness for decades until they are united and march as one people to fight a common foe and enter the promised land.
The simple idiom that most of us learn in school still resonates strongly and is relevant to our present situation – “United we stand, divided we fall.” The choice my friend, for the future of your children, is yours. Don’t delay. Make the right choice and face the challenge head-on.
Views expressed are personal and do not reflect EastMojo’s stand on this issue.
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Very narrow minded and one sided article…
ST status is given based on certain criteria which have to be fulfilled. The final decision rests with the President of India based on recommendation from the state governments. ST status is not a club where the preexisting club members decide who to allow into the club and who to exclude. If a community fulfils the criteria it is their constitutional right to be included in the ST list.
Funny! biased article on an unbiased platform.
Never have I ever seen or read an article from any new channel/page that is so communal, biased, one-sided and extremely inappropriate as this one. This Ngaranmi Shimray shows his/her extreme anti-meiteis intention. This doesn’t at all sound like an article but a hate-note against a group of people. Bottomline, ST isn’t yours to decide. Manipur is made up of 90% hills and 10% valley. The tribesmen claim all hills as their land, restricting all meiteis to the 10% area of the state despite Meiteis being the majority in population. Moreover, tribesmen are occupying 50% of that 10% valley area claiming theirs/forming villages to name few Kakhulong, Majorkhul, Nagaram, Chingmeirong, Keishamthong, New Checkon, Sangakpham, etc are large areas in Greater central Imphal occupied by the so called Tribal people. Hundreds of such more villages within another 10-20km from central greater Imphal area. Considering this, think who’s become minority and who’s living at an endangered status in the state. It clearly shows the intention of these people is to
claim the whole state as theirs like how the Europeans occupied the whole of United States and claiming themselves as natives and pushed off the native Americans to extinction.