The demand for implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) continues to rise in Manipur, with groups representing indigenous communities now joining a similar demand by seven student organisations that flagged the ‘ever-increasing number of non-local residents’ in Manipur.
Earlier this week, organisations representing 19 tribes such as Tangkhul, Zeme, Liangmai, Aimol, Maring and Kom submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking him to use the NRC in Manipur for filtering foreigners out, putting them in detention centres and eventually deporting them.
The tribal organisations’ memorandum follows a similar plea by seven students’ bodies, including the All Manipur Students’ Union, the All Naga Students’ Association of Manipur and the Manipuri Students’ Federation.
The indigenous organisations thanked the Centre for extending the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873 to Manipur, thereby making Manipur the fourth state in the Northeast to be brought under the Inner-Line Permit (ILP) system.
No definition of ‘indigenous inhabitants’
The groups that while important, the ILP has not had much of an impact as Manipur is yet to come up with the definition of “indigenous inhabitants”.
Raising questions about the “intrusion of immigrants” from Bangladesh (East Pakistan formerly), Myanmar and Nepal, the organisations recalled a pass or permit system for Manipur abolished by then Chief Commissioner Himmat Singh in November 1950. This permit system regulated the entry and settlement of outsiders in Manipur.
People from these three countries “autonomously settled” in the State since the abolition of the pass system and no discerning step was taken up during the last 75 years under the Foreigners Act of 1946, the organisations said. This “continuous overflow of influxes” had led to migrants “take possession” of the socio-economic and political rights of the indigenous people, they said.
The memorandum said Bangladeshi and Myanmar Muslims had “occupied” the Assembly constituency of Jiribam and spread to other valleys in Manipu. Similarly, Myanmar Kukis now owned large swathes of the hills while the “Nepali population has raised tremendous number.”
The organisations recalled a movement in the 1980s for the detection and deportation of foreigners from Manipur, following which the State government had signed two agreements for using 1951 as the base year for determining foreigners or non-residents and evicting them. But no steps were taken up, they lamented.
“The foreigners are a great threat to the indigenous people of Manipur,” and the whole of India in the long term, the organisations said.