Groups representing indigenous communities have stepped up the demand for the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Manipur.
Organisations representing 19 tribal federations and tribes such as Tangkhul, Zeme, Liangmai, Aimol, Maring and Kom have submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking the NRC for filtering the foreigners out, putting them in detention centres and deporting them.
Copies of the memorandum were on July 12 submitted to Home Minister Amit Shah, Manipur Governor La Ganeshan and Chief Minister Nongthombam Biren Singh.
The organisations thanked the Centre for extending the Bengal Easter Frontier Regulation of 1873 to Manipur, thereby making the State the fourth in the Northeast to be brought under the Inner-Line Permit (ILP) system that requires Indians from elsewhere to possess a temporary travel document.
No definition of ‘indigenous inhabitants’ yet
But the ILP has not had much of an impact as Manipur is yet to come up with the definition of “indigenous inhabitants”. The stumbling blocks could be removed if the NRC was implemented, they said.
Flagging the “intrusion of immigrants” from Bangladesh (East Pakistan formerly), Myanmar and Nepal, the organisations recalled a pass or permit system for Manipur that was 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.
If Bangladeshi and Myanmar Muslims had “occupied” the Assembly constituency of Jiribam and spread to other valleys in Manipur, Kuki people from Myanmar now owned large swathes of the hills while the “Nepali population has raised tremendous number”, the 19 organisations said.
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.
The memorandum of the tribal organisations followed a similar plea by seven students’ bodies in the State, including the All Manipur Students’ Union, the All Naga Students’ Association of Manipur and the Manipuri Students’ Federation.
Apart from the NRC with 1951 as the base year for recognising domicile, the students’ bodies demanded the establishment of a State Population Commission to “check and balance the population growth”. They said the indigenous communities were being “swamped and marginalised” in their own State by the “ever-increasing population” of outsiders.
