Responding to an editorial published in The Hindu on May 15 titled “Lame excuses: On Manipur and the ethnic conflict”, on the N. Biren Singh-led government’s insistence to blame “illegal immigration” for the ongoing ethnic conflict, the Manipur government on May 17 doubled down on its position, saying in a press release that the government’s drive to identify illegal immigrants had bothered them and this was “one of the reasons for the violence that broke out in Manipur”.
In a press release issued by the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), it said, “The Manipur State government is not biased against any ethnic community and identification of illegal immigrants is not limited to only one community. The State has a firm stand on illegal migration, and it has been monitoring the issue as per the directions and instructions of the Central government.”
Further, the Manipur government said that “allegations” of it stigmatising refugees from Myanmar and handling the situation differently from Mizoram were “baseless”.
“The immigrants are being provided with basic needs like food grains, water supply, power supply, even roofings and other essential commodities in their respective camps,” it said, adding that both the Mizoram and Manipur governments are conducting the deportations only after taking the consent of the refugees and in particular areas where normalcy seems to have returned.
The DIPR went on to say that the recent influx of immigrants from Myanmar in light of the military coup was “just the tip of the iceberg”, saying that previous influxes in 1962 and 1988 had been “freely allowed” to encroach on and settle upon Protected Forest areas of the State.
It added that the measures to identify and collect biometric data of illegal immigrants were only taken in February 2023, after a Cabinet sub-committee chaired by Letpao Haokip, a Kuki tribesman, cleared it. It added that the sub-committee also included Ministers Awangbai Newmai, a Naga, and Th. Basantakumar Singh, a Meitei.
The Manipur government said the issue of a purportedly disproportionate rise in the number of villages in certain areas was noted while this identification exercise was underway. The DIPR said that alleged illegal immigrants had refused the government’s offer of being placed in shelter homes and “it was one of the reasons for the violence that broke out in Manipur”.
The State government said that the Cabinet sub-committee had identified a total of 2,187 illegal immigrants in 41 locations following which in May this year, it had declared that over 5,000 such illegal immigrants had also been detected in the Kamjong district. It also cited a letter by Phungyar MLA, Leishiyo Keishing, which claimed that illegal immigrants had started outnumbering local populations in many areas.
The DIPR then proceeded to question why the number of Kuki MLAs in the State had increased from six in 1972 to 10 now while the representation of Naga tribes has come down from 13 MLAs to 10 now. It also pointed to the destruction of poppy cultivation specifically in Kuki-Zo dominated districts of Kangpokpi and Churachandpur. The DIPR also insisted that the alleged spike in drug seizures in Mizoram since the violence in Manipur was also something that must be taken into account.
