Manipur State Population Commission: An antidote
- Part 2 -

Prof RK Narendra Singh *

Ningol Chakkouba Shopping :: A very crowded scene at Ema Keithel in November 2015 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

Into the bargain, some local politicians invite migrants in their respective constituencies and make them settle only for their vested interest of mere political gains. Examples are very much loud and clear. Citing one is the situation of Jiribam sub-division of Imphal East where more than one third of the population is now Muslims. At one point of time there was a merger amount of Muslims, a very negligible amount but now they become absolute majority.

As demographic aftermath, currently craft-resist phenomenon is witness even among the Muslims folks itself. There are two groups viz., Meitei Pangal (Meitei Muslim) and Mayang Pangal (Outsider Muslim) creating tensions between each other for their domination as former is now dominated by the latter in all sphere of livelihoods. The same situation of swamping migrants is happening in other constituencies like Kangpokpi Assembly Constituency of Sanapati district, Sgnu Assembly Constituency of Thoubal district, Thangmeiband and Sagolband Assembly Constituency of Imphal west district, Wangkhei Assembly Constituency of Imphal east district, etc. In political front, in those constituencies, the migrants are the deciding factors and in very near future no more indigenous people will be representative of the people of the area as democratic electoral process is based the number of the electors.

Migration is age old history of human race. People move from one place to another by "push" and "pull" factors. The benefits or losses through this process to the place of destination depend on how much the flow of the volume of net migrants and migrants' status. The demographic and socio-econo- mic profile of the migrants is the important indicator as whether they contribute benefits or losses. The potential impact on the place of destination consisting mainly of working age, well-educated migrants and they may insert vitality and skills into a local economy.

However, the flow with large number of unproductive immigrants including very young, elderly, none-skill and semi-skill workers or less educated have nothing to do for the development of the natives in terms of cost-benefit analysis, rather creating problems. So does every country have aspiration to prevent and control migrants but none could implement successfully. Manipur is also not exception rather the situation is much more complex as they are unproductive migrants.

The present turbulence is the manifestation of influx of unproductive migrants, no matter whom they (immigrants or in-migrants) are. After a long gap, the issue has been being raised since it inflicts serious demographic and social alterations: racial, ethnic, religion, political and economic pressure, or combination of these.

Huge number of unproductive migrants has been inflowing for the last many decades without any much hindrance and they settled in many pockets as colonies and in some parts they become majority and henceforth become deciding factors in state politics. Further, the trade, commerce and economy are no more in the hands of indigenous people and at the same time migrants are snatching non-skill and skill works that are the livelihood of the common people.

The situation is not confined only to a particular section of people or a particular area rather it is penetrating to all sections of the society as well as to all the districts – hills and valleys. In spite of identity, the survival question of indigenous people now arises in their homeland. Menace is caused by intruders from neighbours: Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar, and secondly by in-migrants through inter-state migration.

Now, the state badly needs correct migration, especially migrants, figures and their profiles for further population planning and management. Of course, to estimate and project the migration figure namely migrants correctly are not an easy task as one think. The correct estimation of the volume of migrants for a country or a state on a particular point of time/year as well as its trend on the past or on the subsequent years should be based on quite reliable and consistence data. Such data is very delicate and complex human information that hardly available in our hand. Thus the census data is treated as the only source to project migrants.

In reality the migrants both immigrants and in-migrants would never disclose their actual information like place of birth, mother tongue, dietary habits, cause of migration, present and past occupation, religion, fertility pattern, etc., while in Census enumeration and on the contrary they report the information as if they are natives of the place in order to avoid the further repercussions. Secondly, in one census year to another, the information relating to migration is being varied. Thus the migrant figures based on census data of place of birth, as direct method, would mislead and not acceptable as the estimated figure certainly be very less than that of the actual figures.

For instance, based on 2001 Census, the population of Immigrants, In-migrants, Total migrants, and Percentage of migrant to total population were 14783, 1418, 16201 and 0.75 respectively. These figures are quite deviations from the actual figures. On the other hand, quite a number of estimated or projected figures is being wildly made by different interest individuals or groups based on very limited information through various indirect methods. Some of their estimated figures are found to be very bulky while others, very low. These figures might create a lot of deterrents to the real picture of migrants and the estimates are liable to counterfeit which are hardly acceptable scientifically.

No doubt, an unbearable amount of migrants both immigrant and in-migrants has been establishing their own colonies in various pockets in the state is well documented, nobody can denies, but the question is only to figure out its reliable and consistent numbers. These are the limitations to the scholars but the fact is remained there (in the Census reports) and will remain forever. But the problem is how to decode these adulterated data, and converting into healthy data. In fact it is very tedious job difficult to perform individually.

Nevertheless, using through sound demographical tools, a technical team can highlight the real picture through their endeavours. Among the indirect methods, Survival Analysis using Life Table technique is more scientific and gives better yield. However this method demands more detail information and needs very expert hands dealing with more sound demographic tools. At the same time it needs in-depth research starting from the smoothing necessary information of census data (to every piece of information relating to migration); developing Life table for each parameter like district, sub-division, religion, caste, etc., separately; up to the estimation of migrants for each desire parameter.

Imbalance demographic indices:

Moreover, the number of demography imbalances, caused by several demographic parameters like birth rate, performance of Family Welfare Programmes, sex-ratio, gender preference, literacy, economic activity, etc., have been going on for the last many decades but so far not explored and documented scientifically. Nevertheless, these demographic imbalances have certain adverse ramifications on the society as whole. To maintain equitable development, harmony, tranquillity and peace among the all sections of the society, it is the high time to check this demographic disequilibrium otherwise a more serious demographic aftermath may soon be happen in this miniature state.

Imbalance growth rate

According to the provisional figure of 2011 census, the highest decadal growth pertains to Ukhrul (30.07%) followed by Tamenglong (25.69%), Senapati (25.16%), Chandel (21.72%) and CCpur (19.03%), the lowest among hill districts. The average decadal growth rate of hill districts is 23.96% as against the average decadal growth rate of valley districts i.e., 15.33% which is quite significantly different. More over the decadal growth rates among the four valley districts are more or less uniform with below moderate rate (coil around 15%). For instance, Imphal west has 15.82% while Thoubal, Bishnupur and Imphal east have respectively growth rates of 15.48%, 15.36% and 14.63%.

Imbalance sex ratio

The sex ratio of the state gradually crept up from 974 females in 2001 to 987 females in 2011 per 1,000 males. However, the most shocking news is on child sex ratio (0 – 6 years) that the number of girls to every 1,000 boys is just 934 of 2011, even lower than 957 of the 2001 census. The figures imply that the state constitutes more number of males than that of female counterparts which is again more pertinent to 0 – 6 population.

Another interesting scenario is that after 6 years of life, the number of male deaths seems significantly more than the number of female deaths and the female expectation of life (longevity of life) is significantly higher than that of male counterpart since over all sex ratio is higher than child sex ratio. Even if the mortality pattern between the sexes is maintain same after 6 years of life, over all sex ratio never more than child sex ratio.

The child sex ratio for hill and valley is almost the same as the average child sex ratio for valley is 938 as against 926 for hill. While none of the sex ratio of valley district of Manipur is below 1000 with an average rate of 1014 while none of the hill district has above 1000 with an average of 949. This difference is found to be very highly significant. It means that valley constitutes more female than male and it is quite reverse in the case of hill.

These figures point out that the number of youth and adult males are dead significantly more in the valley (at the moment, provisional figure does not provide which age-group is more prone to death). Of course high over all sex ratio indicates good sign but less child sex ratio with high sex ratio (overall), pertaining to valley, is not a good sign, indicating that the population likely consists of more number of unmarried girls and widows. It might have a long repercussion in the society.

To be continued....