Plan to shelter refugees amid demand for deportation
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: March 28, 2023 -

THE government's decision to construct shelter homes for illegal immigrants is basically aimed at providing life's basic amenities to those fleeing restive regions on humanitarian ground and keep the official count on the number and movement of such people but to certain civil society organisation such a humane gesture could be perceived as not only abetment of the problem of covert cross-border infiltration but also exacerbation of the threat posed to the indigenes.

Even if the government has made clear its intention that steps have been up to identify immigrants staying illegally in the state and keep them at government-run shelter homes, recent incident of refugees from a similar facility in Churachandpur district found missing and remaining untraceable till date gives every reason to the concerned stakeholders to question wisdom of the government in shielding the infiltrators.

Amid apprehension among the public and civil societies that Manipur is heading for a serious refugee crisis, especially in the aftermath of reports about unprecedented increase in the number of people belonging to specific communities, the government has constituted a cabinet sub-committee to identify illegal immigrants and deport them to their native countries.

There seems to be no issue on the initiative for detection and subsequent deportation of the immigrants but it is the decision to provide shelter to these people that wouldn't be acceptable to those civil societies which have been demanding that the government effectively prevent infiltration from the neighbouring countries in view of threat they pose to the indigenes in the long run.

With chief minister N Biren himself conceding involvement of illegal immigrants in poppy cultivation and other anti-social activities in the state in the last assembly session, there is valid reason to fear that those granted protection in shelter homes might not adhere to the standard protocol as it is but natural that one would be enticed to explore opportunities for a better life instead of languishing in isolation from the mainstream society.

The government's decision also contradicts demand by six student bodies that the government set up a state population commission for long-term monitoring of the non-local population in Manipur as well as the changes associated with it.

In a memorandum submitted to the government around May 2022, they had urged for setting up state and district level committees to check up on non-locals, while also demanding a National Registrar of Citizens for Manipur with a specific base year, action against illegal immigrants including detection and deportation.

The apprehension of the student bodies is that in a small state like Manipur, where many indigenous communities had or are facing threat to their survival from both other Indian states and neighbouring countries, prompt legal action against the illegal immigrants is imperative to avoid further marginalisation of indigenous population in their own place of birth.

Nevertheless, as it is unlikely that the government would retract its decision, it is suggested that strict vigil be maintained at the proposed shelter homes to prevent repetition of the Churachandpur district incident, which had exposed callousness and inefficiency of the authorities concerned.