Save Indigenous People drive : Divide along community line
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 19 2015 -
Save Indigenous People. It is under this campaign that the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS) has kick-started a renewed campaign to pressurise the Government to implement the Inner Line Permit System or a similar mechanism to check the inflow of non-local people into the soil of Manipur.
This is after a lull of more than 100 days, after the State Assembly passed the three Bills on August 31 earlier.
The objective of the campaign should be clear to all.
That is enact a mechanism to check the inflow of non-local people into the soil of Manipur and accordingly save the interests of the indigenous people here.
A movement to protect the interests of the local people, but it is disturbing to note that far from bringing the people together, a clear divide has arisen between the hill and valley people.
Remember even today, the bodies of the nine people killed in the protest against the three Bills passed by the State Assembly are still lying in state at the morgue of the district hospital at Churachandpur.
Also keep in mind that already a strong cry has been raised to divide the State into two administrative units, the hills and the valley, after the three Bills were passed.
Why are the three Bills deemed to be anti-tribal ?
Why is a movement meant to protect the interests of the local people spawn such a deep division that a cry for a division of the State should be raised ?
Is it a question of the movement failing to take all the people along or is it a case of certain groups of people being marginalised by the three Bills ?
Tough to say, but it would not be prudent to wave aside any question which the movement has spawned.
Difficult to say how the pro-LIP movement will unfold now, but all care should be taken to ensure that the movement is not aimed and more importantly not seen to be aimed against any group of people.
Protecting the interest of the local people should be boldly underlined and this is where extra care should be taken to ensure that no group of people feel marginalised in the course of the movement.
Ironic it is but it stands that the uncomfortable relationship between the different communities of the local people here should come to its fore due to a movement launched to protect the interests of the local people.
Remember it is not the non-local people who have raised the strongest opposition to the three Bills passed by the Assembly but the internal differences or contradictions.
This is what is disturbing.
The Union Home Ministry has already stated that the opinion of all stake holders will be taken into account before it takes any decision on the three Bills forwarded by the State Governor and this is where the importance of understanding the very term, stake holders, becomes important.
Every possible development has to be taken note of and at the same time it should also be admitted that the divide between different communities or more precisely between the hill and valley people runs deep.
Acknowledge this first and then think of the steps to be taken up to address this critical question.
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