Time to leave the young tots alone : Neglecting the pull factor
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 06 2015 -

Raising a vocal demand to implement the Inner Line Permit System in the State.

The reason why this demand has been raised should be more than clear to anyone.

Statistics have been trotted out to underline how the population of migrant workers have been increasing at a rate which has been dubbed by many as alarming. Does not need rocket science technology to understand this.

The population of indigenous population is rather small here, with some prophesying that if left unchecked, the population of migrants may well overtake the population of the local people one day.

Strong voices have been raised against the large influx of migrants or people who are not originally from Manipur.

The anxiety of the people is understandable in the backdrop of the fact that the population of Manipur is rather small and there are lessons which may be drawn from the Tripura experience, where the indigenous people have been swamped by the non-local people.

It is in line with this perception that the Joint Committee for Inner Line Permit System has been at the forefront to pressurise the Government to adopt a Bill that seeks to protect the indigenous people.

Again it was in line with demand of the JCILPS as well as the threat perception on the local people that the State Government passed the Manipur Regulation of Visitors, Tenants and Migrant Workers’ Bill some time back.

That the Bill found no taker, especially among the members of the JCILPS is something which must have been clear to the people and it is in this spirit that there has been a renewed movement to demand a fresh Bill.

That the Budget session of the Assembly is on has only made the movement all that more intense.

However it has also become more and more clear that not much thought has been applied on why numerous migrant workers make a bee line for Manipur every year. As stated numerous time in this column, human migration rests on two premises.

One is the push factor and the other is the pull factor.

Any place which does not offer adequate opportunities to the people to make a living will see large movement of people to other places.

This is what has been happening in many parts of the country and this may be called the push factor.

On the other hand, there are places like Manipur which has immense pull factor, meaning a place which offers ample opportunities to the migrating population to find work and hence earn a livelihood.

This is what has been happening in Manipur for decades.

However despite the sustained movement taken up to implement a mechanism to check the influx of migrant workers and outsiders, not much thought seems to have been given on why Manipur attracts so many migrant workers.

The Sangai Express has already pointed out the lack of work culture amongst the native people on numerous occasions.

It is also time to ponder over the utilisation of young students to raise the ILPS demand. One may recall the manner in which numerous students were pushed back forcefully on July 3 from the vicinity of the State Assembly.

Thoughts ought to be given on whether it is desirable at all for students, who are still in school to take to the street on issues which are basically adult issues.

Moreover how many of the young school students know what ILPS stands for ? Give it some thought.