AMBA memo to PM backs ST demand
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, May 16 2023:
All Manipur Bar Association (AMBA) on Tuesday submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the de-mand for granting ST status to Meetei/Meitei.
In the memorandum, AMBA urged the Prime Minister to extend the constitutional safeguard of protecting the community's cultural heritage, land, language and identity of being an indigenous people in a peaceful atmosphere of co-existence to Meetei/Meitei community.
History itself is proof that Meetei is the first community to come down from the hills and settle in the valley area and nobody can challenge this fact.
The same fact is supported by the theory published in Page No 614 of the Imperial Gazetteer of India Provincial Series Eastern Bengal and Assam 1909.A Supreme Court ail-ing dated January 5, 2011 in the case between Kailash and Others vs State of Maharashtra ruled that the original inhabitants of India were the Pre-Dravidian aborigines, that is, the ancestors of the present tribes or adivasis (schedule tribe).
Meetei, which is also known as Kathe (Manipuri) living in Manipur since time im-memorial with distinctive tradition, culture, religion and language with unique history thereby classifying the status as one of the for-est tribes of Manipur as per census report of 1891 (Page No 194), 1901, and 1931, and Imperial Gazetteer of Indi-an-Provincial Series Eastern Bengal and Assam 1909.After the merger into the Union of India, Constitution of India came into force in 1950, and the indigenous Meetei/Meitei/Manipuri was indiscriminately left out in the specified list of Scheduled Tribe.
On the other hand, the whole communities living in the North East India are specified as ST under Article 342 (1) of the Constitution of India 1950 except for Meetei community living in Imphal City, the memorandum said while drawing attention of the Prime Minister to restore ST status to Meetei commu-nity.