Cabinet acknowledges plight of Hindu, Sanamahi followers
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, September 21 2022:
The state cabinet meeting held on Tuesday at the CM's secretariat with chief minister N Biren in the chair had approved sending of recommendation to the Central government for recognising Hindu and Sanamahi followers as minority in the state.
The cabinet made the decision after assessing the census report of 2011 .
As per 2011 Census report, Sanamahi followers, with a total population of 2,22,315, constitute 7.8 per cent while Hindus with a population of 11,81,876 make up 41.4 per cent of the state's total population.
Hindu has also the largest share of population in the state followed by Christian, which has 41.3 per cent share with a population of 11,79,043.The third largest population is Muslim with a population of 2,39,836 contributes 8.4 per cent of the population.
Buddhist constitute 0.2 per cent with a total population of 7084 followed by Jain (0.6 per cent with a population of 1692) and Sikh (0.5 per cent with 1527 population) while the population under other religions and persuasions was 11,452 (0.4) per cent and undisclosed religion has 10,969 population constituting 0.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, Lainingthou Sanamahi Temple Board (LSTB) has welcomed the cabinet decision to recommend Sanamahi religion as minority considering the small number of population and thanked chief minister N Biren, who is also the president of LSTB, and other cabinet ministers.
It also welcomed the earlier decision of assigning a separate code for Sanamahi religion in the Census operation instead of simply assigning as Others.