ST status for Meiteis : ATSUM presents its case to Chief Minister
Source: The Sangai Express / Newmai News Network

Imphal, August 03 2013 : The demand to grant the Meiteis a Scheduled Tribe (ST) status continue to create pandemonium in Manipur.

On Saturday, All Tribal Students Union, Manipur (ATSUM) in a memorandum submitted to Manipur chief minister O Ibobi said, "In the event of the Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee Manipur (STDCM) gaining momentum for recognition of Meeteis as ST and considering the impending dangerous socio- political upheavals in the state, we, the executive council of ATSUM, on behalf of the tribal communities of Manipur beg to submit this memorandum for your impartial judgement and action" .

The ATSUM said it does not have any political affiliation or allegiance to any political party.

"Nevertheless, as an apex hill based tribal students' organisation living in the state of Manipur, it is our bounden duty to share our shared opinion and displeasure over the ill- conceived demand of the STDCM for recognition of ST to the Meeteis who have been living at par with the rest of the privileged section of societies in all spheres of lives for the past sixty years of independence" .

The ATSUM memo said the 'illogical' claim that the Meeteis fulfilled all the criterion to become ST on the basis of Mongoloid race and prevalence of distinctive religion and culture is irrational on the ground that any community big or small practice some form of religion and possess a unique culture of their own.

In other words, having religion or separate culture doesn't necessarily mean or constitute the prime reason to include a particular community to be in the list of scheduled tribe, ATSUM stated.

According to the tribal student body, in the Constitution of India, no criteria has been spelt out for specification of a community as a Scheduled Tribe.

"As however, taking into account the definitions in the 1931 census and the reports of the First Backward classes commission 1955, the advisory committee on revision of ST/ SC 1965 and the joint committee of Parliament on SCs and STs orders amendment bill 1967 and basically basing on Article 342 of the constitution, the criteria such as for specification of a community as a scheduled tribe include indication of primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with community at large, and backwardness," ATSUM pointed out.

"The Scheduled Tribes are the tribes or tribal communities or part of groups within these tribes and tribal communities which have been declared as such by the president through a public notification partly by habitat and geographical isolation but even more on the basis of social, religion, linguistic and cultural distinctiveness---their tribal characteristic.

Scheduled tribes are spread across the country mainly in the forest and hilly regions who are segregated from the rest of the world socially and economically," the memorandum further pointed out.

According to the tribal student body, during a debate in the constituent assembly, Dr.Ambedkar the Chairman of the Drafting Committee was very particular about the word Scheduled to be used before the 'tribe and the caste' to mean the 'selected or the chosen ones'.

Thus in the context of India, scheduled tribe mean the selected tribes for protective discrimination to be valid only for 10 years after the promulgation of the constitution of India.

But since the Scheduled group couldn't come up at par with the rest of the citizens in all spheres of lives, protective discrimination continues even after sixty years of independence.

It is quite obvious that the plain people viz.

Meeteis/ Meitei were included in the general category of the people by the central Govt.due to the simple fact that (the Meetei) have superseded the component characteristics of a tribe, ATSUM stated.

In the course of a continuous process of civilization for over a period of 2000 years dating back from 33 AD, the Meeteis have abandoned/ discarded their primitive cultural traits from being tribal to general, from rural to urbanization, economic backwardness to economically advance people in the valley of the golden kingdom (SANA KUNUNG) .

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