Leishiyo : Man of the moment :: Incursion from across
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 08, 2024 -

Phungyar Assembly Constituency MLA Leishiyo Keishing is undoubtedly the man of the moment and if at all the Budget session of the ongoing Assembly is remembered, it will be for the manner in which he has managed to draw the attention of the House to the issue of immigrants from across the border.

It was thanks to the hard hitting presentations made by the MLA that the Assembly felt it necessary to constitute a 12 member House Committee to study and detect the number of immigrants who have entered Manipur, ever since Myanmar went up in flames.

The move of the Assembly, prompted no doubt by the hard hitting reports laid down by the MLA, is in tune with the growing demand to keep a check on the incursion from across the border as well as the voice raised to get the National Register of Citizens enacted here to identify illegal immigrants from across the border.

The move of the MLA from Phungyar AC should also be seen and understood against the backdrop of the fact that it was no one less than Union Home Minister Amit Shah who pointed to the large scale incursion from across the border as one of the primary factors responsible for the ongoing clash.

It was the same line of thought and observation that External Affairs Minister S Jaishanker had echoed during a conversation at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, some time in September last year when he said, ‘One part of the problem in Manipur has been the destabilising impact of migrants who have come.’

To get a better understanding of the impact of immigrants from across the border, one will need to look beyond the current internal upheaval in Myanmar and the military coup and go back four and five decades back, especially during the late 1960s when the then General Ne Win Government launched the Burmanisation drive in 1967.

One also has to take into consideration the fact that many crossed the border and entered Manipur during the 1988 uprising in the neighbouring country.

No Government figure is available on how many of those who entered Manipur during the Burmanisation programme and the 1988 uprising and went back to their parent country and how many stayed back and melded with the local population.

What however is true is that the population of Chin-Kuki community has risen sharply down the decades, so much so that the number of MLAs they get to send to the Assembly now equals that of the Nagas.

This is the reality and the sense of urgency and concern expressed by Leishiyo Keishing should be understood keeping this reality in mind.

It is fitting that the Assembly has responded positively to the inputs from the Phungyar AC MLA in forming a 12 member House Committee to study the issue of illegal immigration from across the border and this should also be understood with the menace posed by landmines in the border area. Landmines planted by Myanmar militants was a crucial input from the MLA, who went on to detail that the landmines are planted most prominently between border pillar 91 and 94.

The predicament of the people living at the border area was aptly summed up in the line, ‘Myanmar militants steps ahead in area domination,’ a line used to good effect by the said MLA.

It was in response to the inputs provided by the MLA on the floor of the Assembly, that The Sangai Express had dug around and found out that the number of illegal immigrants in the State stood at 10,590.

This was the total number of immigrants detected, but there could be much more, given that the number of such immigrants was pegged at only 150 in Churachandpur, 2 in Kangpokpi and 2406 in Tengnoupal.

Figures which are way below the 6199 detected at Kamjong district and this is where certain questions arise, such as who is keeping a tab on the entry of illegal immigrants at Churachandpur and Kangpokpi.

Leishiyo Keishing has done his job as the elected member of Phungyar Assembly Constituency and it is only right that the 12 member House Committee set up in line with his inputs to the Assembly take the job entrusted to it effectively and not lose sight of the necessity of results.

It should also be kept in mind that the State Government would need to look beyond the ongoing crisis at Myanmar and understand the issue of illegal immigrants by going back 4 or 5 decades.