Of illegal immigrants and the larger picture : Connecting the dots
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: May 15, 2024 -

This is straight from the horse's mouth and the figure is deeply disturbing.

Over 5800 illegal immigrants at Kamjong and this figure is not being trotted out by some pen pushers sitting in the comfort of an air conditioned office room but by the very man representing Phungyar Assembly Constituency, MLA K Leishiyo in a letter addressed to Chief Minister N Biren Singh.

And of the 5800 immigrants detected, biometrics of 5173 such immigrants have been captured and the MLA rounded this off with the figure of 1591 immigrants at Phaikoh village, 661 at Shangakalok/Khenroram, 14 at Thana, 356 at Skippe, 595 at Pillong, 414 at Aloyo and Choro, 512 at Wanglee, 971 at Namlee and 357 at K Ashang Khullen Aze.

Like other parts of the State, Kamjong district shares a long, porous border with Myanmar and as the MLA himself pointed out in the written communication to the Chief Minister the number of immigrants from across the border saw a spike since November 2023, a time when the clash between the Meiteis and Kukis was at its peak, so to say.

This is about Kamjong and this is more precisely about the human exodus from across the border when violence spiked between the different armed groups of Myanmar and the military junta after the military takeover in the early part of 2021.

The figure of humans quietly sneaking into the territory of India during the earlier tumultuous periods in the neighbouring country is not known, especially at other places such as Churachandpur and Pherzawl but a look at the population growth as well as the expansion of human settlements in Reserved and Protected Forests and the emergence of new villages should be more than an indication of the facts.

This is where the Government of Manipur would need to tread cautiously so that no wrong message is emitted to the outside world and especially given the fact that Manipur stands by the demand that the National Register of Citizens be enforced, a demand which can be directly linked to the ongoing ethnic violence between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zos.

Put two and two together and it should be more than clear that the demand for NRC should also be understood in the context of the large scale poppy cultivation, which is directly linked to the shrinking forest cover in the State as well as the growing drug trade, best exemplified by the huge seizures, especially along the Imphal-Moreh line.

That the drug route has changed via Mizoram now is a fact that can be established by just taking a look at the number of seizures along the neighbouring State, especially after Manipur went up in flames on May 3, 2023.

The term narco-terrorism is in vogue not without a reason and the fact that many of the illegal immigrants have taken to drug trade is best illustrated by none other than a gentleman named Paolienlal Haokip, who in 2002 wrote in an article under the title 'Suffering in oblivion : Burmese refugees in North East India' in a publication of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, that many of the Burmese refugees taking shelter in India took to arms trade while some resorted to drugs trade, which proved to be highly lucrative.

No reason to believe that things have improved or changed, for it is more than obvious that the drug trade has only grown by leaps and bounds down the decades.

The article referred to here quoted examples from the period 1967-1969 which was further exacerbated during the 1988 Burmese uprising.

Things have not changed and fast forward to 2023-2024 and from the time the Government of Manipur launched the War on Drugs campaign and it is more than clear that from drug smuggling, the nature of the drug trade changed from just being a courier of the finished products to one of Manipur being made a producer of the raw material, poppy plants.

The dots connecting illegal immigrants, poppy plantations, drug trade and the ongoing clash cannot be missed even to a cursory observer and it is this fact which has made the discovery of numerous immigrants at Kamjong district deeply disturbing and worrying.