The ST for Meiteis campaign : Take steps for 2027
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: October 11, 2024 -
Ultimately October 6 turned out to be just another date on the calendar and ended as a damp squib.
The much anticipated ‘fireworks,’ the anticipated ‘future course of action’ after the public convention convened by the Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee, Manipur (STDCM) came to an abrupt halt with the Committee forced to abandon the convention, reportedly under the ‘instruction’ of two armed groups, leaving many questions unanswered.
The questions still do the round with many reading more than just two armed groups imposing a diktat and this is not surprising for the ST for Meiteis demand now transcends personal likes and dislikes.
This in other words should be taken to understand that the issue no longer concerns just the STDCM or anyone against it, but the future of the Meiteis.
It was with a purpose that the demand for ST status for the Meiteis took off the ground and why it has caught the imagination of quite a large number of people, especially the Meitei folks.
Again it must have been with solid reasoning, backed by ground reality of the Meitei people that the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs deemed it fit to send a written communication dated May 29, 2013 and addressed to the Secretary of the SC and ST Development Department of the Government of Manipur that ‘specific recommendations along with the latest socio-economic survey and ethnographic report by an organisation of repute be furnished to the Ministry for consideration of the proposal for inclusion of Meitei/Meetei community in the ST list.”
This was back in 2013, that is more than 10 years back and this means that Imphal has been sleeping over a report sought by the Centre for over a decade.
The demand of the STDCM, World Meetei Council (WMC) and the Meetei (Meitei) Tribe Union (MMTU) is to send the report sought by the Centre, nothing more, nothing less.
It was after the MMTU moved the High Court of Manipur that the State Government was asked to send the report, as sought, though the ruling of the High Court has since been made redundant.
In between Manipur saw almost all the Meitei MLAs backing the ST for Meiteis call during the door to door campaign conducted by the STDCM and lakhs responded to the miss call campaign conducted along this line.
Before the titular King of Manipur was nominated as the Rajya Sabha MP, he himself had personally taken part in a rally to demand the inclusion of the Meiteis in the ST list.
This in brief is how the ST for Meiteis campaign has gone down in the recent and not so recent past and one thing that stands out starkly is the fact that not even once has the campaign taken a violent or ugly turn.
This is where one is left wondering why the public convention organised by the STDCM was made to be aborted on October 6.
What is the way forward ?
No one knows, but it is unlikely that the ST demand would be given a quiet burial anytime in the near or far future.
It however stands that the ST for Meiteis champions including the STDCM, WMC and MMTU need to rethink their strategy and see what other course of action may be taken up.
As they say a Plan B may be what the situation demands and while the MMTU has gone ahead to garner support from other parts of the country, even knocking the doors of the influential RSS, one hopes this is taken to its next level.
One would be to sensitise the other indigenous people of the land, the Nagas, that Meiteis getting the ST tag need not affect them.
The need to look at the ST categorisation from a larger perspective needs to be spread.
One needs to look beyond, for as mentioned earlier, the Meiteis cannot be said to be more developed than the Meenas of Rajasthan.
And definitely the Meiteis are not ahead of the native Tripuris as well as the six communities of Assam which have been tagged as belonging to the ST category.
Internal arrangements can always be made along the line of Nagaland, where all the tribes are sub-categorised in the ST bracket.
It is a long way ahead, and it is for this very reason why the proponents of the ST for Meiteis need to be far sighted.
And again as many have opined, the question of being included in the ST category is today more of a political question rather than ethnographic or socio-economic state of the community in question.
This being the case then STDCM, WMC and MMTU need to walk the extra mile to see that the ST issue becomes the central subject when Manipur goes for polls in 2027.
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