The push and pull factor at play : Numbers detected so far
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 06, 2024 -

The push and pull factor at play here and one can see this in the number of immigrants from across the border which has been put at 10,590.

This is the official record and note the stress on the official part for none can write off the distinct possibility of many others who could have sneaked into Manipur and merged with the local population without ever being detected.

This is again the reason why The Sangai Express had italicised the word detected when the seven column banner news item on the number of immigrants who have entered Manipur was carried in the August 5 edition of this newspaper.

The push factor should also be understood in the backdrop of the ongoing civil war at Myanmar and the pull factor can be understood via the reality that Manipur is home to a number of Kuki-Zo people who share close filial ties with the folks who have had to flee the neighbouring country.

The porous border coupled with the Assam Rifles whose understanding of guarding the border can be understood only within their interpretation has only made Manipur an attractive destination.

The human crisis besieging the neighbouring country is noted, but yet at the same time it is important for Manipur to be on her guard and not allow those fleeing the neighbouring country to become naturalised citizens of the land and in due course of time start laying claims on ‘ancestral land’ and even be counted as one among the Scheduled Tribe folks of the Constitution of India.

At the moment Kamjong tops the table of the place where the displaced folks have entered with 6199 immigrants recorded so far.

Tengnoupal is next with 2406 followed by Chandel with 1895 and Churachandpur with 150.

Kangpokpi surprisingly has recorded only 2.

The question and a very important one at that is whether the 150 at Churachandpur is inclusive of those who were detected earlier and this question is being raised in the backdrop of the fact that Chief Minister N Biren had informed the media that in 2023 the number of illegal immigrants detected was 2480 and now this figure has shot up to over 10,000.

Back in April 2023 seven Myanmar Nationals were detected and detained at Tulihal Airport and out of the seven one of them had settled at Churachandpur.

Meaning one of them had managed to merge with the local people and here one is talking about a single man whose cover was blown.

How many other such immigrants had entered and merged with the local people is the question that follows.

And how reliable can the figure of just 2 Myanmarese detected at Kangpokpi be ?

The incidents quoted here are some that come to mind and there have been other such reports earlier, much before Manipur went up in flames on May 3, 2023.

It would be misplaced to understand the problem of illegal immigrants only within the context of the military coup in Myanmar and the ongoing civil war there for Manipur has been at the receiving end of the influx for decades now.

To just cite an example, one just have to recall the Burmanization programme under General Ne Win in the then Burma back in 1967.

It was with a basis that a Kuki gentleman by the name Paolienlal Haokip had written back in 2002 in a publication of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies that Ne Win served evacuation notices on entire villages asking them to pack up and leave within 48 hours in 1967.

In the process about 20,000 Kukis entered Manipur.

This was back in 1967 and no one knows how many of them were repatriated back to their original homes or went ahead and settled here setting up new villages in the process.

Another exodus from Myanmar was during the 1988 uprising. Haokip went on the assert that many of the immigrants took to drugs and arms trafficking as it provided lucrative incomes.

From 1967 and 1988 to 2023 and 2024 the times have changed, but true to what Haokip wrote back in 2002, the dealings in drugs continue and this is best demonstrated by the people arrested with drugs along the Imphal-Moreh highway as well as the large scale poppy plantation.

The threat of immigrants is very much real and Manipur is presently living through it and the danger this poses can perhaps be best known in how Mt Thangjing was found changed to Mt Thangting and how the names of many localities in Moreh were found changed to suit the ethnic identity of the Kuki people.

Herein hangs a tale.