Rapid spike in new villages : Illegal immigrants
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 12 2023 -

Mapping the rapid rise in the number of villages in Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, Pherzawl, Chandel, Tengnoupal and Kamjong, and save for Chandel and Kamjong, all the other locations or districts are Kuki-Zo dominated districts.

In taking to a Facebook post in highlighting this, Chief Minister N Biren stuck to the line that the BJP led Government has been maintaining all these years and not only when the ethnic clash erupted in all its ugliness on May 3, with the first act of arson and mayhem coming in from Torbung and Churachandpur and quickly spreading to Kangpokpi and Moreh.

The figures trotted out and as spelt out by the Chief Minister can be understood under two broad timelines, the first phase from 2006 to 2018 and from 2019 till 2023.

Coming from no one less than the Chief Minister himself, one can assume that this is the official figure and go beyond the official line and the number could be higher.

In Churachandpur, the place from where the current clash originated, the number of villages has increased by 129 between 2006 and 2018.

From 2019 to the present, the spike in number has been put at 19.

The same disturbing figure can be seen in the case of Kangpokpi, where the number spiked by 169 new villages from 2006 to 2018 and from 2019 to the present by 48.

The numbers are lesser in the other districts, but they all point to a trend, an upward trend which goes against the universal understanding of population growth via natural child birth.

This is a fact and one wonders why the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum of Churachandpur and the Committee on Tribal Unity have not deemed it fit to address this even once in all the righteous posturings they have been adopting since the evening of May 3 and in the days leading to the acts of targeting Meitei settlements at Churachandpur, Torbung and a little later at Kangpokpi and Moreh.

Population machination, the pattern in the unnatural increase in population, the rise in the number of new villages, wherein even five or six houses clubbed together go on to form a village etc now all appear to have been worked out in a such a way that one can claim indigeneity to the land and cook up such fantastically sounding names as ITLF and CoTU !

That the Nagas, the other community, indigenous to the land, have not taken lightly to the decision of CoTU to check every vehicle that passes through Kangpokpi is there for all to see and understand and this is in continuation of the same line struck by the Tangkhul Naga Long when news of vehicles being checked on the Imphal-Ukhrul road came to the notice of everyone in the early days of the seven months clash.

The coming days will tell how things unfold on the Imphal-Dimapur Highway with the Senapati based Naga People’s Organisation making it clear that if vehicles are checked as announced by CoTU then no Kuki would be allowed to proceed to Naga areas, including Senapati.

Along Imphal-Dimapur line, vehicles are checked at the Kuki dominated areas of Sapermeina and Taphou Kuki and the stand of NPO is more than clear that they are not at all pleased with the diktat being imposed on the National Highway.

Invite refugees from across the border, let them mix with the local population and in no time let them claim citizenship and then indigeneity to the land and the pattern is unmistakable.

The fallout is there for all to see, from the present clash to the Naga-Kuki clash of the 1990s and this is where the term ethnic cleansing becomes clear in that today no Naga settlements can be seen at Moreh.

Fast forward to 2023 and today all Meiteis have been forced to flee the border town and Churachandpur as well and here is a classic case of ethnic cleansing and ironically this is a term used to play the victim card, a tale which was so eagerly lapped up and narrated by the Left leaning media in other parts of the country.

This is the reality and the other reality is the seeming indifference of Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has not spoken a word about the unrest in Manipur.