MMTU urges Bhalla to send ST recommendation
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, May 18 2025: The Meetei (Meitei) Tribe Union (MMTU) has urged the Governor to send the long awaited recommendation for enlistment of Meitei/Meetei in the Scheduled Tribe category to the Government of India.

The High Court of Manipur passed an order regarding the demand for inclusion of Meitei/Meetei in the ST list.

Following the order, the State Government sought one year time for sending the requisite recommendation to the Centre.

Now, the one year period sought by the State Government has expired, according to a statement issued by the MMTU .

The indigenous Meetei community is now witnessing a rapid downfall.

Protecting the community's culture, economy, identity and land ought to be the primary responsibility of the Government, it asserted.

From the very first day, Manipur was merged into the Indian Union in 1949, the indigenous people of the State have been facing a situation of marginalization and suppression, it said.

In the vast ocean of 140 crore people of India, 13 lakh Meiteis are virtually drowning.

The Meiteis are confined to just 700 sq Kms of Manipur valley without any Constitutional safeguard.

As a result, Meiteis are facing political disempowerment, socio-economic downfall, cultural assimilation and dwindling living space, it said.

In order to ensure survival of the Meitei community, Meiteis need protection by enlisting them in the ST category under Article 342(1) of the Indian Constitution, the MMTU asserted.

The only pragmatic means to overcome these growing challenges and existential threats is granting Constitutional safeguards to the Meitei community by enlisting them in the ST category, it said.

Since President's Rule was imposed in the State on February 13, 2025, the MMTU made attempts to talk with the Governor not once and but thrice and request him to send the requisite recommendation for granting ST to the Meiteis to the Centre but Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla dismissed all the attempts, it said.

Asking Ajay Kumar Bhalla if he has.

any notion that the Kuki-Meitei conflict stemmed from the latter's demand for ST status, the MMTU noted that even the Union Home Minister and the State's ex-Chief Minister attributed the conflict to the Meiteis' demand for ST status.

But the whole world as well as the committees formed by the Government of India to investigate the crisis know very well what caused the conflict, it asserted.

ICS officer TC Hudson wrote in one of his books published by the British Government of India in 1908 that Meitei/Meetei is a principal tribe of Manipur.

The census reports of 1921 and 1931 published by the British Government placed Meitei at number 1 in the list of tribes.

Even though Meetei was left of the list of tribes of Assam and Tripura submitted to the interim Government of India in 1949, the Central Government under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1980 and Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2000 sought recommendation from the State Government for enlisting the community in ST category.

Again on March 6, 2019, the Government of India asked the State Government to send the requisite recommendation, it said.

Now the State is being ruled directly by the Centre.

As such, the Governor must take the responsibility of sending the requisite recommendation and initiate due process of tabling a Bill in the Parliament so as to grant ST status to the Meiteis, the MMTU asserted.

The movement of granting ST status to the Meitei community started way back in 1969 .

After lakhs of Meitei people took out rallies in 2016 and 2022 demanding ST status, around nine lakh people expressed their support to the same demand in a referendum (mass missed call campaign) held in 2023 .

The Government of India and the Government of Manipur must respect this clamour and voice of the Meitei people, it added.

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