Ploy to sideline ST demand, says MMTU
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, January 14 2025: The oft-repeated statements of the Union Home Minister that the Meiteis' demand for Scheduled Tribe status was the immediate cause of the ongoing Kuki-Meitei conflict and which was recently endorsed by the Chief Minister are ploys to sideline the popular demand for ST status, said the Meetei (Meitei) Tribe Union (MMTU) .

Misinterpretation of the Court ruling and making statements based on the wrong interpretation would be nothing but defiance of the law, the MMTU asserted in a statement.

It also quoted former Manipur High Court Chief Justice Sidharth Mridul's statement that attributing the violent conflict to the High Court's recommendation regarding the Meiteis' demand for ST status is far from the truth and unfair.

At the same time, the statements of the Government leaders indicate that the Government has no intention to take up any step to protect the Meetei community, it lamented.

It was the Chief Minister himself who said that there was intelligence failure with regard to the violent crisis and he did not receive any intelligence report for around 15 months, the MMTU pointed out.

It asserted that the people of Manipur as well as the people of India know the causes of the protracted crisis very well.

If the tribal solidarity rally organised by the ATSUM on May 3, 2023 against the Manipur High Court's ruling regarding the demand for granting ST status to the Meetei community was the cause of the violent conflict, then why non-Kuki-Zo communities did not join any subsequent protests, it asked.

Any movement aimed at securing Constitutional safeguard for the indigenous community seems anathema to the Government and the Government has been always searching for excuses to suppress/sideline all such movements, it decried.

It then appealed to the Government not to see the Meetei's ST movement from the wrong perspective and portray it in bad light.

The MMTU asserted that the Kuki-Zo people started working for a separate State of their own as early as 1948.The main objective of the ongoing aggression is creation of a separate occupied land of Kuki-Zos.

The dream for Kukiland or Zalengam is not something which was conceived recently, it said.

The first architect of Kukiland or Zalengam is former Home Secretary of Manipur, T Kipgen.

T Kipgen wrote a letter to the Government of India to grant ST status to only the Kuki community, out of all the communities of Manipur.

Again, it was T Kipgen who abolished the foreign pass system.

Moreover, he took active roles in realising the Manipur Merger Agreement of 1949, the MMTU said.

Between 1958 and 2022, the Kukis made repeated demands to the Government of India to create a separate State of their own, it said.

The aggression against Meiteis started well before May 3, 2023 .

Mark T Haokip, president of the Government of People's Democratic Republic of Kukiland was arrested by Manipur Police from Delhi on May 22, 2022 .

By that time, Kukis started claiming the sacred sites of Koubru and Thangjing as their land by giving new names to these places.

A Cabinet sub-committee was formed in February 2023 to identify illegal immigrants from Myanmar and the committee detected 2480 such immigrants in Churachandpur, Tengnoupal and Kangpokpi.

Soon after, Kuki-Zo Ministers/MLAs started venting out their anger against the State Government, the MMTU said.

Coinciding with the Government's campaign against poppy plantation and eviction of encroachers from reserved forests, CSOs and student organisations of the valley launched strong movements demanding implementation of NRC and identification of illegal immigrants.

Before an open gym was vandalised and set ablaze on April 27, 2023, several Meitei temples or shrines were desecrated and set ablaze.

All these incidents are clear evidence of the fact that Kuki-Zo aggression against the Meiteis started well before May 3, 2023, the MMTU asserted.

It said that nothing would be more unfortunate if the Government continues to suppress and sideline the movement for granting ST status to the Meetei community.

Without any Constitutional safeguard, the tiny indigenous Meetei community is being overwhelmed by the huge Indian population of over 140 crore and incessant influx from Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The Meetei community is now facing a highly insecure situation politically, socially, economically, culturally and also in terms of identity and land resources, it said.

The only way to protect the Meitei community from this highly insecure situation is putting them in the ST list at the earliest, it continued.

Safeguarding the territorial integrity of Manipur, implementation of NRC, border fencing and scrapping of the free movement regime cannot protect the Meitei community until and unless the community is granted ST status, it asserted.

The MMTU said that the first priority must be putting the community in the ST category.

The Meitei community may lose around 10 Assembly seats after delimitation which is likely to be carried out in 2028, it said.

If the State Government shares any concern for the Meitei community, it must send the necessary recommendation to the Central Government for inclusion of the Meitei community in the ST category, the MMTU said.

It then noted that Lok Sabha recently passed a Bill for inclusion of the Hindu communities viz; Pahari, Padari, Koli and Gadda Brahmin of Jammu & Kashmir in the ST list.

It was a landmark step to provide a Constitutional safeguard to the minority communities of Jammu & Kashmir.

It then urged the State Government to take up necessary steps without any further delay so as to protect the Meitei community who are being overwhelmed by illegal immigrants and non-local people.

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