The Manipur bills to curtail the rights of ‘non-locals’ has ruffled feathers beyond the state boundaries. It has become a hills versus valley issue.

Mizoram chief minister Lal Thanhawla and several organisations based in Assam and Manipur have urged the Centre not to give consent to the three controversial bills passed by the Manipur Assembly on August 31.

Lal Thanhawla, in his September 4 letter written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said the bills had been passed because of a pressure group of the Meitei community. Tribal people were neither consulted nor were sympathetic to this demand.

“Infringing on the rights of citizens is a serious matter not just in India but elsewhere in the world too,” he told a local journalist, confirming his letter to the Prime Minister.

The Naga People’s Front (NPF), a regional party with influence in the Naga hills of Manipur, has also written to Union home minister Rajnath Singh, seeking President’s rule in the state.

The All India United Organisation Against Harassment and Racism and the Northeast People’s Organisation also urged the Centre today to repeal the bills.

The Manipur Assembly had passed the Protection of Manipur People Bill, 2015, the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2015, and the Manipur Shops and Establishments (Second Amendment) Bill, 2015, to protect the ‘indigenous’ people of the state. Meiti people consider themselves the ‘original inhabitants, and term all other tribes ‘settlers’.

The issue is above party affiliations, obviously. Both Lal Thanhawla and his Manipur counterpart Okram Ibobi Singh are Congress chief ministers.

Lal Thanhawla mentions at the outset that Manipur has Meitei, Naga and “Kuki/Mizo” ethnic groups.

His concern is for the welfare of the substantial Mizo population in Manipur. Churachandpur,  rocked by violence after the bills were passed, has a majority of Kuki-Chin-Mizo people whose population straddles Mizoram, Manipur and Chin hills in Myanmar.

“Considering the volatile and sensitive nature that exists among those communities (Meitei, Naga and Kuki) in Manipur, I would like to request you to ensure that the central government does not give consent to the three bills passed by the Manipur Legislative Assembly as they are directly against the tribal people of the state,” Lal Thanhawla wrote in his letter.

The Modi government, it is learnt, is in no hurry to give it assent, because the scope of the bills extends to other Indians as well.

What is against the tribal people in the bill?  Lal Thanhawla said it was unfair to put 1951 as the cut-off date. Many feel that in the garb of a bill for enforcing inner-line permit, the Manipur government had acted against the tribal people some of whom were in transition during the 1950s. “We became a Republic in 1950 and how can 1951 be the cut-off date?” he asked.

He said he did not know about the legislations before they were passed and so did not find it necessary to speak to Ibobi Singh directly.

The NPF’s Manipur unit president, Awangbo Newmai, and four MLAs of the state, who recently resigned, submitted a memorandum to the Union home minister on Sunday, alleging that the Protection of Manipur People Bill seeks to treat Nagas and other tribals as foreigners in their own homeland, the land law aims to divest tribals and Nagas of their lands and the third bill is also anti-tribal.

Alleging that the legislations were meant to throw a spanner in the Naga peace talks, the NPF urged the Centre to dismiss the bills in the “interest of the unity and integrity of the country and the interest of the people of the Northeast”.

The All India United Organisation Against Harassment and Racism appealed to  the Prime Minister to repeal the three bills, and urged Union home minister Rajnath Singh to ensure  safety and security of non-Manipuris living in Manipur. The organisation had staged a demonstration at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi.

The Northeast People’s Organisation submitted a memorandum to Modi  demanding repeal of the bills, NEPO secretary Baharul Islam Barbhuiya  said.

NEPO  urged the Prime Minister and the home minister to take up the matter soon and ask the Manipur government to withdraw the bills.

The Joint Action Committee, an umbrella of several organisations based in Assam and Manipur,  imposed a blockade at Jirighat in Assam’s Cachar district along the Silchar-Imphal road as part of the 48-hour strike that began on Monday opposing the passage of the bills.

In Manipur, with hot-heads on both the sides of the issue willing to ‘do or die’ over the issue, the situation is volatile, and chances for peace seem to recede day by day.

  Inner line permit, Manipur, naked truth, Northeast