Inhabitants of Imphal valley: Meiteis have a right to be heard

The Supreme Court on Monday “orally remarked” that the decision of the High Court of Manipur did not “remit to direct” the state government to recommend for the inclusion of a tribe into the list of Scheduled Tribe, reported Live Law. The HC had on 27 March directed the state government of Manipur to recommend to include the Meiteis in the list of STs preferably within four weeks.

The Manipur HC while noting that the recommendation from the State government had been pending for 10 years now, had said, “No satisfactory explanation is forthcoming from the side of the respondent State for not submitting the recommendation for the last 10 years.”

Meitei has been demographically the most dominant ethnic group in Manipur, constituting 41.39 per cent of the population of the state, most of whom are Vaishanvite Hindus.

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Meiteis inhabit the valley regions of Manipur, which cover a mere 10.1 per cent of the geographical area of Manipur and accounts for 57.2 per cent of the state’s population.

Furthermore, Meiteis under Manipur’s ‘Land Reform Act’ is not permitted to settle in the hill areas that consist of almost 90 per cent of the state’s territory. Whereas other tribes like Naga and Kukis along with their 29 sub-tribes can inhabit anywhere in the state.

The community led by Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee have decades-long demand to be included as ST, they argue that prior to the merger of Manipur to the Republic of India Meiteis were classified as one of the tribes in the former Kingdom, however, they lost the tag when Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 was drafted.

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The tribe faces a hostile environment as the dual sword of growing Christianisation and missionary actions on one side and growing Hill-Valley divide on the other seem to have fuelled other Hill-dwelling Christianised tribes of the state against the Valley-inhabiting majority community that has been denied even the correct identity.

Meiteis are considered as OBCs post the implementation of the Mandal Commission Report in 1992, while some of the sections have also been given the status of the SCs. Here, it should be noted that a tribe has been characterised as an “Other Backward Class” under Article 342 A  or as a “Scheduled Caste” under Article 341 of the Constitution of India, denying them of all the special rights of being a tribe scheduled under Article 342 which also hampers their interests in crucial sectors of human development like education and state employment.

Tracing its roots since the inception of the political history of Manipur, Meiteis have been the culturally most prominent community of the erstwhile Kingdom and are now a state of the Indian Union. And, this has been the most bitter argument against giving the community the status of a Scheduled Tribe.

The community’s language appears in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India as Manipuri. The community traces its origin from the Meitei kingdom of Kangleipak to 33 CE. Meiteis were brought into the Hinduism fold through a greater Vaishanvisation movement going on in entire India in the mediaeval times, led by Bhakti saints of Bengal. The construction of a Vishnu temple in the 15th Century in the town of Bishnupur was part of this larger process of assimilation.

Here, it must be noted that neither having a recognised scheduled language or having a political history of self-governance or having contributions to the greater culture of a particular area can be an absolute argument to deny the status of a Scheduled Tribe to a community. For example - Santhali is a scheduled language under Eighth Schedule, or Nagas have a history of self-government and form the majority of an Indian state, yet both Santhalis and Nagas are recognised as STs. It should also not be the case that identifying as a Hindu can be a reason for non-acceptance of the ST status as the tribal communities have been an essential part of Hindu civilisation and a process of assimilation has always been there in the history of the Indian sub-continent. Besides, several traditions, beliefs, festivals and aspirations of the community are quite distinct from the mainstream Hindu community. Further, Hinduism is a much more decentralised and subtle religion to be analysed through a “modernist-Abrahamic perspective”.

Every community has some aspirations, the author completely agrees that the minor tribes of the state might be apprehensive towards their own cultural distinctiveness, but that cannot be a reason to deny the majority what duly belongs to it. Amid concerns of the Meiteis of Imphal Valley inhabiting Hill areas, it is again to be noted that the culture of Meiteis is deeply embedded in the Valley and hardly any community leaves its own home except for the case of utter compulsion.

The solution does not lie in violence no matter who started it first and who retaliated. Mayhem does not justify a cause, it only hurts. Meiteis, like any other community, have a right to be heard and to pursue their interests in the hope of a better future. Vested demographic interests and selfish vote-bank politics must not be allowed to crush any community’s aspirations including the major inhabitants of the Imphal Valley. Let peace prevail!

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