Imphal, 27 April (MTNews): Following the Manipur High Court’s directive where the government of Manipur was asked to recommend inclusion of Meitei / Meetei community in the Schedule Tribe (ST) list of India, the United Naga Council strongly condemned the “inane order of the Manipur High Court of March 27.”
A press statement from the United Naga Council stated that the Meitei/ Meetei community of Manipur is an advanced community of India with their Manipuri language (Meiteilon) listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India and added that they were already protected under the Constitution of India and categorized as General, Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Schedule Caste (SC) within the existing Meitei/Meetei community itself.
Therefore, the council called the judgement ‘irrational’ and argued that it was negating the sole objective of scheduling a group of people for “protective discrimination as Scheduled Tribe in the constitution of India.”
Reacting to this, the World Meetei Council (WMC) issued a statement stating that organizations representing indigenous Naga people have joined hands with the immigrant Kuki-Chin people. “This is historic,” it exclaimed.
According to WMC, the reason for the Naga indigenous people joining hands with the immigrant communities [Kuki-Chin] is believed to be the fear of the Meetei people grabbing their lands, job quotas, and reservations in institutions.
In this regard, the WMC said, “We do not equate the indigenous Naga people with the immigrant communities.”
The WMC asserted that the ‘intimidating nature’ of the formidable alliance is to put pressure on the state government to undo what the Court had done and, therefore, the WMC maintained that nothing can be sorted out by putting pressure on an issue where the question of “survival” of the Meetei people is involved.
Thus, the World Meetei Council has called for all parties to come to the table and resolve their issues in a logical manner for a logical conclusion to the matter. “Let the Manipur government must discharge its duty without fear or favour,” it added.