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Manipur to Implement the NRC
The Manipur Assembly recently voted to adopt the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and create a State Population Commission (SPC).
At least 19 apex tribal organisations appealed to the Prime Minister, asking the NRC and other mechanisms to protect indigenous people from the “ever-increasing number of non-local residents.”
What exactly is the National Register of Citizenship?
The NRC is a registry established for each hamlet, displaying the dwellings or holdings in serial order and noting the quantity and names of people residing in each house or holding.
The registry was created during the 1951 Indian Census and has not been revised.
For the time being, it has only been updated in Assam, but the government intends to update it nationwide as well.
The goal is to distinguish between “illegal” immigrants and “genuine” inhabitants.
Nodal Agency: India’s Registrar General and Statistical Commissioner.
Manipur advocating for the NRC
According to data provided before the Manipur Legislature, the populace of Manipur
expanded dramatically between 1971 and 2011, indicating a high likelihood of a large migration of non-Indians, mainly Myanmar nationals, mainly from the Kukis-Chin communities.
Aside from Kuki-Chin tribes, pro-NRC parties have labelled “Bangladeshis”, including Mayanmars from Muslims who have “occupied the district of Jiribam and distributed throughout the valley areas” as “outsiders,” as well as Gurkhas who have “risen in phenomenal number.”
The northern states have been fearful of “outsiders,” “foreigners,” or “alien cultures”, overwhelming their numerically smaller indigenous people.
Manipur, home to three distinct ethnic groups, is no exception.
These ethnic groups include the non-tribal Meitei and the various tribe’s Naga and Kuki-Zomi.
These three groups have a history of strife, but the NRC problem appears to have brought the Meiteis and Nagas together.
They argue that an NRC is required since the political turmoil in neighbouring Myanmar, precipitated by a military takeover in February 2021, has driven hundreds of people to cross the State’s 398-kilometre international border.
Most individuals who have left are from the Kuki-Chin groups, ethnically linked to the Kuki-Zomi communities of Manipur and the Mizos of Mizoram.
Other safeguards in Manipur
After Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland, Manipur became the fourth Northeast State to be placed under the Internal Permit (ILP) system in December 2019.
The ILP — a transitory official travel permit that allows an Indian citizen to enter a protected region – was introduced as a component of the British-era Bengali Eastern Border Regulation.
However, just under two years later, an international organisation spearheading the ILP movement said that the system was defective and that Manipur needed a more robust and efficient structure for preserving indigenous inhabitants.
Following the “invasion of immigrants” from Bangladesh (previously East Pakistan), Myanmar, and Nepalese, a pass or visa system was implemented for Manipur, which was eventually repealed in 1950.
Manipur’s government adopted 1961 as the basis year for defining “natives” for ILP in June 2021.
Most organisations disagree with this trimmed year and demand 1951 as the trimmed period for the NRC activity.
The Home Affairs Ministry (MHA) urged Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, and the Border Protecting Force (BGF), i.e. Assamese rifles, to stop the illegal infiltration from Myanmar into India in 2021.
In August 2017 and February 2018, similar instructions were issued.
Status of the NRC anywhere else in the Northeast
Assam is the only province in the area that has undertaken an initiative to update the 1951 NRC with March 24, 1971, as the snipped date for a person’s citizenship.
The final version of the Assam NRC was issued in August 2019, removing 19.06 lakhs out of 3.3 crores applications denied by the state government and several indigenous organisations.
Their applications to the Supreme Court, which had been monitoring the procedure, for re-verifying the NRC to filter out “Bangladeshis” purportedly included erroneously or illegally are pending.
In June 2019, Nagaland undertook a similar process dubbed RIIN (Registration of Indigenous Inhabitants of Nagaland) to separate indigenous Nagas from non-indigenous Nagas.
'ILP is insufficient'
In June, the Manipur administration adopted 1961 as the starting point for identifying “natives” and properly enforcing the internal permit (ILP), a transitory travel document required for inhabitants of other Indian states to visit the State.
Manipur became the fourth State in the Northeastern to be included under the ILP after the Centre expanded the Bengal Easter Border Regulation of 1873.
However, pro-NRC tribal organisations said the ILP was insufficient since Manipur could not define “original residents.” They stated that the NRC would represent the best way forward.
The organisations remembered a pass or permission system for Manipur that was discontinued by then-Chief Commissioner Himmat Singh in November 1950, citing the “intrusion of immigrants” from Bangladesh (then East Pakistan), Myanmar, and Nepal. This permission system governed strangers’ entry and settlement in Manipur.
Individuals from these three nations have “autonomously settled” in the State since the elimination of the past system, according to the organisations, and no discriminatory action has been taken in the preceding 75 years underneath the Immigrants Act of 1946. They said the “constant flood of migrants” had caused migrants to “take control” of indigenous peoples’ socioeconomic and political rights.
If Muslims from Bangladesh and Myanmar “took” the Jiribam Assembly constituency and moved to other basins in Manipur, Kuki inhabitants from Myanmar now possess vast swaths of the hills. At the same time, the “Nepali population has increased tremendously,” they said.
The organisations remembered an effort in the 1980s to discover and expel foreigners from Manipur, which resulted in the State government signing two agreements to use 1951 as the basis for defining immigrants or non-residents and forcibly removing them. They were disappointed that no action was taken.
