Stand against border fencing Infiltration from across

The stand of the Eastern Tangkhul Students’ Union (ETSU) and the Southern Tangkhul Students’ Union (STSU) is understood and it rests on the premise that though the Tangkhul people living on either side of the international border interact and share close ties, the Tangkhuls from across the border have never ever crossed into the Indian side and set up new villages. The stand of the Government of Manipur and the Government of India can also be understood in the backdrop of the fact that Delhi has pointed its finger at illegal immigrants for the ongoing ethnic crisis and the rapid rise in the population of the Kuki-Zo group of people down the decades. A fact that can easily be summed up from the fact that the number of MLAs they send to the Assembly has increased substantially and a look back at the composition of the State Assembly from  1972-73 down to the present should testify this. So while the Kuki-Chins had only 6 MLAs and the Nagas had 13 MLAs in the House of 60 in the 1972-73 Assembly this increased to 7 Kuki-Chin MLAs and 11 Naga MLAs in the 1974-79 Assembly. In the 1980-1985 Assembly the number of Kuki MLAs increased to 9 while the Nagas had 10 MLAs. And now it is 10 each. All indications that the number of Kuki-Chins has been increasing steadily down the years and this is why the call to update the National Register of Citizens has been growing more and more audible by the day. It is on the premise of this background that the Government of India took the decision to do away with the Free Movement Regime and to fence the Indo-Myanmar border but to the Tangkhuls,  this would mean cutting off communications with their fellow kindreds living across the border while at the same time underlining the point that the Tangkhuls are not known to sneak into Manipur and set up new villages, which is something very different from what the Kukis have been doing. And border fencing is not the answer to check infiltration from across the border, is the stand of the Tangkhul folks and to underline this point the ETSU and STSU had suggested that the Government update the NRC in Manipur and set up a population commission. The stand of the two Tangkhul student bodies is undertandable and noted for the focus of Manipur is on the sharp and unnatural rise in the population of the Kuki-Chin group of people. And it is in the hills that the immigrants first settle. The strong opposition raised by the United Naga Council against the design of the Kuki people to erect a gate to commemorate, what they call the Anglo-Kuki War gate, cannot be forgotten. Again it is for this very reason why Phungyar AC MLA Leishiyo Keishing delivered such a hard hitting and impassioned address in the State Assembly during the Budget session on the infiltration from across the border at Kamjong side. All these points should not be forgotten while making any move to oppose the border fencing.
Seen against this backdrop it should be clear why the decision to fence the border has been taken. It is again for the same reason why the call to update the NRC has been raised. And it stands that the common thread running through the decision to fence the border, the call for NRC, population commission, the decision not to give recognition to villages which do not have the specificed number of households or families, is the infiltration from the across the border. This is where one is inclined to question why Delhi has decided to suspend the border fencing work in Kuki dominated areas and focus on the areas where the Nagas are settled. On September 19, this year News18 had shared the story that the Government of India had decided to halt the border fencing work along Kuki dominated areas of Manipur and the focus was to be on Naga dominated areas and even as this news was sinking in to the consciousness of the readers and The Sangai Express the said news item was found pulled down the next day, with no explanations given. Till today there has been no explanation on why such a sensitive news item was pulled down, with no corrigendum if it was misleading, nothing of that sort. Something, somewhere does not seem to be right and one wonders why the Government of Manipur has not taken this up with the Central Government. Isn’t this something that needs to be clarified from the side of the Government ? The story of the border fencing has taken many twists and turns and adding to this is the opposition raised by the Tangkhul Nagas.