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Indians outsiders in their own country

Narrow ethnic loyalties nurtured by politicians' hate speech threaten to deprive migrants of their rights
Indians outsiders in their own country

A Manipuri tribeswoman listens as India's Home Minister Rajnath Singh addresses the crowd during an election rally in Thoubal district of Manipur in March 2017. Many Manipuris want outsiders to be regulated in their state. (Photo by Biju Boro/AFP)

Published: November 16, 2018 04:41 AM GMT
Updated: November 16, 2018 04:41 AM GMT

A special regulation — the Inner Line Permit (ILP) — makes it illegal for Indians to travel and work in certain states without permission from authorities. The regulation divides Indians as insiders and outsiders, creating social tension.

For quite some years, the situation in Manipur state in eastern India has been unfriendly to outsiders. Local people use the term mayang (outsider) to disparagingly denote Indians from other areas living in their state.

The ILP system is in force in the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland, where visitors from other parts of India need a government-issued document to visit what are considered protected areas.

Manipur's majority Meitei community has been demanding the introduction of ILP in the state to regulate the entry and exit of outsiders. "Outsider" Indians living in the state — even some who have lived in the area before the state's formation in 1972 — say such a system would force them out of their homes.

The origin of the system is traced to an 1873 British law — the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulations — which restricted entry to border areas to "British subjects" to protect British interests in the tea, oil and elephant trade by prohibiting non-British Indians developing commercial ventures.

Those who support the regulation in Manipur say British rule covered the area of present-day Manipur and the lack of such a regulation has led to large numbers of outsiders settling in their state. Such an inflow is absent in states where the regulation is in force, they argue.

Demands for an IPL system have also been made in the northeastern states of Assam and Meghalaya and in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago in the Bay of Bengal.

The tendency to look at people as outsiders generally comes from a narrow ethnic feeling. Unfortunately, politicians have nurtured it with hate speeches to placate local sentiments for votes. While the Indian constitution guarantees freedom to travel to any part of the country, the administration fails to address why certain areas need to be excluded based on archaic laws.

Many oppose the presence of outsiders fearing that jobs available for local people will be taken away. But that argument has no basis because locals are not ready to do the low-paying work taken up by migrants from other states. That explains why thousands of people from poverty-stricken states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are now working in Manipur.

A casual look at the working population shows that not many local people are working as masons, carpenters, road cleaners and daily laborers. That means daily life in Manipur depends greatly on the labor of outsiders, who insiders want to leave.

Another fear is that the small population of Manipuri people will be swamped by outsiders, changing the demography of the state over time. They say Tripura's indigenous Tripuri people have been reduced to a miniscule minority. Bengalis from Bangladesh and Silchar migrated to Tripura in large numbers and so Tripura today is a "Bengali state."

If that logic is applied, then every Indian state, including relatively richer states, should protect themselves with regulations to keep away non-locals. But then, the concept of nationhood gets challenged and the progress of people jeopardized.

For generations, people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have lived the arduous life of migrants in various parts of northeast India. We see a large chunk of them on the banks of the Brahmaputra River, where life is tough, especially when there are floods. Where should they go if they are ousted with a law to protect other people's interests? Do we not consider these migrants as people who, after generations of hard work, continue to be poor and migrant?

There was a time in Nagaland some 25 years back when all the non-Naga people would get occasionally rounded up and kept in a stadium for a whole day. It was as good as a deportation. Even those who had the normal permits were treated like prisoners for a day. This is how non-local people could be treated.

Outsiders are treated cruelly within Manipur too. Almost every other day, we hear reports about outsiders being killed or attacked, and no one seems to care.

On the other hand, should any Manipuri face any kind of harassment anywhere in India, there is a loud hue and cry in the state. Manipuri people generally love to go to big cities in India for studies and work. Is the demand to keep others away from Manipur not one-sided?

The enthusiasm for ILP in Manipur cannot be seen as a people's demand. Everything in Manipur seems to be dictated by insurgent groups who run a parallel government. People in general have given up hope that the police or any law enforcement agency can achieve any good in this matter.

As I was returning from a village on my bicycle after a service last week, two people stopped me and wanted to check my bag. I asked them to show their identity card as only security forces are authorized to do such checking. They said nothing but rudely checked my bag and sped away on their scooters

My identity card presenting me as a Salesian missionary and the school principal seemed to have no effect on them. They denied me my rights for free travel as an Indian citizen, and there was no one I could approach to claim my rights.

P.X. Francis Charuvila, a native of Kerala state in southern India, has been a Salesian missionary in Manipur for over 30 years.

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