IMPHAL, September 5: Four sitting members of the Manipur Legislative Assembly belonging to the Naga People`™s Front have tendered their resignation from membership of the Assembly.
The four are identified as L. Dikho of 48-Mao, Samuel Risom of 44-Ukhrul, ST Victor Nunghlung of 41 Chandel and Dr V Alexander pao of 47-Karong.
In a lengthy press communique forwarded by the Newmai News Network, the four have stated they have tendered their resignation with effect from September 4.
It said they have resigned as a supreme sacrifice for the protection of the short and long term interests of all tribal people including Nagas inhabiting the hill districts of Manipur.
It said `Our resignations are aimed at condemnation of the Protection of Manipur People Bill, 2015 which treats Nagas and other tribes from Nagaland and other States in the Region as non-Manipuris and compelling them to have ILPs to enter Manipur thereby making them foreigners in their own land.`
`Such a legislation is squarely contrary to the very spirit of the agenda on the table of the Indo-Naga Peace talks, of which the strident aspiration is to bring all Nagas in the contiguous areas under one umbrella.`
`This legislation is nothing but a ruse to derail the Indo-Naga peace talks and thus not only anti-naga but anti-national inasmuch as it aims at throwing a spanner in the peace talks,` it said.
It continued `Our resignations are an expression of our deep indignation against the Ibobi Singh Government on behalf of all tribals and Nagas, for drastically altering the customary land holding system in the Hill Districts through the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2015.`
`This Bill seeks to insert sections 14A and 14B in the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Act, 1960 empowering Deputy Commissioners and the State cabinet to divest tribal and Nagas of their lands by nullifying the customary laws of the Hill people.`
`On the one hand, when the Congress Party has launched a nation-wide year long agitation against the NDA`™s land acquisition Bill, the Ibobi Singh Government in Manipur is surreptitiously seeking to usurp the lands of tribals and Nagas of the Hill Districts thereby demolishing the demographic structure of these districts by facilitating fresh settlers and destroying the unique land holding systems of the tribals and Nagas in these districts.`
`We NPF MLAs have therefore demonstrated by our resignations that this demolition and destruction of their Hill Authority, culture, customs and land tenure systems will be stoutly resisted and stopped.
It has also said that the resignation from the Assembly is a serious and severe protest against the `consistent, cruel, crude and unpardonable anti-tribal and anti-Naga attitude, approach and actions of the Ibobi Singh government as evident from its recent legislative measures such as the Protection of Manipur People Bill, 2015, the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2015, the Manipur Shops and Establishments (Second Amendment) Bill, 2015 and the Resolution on the Indo-Naga Peace Accord.`
The height of anti-tribal, anti-Naga and undemocratic posture of the Ibobi Government is its persistent denial to constitute and notify the two Autonomous District Councils in Chandel and Tamenglong despite a clear majority obtained by the Naga People`™s Front in these two districts, it said.
`We have been steadfast in our opposition to these legislative measures in the House.`
The NPF MLAs have also said that they had sought time from the Speaker for a detailed participation in the debate on the bills and the resolution, however, the Speaker `bull dozed our genuine aspirations for debate on the Bill so that our voice for the tribals and Nagas of the Hill Districts was not registered on the records of the Assembly.`
`We wanted to table our amendments to the Bills and Resolution so that these draconian legislative measures are tamed to protect the people of the Hill districts, which were not allowed.`
`We were also not allowed to stage a walk out from the House at the time of passing of these measures as the Speaker jumped procedure to declare that these measures were passed without due deliberations and without allowing us time to register our final protest of walk out.`
`All the three Bills which are of crucial significance to the customary and cultural lives of the tribals and Nagas of the Hill Districts of Manipur were passed in one single day, without debate, without permission to move amendments, and without following the legislative procedure enshrined in the Constitution of India and the Rules of Procedure of the House.`
`The basic Constitutional mandate of consulting the Hill Areas Committee constituted under article 371C of the Constitution of India on all these measures was casually given a go by.`
`As though this was not enough, on the same day, i.e. on August 31 itself, another resolution on the Indo-Naga Peace Talks was hurriedly passed by the Ibobi Government in total collusion with the Speaker.`
`The amendments proposed by the NPF MLAs were disregarded.`
`Though the NPF MLAs opposed the Resolution which questioned the agenda of the Indo-Naga Peace Talks, the Resolution was so worded that it sought to dismember the items of the agenda like `integration of contiguous Naga areas` from the ongoing Peace Talks.`
`By introducing such words like `administration of the State of Manipur` in the Resolution, the Ibobi government had directly interfered with the alternative solutions being explored by the Government of India for integrating Nagas of the Region,` they claimed.
By urging the Government of India to amend Article 3 of the Constitution of India to make the views of the State Legislature concerned mandatory for altering the boundaries of a State, the Ibobi Government has jumped the gun even before a solution is found to the protracted political problem of the Nagas, it said.
In nutshell, the Ibobi Government appears to have decided to be a permanent stumbling block to the solution to the Naga Political Problem, which is highly condemnable and against which, we have decided to resign from the Assembly to be with the people of the Hill Districts. Despite our opposition, in the most partisan manner, the Speaker had shown the resolution as having been passed unanimously, it said.