IMPHAL, May 21: Both the Joint Committee on Inner Line permit System and the Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee of Manipur should support each other as their demands are facsimile of each other, said the People’s Movement for Resurgent Manipur (PMRM) in a statement.
The PMRM has also shown support to the 38 hour General strikes (Sintha Leppa) of Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS) to intensify the demands for converting one year old pending Bills on Inner Lines Permit to an Act.
It further appeals to all sections of the society to attend the public discourse organised by the STDCM on May 22 at Iboyaima Shumang Leela Sanglen.
It said “PMRM lamented the pseudo intellectuals for the anti ST campaign.”
These scholars must study the case of neighbouring ST States of Mizoram and Nagaland, whose literacy rates outnumber the National percentage, it said.
Before agitating against the ST demands by Meetei/Meitei, they must study the status of the community in terms of literacy, employment, economic index and compared with other ST communities which are protected by Constitutions of India, it said.
If Meeteis/Meiteis were included in the Schedule Tribe lists during 1960s, unrest among the people would not be created and the voice for alternate arrangements or separate administration would not be seen by today’s generation and there won’t be any hill-valley divide too, it said.
The statement signed by its publicity secretary Khagemba Ningthouja said the status of Meetei/Meitei will not go down by enlisting in the Schedule Tribe.
“We must expose the myth created by few Intellectuals. Notion of Tribes in India is determined by the political and administrative consideration of uplifting a section of population, which is remotely situated in hills and forest. Manipur, as a whole must be considered a hilly state.”