IMPHAL, September 8: The Coordinating Committee All Tribal Students`™ Union Manipur (ATSUM) is pained to see the state government deliberately enacting self-inflicting laws in the interest of the major community at the expense of tribal / indigenous said a release of the committee.
It said that instead of admitting its ill design, the State government is still trying to sell its anti-Tribal policy to the people obstinately which has driven a wedge deep enough to bleed the State beyond any hope of redemption.
It is for the world to see the present scenario where all state machineries are activated to cramp down poisonous laws in the throat of the tribals with brute majority.
The Constitution of India bifurcated the administration of the State into two distinct selves i.e., The Hill Areas of Manipur and the Valley of Manipur.
It is self-explanatory that one of the intrinsic organs of the State call the Hill Areas under Article 371 C of the Constitution of India has long been rendered non-functional by the interest of the major community who are responsible for sending 40 MLAs in the sixty member State Assembly where reserved seats accounts for only 20 MLAs.
The dynamics of these electoral-political circumstances compel the20 MLAs to toe the line of the 40 MLAs representing the majority community on party as well as ethnic lines.
It further continued that modern political history of the tribals in Manipur is more or less a struggle for survival around this vicious circle where everything the tribal hold dear have been coerced away some way or other.
Now even their identity is at stake. With this responsibility in mind, ATSUM as a vanguard of the Indigenous/Tribal people of Manipur have asked the 20 Tribal MLAs to tender their resignation by owning up the responsibility of having failed to perform their constitutional duty, it said.
Without malice to anyone, the ATSUM shall fight until justice is seen to be done to the indigenous/tribal people of Manipur and until such time we claim a dignified political space we rightfully deserve in the biggest democracy in the world, it said.
To this end ATSUM supports any form of democratic protest in the Hill Areas of Manipur to register their grievances to the State government as well as central government for timely intervention said the release from coordination committee ATSUM information and publicity wing.