The Khwairamband Ima Keithel Joint Coordinating Committee for Peace on Monday demanded authorities to send the recommendation for inclusion of Meitei/Meetei in ST list along with the requisite socio-economic and ethnographic report before the Lok Sabha elections.
The committee added that authorities must also produce receipts of the entire process and rein in the entire crisis in Manipur before the elections.
Speaking to the media at the Manipur Press Club, Imphal, committee co-convenor Huirem Binodini stated that the Meitei/Meetei community was on the brink of becoming a minority and maintained that the ST inclusion was the “only tool” to safeguard the future of the community.
“Every indigenous community in Manipur is on the list except for the Meiteis. This has bogged down our growth and development of the community,” she said.
She stated that exclusion from the list had confined the community within a small space with no room migration and settlement in other parts of the state.
“Other communities can migrate and settle in Imphal but the Meiteis do not have the constitutional privilege to do the same,” she said.
She highlighted that authorities’ failure to send recommendations for the last many decades had triggered detrimental effects on the development prospects of the community.
“Meiteis had the opportunity to turn ST in 1949 but didn’t take it due to conflicting stances but now, the situation demands otherwise as rampant population growth has put the future of Meiteis at risk,” she said.
On the other hand, she lamented authorities’ inability or “disregard” to resolve the crisis in Manipur.
Conducting the elections when the future of Manipur is bleak is highly insensitive and shows disregard for the people, she added.
She maintained that people would be more enthusiastic about partaking in the democratic exercise if authorities addressed the issues timely instead of delaying it after the elections.
