Senapati, April 27 (MExN): The Separate Hill Tribal Areas Administration Demand Committee (SHTAADC) has proposed that the solution to repeated bandhs and problems in Manipur State would be to create two separate states—one consisted of the hills and the other of the valley. The Committee proposed that this bifurcation be done using Article 3 of the Indian Constitution, with the current Manipur State’s total land area of 22,238 sq. km. divided into 20,089 sq. km. for a tribal state and 2,238 sq. km. for an Imphal based Meitei state. It drew representational logic from the fact that the Imphal valley already has 40 MLA seats (the hills have 20) which would suffice to form a full fledged new state, like Goa that also has 40 MLA seats. “As such, Imphal valley fulfills the criteria to form a beautiful new state in India, in the same manner a new hill state should be created as Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Telangana states,” noted the SHTAADC in a press release from its Convenor, Puli Ashuli Arche, today. Highlighting concerns of discrimination of the tribal population in the current Manipur State, the Committee maintained that it is “impossible” for ‘hill tribal people’ and ‘Imphal valley people’ to “to live together even at present time and for the generations to come.” It alleged that in terms of job opportunities in the State, “employment roster is 100%, out of the roster 31% is reserved for the Tribals, only 17% are given to Tribals, the rest 83% employees are the valley people instead of 69%.” Further, “Of the 17% government tribal employees most are third grade jobs, which are under the District Council primary school teachers and for months their salaries are pending, which stretches through the year.” The Committee informed that even in the past, Manipur treated tribals as “laborers, porters, sweepers, ‘Haos’, low castes citizens, as untouchables, animals,” and this treatment continues. This is what, it claimed, leads to people imposing blockade in “tribal districts of Churachandpur, Ukhrul, Chandel, Senapati and Tamenglong to get what are legitimately their birth rights.” “To relate to the past histories and the present stories the valley people and the hill tribal people are unable to live together due to different historical, social, cultural, customary practices, traditions and religion etc. resulting in immense contrast and negativity to each other,” stated the SHTAADC appealing to all civil societies, political parties, intellectuals, religious leaders, from all walks of life to “think wisely and act now.” The Committee urged the politicians, intellectuals, civil organizations, governments of all Indian States, governors of Indian states, Prime Minister of India and President of India, to “support the weaker section of the societies particularly tribals” by also creating other states like Bodoland state, Karbi Anglong state and Tripura Tribal state.
