Imphal, March 17 (MExN): The Liangmai Naga Council (LNC), Manipur on Saturday released a “whitepaper” on the Liangmais disassociating from Zeliangrong Organization. “LNC in one of its executive meetings held on November 5, 2014, decided to disassociate from the Zeliangrong body as long as they stand for Zeliangrong as a single tribe,” the whitepaper from LNC stated. The decision of the LNC executive meeting to disassociate from the Zeliangrong body was endorsed by the peoples’ convention held on the October 9, 2015, at Konsaram, it added. Narrating its oral history, LNC stated that the Inpui, Liangmai, Rongmei and Zeme people were of the same family and once lived together at Makuilongdi. “They were called Hanah/Hamai. In course of time, they dispersed from that historic abode, Makuilongdi and settled at different regions and places,” the LNC stated. “When they were together at their original abode, they followed one custom and culture and spoke one language. Even today there are evidences of following one custom/culture and speaking of one language respectively,” it added. However, the people of Inpui, Liangmai, Rongmei and Zeme had been officially divided into two groups by the then British–India Regime and identified with a “derogatory” term. “Inpui and Rongmei had been clubbed together under the term Kabui whereas Liangmai and Zeme were identified as Kacha Naga,” the Council stated. Recognizing the need for having a common social platform, representatives of Kacha Nagas and Kabuis of Manipur and Naga Hills District of Assam convened a meeting on February 15, 1947, at Keishamthong, Imphal and formed a social body called “Zeliangrong Council” coined out of Zeme, Liangmai and Rongmei including Inpui tribe. “However, the nomenclature, Zeliangrong failed to encompass the whole kindred groups of Makuilongdi origin,” the Council stated. “The Inpui group was left out from the nomenclature,” it explained. On receipt of the petition submitted by the Inpui tribe to change the nomenclature of Zeliangrong, the executives of the Union tabled the matter for discussion in their Annual Assembly at Tamenglong Hqrs in 1959. “The Assembly after tracing the terms/words by which their forefathers called and identified themselves came to conclusion that the term Hanah/Hamai/Kahanah were commonly used by their forefathers in songs, prayer utterances etc,” it stated adding, after detailed deliberations, the Assembly unanimously resolved to replace Zeliangrong with “Hamai” in 1959. The LNC further went on to state that the Zeliangrong Union took a series of resolutions to rename the organization with the objective of encompassing all the kindred tribes of Makuilongdi origin. “However, they failed to translate the resolutions into practice,” it stated and contended that their failure had caused tremendous negative effect on the unity of the organization. Subsequently, the Inpui exited the Zeliangrong fold as their requests went unheard and pressure continued to mount on the ZU to change its nomenclature so as to encompass all the kindred tribes of Hamai ethnic group. “In the meantime, an unpleasant and ugly event had cropped up in the organization structure of Zeliangrong Union,” the LNC stated while pointing to the formation of another “apex body called Zeliangrong Boudi” in 2010. “It had brought about a chaos in the society and created disunity among the people. There was unwanted arguments, blame after blame and counter after counter. The society was totally in a mess,” the council stated. “The so called two apex bodies, Zeliangrong Union and Zeliangrong Boudi were responsible for such a chaotic situation.” A Joint Working Committee of four cognate tribes i.e., Inpui, Zeme, Liangmai and Rongmei was formed to bring the two groups together but leaders from the two bodies remained “uncompromising”. As a result, the Liangmai Naga Council in one of its executive meetings held on November 5, 2014, decided to disassociate from the Zeliangrong body “as long as they stand for Zeliangrong as a single tribe” which was endorsed by a peoples’ convention a year later. Consequently, the Zeme, Liangmai and Rongmei Councils approached the United Naga Council (UNC) – the apex Civil Society organization of all Naga tribes of Southern Nagalim sector, Manipur – for affiliation but was rejected on the ground that they were represented by the Zeliangrong Boudi. However, the Liangmai Naga Council contended that both the Zeliangrong Union or Zeliangrong Boudi are social organizations “whereas UNC is a tribe base organization”. “LNC therefore, think it wise to disassociate from the Zeliangrong organizations and had taken decision of disassociation from the Zeliangrong organizations,” the council stated. “Being Nagas, Liangmais have every right to be a member of Naga Apex Body,” the LNC argued and expressed regret that the Liangmais have been denied membership in UNC. “We are afraid that our rights of being a Naga citizen might be deprived off if we are not in the decision making body.” As such, the Liangmai Naga Council maintained that its primary and foremost concerns is to form a strong and unified body of all kindred tribes who have Makuilongdi ancestry “under a suitable nomenclature acceptable to every constituent unit.” “The LNC is determined to work with its other cognate tribe bodies to achieve the goal,” it further added.
