Phek, June 30 (MExN): The Chakhesang Public Organization (CPO) today stated that the PIL filed by one BJP leader in the person of Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay against the enforcement of PIL in the state of Nagaland in the Supreme Court of India is a matter of concern.
CPO in a press release stated that “this very PIL has indeed become a serious threat to every fundamental umbilical cord by which Nagaland was brought to be part of the Union of India.”
In the event of scrapping the laws or even crippling any clause of the laws in jeopardy, it will definitely tantamount to severing ties between Nagaland and the mainland, the CPO added.
It further mentioned that “understanding the vulnerability of the Nagas in view of their backwardness and their demography, the then British India promulgated the Bengal Eastern Frontier regulation (BEFR) of 1873 with the sole objective of giving protection to the life of the Nagas and their land and its resources, from undue interferences of those of the Non-Nagas in the long run.”
“If otherwise the Nagas would have been subjugated by illegal migrants, whereby the sons of the soil would have become the second class citizens in their own land,” it added.
Whereas, when the State of Nagaland was created in 1963 out of political agreement, the BEFR of 1873 was retained beside the enactment of the Art 371(A) by which the special status was given to Nagaland. Providing these protective laws for the Nagas, the CPO maintained, was out of natural justice and in its spirit of ‘Unity in Diversity’ as the basis for framing the democratic constitution of India which was secular in principle.
Also these protective laws had neither infringed anyone’s basic rights nor has it encroached upon some other territory.
“The Nagas deserved to have these protective laws and therefore were given so under the Constitution of India,” it added.
The Organization further felt that the PIL was “an eye opening to the Nagas in general and to the State Government in particular.”
The CPO reminded that it is the bounden responsibility of the State Government to rise up to the occasion and ensure that no stone is left unturned for securing the existing laws to be protected under any circumstances.
The Organization meanwhile, urged upon the petitioner and his associates to be rational and never “concoct or exaggerate” the ground realities out of sheer apprehension.
