Tamenglong, August 3 (MExN): In response to the councils of Rongmei, Zeme, and Liangmei, Zeliangrong Baudi (Manipur) has asserted that the contention of the “so called” tribe councils that “Zeliangrong is not a tribe but it is the name of the organization itself is an attempt to mislead and contradict the finding of the anthropological research that concluded as the ‘Zeliangrong people has the history of common ancestry’.” The Rongmei Naga Council, Manipur, Zeme Naga Council, Manipur, and Liangmai Naga Council, Manipur had in a statement published on August 3 maintained that Zeliangrong is a social organisation and not a tribe. Zeliangrong Baudi (M) in a statement issued by its president, Poupoklung Kamei stated that the three councils are “group based organization which has no authority to represent the Zeliangrong people.” It further asserted that the proof of Zeliangrong people speaking one language is evident “when we refer to folk songs and folk tales, name of persons, clans and descendants, name of village of ancestors etc but after dispersal to different direction had started to develop some language variation.” The Baudi said the dialectic variation within the Zeliangrong family was magnified through the Christian leaders, especially when the Baptist Christian group was split into smaller groups and floated different dialectic based nomenclatures. “The failure of the literature groups and Christian leaders of Zeliangrong people in bringing out especially common textbooks, songbook or hymnal or bible but confined on respective dialectic based groups was the root cause of division which is still evident till date,” it alleged. “Now with the rising of educated people in Zeliangrong society, the dialectic based division will be diminished and vanished very soon therefore, it is high time for every responsible Zeliangrong to wake up and abandon those distorted and concocted history...” With regard to the separate tribe recognition granted by the NSCN (IM), it was clarified that “there are so many Naga underground groups, therefore, the recognition granted by one group or even if all the Naga underground groups granted separate tribe recognition has no logic to uphold and will not be binding on the Zeliangrong people.”
