At “Historic” Convention, Manipur’s Thadou Tribe States Position On NRC, ‘War On Drugs’

Guwahati:

Amid pressure between the Meitei neighborhood and the Kuki tribes in Manipur, the Thadou tribe within the state has mentioned it’s a distinct tribe with its personal separate language, tradition, custom and historical past. The Thadou Tribe Conference, billed as a “historic” occasion, in a press release mentioned they’ll help the Nationwide Register of Residents (NRC) if the Centre decides to hold out the train in Manipur.

Additionally they voiced help for the Manipur authorities’s ‘Battle on Medicine’ marketing campaign, and requested the federal government to “implement it extra successfully with a better neighborhood engagement and higher planning and a transparent purpose for one of the best socio-economic and environmental outcomes for now and the longer term.”

The Thadou tribe has been struggling to claim its distinct id, the conference mentioned, including Thadous have at all times been recognized and recorded as Thadou, with none prefix or suffix to it, and it has been the single-largest tribe in Manipur constantly because the first census of India in 1881 until the newest census in 2011.

“We aren’t a part of the Kuki tribes however a separate, unbiased entity from Kuki,” the Thadou Conference held in Assam’s Guwahati mentioned in a press release on the final of the two-day occasion on Saturday.

The conference mentioned Thadou is without doubt one of the authentic 29 native/indigenous tribes of Manipur they usually had been recognised as unbiased Scheduled Tribes underneath the 1956 Presidential Order of the federal government of India.

It rejected and condemned all “colonial and post-colonial connotations and writings that gave rise to the misidentification of Thadou as Kuki and the continued imposition of Kuki on Thadou.”

“As we speak, there isn’t a Kuki apart from the ‘Any Kuki Tribes’ (AKT), the pretend Kuki tribe (designed for any folks from wherever on the planet) that got here into being fraudulently in 2003 for political causes,” the Thadou Conference mentioned in a press release.

It repeated the demand for eradicating AKT from the Scheduled Tribes checklist of Manipur “within the bigger curiosity of the Indian nation and of the indigenous/native tribes and folks”.

“We fervently name for peace in Manipur and hope for a future outlined by peace, justice, non-violent resolutions, and respect for one another’s rights… We honour the reminiscence of all those that have fallen sufferer to the tragic violence in Manipur since Could 3, 2023, of which Thadous are essentially the most affected but, silenced victims, because of mistaken id or getting caught up within the violence, and lengthen our deepest empathy to the survivors of the violence and their households,” the assertion mentioned.

Kuki teams such because the Churachandpur-based Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Discussion board (ITLF) and the Kangpokpi-based Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU) haven’t given any assertion on the developments linked to the Thadou Conference. Sources mentioned these Kuki teams are deliberating on responding to the statements by the Thadou tribe.

Different smaller tribes have accused the 2 Kuki teams of forcefully clubbing them underneath the all-encompassing time period ‘tribal’.

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The All Tribal College students’ Union of Manipur (ATSUM), which participated in a rally on Could 3 final yr in opposition to the Meiteis’ demand to be included underneath the Scheduled Tribes (SC) standing, had distanced itself from the ITLF and the CoTU after violence broke out, although the ATSUM held the BJP authorities led by Chief Minister N Biren Singh chargeable for the outbreak of the disaster.

Former ATSUM members had advised native media on March 18 this yr that the ITLF and CoTU should not have the mandate of all tribes in Manipur, however symbolize a single tribe.