Manipur: Zomi Council demands creation of separate administration in the form of Union Territory, writes to PM Modi

The Zomi Council Steering Committee (ZCSC) wrote to the Prime Minister of India today highlighting the unending polarization in Manipur, and the various actions of the majoritarian Manipur Government and the Meitei community at large that have contributed to furthering the divide. 

The memorandum talked about the State Government’s repeated failed attempts to portray a sense of normalcy in the State.

Toeing the line of narratives propagated by radical Meitei groups, the majoritarian Manipur Government, as well as the Meitei community at large, continue to make various attempts to discredit the Zo people (the Zomis, the Hmars and the Kuki-Zos) – a once-proud ethnic community fragmented into numerous transborder tribes by the British Imperialists – which further polarizes the already deeply divided State, the memorandum stated. 

It also mentioned how the request by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh to remove the Free Movement Regime, and its ready compliance by the Union Government is nothing short of a fresh attempt to set up an iron curtain between the same people who have been divided by the British colonial rulers, and is one of the continued efforts of the Manipur Government to shift the focus away from the root cause of the ethnic violence – the majority Meitei community’s hunger for ancestral tribal lands and privileges.

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The memorandum also cited how the open deployment of proscribed militant groups and State Police Forces at Moreh by the majoritarian Manipur Government and the withdrawal of affiliation to several schools in Zo ancestral territories by the Central Board of Secondary Education following interference by the State Government are continued attempts to stifle the Zo people at all fronts.

The letter also mentioned that the Union Government’s recent request to the State Government to examine a representation seeking deletion of the Zo people (“nomadic Chin-Kuki”) from the list of Scheduled Tribes in Manipur on the ground that the Zo people are “not indigenous to Manipur” is a blatant attempt to rewrite history to suit the majoritarian narrative and only end up widening the existing divide. It also talked about the Manipur Chief Minister’s continued attempts to mislead the public.

Having lost all its trust in the majoritarian Manipur Government, the ZCSC prayed for the hastening of dialogue with the groups under Suspension of Operations. 

The memorandum concluded that, with total separation sans administration already existing between the Meitei and Zo people in Manipur, the Union Government to create a separate administration in the form of a Union Territory with a Legislature within the framework of the Indian Constitution for the Zo people at the earliest. 

The ZCSC sees this as the only viable way forward, considering the deep faultlines already existing on all possible fronts between the Meitei and the Zo people.