The Government of India has not yet clearly made any substantial statement accepting that illegal immigration from Myanmar to India through Manipur porous borders are taking place for a long time, let alone informing the country candidly, how it intends to check the infiltration taking place and a road map.

Though the government is in denial, the Manipur government’s data does show that infiltration is happening and few hundreds have been identified.

With the situation being volatile in the state of Manipur and converted to a militarised zone, the Government of India has indirectly accepted the problem and an order to complete biometric by September 30 is being ordered for those people having entered the country illegally.

The process is long and tedious in the middle of an armed conflict. The conflict itself is because to facilitate the establishment of people who do not belong to this country, this has been established by now. The Manipur conflict is not between two communities as the two communities in question had been coexisting for long with many in the bureaucracy telling us as well as history also reflecting that when the Kuki community had fought with the Nagas, it was the Meiteis’ who protected them.

Now suddenly why this conflict took the shape of a bloody fight between the two communities in Manipur when the Meiteis’ have been protecting the Kukis? It is because the Government of Manipur realised that many infiltration of illegal migration is happening through the borders of Manipur and sudden demographic changes were observed. Thousands of new villages started cropping up in the periphery of reserved forest and thereby penetrating the forest area.

Climatic conditions started changing in Manipur with mass cultivation of poppy by converting the forest area into a poppy field. This is when the Government started a campaign against the illegal business and in order to protect the reserved forest. In parallel, the call on war on drugs was given which made the cat and mouse game fiercer.

Many powerful parties were affected and that has created the point of contention and conflict. The situation went to the extreme when the Government of Manipur decided on to constitute a committee to undertake population survey of the state in line with many states undertaking the similar exercise, particularly Nagaland.

Assam had already undergone a failed system of NRC and the Union government as of now is not progressing on the NRC model for the country, at least not during this term of the Government. So what does a state like Manipur do to stop the infiltration? The border with Myanmar is porous and mountainous. The fencing work will take years and there is a pressure of displacement of people from the adjacent Army ruled Myanmar.

The state Government can take up the Population Survey Commission and undertake a rigorous system of identifying its own citizens. The mandate of any Government is to protect the life and properties of its own citizens. Today due to the conflict fifty thousand and more people in Manipur are displaced. Why? Because some power is trying to create a disturbance so that the illegal immigrants can carve out a land for themselves and mix in the Indian vibrant democratic system.

But India is already the most populous country in the world and it cannot afford to take any more people from any country. India is thus not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees.

So India will do what it has to do to protect its own people but to be serious about protecting the country from any more onslaught of refugees, we have to give priority to the issue seriously.

No illegal immigrants should be settled in our country and Manipur should start immediately the Population survey it has decided to undertake and the mechanism should be vetted through the upcoming Assembly that the Governor has called on August 29.

By doing so the present Government as well as BJP as a party will be able to get back the lost confidence of the people of the state and the country…