The following is the Editorial from the newspaper Imphal Free Press published on 08.08.2015, on the issue of large scale migration of people from one state to another within India. A well-reasoned, objective and thought-provoking Editorial, the essence of which applies to all the States in the South India too.
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Room for naturalisation
One of the most magnanimous gifts that a society blessed with a sense of confident and of security is generosity of spirit. Peace would prevail in such a society too. From all indices, Manipur at one point in its history seemed such a society. One of these indices is the demographic makeup of Manipur. The place does not have a homogenous population, but all owe allegiance to their common homeland. But to go away from the larger canvas of the whole state, even amongst any single community, for instance the majority Meiteis, as we had suggested before in these same columns, if a genome study were to be done, it would be discovered how varied the ancestry of this same ethnic group are. Even during recorded historical time, we know this has been the case, and the kings have always encouraged naturalisation and assimilation of settlers, and within a few generations they would be indigenised. In King Khagemba’s time the story of the Pangal (Muslim) invasion from East Bengal in 1606 is well known. The defeated Muslim army was allowed to settle, take local wives and given Meitei surnames to ultimately indigenise. The leniency of course had also to do with the new agricultural and fishing skills the Pangals brought in, falling in the broad pattern of the general outlook of Zomia in matters of skill acquisition that Yale professor, James Scott picturized. Similarly, in the early 18th century, the Brahmins missionaries (Bamon) also were absorbed into the Meitei society. Predetermined by its geography, the Imphal valley would have been a melting pot of ethnicities. The Meiteis themselves, as we know, were formed by the assimilation of seven ethnicities (clans). But the assimilation process did not end there. We also know how many Meitei surnames are distant relations of different hill tribes too. And no doubt about it the society is all the richer for this.
If immigration is controlled and regulated to the extent the society can absorb without detriment to itself, there should be no objection to it. And as we also again already observed in an earlier editorial, those campaigning for the introduction of a regulatory mechanism should keep this in mind, and classify immigrants into two broad categories. In the first category are those who would end up as colonisers becoming the masters of the place’s resources and displacing the original populations. In the other would be those who would assimilate and be part of the collective milieu of the place, unreservedly placing their loyalties to the place of their settlement. The pleas of the local Telis and local Nepalis etc, must therefore not fall on deaf ears. We can also look at how societies which have had similar policy outlooks progressed phenomenally. The story of Singapore which completed half a century of independence earlier this year, is a case in point. Its founder president, Lee Kwan Yew, actively encouraged immigrants, especially those who were skilled, to be assimilated into the Singapore society, and undertook social engineering projects to ensure peaceful, productive co-existence. This generosity of spirit, as Singapore has demonstrated, is not just a matter of ethics and morality, but also of prudent visionary economics and politics. The other case would be America of the 20th Century, and the immigration policy of the time. We are not of course talking of the White colonisation of the earlier centuries and the genocide of the Native Americans. In fact, there have been volumes written how the 20th Century is considered the American century precisely because of its immigration policy. Behind a good majority of the business and scientific innovations of the century that America boast of today, including the Atom bomb, were naturalised immigrants.
The ILP or an equivalent is necessary, but there must be qualifications. It must not be about shutting all doors and windows, but of regulation to ensure the indigenous societies can accommodate settlers to their benefit. It is a fine line that must be drawn, and provided the existential logic behind such a line is well argued out, there is no reason why the state as well as the Union governments would not agree to the proposal. What the society must also be wary of is that it cannot always be swimming against the tides of the time, and therefore must be resilient enough to adopt and flow with the epochal currents. In a discussion, a Naga gentleman many in Manipur are familiar with, Niketu Iralu, who has been places, including New Zealand to study the issues of indigenous peoples, said there is only one pure blooded Maori left in this world today and he met him. But the Maori identity is still alive and vibrant, and no one dares tell those calling themselves Maoris today, be they blue eyed or fair skinned, they are not Maori. Identity is also about believing in being owned by an identity, and not just about genes.
Leader Writer: Pradip Phanjoubam
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