By Morning Star Sumer
Mr Toki Blah has now offered, for debate, his views and suggestions for a mechanism to contain influx of immigrants into our state. So, the readers now have a chance to offer their views either to support or to oppose the motion (proposal) that, The comprehensive 3-tier ID CARD is the mechanism for influx control (ST. Sep 11, 2012 ). I hope that all concerned citizens in the state will read the views of the participants and that concerned intellectuals would follow the debate and give their considered opinion and/or verdict on the exercise.
That said and understood, we are ready to start. To begin with, it is imperative that we agree on certain facts. One, that “Influx has tremendous potential to upset the delicate demographic balance that prevails in the region”(the proposer’s own words). Two, that ” Unregulated influx, therefore, poses a danger for both the genuine tribal as well as the genuine non-tribal of the state”. There are no “non-genuine” non-tribals in Meghalaya, unless one chooses to divide and sub-divide them according to one’s whims and fancies as the mover of the motion seems to be doing. Three, that we have only indigenous tribals, non-indigenous tribals and non-tribals in Meghalaya. Four, that the indigenous tribals are in danger of being outnumbered by the others and, therefore, that trend should be arrested and reversed.
It is assumed that it is agreed by all participants in the debate that the four facts mentioned here are incontrovertible. It is essential that we agree on these facts if the debate is to be meaningful.
In this write-up the writer has suggested that a 3-tier ID CARD is the solution to control influx of aliens into Meghalaya. The first flaw here is the use of the phrase Influx control, because what we need is to stop influx altogether. So now, we understand that the system offered is for controlling not stopping influx. It is necessary to differentiate between controlling and stopping the influx. Controlling influx means controlling the flow which will lead to the creation of loopholes through which influx would seep in. Stopping influx means putting an end to the flow. I leave it to the readers to comment on this. The proposal is to categorise citizens into 3 categories, namely, 1. Permanent category in which the indigenous citizens are grouped together with residents comprising non-tribals and non-indigenous tribals 2. Semi-permanent category comprising technical and skilled persons and 3. Temporary (floating?) category comprising of unskilled persons.
At a glance it is clear that the grouping of indigenous tribals together with the non-tribals and other (non-indigenous) tribals, would be unacceptable because it equates the others who are non-indigenous with the indigenous people, thereby opening a way for non-indigenous people to have right of interest in land and products of land. Non-indigenous citizens should not have the right to own land. So, if non-indigenous persons are grouped together with indigenous people, the non-indigenous would also claim right of ownership of land, if not now, later – much, much later. Therefore it is not acceptable. However, we should devise a mechanism to ensure that the legal descendants of non-tribals who had contributed to the development of Shillong are secure. It is necessary, therefore to have a National Register of Citizens (NRC) with the cut-off year of 1947 since the time India attained independence.
The second category of Semi-Permanent residents comprising of skilled (manual and/or intellectual) persons is promoted in the write-up as being needed for exploiting the “State’s enormous potential for coming up with a dynamic and viable economic resurgence, quality education, world class health care and IT…”. This category of citizenship is to eventually qualify to be promoted to permanent category status. Since it is already argued here that the idea of permanent resident-ship is not acceptable, this idea also falls through for the same reason.
The third category of temporary residents comprising of unskilled persons is promoted as being needed to solve the problem of providing cheap manual labour because local man power is expensive. This also is just promo material that is not needed.
Finally, it seems to me that the idea of categorizing or classifying the state’s population should never be encouraged because it will only complicate the problem which has become complex because of what could only be a machination/conspiracy of vested interests among our own legislators who, in complicity with other vested interests, have laid the foundation of a mechanism to rob us (the indigenous tribals) of our god-given gift – land, by having fiddled wittingly or unwittingly with the original Meghalaya Transfer of Land (Regulation) Act, 1971. I defend/support that statement by referring to all the amendment Acts of 1991, 2010 et al. to the Principal Act.
To end all arguments I humbly and most emphatically assert that whatever appellation/name – I.L. Permit, 3-tier or multi-tier Card, Licence et al – one may fancy, the prerequisite is that it should serve the purpose which was enunciated and expressed in a legal document and should also conform with the law. The power and strength of any law on citizenship rights is in the crucial element of land ownership. The law says, “It shall not be lawful for any person, not being a native of the districts, to acquire any interest in land or the product of land… in this behalf”. Therefore , the Permit/Card/Licence should conform with what the law says.
Any law will not be effective if enforcement is lax. Corruption continues unabated in spite of anti-corruption laws; rape is a daily occurrence in spite of the IPC. So this law also will not be effective if enforcement is lax. Government agencies, it is recognized by all, are not able to enforce laws because of either insincerity in discharging their duties or interference by influential people. Therefore we have to resort to the use of extra judicial mechanisms to help in making the law effective. We should take advantage of the CM’s (Dr. M. Sangma’s) revelation of his discovery of a mechanism better than the existing Regulation, to take him at his words and force him to empower the traditional channels of administration – the Rangbah Shnong, Syiem etc. – to participate in the process of denying entry of immigrants/infiltrators into the State.