SHILLONG, Sep 25: Members of the Khasi Students’ Union on Wednesday met Governor Chandrashekhar H Vijayashankar to seek his intervention in six pending issues, primary among them being implementation of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) in Meghalaya and the inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
Speaking to reporters after meeting the Governor, KSU general secretary, Donald V Thabah said they told the Governor that the Assembly passed a resolution on both the issues that have been demanded for a long time.
In a letter submitted to the Governor, Thabah said the ILP under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) of 1873 is an effective mechanism to combat and regulate the entry of outsiders into states where the indigenous inhabitants are microscopic in population.
“Almost all of the states in the Northeast are endowed with this mechanism, thereby maintaining their indigenous demographic structure. Manipur was the last state granted the ILP mechanism by the Centre in December 2019,” he said.
He said the KSU started highlighting the ILP issue in 1985 and petitioned successive governments for its implementation without any positive response from the Centre. “We appeal to you to kindly facilitate the swift implementation of ILP in Meghalaya,” Thabah told the Governor.
On the inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eight Schedule, he said the standardised Khasi with numerous dialects spoken in the districts of Ri-Bhoi, West Khasi Hills, East Khasi Hills, South West Khasi Hills, West Jaintia Hills, and East Jaintia Hills is a thriving language with approximately 15 lakh speakers in the state.
He said the language is also being used and spoken by other Khasi tribals in Assam, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, and Bangladesh.
“Inclusion of the Khasi language in the Eighth Schedule, therefore, is a genuine demand raised before the Government of India since the 1960s by the Khasi Authors’ Society and since 1992 by the KSU,” he said.
He also said the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) is a contentious issue in Meghalaya and the rest of the region. This Act seeking to grant citizenship to all non-Muslim migrants from neighbouring countries will have a detrimental effect on the fragile demography of the state.
He said the KSU’s opposition to the Act is not against any particular religion or community but is driven by the fear that the immigrants from Bangladesh would threaten the existence of the small indigenous tribal communities.
“We fervently appeal to you to kindly intervene with the Centre to repeal the CAA to safeguard the microscopic indigenous communities in the North East,” he said, also flagging the Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty of 1950 that allows Nepali citizens to acquire Indian citizenship without any conditions.
“Since the 1980s, Meghalaya has seen a surge in the Nepali population which poses a threat to the minuscule tribal population leading to unwanted conflicts between the two groups. The immigrant Nepali community is also creating problems in the bordering areas of Meghalaya, challenging the rights of the indigenous tribal people to their land and state,” he said. He said Meghalaya should be exempted from the purview of the treaty to avert such conflicts in the future.
He further said Meghalaya shares about 900 km of porous border with Assam and there have been territorial disputes between the two states since Meghalaya was carved out of Assam in 1972. The disputes have cost the lives of many people, he added.
The KSU president asserted that disputed areas such as Langpih, Block I, Block II, Khanduli, Psiar, Moolber, Moojem, Sabuda, and Nongwah-Mawtamur belong to Meghalaya as they fall under the jurisdiction of the traditional institutions headed by the Khasi chiefs.
“Despite ongoing talks between the governments of Meghalaya and Assam to resolve the long-pending disputes, there are still territorial conflicts between the citizens of these two states,” he said.
The KSU also demanded an autonomous agriculture university in Meghalaya, pointing out that the Centre approved the establishment of this university in 2010 on a 200-acre plot in Ri-Bhoi district’s Kyrdemkulai.
“However, there has been no initiative from the Centre so far,” Thabah said.
