From CK Nayak
NEW DELHI, Dec 16: Voice of the People Party MP Ricky Andrew J. Syngkon on Tuesday petitioned Union Home Minister Amit Shah to implement Inner Line Permit (ILP) in Meghalaya, a long-standing demand of the people.
Syngkon submitted a five-page letter to Shah, pointing out that Meghalaya is similarly placed with Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram where ILP has been implemented.
He said ILP has not done any harm to any of these states in any manner and instead, it is helping the Centre and the states in maintaining internal security.
Syngkon said the recent passage of the Immigration and Foreigners Bill, 2025 and the Centre’s stated resolve to tighten regulation of illegal immigration provide an important opportunity to integrate ILP into a coherent national strategy.
“An ILP regime in Meghalaya, linked digitally with central databases and harmonised with existing immigration, foreigners and border-management laws, would serve as an additional layer of documentation and screening, he said.
The Shillong MP further said that ILP will be in alignment with the constitutional scheme for tribal areas as the Constitution, through the Sixth Schedule, recognises the special character of the tribal-dominated hill areas of the Northeast and provides autonomous district councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram to protect tribal land, culture and customary institutions.
ILP, as implemented in Arunachal, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur, has the same underlying objective—to prevent unregulated settlement of non-indigenous populations in sensitive tribal areas and regulate inward movement in the interest of security and cultural preservation, he said.
He pointed out that Meghalaya is a tribal-majority state with a fragile ecological setting and a history of anxieties around demographic change.
“Extending ILP to Meghalaya would, therefore, not create a new category; it would bring the state in line with similarly-situated northeastern states and complete the protective framework that the Constitution and Parliament have already envisaged,” he said.
Syngkon said the fear of people in Meghalaya is not of visitors or genuine residents but of an uncontrolled, long-term demographic transformation that could, in time, mirror the experience of some other states in the region.
He mentioned that in once tribal-dominated Tripura, the ethnic communities have been reduced to an absolute minority. Assam, he said, has seen unprecedented demographic changes.
“ILP does not expel any law-abiding Indian citizen. Rather, it requires that those who enter the state register their identity, purpose of visit and duration of stay, thereby deterring clandestine settlement and land acquisition through benami or proxy means,” Syngkon said.
He stated that ILP would help reconcile two legitimate interests – the right of indigenous communities to preserve their demographic and cultural distinctiveness, and the right of other citizens to visit, work and invest in Meghalaya in a regulated, mutually respectful manner.
“Meghalaya also shares a long, porous international border with Bangladesh and a fluid inter-state boundary with Assam, which has struggled for decades with illegal immigration and is presently undertaking evictions in certain border regions. The state government and security agencies have repeatedly highlighted the risk of spillover and secondary migration into Meghalaya, both across the international border and from neighbouring states,” the MP said.
He stressed that ILP will enable authorities to track patterns of inward movement and identify suspicious or repeated entries, deter elements seeking to use Meghalaya’s tourism routes or porous borders for unlawful activities, and provide reliable data to both the state and central governments for security planning and demographic analysis.
In doing so, he added, ILP will strengthen, rather than dilute, the Centre’s capacity to secure the international border and maintain internal security in a sensitive frontier region.
He suggested that the Centre constitute a joint technical committee, comprising officers of the state and the Ministry of Home Affairs, to finalise the framework for ILP implementation in the state, ensuring synergy with MRSSA and national immigration laws.
He said the Centre should provide a clear communication to the Parliament and the state Assembly on the status and the roadmap of the ILP proposal, so that citizens are reassured that their concerns are being addressed through due process.
The MP reminded that the Meghalaya Assembly had in December 2019 unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the Centre to include the state within the purview of the ILP system.
“This rare all-party consensus reflected a deep and long-standing concern across our society about demographic vulnerability, land alienation, and unregulated influx,” he said.
Since then, he added, successive state governments have repeatedly placed the ILP demand before the Prime Minister and others while civil society organisations have pursued the matter through entirely peaceful and constitutional means.
He said public anxiety has persisted in the absence of a conclusive decision on the matter.
