CHURACHANDPUR, March 10: The Joint Action Committee Against Anti-tribal Bills has said that since the tribal MLAs who have been boycotted shall not be allowed to set foot on tribal territories and not be given any platform in public functions and ceremonies.
According to a statement of the JAC, it has on September 12, 2015 unanimously resolved to declare public boycott, till further notice, on all elected tribal MLAs who refused to feel the pulse of the tribal populace and declined to resign in spite of the mounting pressure.
It said the All tribal Students Union Manipur had made an appeal on August 30, 2015 to all tribal MLAs to abstain from the special session of the Manipur State Assembly wherein the three bills viz, the Protection of Manipur Peoples’ Bill, 2015; The Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (seventh amendment) Bill, 2015 were intended to be passed, however, the appeal has gone unheeded.
It said the tribal apex bodies Kuki Inpi, Hmar Inpui and Zomi Council in their meeting on September 1, 2015 had unanimously given an ultimatum to the Hill Areas Committee to convene a meeting at the earliest and take appropriate steps to either repeal the Bills or insert exceptional clause in the Bills within 10 days.
However, no response in any form was received from the Hill Areas Committee till date, it claimed.
The JAC, in its emergency meeting on September 7, 2015 had resolved to support the 10 day ultimatum given by the tribal apex bodies and agreed to impose public boycott on all elected tribal MLA’s if no desirable response is received from the Hill Areas Committee by midnight of September 10, 2015, or if they do not tender their resignations, it said.
No response of any kind was received from the Hill Areas Committee till date, it added.
It said there were rumours of the resignation of some of the tribal MLAs, and a media team was sent to verify the same on September 12, 2015, however, the media team failed to get any satisfactory response from the tribal MLAs, it said.
Since the tribal MLAs have not changed their stand till today, the JAC would like to reiterate that the resolution made on September 12, 2015 still stands.
The JAC would like to stress that it is the collective responsibility and duty of every right-thinking tribal individual to ensure the effective implementation of the resolution and continue firm with the JAC’s inclusive fight for tribal land and identity, it said.