Shillong, Mar 12:The constituents of NESO on Tuesday torched copies of the Citizenship Amendment Rules, 2024 in Shillong to protest against the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act in the North East.
Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) and Federation of Khasi Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP) took part in the protest organised by NESO.
Chairman of NESO Samuel B Jyrwa said not only in Shillong but in different parts of the whole NE region, different student organisations are burning the CAA rules, notified by the GOI on Monday
“Since the passage of the Act in December 2019, we thought that the GOI after four years will take into account the concerns, the apprehensions of the people of NE region but we are very disappointed that the GOI did not take into account the apprehensions and the objections of the indigenous people of the NE but instead went ahead with the notifying of the rules for the implementation of the CAA in the whole of India and also in the NE region,” Jyrwa said .
He added that this is against the interest of the indigenous people of the NE region.
“We are burning the rules to send a clear message to the GOI that the indigenous people of NE region are against the implementation of the CAA,” he said.
CM Conrad Sangma has said that the CAA will not have much impact on Meghalaya since Sixth Schedule areas of the state have been totally exempted frm the purview of the Act.
Jyrwa however said, “Well we cannot live in isolation as a NE region even though in Meghalaya, only the Sixth Schedule areas are being exempted, in Tripura, the Sixth Schedule areas are exempted and in Assam, the Karbi Anglong areas, Dima Hasao and the Boro areas are being exempted and the ILP states like Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur are also exempted but the main state of the NE region, which is Assam all the other areas of Assam are not exempted from the purview of the CAA and if Assam is affected slowly, gradually the other NE states will also be affected.”
“Just take for example even without the CAA here in the state of Meghalaya, we have seen the foreigners, non-indigenous people how they have become majority in many places especially here in Shillong and the border areas,” he said.
The NESO leader reminded that the Sixth Schedule does not talk about migration and does not have any power to regulate migration.
“That is why we feel the power to regulate the migration is with the state government and the central government. The State government has enacted the MRSSA in which as of now the High Court has stayed the implementation of the MRSSA and the ILP, the government of India has not granted for implementation of the ILP, that is why we are against implementation of the CAA,” he added.
Jyrwa said that the NE states have taken the burden of illegal migration from Bangladesh since 1947 continuing till 1971 and all those years, people from Bangladesh have migrated to the different NE region. “We have taken that burden and the NE region and its indigenous people cannot take that burden anymore.”
Jyrwa said the organisation will continue to hold peaceful democratic protest in the streets against the CAA.
“But at the same time we have also taken legal recourse in which we have filed a petition in the Supreme Court since January 2020 and we have firm faith and belief that the Supreme Court of India will give justice to the apprehensions, to the concerns and to the welfare of the indigenous people of the NE region”, he said.
Jyrwa said that since 1947, ‘what we have had is only political injustice. The Instrument of Accession in which the Government of India forced our chiefs to sign at that time, that also they did not honour till today. And in 1971, the GOI sent all the refugees to the different parts of the NE region without the consent of the indigenous people of those respective states and we have seen the illegal migration that is coming from Bangladesh and the GOI has only perpetrated the political injustice to the indigenous people of the NE region, that is why the indigenous people of the NE region do not feel close to the GOI, to the mainland India, the alienation is getting bigger day by day because of the political injustice is being perpetrated by the GOI against the welfare of the indigenous people of the NE region.”
