Nagaland govt. told to be cautious with its version of NRC

An apex physique of Naga tribes has requested the Nagaland authorities not to be hasty with the train to put together the Register of Indigenous Inhabitants of Nagaland (RIIN), seen as a variant of Assam’s National Register of Citizens.

The Nagaland authorities has reportedly been making an attempt to revive the RIIN train that was launched in July 2019 with the acknowledged goal of stopping outsiders from acquiring pretend indigenous certificates for searching for jobs and advantages of authorities schemes.

The State authorities had shaped a three-member panel headed by retired bureaucrat Banuo Z. Jamir for “studying, examining, and recommending and advising” on the implementation of the RIIN. But the train was suspended following protests from community-based and extremist organisations.

The Naga Hoho, the apex tribal physique that had objected to the RIIN in 2019, has reacted to the State authorities’s alleged bid to implement it with a tentative timetable for various phases of the updating course of.

“The issue of RIIN should be handled with utmost care as it could have unforeseen and dangerous implications for the Nagas as a people,” the Naga Hoho mentioned in a press release.

The State authorities had tasked the RIIN committee with figuring out the eligibility standards to be an indigenous inhabitant, authority to authenticate claims of being indigenous, place of registration as indigenous inhabitant, the idea of claims of being indigenous; and the character of paperwork that can be acceptable as proof of being indigenous.

The Naga Hoho mentioned it was apprehensive of “dreadful consequences” if the “advocates of RIIN” implement the identification course of with December 1, 1963 — the day Nagaland attained Statehood — because the closing date for figuring out the “permanent residents” of the State. This date is probably going to exclude Nagas who’ve come from past the boundaries of Nagaland.

According to the Naga Hoho, Naga tribes residing in Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh in India and in Myanmar have a professional declare to their ancestral homeland.

“There are thousands of Nagas who have bought lands, built houses and settled down in Nagaland for several decades. In the absence of records such as land pattas, house taxes paid or enrolment in electoral rolls prior to December 1, 1963… many procedural anomalies will crop up even within the so-called pure Nagas of Nagaland,” the apex physique mentioned.

The Naga Hoho additionally feared that the non-indigenous Nagas might be handled as “illegal immigrants” and their lands and property confiscated. “The idea of the Nagas as a people to live together and their aspiration to live with self-determination will be irreparably damaged,” it mentioned.