Hill-Valley Conundrum over “Anti-Influx Bills” in Manipur, Northeast India

Abstract

The paper examines the contentions and contestations over the anti-influx bills passed in 2015 by the legislature of India’s northeastern state of Manipur. Passed in the backdrop of the demand from the state’s valley-dwelling majority Meitei community for a legal framework to regulate influx of “outsiders”, the bills evoked hostile reception from the hill-dwelling tribal communities. This paper sees the contestations that ensued over the bills as an emanation of the enduring hill-valley divide in the state. The bills’ contents and various provisions, as explicated in the paper, bear the weighty imprint of the majoritarian impulses that seek to erode the extant institutional and legal safeguards for tribals. This unsettles the tribals who perceive the bills as a trespass in their distinctive constitutional status. The paper concludes by underlining the import of a cautious public policy making, lending agency to the tribals and a deliberative policy-making processes.