Nagaland government to prepare register of indigenous inhabitants

KOHIMA: The Nagaland government has taken an ambitious initiative to prepare a RIIN (Register of Indigenous Inhabitants of Nagaland), said officials here.

Principal Secretary (Home), Abhijit Sinha also convened a consultative meeting of all the tribal Hohos and organisations here on Friday to frame proper modalities and systems to achieve this objective.

An official of the Home Department's Political Branch said that the presidents of 21 organisations were invited to the consultative meeting, where Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, Deputy Chief Minister Yanthungo Patton, senior other Ministers and officials were present.

Nagaland had earlier constituted a committee on ILP (Inner Line Permit) and the committee recommended that the 'RIIN' be created. The State government had earlier also formed a commission to frame modalities for implementing the RIIN.

Earlier this year, the JCPI (Joint Committee for Prevention of Illegal Immigrants) had urged the Chief Minister to pass a legislation to make RIIN an Act and fix December 1, 1963 as the cut-off date. The proposal was supported by various organisations.

According to officials, the main purpose of making 'RIIN' is to identify the citizens who settled in Nagaland prior to December 1, 1963, the day it became a full-fledged State. Once the process is completed, persons whose names are included in the 'RIIN' would be issued indigenous inhabitant certificates.

Of Nagaland's two million population, over 86 per cent are tribals from 16 major tribes and several sub-tribes. All the tribes have their own festivals which they hold sacrosanct and require compulsory participation. Nagas and other tribes celebrate their distinct seasonal festivals with a pageantry of colour and a feast of music.

Each tribe in Nagaland has its own dialect. There are about 60 different spoken dialects which belong to the Tibeto-Burman family of languages and dialects. These dialects have no script of their own. Tribes speak to each other in Nagamese, an amalgamation of various other dialects. (IANS)

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