Experts, professionals of Northeast have diverse views on Pros & cons of Inner Line Permit

AGARTALA: Experts, academicians and professionals of Northeast India have diverse views on the pros and cons of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) regulation that regulates movement of outsiders and excludes the ILP-administered areas from the purview of the new Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

After violent protests in the north-eastern states, local and regional parties including Bharatiya Janata Party’s allies — Meghalaya’s ruling National People’s Party (NPP) and Mizoram’s ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) — the Central government also exempted the Tribal Autonomous District Council (TADC)-governed areas besides the ILP-run areas from the purview of the CAA.

The ILP was in force in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and on December 11 promulgated in Manipur while the Meghalaya Assembly on December 19 cutting across party lines unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the Centre to promulgate the ILP in the mountainous State. The Assembly resolution and the State gazette notification already communicated to the Union Home Ministry and is expected to enforce ILP within two weeks.

Whether the ILP would hamper tourism, trade, investment, free movement of people in five of the seven north-eastern States excluding only Assam and Tripura, experts, academicians and professionals are in varied observations and judgment.

Former Vice-Chancellor of Assam University Tapodhir Bhattacharjee said that the people of Barak Valley region in southern Assam would be sandwiched and blockaded due to the ILP regime in neighbouring Manipur, Mizoram and Meghalaya.

“To go to Guwahati or other parts of the country by road, people of Barak Valley comprising four million people have to go through Meghalaya territory. It would be very difficult to take ILP every time people have to pass through Meghalaya State,” Bhattacharjee, a former legislator of the Assam assembly, said.

Bhattacharjee’s views were echowed by Assam’s Citizen Rights Protection Committee’s secretary general Sadhan Purkayastha.

He said: “Hundreds of small traders from southern Assam have to go to neighbouring Mizoram and Manipur for doing business. Hundreds of workers to maintain their livelihood are depended on the Meghalaya coal fields and various types of works in the neighbouring States. These people would be put in a severe awkward position. Experience of ILP regime in Mizoram is not good. For a petite issue, local people in Mizoram imposed ‘Bhai Curfew’ (unofficial embargo) against the outsiders.”

Purkayastha said that the future of four million populations of three districts of the Barak Valley region in Southern Assam — Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakhandhi — is very uncertain and miserable. The ILP was notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873, to allow inward travel of an Indian citizen into a protected area for a stipulated period.

The CAA will not apply to the ILP and the Tribal Autonomous District Council (TADC) areas. In the four north-eastern States there are 10 TADCs, constituted under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. While Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram have three TADCs each, Tripura has one.

According to Manipur University Professor and political observer Chinglen Maisnam, the ILP is a “pain killer”-like measure as we have to wait and watch whether the step would actually protect and promote the life, culture and economy of the indigenous people of the region.

“For the people of the north-eastern States, after an indepth study, special policies have to be formulated to deal with the economy, life, culture and traditions of the 45.58 million population of the region,” he said, and assumed that in long term the ILP might benefit the indigenous people of the region.

Assam Assembly’s Congress Chief Whip Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha said that imposition of the ILP in five of the seven north-eastern States is a conspiracy of the BJP-led Central and State governments.

“Non-tribals of the region are in imminent danger. Traders, workers, travellers and people of all walks of life in Assam and Tripura would be in trouble due to the ILP in most parts of the region. People of south Assam would face problem to go to different parts of the State as now they will have to take the ILP to use the Meghalaya or Mizoram territory during the transit,” Purkayastha said, adding that he would raise the issue in the Assam Assembly in the next session in February.

Political analyst Samudra Gupta Kashyap said that while ILP has helped to protect the indigenous tribal communities of various States of Northeast, several organisations in Assam have been also demanding introduction of Inner Line Permit in Assam.

“I don’t think ILP will adversely affect tourism. Tourism has been doing well in Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh despite ILP. Tourism anyway has not picked up in the real sense in Manipur during the pre-ILP era. It is difficult to say about trade and commerce,” said Kashyap, who wrote many books on numerous subjects of Northeast.

Guwahati-based Rashtriya Gramin Vikas Nidhi’s (RGVN) Executive Director and noted economist Amiya Sharma said that in short term, ILP might affect but in long run it would be familiar to all, specially the outsiders. RGVN is a national level multi-state development and support organisation working in all northeastern states and seven other states of the country.

Sharma said: “Indigenous and local people have to be equipped and made capable with the processing and better utilising the local resources, marketing and expansion of trade and business.”

Ashish Phookan, Managing Director of Jungle Travels India, a Guwahati-based leading tour operator, said that as per the Arunachal, Nagaland and Mizoram experience, the ILP in no way would affect the tourism in Northeast India.

“People from all parts of India including abroad every year took part in various traditional festivals in Arunachal and Nagaland including most famous ‘Hornbill’ carnival,” said Phookan. Around 40,000 foreign tourists and 800,000 domestic tourists visit the picturesque northeast region, of which variety of characteristics remained unexplored to even most Indians.

Prominent tribal leader and former Tripura Forest and Tribal Welfare Minister as well as former Lok Sabha member Jitendra Chowdhury said that if the entire northeast region exempted from the CAA, all contentious, agitating and historical issues would be resolved automatically.

“Rulers in Delhi never intensely and genuinely studied the people, demography, history and political consequences of Northeast India causing many problems remained unsettled,” said Chowdhury.

The Inner Line Permit is currently being issued for a minimum of 15 days and maximum for one year depending on the applicant’s purpose and necessity. The Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland governments are issuing the ILP through the online process facilitating any Indian to obtain this from anywhere in the country. (IANS)

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