How could Meiteis become "extinct" because of a mass influx of Mayangs
Is this paranoia? Of course not. Indeed indigenous Meiteis could become extinct or nearly so, like the "Manifest destiny" of Cacharis, Tripuris, many Burmese tribes and American Indians. Anglo-Americans justified taking native Indian lands and removing them from American society with the theory of "Manifest destiny".
When I was the middle school we were taught about the disappearing Cachari people with sketches of their likeness. Cacharis or Dimsa people who had their capital at Dimapur vanished because of pressure from the more numerous migrant Ahom people.
Many Non-Burmese indigenous tribes disappeared as a result of pressure from the more populous immigrant Bamar people. We were also taught with sketches of the indigenous Burmese tribe of the Kayan or the Kayan Lahwi (Long-necked Kayan) whose women elongate their necks with brass coils that increasingly wrap around their necks. Now they exist only as tourist attractions in Burma. Those who have visited Inle Lake in Burma will see them as exhibits during the Lake boat tour.
Many American Indian tribes have vanished without a trace. Many books have been written as to how they vanished.
There are various actual causes for this, but the main reasons that I will quote very briefly, are from Edward Curtis's work.
He writes: it always boils down to the different shapes and sizes of Western civilisations' greed and arrogance; their 'hunger' for forests, lands or gold; added to by missionaries' attempts to alter their unique cultures, often recklessly (no doubt with good intentions) to "save their souls" in the name of their God, or simply the pressures of growing populations.
The last listed cause is what confronts Meiteis. It is not "Social Darwinism" that the American Federal Government and the public at large, fervently espoused towards the disappearance of native Red Indians. The theory posited that cultures battled with each other in an evolutionary contest in which one was destined to triumph and the other to fade into oblivion.
Though there is some difference between Mayang and Meitei tribal cultures, Social Darwinism - the theory that persons, groups, and races are subject to natural selection, supported by Charles Darwin as he had perceived in plants and animals that were popular in late 19th and early 20th century, is not applicable.
The theory envisaged the life of humans in society and their existence is ruled by "survival of the fittest". Social Darwinism declined during the late 20th century (after I got my degree in biology) as an expanded knowledge of biological, social, and cultural phenomena undermined, rather than supported its basic tenets.
At the societal level, social Darwinism was used as a philosophical rationalisation for imperialist, colonialist, and racist policies, sustaining belief in Anglo-Saxon or Aryan cultural and biological superiority.
Though Meiteis are not weaklings by any count, they will have a great disadvantage against a numerically superior force. Superiority of numbers admittedly, is the most important factor in the outcome of any engagement.
The strategy of Meiteis against the possible onslaught of vastly numerous "social enemy" migrants is to take advantage of the "indigenous status' (presently proven by DNA studies), with an initial attack with speed and impetus to capture the high ground of Scheduled Tribe category.
That, a lack of stratagem for our defence would be self-destructive is supported by the scientific evolutionary theory that in some system the random variation (stochastic) in demographic rates (reproductive and mortality) is much higher for small populations than large ones. This variation in demographic rates causes the smaller population to fluctuate randomly in size.
They are more vulnerable to "genetic drift" (chance), resulting in stochastic variation in their gene pool, their demography and their environment, and thus they are subject to a higher chance of extinction. Further, smaller populations are more likely to become extinct due to environmentally generated population fluctuations than the large populations. That is why conservationists are often worried about a loss of genetic variation in small populations.
I am also worried in view of the tiny Meitei population cohabiting with an overwhelming large Mayang migrant population.
In this teeny space of Imphal valley, there will be a constant need for more food, fibre, water, electricity and other essentials of daily living to cater to the growing demand generated by additional people each year. There will be shortage of occupational and productive land.
Because of migrants' ingenuity in trade and commerce and having ethnic relations at various parts of India, they will become more prosperous and wealthy, while the impecunious urban Meiteis who are traditionally bereft of business shrewdness, will be selling off their land to the highest bidder immigrants and then move out family after family to a remote corner of Manipur valley.
When I was a school boy, a few Sikh War refugees from Burma via Morey, stayed on in Imphal.
They were selling their wares such as cotton yarns by the roadside at Khwairamband bazaar. By the time I finished my study and returned home, quite a few of them owned big buildings in the bazaar area, left by emigrating Marwaris, as they were doing roaring business. Sikhs are industrious but they also had contacts at Karol Bagh in New Delhi - 2m from Connaught Place - the most popular post-partition Punjabi shopping centre, established by migrants from Punjab.
These Sikhs became VIPs of imphal and The Rup Mahal Theatre even staged a drama on Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
Likewise, the prosperous Mayang migrants in Imphal will become more politically powerful with more opinionated influence on the existing Manipur government in competing for lands and annexing vast lands for themselves. They will become a vast majority in the Manipur Legislative Assembly flexing huge political muscles.
The enormous transfer of wealth from the indigenous to the immigrants would turn many Meiteis into refugees in their own city. Helpless and penniless they would retreat to the foothills of Koubru where Chingkhong Poireiton initially settled before he established the Meitei kingdom.
Like the attitude of early European colonialists of America, the approach of the new Mayang settlers in Imphal valley, might just be one of favouring extinction of Mongoloid Manipuri natives to homogenise Aryanism in Bharat, connived by the Central Government, as Manipur is strategically important and particularly, as the Meitei insurgents vowed to create an independent Manipur.
Logically, once Manipur becomes Aryanised the AFSPA or Protective Area Permit will become redundant while Meiteis will be forced to lose their own language and learn the Eastern UP/ Bihari language - the Khari Boli - a crude dialect of Hindi language that will become the State language, in the way Sylheti Bengali dialect has replaced Tripuri language in Tripura and Assamese in Silchar.
The medium of instructions in schools and colleges will be Khari boli Hindi. There will be no cinema halls showing Manipiri films but Khari Boli films, as it is happening even in Mumbai - the home of Bollywood.
There will be discrimination and increasing racism against Meiteis and tribal populations with an all out attack on our educational systems, cultural ethos and the system of governance. Christian tribals will be looked down upon as Dalits - untouchables, and upon their culture as primitive (jungalee) and atavistic as they do now in Mayang India. They will be discriminated against in important jobs.
The Underground/Revolutionary activities will soon be brought to an end as the Mongoloid looking faces could easily be picked out, as was the case for NLFT and ATTP insurgent groups in Tripura, culminating in the formation of Autonomous Tripuri Tribal Areas.
Once the migrant population has taken over the land and resources in the valley they will encroach upon the hill areas to explore for mineral resources and to deforest for sowing industrial crops such as tea and cardamoms.
This highly probable apocalypse of the Meitei race can be prevented if Meiteis stop being laissez faire couch potatoes, living forever in the cuckoo land of Manipur sana leibak, as kshetry-macha. It's good to remember that Meiteis are not thoroughbred Hindus, not unlike the few Muslims who recently converted to Hinduism in Agra. Hindus must be born.
Meiteis and Hill folks need to be conscious of the history of the annihilation of American Indians in the Europeans' rush for gold from the East coast to the west - California and Oregon via the Oregon Trail. The legendary story of cowboys and Indians (Westerns).
The native population of America declined from the estimated original of Ten millions at the time of Columbus's arrival (1492) to a quarter of a million by the 1900. By early 20th century Red Indians became a vanishing race.
But all is not lost for Meiteis yet. We are not an easily dying lot. There are robust pre-emptive measures we can take. We have at least found our origin and we can determine our end by a concerted public effort in sticking to the ST demand to replace us back in this right category.
What remains for us is to find ways and means of getting the ST status.
The writer is based in the UK
Email: imsingh@onetel.com
Website: www.drimsingh@onetel.uk.co
http://www.information.myanmaronlinecentre.com/how-could-meiteis-become-extinct-because-of-a-mass-influx-of-mayangs/
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