Nationwide campaign for ST tag for Meitei going on: MMTU

A civil society organization (CSO), spearheading the campaign for restoration of ST status for the Meitei/Meetei on Sunday said that it has launched nationwide campaign achieve its goal.
The Meetei/Meitei Tribe Union (MMTU) is seeking the restoration of the Meetei/Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) list under Article 342(1) of the Indian Constitution.
While seeking restoration of the ST status, the MMTU maintained that the demand was not for fresh inclusion but for the restoration of the community’s status.
It claimed that ST status from the Meitei/Meetei was “wrongly omitted” in the early 1950s.
The MMTU asserted that its campaign for the ST status for the community was being taken up at the national level with the objective of reaching out to political and religious leaders, as well as scheduled tribe communities across India.
The CSO cited various historical records to substantiate its claim that ST status from the Meitei/Meetei was wrongly omitted.
It asserted that the Meetei were originally recognized as a “Hindu Hill Tribe” by British authorities.
It referred to colonial-era documents such as the 1891 Census report compiled by Census Commissioner JA Baines and Assam Census Superintendent EA Gait, which reportedly classified the Meetei as a hill tribe.
The MMTU further referred to the 1912 publication Ethnography (Castes and Tribes) by Baines and the 1908 book The Meitheis by TC Hodson, both of which described the Meetei as a tribal community that adopted Hinduism in the 18th century.
The MMTU added that successive census records, particularly those of 1921 and 1931, continued to list the Meetei as a hill tribe in Manipur.
It said that in the 1931 census report, the Meetei appeared at serial number one among the 14 hill tribes of Assam province.
The MMTU stated that in April 1949, ahead of the formal merger of Manipur into India, the then ministry of states had asked Manipur’s Dewan (Political Agent) to submit a list of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the state.
The statement noted that the list forwarded on June 6, 1949 by the then chief minister MK Priyobarta included 24 tribes as STs and two as SCs, but did not include the Meetei.
This omission, it alleged, led to the community’s exclusion from the ST list in the final version notified after India’s Constitution came into effect in 1950.
The Meetei/Meitei Tribe Union further highlighted that following a complaint from certain Kuki groups, the official list was revised to include only the broad categories of “Any Naga Tribe, Any Kuki Tribe, and Any Lushai Tribe”, which excluded the Meetei entirely.
The union expressed concern that the exclusion of the Meetei from the ST list has had far-reaching consequences on the community’s constitutional safeguards and political representation.
It further stated that despite historical recognition, the Meetei continue to face disadvantages and marginalization in their own land.
In view of the historical, ethnological, and constitutional evidence, the MMTU was pursuing constitutional remedies to correct the historical lapse and ensure the restoration of the Meetei community in the Scheduled Tribe list of India, the statement finally asserted.