ZBM slams tribal councils’ attempt to destabilise Zeliangrong unity

Dimapur, Aug. 3 (EMN): Zeliangrong Baudi Manipur (ZBM) has strongly come down on the so-called ‘tribal councils’ with their vested interest motive and attempting to destabilise the unity and strength of Zeliangrong people in collusion with outside forces.

ZBM president Poupoklung Kamei stated that the contention of the so-called tribe councils that ‘Zeliangrong’ is not a tribe but a name of the organisation itself was an attempt to mislead and contradict the findings of the anthropological research which concluded that ‘Zeliangrong people has the history of common ancestry.’

In this context, ZBM stated that the Zeme council, Liangmai council, Rongmei council are a group based organisations which has no authority to represent the Zeliangrong people.

“The genetic, inseparable and indestructible blood bound family history of Zeliangrong people which have been maintaining for ages without any form of disturbances or challenges from within and without is now trying to distort by some individuals without realising that their efforts to mislead and befooled the public through the so called councils are only fooling themselves and exposing their crooked minds,” ZBM statement said.

ZBM asserted that the proved of Zeliangrong people speaking one language is evident when they refer to folk songs and folk tales, name of persons, clans and descendants, name of village of ancestors etc. It added that some language variation started to develop after dispersal to different directions.

It went on to state that dialectic variation within the Zeliangrong family was magnified through the Christian leaders especially when the Baptist Christian group was split into smaller groups and floated different dialectic based nomenclatures such as Zeme Naga Baptist Association (ZNBA), Liamgmai Naga Baptist Association (LNBZ), Rongmei Naga Baptist Association (RNBA) and Inpui Naga Baptist Association (PNBA) instead of working towards developing common language and united Zeliangrong like the other tribes, whose wide division and differences in their tribe due to speaking different dialects were patched up and upheld their single identity by way of having common songbooks, bible, hymnals etc through Christianity.

ZBM has attributed the root cause of division to the failure of the literature groups and Christian leaders of Zeliangrong people in bringing out especially common textbooks, songbook or hymnal or bible but confined on respective dialectic based groups.

Stating that the dialectic based division would diminish and vanish soon with the rise in the number of educated people in Zeliangrong society, ZBM called upon every responsible Zeliangrong people to wake up and abandon those distorted and concocted history if they really wanted to do good thing for the Zeliangrong people.

With regard to the Court case issue or government recommendation for separate tribe recognition, ZBM stated that the tribe councils had filed a case in Gauhati High Kohima Bench without consulting the Zeliangrong social leaders, intellectuals and public on their own wisdom and on the advised and suggestions of some politicians and bureaucrats, which now resulted in derecognising of the Rongmei group of Zeliangrong family in Nagaland.

It stated that the recommendation and recognition as separate and distinct tribe by the government was in total contradiction to anthropological findings, which has now created complete chaos and might result to serious consequences. In such event, ZBM stated that the so-called councils would be held responsible.

Regarding the separate tribe recognition granted by the NSCN/GPRN (IM), ZBM also clarified that the recognition granted by one group or even by all the Naga underground groups has no logic to uphold and will not be binding.