Citizenship Bill: ‘Govt. has no right to appeal for reviewing bandh’

Dimapur, Feb. 10 (EMN): The Nagaland Voluntary Consumers Organisation (NVCO) has declared that the Nagaland government has no right to seek reconsideration from civil society to call off their agitation on February 11 against the controversial Citizenship Bill.
The NVCO issued a press release on Sunday stating that the government had kept saying that it would not oppose the Bill, “with silly excuses.” The organisation dared the authorities to show in what way they were protecting the state and its people through the provision of Article 371 A of Indian Constitution or through the protective regulations such as the Inner Line Regulation.
The organisation expressed ‘fullest support’ to the state-wide bandh called by the Nagaland GB Federation schedule for February 11. The NVCO stated that the state’s government had ‘no moral right to appeal civil society organisations to reconsider state-wide bandh on February 11.

Even the lone Lok Sabha member had voted in favour of the most controversial Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016 which is solely against the interests of the present and future generation of our Naga society,’ the press release stated.
The organisation lamented that the Nagaland government had for a long time “been pleasing the master by taking a stand – ‘we don’t oppose Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2016’ with a silly excuses that the Nagas are protected by Article 371 A of the Constitution of India and the Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873 referred as the Inner Line Regulation.”

The organisation questioned as to how far the state’s government had been protecting the rights of the Naga indigenous inhabitants through the provision of Article 371 A of Indian Constitution when “so much of lands are owned by the non-Indigenous inhabitants of Nagaland…”
The NVCO queried further the extent of the state government’s enforcement of the Frontier Regulation ‘when the non-Nagas and the (illegal immigrants) almost control the markets in Nagaland.’

‘The state government comes up with draft time to time but never comes to a conclusion, which shows their insincerity and don’t care for the interests of its citizens. The state government still remain silent about the demand of the people to apply the BEFR (ILR) to the commercial hub of the state Dimapur,’ the NVCO stated.

‘The Nagaland and Revenue Regulation (Amendment) Act, 1978 clearly stated that the entire surface of the earth crust within the territory of Nagaland is to be owned by the Naga indigenous (people) and not by the non-Indigenous inhabitants of Nagaland.’
Further, the NVCO has expressed strong opposition to the statement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday during an address at a public rally saying that the ‘Citizenship Bill won’t harm interests of the Northeast.