What is Inner Line Permit?

One of the clauses in the bills is to set 1951 as the base year to identify non-indigenous people, who are regarded as outsiders. The new law decrees that those settled in Manipur before 1951 will have legal sanction to own property. The rest will have to give up their property and may even be asked to leave.

This is akin to the system of the Inner Line Permit in vogue in Mizoram, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh. Two of the three main ethnic groups in Manipur — the Nagas and the Kukis — have not backed the agitation for the implementation of the Inner Line Permit.

It has primarily been a demand of the tribal Meiteis, the third key ethnic group, who live predominantly in Imphal, the capital of Manipur. The Meiteis live in the oval basin of the valley and account for about 60% of the state’s population. Nagas and Kukis live largely in the hilly areas, in lands already protected under the Sixth Schedule and governed by customary laws.

The new state laws, they feel, will allow Meiteis to strengthen their claim for Schedule Tribe status and make incursions into the hill areas. Inner Line Permit (ILP) is an official travel document issued by the Government of India to allow inward travel of an Indian citizen into a protected area for a limited period.

It is obligatory for Indian citizens from outside those states to obtain permit for entering into the protected state. If you’re an outsider and want to travel to MiNA (Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh), you’ll need this Inner Line permit (a type of certificate/paper). Even if you’re an Indian citizen and wish to travel to these places, you’ll need an ILP.

This provision was made by Britishers under an Act called as Bengal Frontier Provision Act,1873. An outsider cannot take away any rubber, wax, ivory or other forest product (or any book, diary, manuscript, map, picture, photograph, film, curio or article of religious or scientific interest outside these inner line permit areas.

This ILP provision was made to give special protection to the indigenous people. ILP is applicable only to MiNA (Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh), but it is not applicable to Manipur. Because MiNA was under the British control till independence, but Manipur was a princely state; so ILP wasn’t implemented here.

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