Stop Lending Names To Non-Mizos: Mizo Church

Aizawl, Oct 1 : Mizoram Presbyterian Church’s social front has appealed to the Mizos to stop lending their names to non-tribals.

Voicing serious concern over this illegal practice, the church’s social front said, ''By lending our names to non-tribals, we are draining our economy for the benefit of outsiders,'' the social front’s communiqué said.

There are over 264 Mizos who earn between Rs 3,000 to Rs 10,000 monthly just by lending their names to non-tribals so that the latter get trade licences. These non-tribals who use Mizo names are beetle shop owners, iron dealers and even contractors and suppliers.

There are also a number of non-tribals who married Mizo girls in order to run business in the tribal state in the name of their wives.

In this process, the state government has also lost a huge revenue as the non-tribal traders have evaded income tax by trading under the guise of Mizo tribals who are exempted from the income tax, the communiqué said.

The social front further accused non-tribal contractors/suppliers, doing the business under Mizo names, usually used/supplied sub-standard materials.

This illegal practice, the social front feared, posed threats to the social and economic security of the indigenous people of Mizoram who are specially protected from the threats of assimilation since the British time.

''The British imposed the Eastern Bengal Frontier Regulation of 1873 in Mizoram since 1930 to protect the Mizos from the plainspeople who were much more advanced in trading activities and larger in number,'' it said.

The Church’s appeal came after the Young Mizo Association, the state’s biggest NGO, launched a state-wide campaign against such benami traders. The YMA has prepared a list of them and submitted it to the state government to take action.