What’s in a name? In strife-torn Manipur, new law will make changing names of places punishable

Another instance that had garnered attention was a locality in Imphal known as Paite Veng – Paite is a Zo sub-tribe and Veng means colony – where the name ‘Kwakeithel Ningthemkol’ was asserted by resident Meiteis through a new signboard. This tug of war also finds a reflection in the names of places on Google Maps.

On Friday, the Manipur government announced that the state’s next assembly session will begin on February 28 – the second since the start of the ethnic conflict on May 3 last year. The previous one was just a day-long, on August 29, and lasted all of 11 minutes. It wrapped up without a mention of the violence which has engulfed the state.

Among the Bills that the government is looking to table this time is the ‘Manipur Names of Places Bill 2024’. A proposal for the bill, prepared by the Land Resources Department and approved by the state cabinet, states that the objective is a law to “establish an institutional mechanism to enforce correct use of names of places” as well as to “lay down procedures for giving names to places, and also for altering names of places”.

The draft bill proposes to make the “misuse of names of places” a punishable offence with a penalty, upon conviction, of one to three years of imprisonment.

“There have been multiple instances of the use of unauthorised names of places by certain individuals or groups of people or organisations, with possible malafide intent, which had the potential to create confusion in the administration of the state,” states the proposal.

“Certain administrative challenges are also faced due to such unauthorised use of names of places at the time of discharging their duties by government officials,” it added.

Under the proposed Act, a ‘Place Names Committee’ will be created to make recommendations on the names “subject to the approval of the Government”.

In the last assembly session in August, the 10 Kuki-Zomi MLAs of the 60 member assembly were absent, as they said they would be unable to travel to Imphal for security reasons. However, there was no legislation work that was taken up or discussed. While the MLAs could not be reached for comment, it is unlikely that they will attend the coming session.

Even before such a Bill was proposed, on October 5 last year, Manipur’s Chief Secretary had issues an order warning of action against organisations and individuals involved in “deliberately renaming or trying to rename districts, sub-divisions, places, institutions, and addresses of such institutions”, stating that these could aggravate the law and order situation in the state.