Mizo students take pledge not to marry ‘outsiders’

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Mizo students from different high schools of Aizawl on Monday took a pledge not to marry non-Mizos or “outsiders”.
The pledge was administered by the leaders of the state’s apex students’ body, Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP), which has launched a campaign against inter-ethnic marriages to “protect the Mizo tribals from the danger of being overrun by non-tribals and to preserve their identity and culture”.

Addressing the students, MZP president L Ramdinliana Renthlei said, “Marriage within our own tribal community is one of the best ways to protect our existence. The Mizos are a small community and we are facing the threat of being overrun by migrants from outside the state who could one day become a majority in our state. It is high time that we consider those who are marrying non-Mizos are traitors since they are making descendants of non-tribals to grab rights of the tribals.”

He urged Mizo students to have the feeling of patriotism and make sure that they marry someone from their own community.

Renthlei further said that under the Mizo customary laws, when a girl marries a man from a non-tribal community, she automatically becomes a non-tribal and she as well as her children cannot enjoy tribal rights.

Last year, the Young Mizo Association (YMA), a powerful youth organisation in Mizoram, had demanded enactment of a law to ensure that any Mizo woman who marries a non-tribal loses her scheduled tribe status.

Such a legislation, if enacted, will take back scheduled tribe status of any Mizo woman who marries a non-tribal, it said.

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