Patricia Mukhim
The fall of the less than one year old Executive Committee (EC) of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) would have been funny if it were not tragic. People voted their MDCs with the hope that they would safeguard the indigenous customary practices and traditions and help conserve their land, rivers and forests and mineral resources. The MDCs have failed in every respect because today the tribals, or at least the large majority of them, barring the land and wealth owning elite, live pathetic lives of landlessness, stark poverty and are rapidly losing their grip over community resources. Come elections and the emotional pitch about saving the Jaidbynriew from the ubiquitous outsider who is painted as the devil incarnate rises several decibels high. This same Jaidbynriew gets conned again and again because it is emotional, irrational and driven by the herd mentality. Our schools and colleges don’t teach students to reason; they don’t teach then enquiry training. Hence young people attend election rallies and meetings but dare not ask a single sharp query about the candidate’s overall performance in the last five years or his/her intent for the next five years. Many of course will not ask because their mouths are stuffed with notes and they choke on those notes during election time. One would have thought that the multiple pressure groups that have a bee in their bonnet about every issue would raise pertinent questions during elections. But that too is asking too much! All of them agree to conspire to remain silent.
I am not sure when this pathetic State and its Jaidbynriew will be able to take emotionalism off the political table. I also wonder when the Jaidbynriew will stop looking at the past but will reach for a future in a more pragmatic manner. When will the Jaidbynriew demand that the Councils engage in right earnest in the business of governance and that they do not do business while pretending to govern? A young MDC once confided in some of us that a certain contractor actually runs the Khasi Hills District Council and that he can even order the MDCs around. Well, that contractor could soon decide that he might as well contest the elections and do his business with the District Council funds. After all every MDC/MLA is also a Class I contractor! Put up your hands those who aren’t doing business. We shall honour you publicly!
If the Khasi people continue to feed into the insecurities and fears which are the seeds sown by the political wannabes before the state assembly and district council elections, they will continue to reap a bitter harvest. It’s time to scissor out emotions from political discourses. It’s time to ask hard questions. Who is controlling the KHADC? Or a better question would be: Which business lobby is controlling the Chairman and pulling the strings from behind the scenes? There is so much that is wrong about the Council’s functioning. The EMs in charge of Elaka have been accused of appointing the Syiems (chieftains) of their choice in one Syiemship after another. People have been left frustrated by the fact that elections to the Syiemship are manipulated by the KHADC. Appointment is based on how much that Syiem is ready to pay the Council. Then there is the coal lobby and the toll gate lobby too that have their own revenue models and they have always tried to win over individual MDCs to their side so they can run the business as they please. An Executive Committee does not just collapse because someone does not like the Chief Executive Member’ face or that of his team of Executive Members. It has always been the business-contractor lobby that has played a key role in the toppling games.
Having a Chairman who turns rogue at the drop of a hat; swings from one political party to another; jumps constituencies without any thought for the electorate and is the perfect opportunist has weakened the cause and mandate of the District Councils. In this case it has demoralized the KHADC completely. It’s ironic too that each time any member of the KHADC intends to address the hawkers’ issue and tries to regulate the proliferation of this genre of business, they are defeated at the first try. I refuse to believe that the hawkers are not paying protection money. So who are they paying to protect their interests? Who are the powerful lobby groups that want to protect not just the hawkers but the plastic lobby as well? Remember that the economics around plastics is a huge one. What is even more stunning is that the Congress party is fishing in troubled waters. But why would they not since everyone is just itching to sit in the seat of power.
The District Council is fast losing its claim to be the protecting shield of the Jaidbynriew. The MDCs have become the laughing stock because of their inability to unite around issues but are quick to converge to topple EC after EC; to unite instead around business interests and to stab their colleagues in the back. This surely is not what the Councils were envisaged for. The master craftsman of the Sixth Schedule was a man of God – a pastor who honestly believed that his people needed an instrument to safeguard their customary practices so that they are not engulfed by the tsunami of mainstream Indian culture and so that their lands and natural resources remain with them. The Sixth Schedule is what continues to grant the tribals their right to get jobs and educational opportunities under the quota system because they are thought to be living at the frontiers of civilization and are not ready to compete on a level playing ground. But anyone observing the shenanigans of the MDCs would not be misled to believe that they are in any way more backward than the mainstream politicians. On the contrary they are, perhaps much more wily, avaricious and devious when it comes to playing the politics of opportunism.
It is another matter that people continue to vote these vainglorious politicians with super-sized egos, not at all commensurate to their cerebral capacities. I have said this earlier and I repeat this because it merits repetition. Most MLAs have not read the Indian Constitution; nor have the MDCs the Sixth Schedule. They don’t feel the need to because there is no one to actually question them. We the people have given them a cushy time to move in and out of these august positions; to flit around like VIPs (most undeservedly and because the voters are largely illiterate or greedy or emotional fools).
Each time we have elections we are always reminded of a past that is a minefield of trauma and we are promised a future that’s obscure because it lacks a roadmap. It’s a future ridden with ambiguities which are not related to the Council’s mandate. Who has given the KHADC the mandate to now start running tourist resorts? It has to be the contractor lobby. And how did the Council acquire the land around the Umiam Lake? What’s the modus operandi here? Instead of running resorts which is bound to land the KHADC in scams just like the Monolith Festival did, why can’t the Council instead focus its attention on the landlessness that the indigenous people are facing today? Why not have a cadastral survey, not because the Council wants revenue from land owners but to establish the ownership rights and to prevent the further privatisation of common property resources such as water sources, rivers, forests, minerals et al. Does the KHADC even spend time on these critical issues? If not then what is the reason for your existence? It’s time for the tribal people of Meghalaya to introspect if the District Council is really an instrument that protects and safeguards indigenous cultures.