By Patricia Mukhim
I find it hard to believe that we’re living in 21st century Meghalaya. Here is a society that is, apparently civilized, educated and with the proclivity to emulate the west in our deportment. But when it comes to superstitions we can be stiff-necked and join the company of irrational lynch mobs. We have all grown up hearing tales of the “menshohnoh.” These are people who are believed to rear a serpent called ‘U Thlen’ which is fed human blood by its keepers; in turn the serpent blesses them with wealth. So far there has been no evidence that such a serpent exists. No one has seen the so-called ‘menshohnoh’ actually get into the act of abducting humans and draining out the blood from their bodies to feed the serpent whenever it is afflicted by seasonal hunger pangs. Not one of us can swear to having seen the serpent dancing on the roof top of its keepers in the guise of a fish or a cat when it is hungry for human blood. But these are stories we have heard from our parents and grandparents. And they are stories we have repeated to our friends as gullible children. This is how legends are kept alive I suppose.
Not even Christianity with all its liberating influence has managed to clear the cobwebs of superstitions from our minds. We may be Christian in faith and in the way we sing and speak (the twanged Americanised English) but when it comes to customs, legends, folklores etc we are very traditional in our beliefs. When someone suffers from an unexplained ailment we still believe in divination. Many of us still depend on traditional healers as opposed to allopathic medicines. There is nothing wrong with being faithful to our cultural practices, some of which are value-based and enhance the quality of human life. But superstition is something else. And superstition is what the Khasis call “ka jingngeit biej.’ This is the darker side of our history and I suppose every society has its underbelly which it is not proud of. The question is whether we should deal with this ugly underbelly or pretend as if it does not exist.
But the ‘Thlen’ and the ‘menshohnoh’ are not our only predicament. We have ‘ka taro ka shwar’ (a sort of black magic), u nongai ksuid (a sorcerer) etc. The Khasis also believe in ‘ka bih’ which they believe is a sort of poison put by people in their food or in betel-nut and betel leaf, again for the purpose of gaining wealth. The intellectually advanced dismiss such things as mumbo-jumbo. Their argument is that in an egalitarian society when some people become richer than others, the only way of cutting them down to size is to attribute their affluence to some unnatural cause. Hence the Thlen. Perhaps this is also a way of giving vent to jealousy. Interestingly, only some Khasi clans are believed to be nurturers of the ‘Thlen.’ There are instances of such clans or entire families being socially ostracized and driven out of their villages. They have had to seek shelter elsewhere.
Now the problem arises when superstitions lead to mob fury and some people are identified as menshohnoh and their fates are decided by archaic kangaroo courts. How can we have modern jurisprudence and antediluvian tribal laws to co-exist without doing harm to ourselves and our psyche? We have to either trust one or the other. But this has been the undoing of Khasi society. When it suits us we approach the traditional institutions and when we feel we stand to gain through the civil laws then we don’t mind modern jurisprudence.
A couple of months ago a family from Mawlai were accused of practicing black magic only because a mentally unstable girl had some kind of dream. It was the quick intervention of the law enforcers which prevented matters from getting into the hands of a lynch mob. What is surprising is that after having inflicted so much damage to the reputation of that family and destroying their furniture etc, the Dorbar Shnong steps in as arbiter and asks the aggrieved family to ‘forgive and forget.’ The law enforcers pull back and things are back to normal. How easy it is for all concerned! Some years ago an entire family’s house was set ablaze, also in Mawlai because it was believed that they were ‘menshohnoh.’ No one has been apprehended in that ghoulish incident. Police say it’s difficult to identify any single person in a mob fury. I would say this is too easy an alibi!
Makes me wonder if we are a democracy or a mobocracy. Now, because it is so easy for a mob to get away with murder such heinous acts are repeated once too often.
Last week three men were lynched in Sohra because they too were said to be ‘menshohnoh.’ Two of them succumbed to their injuries; one of them was mentally unstable. The district administration has now got into the act and the law ‘appears’ to be taking its course. It also appears that the Dorbar Shnong of that area has met to condemn the incident. But surprise of surprises. The Rangbah Shnong blamed the women of the area for instigating the men to go for the jugular of the three suspected ‘menshohnoh.’ How convenient to blame women of being hysterical and irrational and how easy it is to absolve the men of criminal acts. Rumours are our biggest enemy. Agreed. But the Dorbar Shnong should have got wind of the rumour as well and stepped in before things got out of hand. Otherwise, what’s the role of the Dorbar Shnong?
Now what has prompted this article is the conspiracy of silence that we are all complicit in. There are organisations willing to punish rapists and thieves and those committing lesser crimes. The only Human Rights organisation we have in our state focuses on the ‘rights’of some and not of others. So it appears to me that we all subscribe to the notion of the ‘menshohnoh’; that we condone the killing of people we have judged to be menshohnoh and that we do not believe such people have a right to a fair trial. The church too has been silent on this matter, preferring not to touch it with a barge pole. Its business as usual every Sunday as preachers give us mundane examples of life as it obtained in the Israel of yore. Does it mean then that the church encourages superstition?
Should we not have heard some sane exhortation from this body? Should the socially conscious organisations not condemn such barbarous acts? This is a worrying trend. We are, in fact, saying that we do not wish to take a stand on this socially sensitive issue lest we become pariahs. I say we have to resolve this matter once and for all and decide whether we believe in the ‘Thlen’ and all its ramifications or exorcise this societal demon from our minds. At the end of the day… its pure and simple psychosis fuelled by superstition.
(The writer can be reached at patricia17 @rediffmail.com)