In Meghalaya there is opposition against every project under the sun. The rail-head was stalled a quarter century ago because of the fear psychosis fed by pressure groups (now euphemistically termed NGOs) then. The same NGO is still opposed to goods trains coming here. Those who can hear between the cacophonies know that the protest against the railhead was orchestrated by truck owners who did not want their trade to become obscure. And that’s the modus operandi used by anyone with a vested interest. In Meghalaya, therefore, when someone protests against something or the other our antennae go up immediately because we know there’s a catch somewhere. Noisy protests have often suddenly died down even before the issue is addressed. Someone has obviously been silenced and we know how. Currently the topic of heated conversation anywhere is the arcane, ubiquitous traffic jam. Yet if we follow the trail of NGO activity over the months and years we find a stunning silence from them on this distressing issue. Why so? Why are NGOs who do not spare a thought before putting the government on the mat on less consequential issues, so silent on the role of trucks in building massive traffic jams? Is there a symbiotic relation between truck owners, coal dealers, cement barons and NGOs? Is this something we have misread?
A huge chunk of Meghalaya’s NGOs thrive on press releases on banal issues. If all the NGOs of Jaintia Hills were up in arms against the cement companies and also the illegal coal mining in virgin forest lands, would mining continue to this day? Although there is one or two Facebook driven NGO campaigning aloud against the environmental destruction in that district, they perhaps do not have the numbers to bring the Government to a halt. It’s true that the whole world has expressed concern over the slow death of the environment in the coal and limestone belts of Jaintia Hills (over Facebook) but those voices are not enough to take the Government and all those disruptive forces to task. Perhaps public interest litigations (PIL) would have helped. So why is there as yet not a single PIL filed against the mindless, rapacious mining of mineral resources in forest land, minus a mining policy? And there are facts to prove that mining has indeed been carried out in forest land; some even within reserved forests. Google maps will show this very clearly. Armed with so much facts why are there not enough public spirited NGOs to defy the might to the coal and cement mafia? Isn’t this curious? It’s time NGOs too are held accountable for their action (or selective action) and inaction!