Shillong, Oh My Shillong
By Toki Blah
On Sunday I sat in church listening to an inspiring sermon on hope. Hope, according to the message from the pulpit is the most endearing facet of human existence. It sustains life; it beats eternal in the human breast and as such a virtue that needs to be cultivated and nurtured. Needless to say I walked out of that service high on hope. My steps led me to Motphran square and there abiding Hope within me took a sudden nose dive and vanished. What hope can survive and exist surrounded by filth and unswept garbage; overflowing drains and leaking water pipes? Even on a Sunday, Motphran was full of litter and literally stinking. People were tiptoeing on the road, kerchiefs to their faces skipping over putrid rivulets from the sewers. With a sinking heart one is forced to ask, “Is this my home town. Do I really live in this stinking place?” The fact of the matter, however much we try to deny it, is that civic management within Shillong city has totally collapsed.
For the uninitiated, Motphran is where we Khasis put up a monument to commemorate unlettered ancestors who had the guts to step into the unknown; who faced trench warfare in far off Flanders and who literally showed the World that here was an indigenous community ready to step out of its misty past for its tryst with unknown destiny. The War Memorial at Motphran, in that sense, was a symbol of Hynniewtrep Courage and Hope. The Motphran of today on the other hand is a damning testimony of the changed mind set of this generation of Khasis. Inward looking, timid and with a narrow world view, we now have a tentative unrealistic approach to the future – by looking backwards. No one wants to think about the future. Everyone prefers to be cloaked in the comfort of an imaginary golden past. Some revere it as Tradition. Truth is, tradition has failed to provide answers for 21st century problems. Urbanisation is one such 21st century problem and dirty unkempt Motphran a glaring example of a traditional mindset’s inability to cope.
An unthinkable question pops up, Is Shillong dying? Look around you. Look beyond your garden walls. Look what’s happening outside your respective shnong/dong and the unfortunate answer is a forlorn YES! The Scotland of the East is no longer the picturesque small hill resort of the late 19th century. It’s now a sprawling unplanned city and ‘unplanned and uncared for’ shall be its ultimate epitaph. Shillong’s greatest weakness is the absence of a workable and viable urban management plan. We have the Shillong Municipal Board, MUDA and the urban Traditional Dorbars. The unfortunate part is instead of working together, in tandem, for the general welfare and wellbeing of the common man, they are perpetually at each other’s throat. Today if we wish to express our revulsion and outrage at the filth, the smell and the decline in our civic wellbeing, as citizens of this city, to whom to we turn to? Who will come to our rescue? Disgustingly, no one!
There are two reasons, backed by irrefutable evidence, why Shillong is dying. First, Shillong is literally running out of options on how to deal with its waste. Our once pristine mountain streams have become black stinking drains; our roads and footpaths littered with rubbish. Countless workshops, seminars and committees formed on how to manage our waste. Everyone is concerned. Everyone cries for action. It usually ends up with everybody pointing fingers at everyone else. At the end of the day, the fact remains that we have miserably failed to come together with any holistic solution to a collective problem (no pun intended). Every time an urban management proposal to save Shillong is put up, we end up with a paradox. Traditionalists and sentimentalists, who suspect anything new and glorify everything that is old, have consistently opposed all moves towards a better managed Shillong. Their world view ignores the fact that we are now literally being forced to live on top of garbage and that only maggots, worms and rats are biologically designed to do so. Humans are not and we all might have to eventually leave our homes if this toxic urban environment continues to build up. Question is, are we sacrificing Shillong in the name of Tradition? Is the city already doomed?
Then there is a second more imminent threat to the existence of this beloved city of ours. As we tinker with unpleasant truths the reservoir at Mawphlang from where the PHE draws its water for Shillong and Greater Shillong has probably only about five years of life left! This is a cold, sombre statement of facts devoid of any frills! Rampant and unregulated stone and sand quarrying in the upper reaches of the stream that feeds into the GSWSS reservoir has led to heavy siltation of the dam area. The dam and its machinery will remain intact but the reservoir will silt up, covering the intake pipes and then making pumping impossible. Shillong’s water supply will dry up. There will be no water to drink. No water to cook food in. People will be forced to leave town and the city will turn into a ghost town. Question is, are the authorities unaware of this looming disaster? The recent announcement of a need to amend the Catchment Areas Act (ST 3/7/12) would indicate that they are alive to the situation. So, is there hope for the city? I’m afraid not for when anxiety over Political survival take precedence over a matter of life and death, it does not instil hope. Not in the least!
Let us again accept bitter facts, however unpleasant they might be. Firstly, Assembly elections are due in 2013 and no politician or political party is willing to rock the boat (vote?). Political discretion calls for a delay. A totally invalid excuse for inaction of course, but there you are. So the excuse being given is “Govt cannot impose a blanket ban along the catchment area since real ownership of land is with private owners”. What has one got to do with the other is unclear? Instead of regulating quarrying, a proposal for land acquisition is being given as the solution to the problem. It’s all poppy cock! Pure Bull! Where are the funds for such purchases? Will it happen before the dam silts up or centuries later? The whole episode once again reveals the reluctance of those in power to take hard options. Our entire environment is being lost but the Mining Policy is yet to see the light of day. With all due respect to our leaders, soft options are not always the best options. At times we need to take the bull by the horns and this is one such occasion to do so.
In administrative parlance there is a term known as ’eminent domain’. Eminent Domain, in the context of this essay would mean the mandate and power of the state to intervene and curtail private enterprise in favour of public welfare and interest. Sec 133(b) CrPC provides that when ‘the conduct of any trade or occupation-; is injurious to the health or physical comfort of the community – such trade or occupation should be prohibited or regulated.’ Interestingly the concept of eminent domain is quite common and universally practiced in our own traditional system of democracy. When the good of the community (ka bha ka miat ka imlang ka sahlang) is threatened, its protection takes precedence over the rights of the individual ( ka hok u shimet). It is simply a traditional interpretation of the concept of ’eminent domain’. It is a concept indigenous people are quite comfortable with.
Now if quarrying is posing a threat to the ambitious GSWSS project and is injurious to the people of Shillong city, why can’t the concept of eminent domain, through Sec 133 CrPC be applied? This will put an immediate stop to the quarrying without affecting ownership rights over land. On the other hand the proposal to acquire private land is fraught with uncertainty. It will cause an uproar and a hullabaloo that in all probability will divert everyone’s attention elsewhere than the threat to Shillong city. For reasons best known to the authorities, there is an attempt to keep the threat to the GSWSS away from the public domain. We however believe that since the public of Shillong are the ones to be directly affected, they should be the first to be informed. They need to be told. We believe the public has a right to voice its concern, ask hard questions and demand for viable solutions. We strongly believe that all of us should still retain the right to Hope!
(The author is President, ICARE, an organisation that focuses on issues of governance).