By Babet Sten
What do you think Hormu Rai Diengdoh, Rabon Sing Kharsuka, Radhon Sing Berry Kharwanlang – three seminal names that come up often on talks about Khasi Literature – all have in common? It wasn’t just that they all had cool “ma ‘khar” names, which also reveals a lot about Khasi genealogy. These three writers (I am not entirely sure of the last one honestly) were also “backsliders”. Backslider, I should explain, was a term used by the Catholic Missionaries to refer to the Christian converts who went back to the old Khasi faith. You can find this quite explicitly in the archival text called The History of the Catholic Mission. These three men had education on their side, which allowed them to ‘backslide’ relatively easier than their less fortunate brethren in the villages. The next logical question is why would they do such a thing? Being a Christian after all meant benefits – not the Hell and Heaven type – but earthly advantages. If you chose to convert, you had better options at social mobility, education and, of course, power. It was a good deal and many people jumped on it.
The British Government allowed missionaries to subvert the cultures they administered – they called it conversion, I call it subversion – because Christianity served as a perfect “social cement” to create an illusionary atmosphere of solidarity with and good intent for the ruling class (the British) and their docile, timid subjects. Timidity, as Nietzsche highlighted, is probably the worse lesson that religion can ever instill. This is because it allows the status quo to go unchallenged. Earthly wrongs are not confronted because God will punish people or revolutions will not be started because this god thing will punish the tyrants and so on. It is perfect for the rulers. Along with timidity comes acceptance and with acceptance comes in-bred ignorance. But these men were not ignorant and in their own manner undermined the status quo by “backsliding”. They understood that it was not a simple question of conversion but rather what that conversion forces you to accept and to discard. It seems that after much thought they decided that it was not worth losing the local for the foreign. The price they pay, today, is their obscurity or strictly secular considerations by the mostly Christian scholars of the state. The Catholic Mission also goes on to describe how entire villages were split up between “believers” (Christians) and “non-believers” (non-Christians). People were forced to migrate to other areas to escape alienation. This is a very heart-rending process more than it being a physical one. Shifting agriculture after all necessitates nomadism. There is reasonable doubt though whether this was as prevalent in these hills as it definitely was in the sub-Himalyan hinterlands. Nonetheless, the feeling of divestment must have caused not a few scars to fester in the non-Christian tribals. This resentment must be heightened particularly at times when they hear Meghalaya being called a “Christian state”. I can’t blame them. I find it in bad taste as well. Why does it matter if this is a Christian state? In human development indices we are woefully behind. Should I blame our Christian statehood for this? Nietzsche, that eternal funnyman, would have laughed his head off if he saw our church leaders sitting next to our politicians. He would have nodded knowingly. Is this a manifestation of our Christian ethic?
Last year, concerns were raised for the Autumn Festival to be rescheduled because it fell on a “holy day” and one of the strongest voices was that of the KSU. What does that say about politics and religion here? What business did the KSU have in such a thing?
The fact of the matter is that there has been widespread discrimination against the indigenous non- Christians. To counter that alienation the Sein Raij was formed about a hundred years ago. It has been a fairly powerful equalizer for the non-Christians. The Christian community has pushed it though, to a stance which is both conservative, and in many ways, unsustainable. When I was a child, I had always wanted to dance at Nongkrem but I was not allowed to simply because I was born into a Christian family. Khasiness has been hijacked by the Raij as much as the KSU. Both of them seem to have one thing in common – an antiquated notion of Khasi identity. They think too much of the old days, about what they’ve lost and thus when confronted with modernity can be fascistic. They now run the risk of alienating themselves further from the public and we have seen this happen progressively in the last few decades. The result has been a culture that is tangled both in complicity and, for the younger crowd, irrelevance.
These custodians of culture should have been trying to deal with “foreign corruption” through prolonged and humanistic attempts at revival. Not the revival of the old dead ways but the recreation of the culture. They have been addressing each other’s ways and not the common problem. Both cry foul. Though, it seems to me that genuine loss was suffered by the Raij and not the pro-Christian Khasi nationalists.
Another source of enmity that the Christians have for the non-Christians is over the issue of Hindu influence. If you walk up towards Motphran from Police Bazaar, you will see on your left an Arya Samaj building of considerable age. It is very distinctive since it is red in colour and I think outdates the actual ‘mot phran’ (that thing in the middle of the road) itself. In the early years of the 20th century, after its formation, the Sein Raij was able to acquire prime real estate around Iew Duh (commercial hub of Shillong) and so were a number of Hindu organisations. This was before the introduction of the 6th schedule, of course, but also it highlights the ease of association between the Raij and the Hindus. In their quest for preservation and the sustainability of their customs, the Raij needed a powerful ally to curb the Christianisation of these Hills. In the Arya Samaj, and to an extent the secular Brahmo Samaj, they found such an ally. Unlike the Europeanised Christians, the non-Christians realised that they had always been in close proximity and need of the non-tribals from the surrounding plains. They were traders and had connections all over the north east so the need for relations with non-tribals was imperative if one moved in Bangla and Assamese circles. For hundreds of years they had been doing this and living like this. When the British and missionaries arrived, not only was their faith endangered but also their business interests. They would, of course, turn to groups who felt similar problems and form an affiliation.
Most of the Khasi (Christian) nationalists would not like to believe this but we have always been ‘in cahoots’ with non-tribals. We had done work together, we had lived together and had children together. This question of who is Khasi is impossible to answer because it isolates us and forces us to think of ourselves in isolation. Go to Polo and ask this question of a Khasi looking person and also look at what his lineage is. The downside to the Raij’s associations with the Arya Samaj and fundamentalist Hindutva groups is that in the quest of identifying and avoiding Christian influence they might unwittingly be influenced by Hindutva elements. I have seen this trend somewhat manifesting itself in the attitudes and opinions that non-Christian Khasis harbour. To ward off this danger the balancing act must be maintained and motives of either camp -Christian or Hindu – questioned. The Raij should not give up one shackle for another. More than this, relevance, and a real one, rooted in the lives of the people must be initiated by the Sein Raij. It should transform itself into a cultural organisation and not follow the constraints of a religious one. I am more hopeful of seeing this from the Raij, if at all, because the Church appears unwilling to budge and indeed if it truly pursued this earnestly, it would ultimately undermine its own authority. Though, both have ‘understandings’ with our politicians, the Raij is the lesser offender only because of the pervasiveness of the Christian influence on our political scene.
We speak of Catholic belts (Laitumkhrah, Nongthymmai) and Presbyterian belts (Mawkhar, Jaiaw) during elections and it is very telling of how the entire political circuit is divided along religious lines. I would not trust any religious body so closely tied in with the secular administration. They would not want to unsettle their own power by asking their followers to look beyond the churchyard.