CAMPUS NOTES
St. Edmund’s College turned into an ‘intellectual war zone’, witnessing a heavy onslaught of arguments and counter arguments being shot at from all fronts in the recently concluded State-level seminar organized by the Department of Political Science as part of its Golden Jubilee Celebrations.
‘Electoral Politics in the State of Meghalaya’ turned out to be the most befitting topic selected by the department aimed at imparting ‘political awareness’ to the public in general and the student community in particular.
The state level seminar saw participation from a number of well known faces, both from the political arena as well as those from the civil bodies. The list of speakers included the Deputy Chief Minister B M Lanong, who was also the chief guest on the occasion, along with Mawprem legislator Manas Chaudhuri, leader of the People’s Movement and Nongkrem legislator, Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit, the president of ICARE, Toki Blah and other dignitaries namely Dr SL Marbaniang, Prof LS Gassah, Dr AK Nongkynrih and Dr S Sengupta.
The young students of the College who formed the majority of the audience were made known of their rights through the seminar and were given the message ‘to press the button of the Electronic Voting Machine’ with intelligence and not mere excitement.
The organisers of the day-long event were of the view that such topics of discussion will not only create awareness of their voting rights among the students but also alert them to vote without emotion and after a prior analysis of the system.
Justifying their choice of topic for the state-level seminar, the organisers mentioned that everyone had to be informed on the intricacies behind elections and their role keeping in mind the upcoming 2013 Assembly elections.
The day’s proceedings were divided into two sessions. The first session saw four speakers elaborating on the topic of the seminar and Prof L S Gassah, head of the Department of Political Science, North Eastern Hill University (NEHU) started it with a brief talk on ‘Review of Literature on Electoral Politics in Meghalaya’. He pointed out that Electoral politics was not a new phenomenon in the State and could be traced to the 1952 general politics. “From 1952-67 there were nine territorial constituencies in the then United Khasi Jaintia Hills. After the formation of the state of Meghalaya in 1972, there were 60 assembly seats assigned to it during the elections in March 1972. This new development witnessed more participation, challenges and issues,” Gassah said.
He dissipated a lot of background information on electoral politics and also mentioned that electoral process is an index of the state’s electoral progress.
Following this, local MLA, Manas Chaudhuri took the stage to educate the masses on his chosen topic, ‘An Overview into Electoral Politics in Meghalaya’. He started with an eye-opening statement saying, “Time Magazine had referred to Obama as an under-achiever and Meghalaya too has been an under-achiever despite the Central government’s financial package amounting to crores of rupees especially in the area of development”.
He questioned the audience as to why this should happen and explained that a major part of the answer is that electoral politics of Meghalaya has been more of a bane for the state.
He also stressed on another fact that people of Meghalaya were not voting for one party as the different tribes and sub tribes all have their own priorities and there is no common thinking. “The size of the constituency is small and victory and defeat depend on non-political factors such as candidates knowing the electorate personally and merit is not the most important quality,” he said.
Chaudhuri also stated that the electoral politics of the state suffers from inadequacy of the law related to the timely action of the judiciary.
He gave the example of the year 1991 when the Speaker of the house had dismissed five members and the court took a long time to come up with a verdict on this politically motivated action on part of the former. Infact, by the time the court came out with the verdict the government had already completed its term. “In other words, the system itself is flawed,” he concluded.
Later, president of ICARE, an organisation that focuses on issues of governance, Toki Blah shared his ideas on the topic ‘Problems and Challenges of Elections in Meghalaya’. The audience that comprised of a significant number of young voters were glued to their chairs as Blah stressed on two issues, one concerning Parliamentary Democracy and other relating to the kind of challenges facing Meghalaya politics.
He mentioned that there was an ‘incompatibility of traditional concepts of democratic practices with imported concepts from the West’. He added that the West’s perception of Equality and other similar ideals are related to the individual which contradicts the Khasis’ traditions related with the clan or “jaitbynriew”. The principles of traditional democracy are accountability to super being, liable to history, tradition, heritage and answerable to the community. The outcome of all this is a confused electorate. He wrapped up by mentioning the third issue which concerned the reasons why people vote and it involved personal and party affiliations.
The final talk of the first session was delivered by Dr S L Marbaniang, who spoke on ‘Issues and trends in Elections’. This was more of historical perspective as he highlighted the masses on what happened ‘then’. He hit hard on the politicians with his statement, “Politicians are like magicians who make plenty of promises and that is why it is important for the electorate to be aware of issues that concern them and the state and for this education is very important. Thus, the Right to Education is an important step taken in the right direction.”
The highlight of the second session was the talk by leader of the People’s Movement and Nongkrem legislator, Ardent Miller Basaiawmoit. He enlightened the people on ‘Money Power in Elections’.
He started off by marking money as an important factor in the elections. “Money serves the purpose of meeting the expenses that needs to be covered in an election. However, candidates tend to misuse the money,” he said.
“They use the money for influencing voters. This trend is already alarming in our state,” he added. He mentioned that it was pretty obvious that a politician working in this manner has the least interest in the welfare of the people of the state. Ardent emphasised on the ‘Clean Corruption’ campaign that was launched to fight against corruption and mentioned that it aimed to serve the people better and create a political culture between the representatives and the people.
Ardent stressed on the point that it is only through the awareness and consciousness of the people that corruption can be eradicated.
There were voices from the NEHU arena with Associate Professors taking part in the talk as well. Dr S Sengupta from the Political Science Department spoke on ‘Regional Agenda and Assembly Elections in Meghalaya – An assessment’. She said that the creation of Meghalaya in 1972 also resulted in the formation of regional parties and their goal lay in the preservation of their tribal identities. “Though regional parties worked for the region, the question of elite class seems to have penetrated into state politics,” she said.
Dr A K Nongkynrih, Associate Professor from the Department of Sociology, NEHU spoke on ‘Political Parties and Electoral Politics – views of educated youth’. His paper stressed on the youth’s perspective or observation on the nature of a democratic government. He stressed on the methodologies adopted by political parties to garner votes.
Curious young minds took an active part throughout the seminar, popping questions that needed the most basic answers at times. A student from the department of Political Science questioned on how people could be made aware things if they are not interested to which Ardent replied, “We have to explain the system of functioning to people and make them aware of their rights”.
This was a nearby similar answer when another student raised his concern saying that Ministers rarely get any support from public when they function in a clean manner and perform dutifully.
In all it was a great experience for the Edmundians who witnessed the seminar which saw the participation of the personalities who matter in the state.