By Patricia Mukhim
The months preceding the elections in Meghalaya have always been tumultuous. In the past we have seen agitations and bandhs hurting the lives and livelihoods of those who need to get out to work so they can buy their next meal. The unfortunate part is that there are far too many people employed in the government and other organised sectors who wait with bated breath for a bandh to drop on their laps. Even bank employees are not immune from this malaise. Such categories of people who get paid whether or not they come to work are the ones who make a bandh successful. Then there are the shop owners and others who are too keen to please the bandh callers lest someone throws a stone or petrol bomb at their shops. But isn’t every swanky shop at Khyndailad insured against riots and some such stuff?
The problem, as I see it, is that we have all become terribly self-centred. So self centred in fact that state and country can go to hell for all we care. The sense of shared responsibility for the common good is no longer part of our tribal culture. We are tribes only because we are listed in the Sixth Schedule. For all practical purposes we have become mainstreamed in our choices, our ethics and our love of the good life. Especially the good life without sweating for the money! Extortion was never a tribal trait. Now, no tribal organisation however noble the professed goals can say that it does not extort money from the different vulnerable business holders in the state. From fruit to vegetable to fish vendors everyone is extorted; hence the spiralling prices of everything in the market. The quid pro quo is complete. Those who pay are not harassed. Those who don’t face the heat!
And in all of this you see a government that has nothing to say to the bandh callers except to go by the same clichéd appeal to its employees and say that it is providing transport and that they should turn up etc…What about the common citizens? Does the government not have the onus to solicit their cooperation to break the bandh culture? Can it not appeal to the nobler ideals of good citizenship? Looks like the government is as cynical as the man on the street about its own mandate and efficacy. The reason we elect representatives is because we believe those leaders represent our common aspirations. When citizens are bullied by a few so-called activists whose presence is not more than our ten fingers, I wonder where are those MLAs we have elected. Whose views are they representing? Can they not mobilise the citizens in their constituencies to break these bandhs? Why are they so timid? Or are they with the bandh callers?
It is very convenient to throw the ball at civil society for every crisis and to say that there’s only that much government can do. While I agree that bureaucrats can hum that tune being as they are a breed of self serving individuals whose concerns for their own sustenance overrides all other concerns and because of whom the country is today in shambles, I wonder why politicians don’t behave differently. They are elected to serve the public interests. But to throw the ball to the court of civil society and expect that some amorphous group will emerge to challenge the strident, lumpen elements is to be naïve and simplistic. There are so many ‘social’ organisations in Meghalaya that if each one seeks to call a bandh we might have a bandh a day for 365 days. And the way we have all capitulated to the bandh call by the Hynniewtrep Achik National Movement (HNAM) a nondescript group with a demand that borders on the bizarre, just goes to show that we will have many more bandhs in the coming days for the simple reason that the government of the day has no spine to stand up to the lumpen.
Imagine the dare-devilry of a group that creates havoc in the neighbouring state of Assam and when its members are arrested they dare to hold the entire state of Meghalaya to ransom. Look at the audacity of the group when it dares the Meghalaya government to release the arrested offender or else…… That it succeeded to make the bandh call a success has only enhanced its bargaining currency. And just for the sake of gaining some legitimacy the HNAM has also tagged along the pernicious border issue with its demands. How sick is that! Do we all agree that someone who is an offender should be bailed out by the government? Is that why the bandh was successful? In that case should not all those in our prisons be released first?
The point here is that the rule of law is nearly absent in Meghalaya. The mere presence of that law and order machinery does not necessarily mean that it works. It needs a favourable eco-system within which to function. And this law and order machinery is so used to taking its cue from politicians that it will not even lift a finger and follow the natural course of law enforcement unless coerced. Even in the 21st century it is so evident that the police force still serves its masters rather than the citizen. One recent incident serves to convey this message even more forcefully than we can envisage. When Rev Miller who is alleged to have committed some serious offences, reported sick and was hospitalised instead of going through the due processes of law, Ms Angela Rangad and others who are pursuing the case and want the molested child labourers to get justice, they went and met the chief minister. Their demand is that political pressure should not be used to queer the Miller case.
In the above case, it appears that there is a public perception that political pressure is necessary to decide what course of action the judiciary takes. What does a chief minister have to do with any case? The fact that Ms Rangad believes the chief minister could intervene and speed up the process of justice and that one of the demands is not to allow Miller out on bail is to my mind a bit skewed. Miller’s getting out on bail would depend on how the prosecution builds up the case against him. Knowing how ineffective our public prosecutors are and how the case could actually collapse like a pack of cards because it hangs by a frayed thread, could the CM intervene and say, “No bail for Miller?” He would then be treading on the judiciary!
These are some of the problematic issues. While we all say that we do not want political interference in law enforcement and the judiciary we also have no qualms about pressurising the government to put pressure on the judiciary on selective cases. If the case collapses for want of evidence or because at some stage some of the complainants back out, do we then expect the CM to step in and push the judiciary or question its role in this issue? In a similar vein, the HANM too is expecting the government to exercise its clout and put pressure on another government to release the offender even before the wheels of justice have moved. It’s a peculiar situation and one that is fraught with more complexities. If the government succumbs to this pressure of the HANM then it is colluding with a law breaker because in the normal course of things no one actually gets arrested without reason. And if that has happened then we need to know the details of what happened so we can judge the case on its merits before we support a bandh called on its account.
For a long time Meghalaya has suffered from weak governance and a listlessness that comes from not having a clear sense of direction about where to go. This is only getting reinforced and even as I write this article I am asked by a school teacher, “Is there a bandh tomorrow?” When I asked her who she got it from she said, “The son of a politician told me so it has to be true.” We seem to have regressed to those years of darkness marked by bandhs and agitations. Good luck Meghalaya! Maybe we deserve what we get because of the people we have elected! May we have many more bandhs! It makes our lives so much easier than having to catch a bus and go to office and slog there or going to school to teach which is oh so boring.