By HH Mohrmen
John F. Kharshiing deserves due appreciation for his untiring efforts to fight for the rights of the Traditional Institutions (TI) in the state. Due to his unswerving efforts Kharshiing is able to revive the discussion on the Instrument of Accession (IoA) issue which has been in the back-burner for so long. Although his critics which include this writer have time and again criticized the idea of reviving the IoA and denounce it as a non issue and that it is like walking towards the future with our backs towards it yet Kharshiing and the Grand Council of Chiefs of the Hynniewtrep Assembly were unperturbed and they persistently fought the long and arduous battle. Some of my friends have even compared the efforts of reviving the IoA to that of ‘flogging a dead horse,’ yet Kharshiing persisted in his fight to get the TIs their due recognition and empowerment.
The fight for greater empowerment of the TIs in the state gained momentum when the Government of India’s National Commission for Schedule Tribe vide its letter April 26, 2012 directed the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to take appropriate action on the representation from John Kharshiing, Chairman, ka Dorbar ki Khlieh Nongsynshar who is also the spokesperson of the Federation of Khasi States relating to the subject of implementing the commitment made under the Instrument of Accession dated August 17, 1948 between the Khasi States and Government of India. Flipping through the pages of papers that Kharshiing handed to the journalists present during his briefing in Jowai, I cannot but still disagree with his move because the fight is for the empowerment of the Traditional Institutions and not the people. It was a non-tribal friend and a son of Shillong who reminded the small meeting of the members of ICARE at Martin Luther Christian University, Shillong who said that the question is do we want to empower institutions or to empower people? Mr Kharshiing and the Dorbar ki Khlieh Nongsynshar ka Ri Hynniewtrep understandably are all for empowering the institutions, but what about the people or Kharshiing would like to call us, ‘u khun u hajar’? What is the relation between the TIs and the people now? How many of us have anything to do with the TIs in our day to day life?
The question is not how much power the institutions needs, but how much has the institutions empowered people? The relevance of the institutions in the contemporary society is whether people are empowered by the institutions or not? The way forward is to examine the institution in the light of the modern world and do away with those parts of traditions which are irrelevant and redundant and to retain that which is relevant and cohesive with the contemporary way of life.
Kharshiing in one of his handouts described the merits of Khasi Jaintia traditional institutions in comparison with parliamentary democratic practice in India. It was mentioned in the paper that Khasi Pnar traditional democracy is a party-less democracy and without symbols, and that nomination is by consensus. There is no opposition or ruling side in the traditional system and law making is directly by people’s participation. There is no fixed term and the dorbar can recall the traditional head anytime during the annual durbar. In theory this is very true but that is not what really happens in practice. Let us consider the election of the traditional heads. The head is selected or elected either by the dorbar kur or by the male members of the society in the case of the daloi in Jaintia hills. The question is, isn’t it true that the members of the dorbar kur (clan assembly) constitutes only the maternal uncles of certain kur and female members are not allowed to be part of the dorbar kur? In the case of the election to the daloi in Jaintia hills, only male members of the society have the right to elect the doloi, so where is the ‘so called’ equal representation in the Khasi Pnar traditional institutions? Do we really empower people especially women? I know I mentioned this earlier but I will say it again. I will be a happy man only when a dorbar shnong create history and elects a woman to the post of the Rangbah Shnong, to begin with. But everybody knows that is a distance dream. A woman cannot become a chieftain or a daloi in the foreseeable future, unless the tradition is changed.
Now people who live in the towns and cities are no longer the same homogeneous people like it used to be in the days of yore. In many cases the clan which is supposed to represent the people in the dorbar kur is in a minority in the area. What kind of representation is this if the majority of the people are not represented in the dorbar kur? Is it one’s own fault that one was not born to the right kur? If the majority of the population is not represented in the dorbar kur the question of the durbar having the right to recall the head of the institution is also an eyewash. After all the clans will remain united ‘one for all and all for one,’ because they know if they are divided the tradition will collapse and the powers and position of the clan in the dorbar will also simultaneously collapse.
A candidate to the post of every institution in the traditional set-up is also selected by virtue of him belonging to a certain clan. Only a candidate who belongs to a preordained clan can be nominated for election to the traditional institution. No ordinary citizen can contest for the post of the chieftain (syiem) or the daloi. Again where is equality here?
In the case of the office of the daloi, once a daloi is elected he remains in office for life and this itself is a prescription for the gradual decline of the popularity of the daloiship. When people can only elect a daloi once every 40 or 50 years, people will lose interest in the institution and the institution will die a gradual dead. In certain elekas, a candidate to the daloiship not only has to be from a certain clan, but he also has to be a follower of Niamtre (the indigenous faith), the argument being that the daloi also has some religious obligations. This is again very undemocratic because there is no equality of the citizen in the eye of the law and there is discrimination by virtue of religion.
I must admit, I don’t know much about the chieftainship in the Khasi Hills but in the case of the daloi in Jaintia hills, the Dorbar eleka or the dorbar raij is in name only. The daloi convenes the dorbar eleka at his whims and fancy and in many cases, the daloi would not even convene the mandatory annual dorbar eleka. So there is no empowering the people as such, because there is no forum for them to air their grievances and express their opinions. If the dorbar eleka really serves as a joint forum of the villages in eleka, it would really be a platform for empowering the villages, but that is not so.
If the TIs are to remain relevant in the contemporary society, the need of the hour is to reform the institutions. The institutions needs to adapt to the changing times. Institutions can only be as strong as the people who support it. We cannot have a strong institution if the supporting pillars are weak because an institution is not just about bricks and mortar. Its about people! Traditional institutions need to empower the other half of the population and not to treat them as second class citizens. TIs need to treat all ‘u khun u hajar’ as ki khun ki hajar (citizens) equal irrespective of the clan or the race they come from.
The TIs need to strengthen the traditional values which are universal and relevant to the contemporary society like the value of consensus and cooperation and the cause of the common good of the people (ka bhalang/ka jingbha u babun balang) in decision making. The TIs also need to inculcate the value of transparency in the way they go about performing their duties. Ki khun ki hajar also need to know what is going on in the dorbar and why certain decisions are taken. As stated above institutions will be empowered only when people are empowered and not the other way round.