By Patricia Mukhim
In the last few days many have been grappling with two issues in Meghalaya’s slippery political slope. One is the case of Julius Dorphang the MLA from Mawhati. The other is the sudden resurfacing of Meghalaya’s equivalent of a Haley’s comet called Robert Kharshiing the leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) who, however does not seem to be in sync with the local NCP MLAs in Meghalaya. Obviously Kharshiing is what the Khasis would call a sort of rogue elephant (Hati saw kuna) who does his own thing and can create any platform with any group he chooses to with or without the consent of his Party or the NCP MLAs here. He is here today making news and raising a stink and then he will just disappear and believe me no one will even have whiff of where he is, what his address in Delhi is and above all what he is actually engaged in. In all those years he was the Rajya Sabha MP we heard very little of him and of how he spent his MP schemes. And none of us cared to find out. Not even the hyper-active RTI activists cared or dared to do an investigation!
Recently Robert Kharshiing filed a public interest litigation against the Government of Meghalaya for arresting his sister Agnes Kharshiing who leads the split version of the Civil Society Women’s Organisation (CSWO).Now what did Agnes do? She broke through the security barricade at the Main Secretariat building taking along with her the parents of the gang-raped victim of Williamnagar. Agnes, we are told wanted to enter the media centre to ensure that she and her wards got an audience from media persons at the Media Centre. It is important to inform the discerning public that the Media Centre is a place from where journalists send their stories using the facilities provided by the state government. It is to be distinguished from a Press Club where all press conferences happen and where members of the public are at liberty to meet media persons to air their grievances and state their points. It is true that Agnes Kharshiing is well connected to several media persons and perhaps believes it is her fundamental right to meet them anywhere she chooses to; not where they think she should meet them. Media persons are not allowed to have a choice in the face of NGO diktat, are they?
Most of us media persons do not yet have the bio-metric card that allows us to enter both the secretariats. For reasons best known to the authorities we are asked to use other forms of entry such as informing someone inside the Secretariat to allow us safe passage etc. We have not yet created a ruckus because the Government says it is in the process of issuing us those cards. I assume that members of the public wanting to enter can do so by making an appointment with the person (politician or bureaucrat) they wish to see and they would be allowed inside after the information is passed down to the gate-keepers which is a rigmarole in itself. However, as we have all seen, entry into any official building is replete with security measures. This may be an oxymoron in a democracy but since we have not protested the application, it means we are fine with the system. The least that Agnes Kharshiing could have done is to follow what other visitors do. But Ms Kharshiing is made of sterner stuff. She likes to make an entry and that’s what she did. Woe to the policeman/policemen who dared to arrest her! Arrest is for creatures lower in the rank of importance and certainly no NGO leader ought to be arrested even if they flout the norms that other members of the public have to comply with.
And then lo and behold, here comes Robert Kharshiing taking up cudgels on behalf of his sister. And he does not for one moment look at what Agnes has done but ratchets up the cause of rape victims as if he has only just heard about rapes in Meghalaya which happen on a daily basis. We agree that Agnes Kharshiing spends all her waking hours filing FIRs against rape accused men and follows up on cases of domestic violence etc. We are grateful to her for doing what she does. But she is still guided by the same rule of law that all of us are subject to. And if she breaks the rule then she is has to face the same sets of laws that govern all of us. Otherwise there is a chance that all of us will break through the Secretariat barricade.
What is interesting here are also the disparate political leanings of the family. Sorry to bring this issue on board but personal here is also political since all of three prominent members of the Kharshiing family – Robert, John and Agnes are political in their respective ways. John Kharshiing – a member of the Congress party in Meghalaya is angling for the Rajya Sabha seat. Robert Kharshiing is threatening to sue the Mukul Sangma Government for acts of transgressions against his sister. The Congress is threatening to sever ties with the NCP here. The two NCP MLAs have virtually distanced themselves from Robert Kharshiing. John Kharshiing is silent. Is this Robert’s way of ensuring that Dr Mukul Sangma and the Congress capitulate by sending John Kharshiing to the Rajya Sabha in a very seamless move and then he would withdraw the PIL? I guess now he has no reason to withdraw since John Kharshiing has lost the race to some other person. We don’t know the internal politics of the Kharshiing family so we can only assume certain things from the way they have played out in this little gossipy town.
Now coming to Julius Dorphang the militant turned legislator from Mawhati, let me begin by stating that Dorphang is no ordinary candidate turned MLA. He was the Chairman of the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) a militant organisation that followed the path of bloodshed and violence, intimidation, extortion, bank heists etc., during those horrific years beginning 1994 onwards up to 2001. The HNLC indulged in heinous crimes which included the gunning down of victims of extortion, elimination of policemen, kidnapping for ransom, a series of bank robberies etc. As the Chairman of the HNLC we would be naïve to believe that Dorphang was not part of the strategy for executing all of the above brutalities and crimes. His case is therefore not every dissimilar to that of Afzal Guru who is said to have masterminded the Parliament attack in December 2001. It was never established beyond a reasonable doubt that Afzal had actually been the real Guru putting together the plan for the attack but he was hanged nevertheless. But what do we have here in Meghalaya? A man directly involved with a militant outfit that was dreaded until about ten years ago and he has been granted general amnesty. Who is the state to grant amnesty to those who have ordered the killing and maiming of someone’s brother, husband or son? Is this justice? Mr DD Lapang has been singularly responsible for patronising Dorphang for political gains. Are the people of Meghalaya happy with this decision? Tomorrow if I pick up the gun, start a militant group and then surrender and get a package, then why would I follow the straight and narrow path? The state is in fact incentivising the gun culture.
When Dorphang surrendered he was not even put through the mandatory three years de-militarisation and reformatory process. He was instead given state security with gunmen escorting him all over the place. Dorphang got contract works from different state and central government departments and para-government institutions like NEHU purely by intimidation. And we say we have the rule of law in place? It makes me laugh at the hypocrisy and injustice of the system. The blood of those who were murdered in broad daylight cries out for justice. And mind you the surrender policy does not apply to those who have committed heinous crimes, but here we are applying it across the board. Its time someone did a PIL and challenged the unjust nature of the surrender policy. How about Mr Robert Kharshiing taking this up?