By Patricia Mukhim
April 4, 2013 was a rude reminder that underneath the calm exterior of Shillong’s apparently vibrant cultural space there is a smouldering dystopia of youth who believe the world owes them something. By ‘world’ here I mean, government, politicians, families, schools, colleges, universities et al. They believe each of the above have in one way or the other failed to deliver and messed up with their future. With no bandwidth for reason and logic and riding high on emotions the blame for all failures falls on the ubiquitous non-tribal shopkeeper, or tourists. But this reasoning is patently flawed and problematic because other young people who are equally disadvantaged economically, educationally or socially do not go around mindlessly beating up passers-by or targeting the commercial spaces in the city which belongs to the non-tribals. In all this there is a certain underlying sense of entitlement that has been built, I dare say, by politicians who promise jobs without a road map on how to make that happen. Each time such promises are publicly uttered and not delivered, a layer of disappointment is built around those who bought into those promises and even invested their energies to make that politician be what he/she is today.
We live in a democracy where public leaders promise entitlements they know they cannot deliver. In fact, increasingly we see people landing up at the homes of their elected representatives with a sort of indemnity slip. The way it operates is, “I voted for you because you promised the following. I am now here to redeem the IOU you had virtually given to me to be indemnified upon your being elected.” Can an elected representative fulfil the personal aspirations of 10,000 voters who elected him/her without abusing the system? If on a daily basis there are on an average 20 people who demand an average of Rs 2000-5000 each for multifarious purposes (buying school books, uniforms, paying school fees, purchasing medicines, paying hospital fees, amongst others), how much would an MLA have to shell out every day? For a rough calculation I am taking an average of Rs 3000 per constituent per day. It works out to 3000x20x25 days= Rs 1,50,000 a month ( 25 days leaving out Sundays etc). In a year the amount spent is 1.50,000 x12= Rs 18,00,000 (eighteen lakh rupees). Then think of the other demands such as donation to families of the bereaved, materials and presents at weddings where larger amounts are expected from the MLA. We could turn around and say that the MLA could manage this from his MLA scheme. In that case we should not wonder why the MLA decides to give cheap plastic buckets, chairs and other rubbish and then inflates the bills. So is he/she corrupt for doing so? No, the MLA is just dipping into one pocket to fill another one to pay his constituents.
In the absence of clear cut policies for generating livelihoods or entrepreneurship, people today are floundering. Life is getting tougher by the day. So what do most of the unemployed do? Ask them and they will say they do some small business? Dig deeper and you will find out that they take up contract works for making footpaths and some such things out of the MLA scheme. If they have the acumen they could become entrepreneurs after having made money from the first contract. That seed money could launch them into another self-employment venture. But more often than not such petty contractors remain tied to the government’s apron strings and become political camp followers, forever depending on political patronage. More people fall in this category than in that of entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship is risky. That is one reason why there are Government schemes from the District Industries Centres (DICs) where a percentage of the loan amount sanctioned by banks is under-written by the government. Needless to say many of the youth who avail this loan end up purchasing swanky motorbikes even while their parents end up being indebted. In fact these schemes from the DICs and the Khadi and Village Industries Board (KVIC) now need to be evaluated and audited to see how many youth have benefitted and how much loans are outstanding to the banks by such individuals. The problem with entrepreneurship is that no one can just launch into a business of any kind without the requisite training and understanding about what business model the enterprise would ride on. I hate to say this but our people do not understand the basics of financial management. At high school and college, unless they take up commerce they are not exposed to financial education. The truth is that they do not even understand how important it is to build up their investment portfolios. As a result our young people don’t understand the importance of saving. In Khasi there is a saying, “Bam hati kit kulai” which literally means that the horse is labouring to feed the elephant. In short we spend more than we earn without a care for the future.
Financial planning is not a very strong character trait of most tribals. However, many parents today have learnt to plan for their kid’s future. This is a welcome sign but it happens largely among the middle and upper middle class which has disposable incomes. The large majority (68%) who live below poverty line also live at subsistence level. Even if they were granted loans by non-banking financial institutions they would end up using the money for consumption and become indebted to the tune of several thousand rupees or even a lakh of rupees. Poverty is exacerbated. Poverty is where dystopia breeds. Poverty has multiple effects on a population; especially the youth. It frustrates them; it angers them and turns them to lumpen elements. They then vent their anger and frustration at those they believe have taken away their entitlements. But this anger might be misplaced. What the poor should understand is that absence of a policy to pull them out of their economic depression is the root cause of the problem. Governments don’t have a policy to address rural and urban poverty because they have not paid adequate attention to this malaise. In fact, some of the wrong policies are the reason why poverty is rising. The way politicians address this matter is by giving their constituents fish and making them dependent and subservient.
Youth frustration is a dangerous phenomenon. They can destruct and devastate. The youth processionists who joined the convoy for cultural awakening on April 4 were a collective of the good, the angry and the lumpens. But they are all a product of our increasingly dysfunctional society that we have collectively helped to create. We continue to spawn Oliver Twists and David Copperfields without taking responsibility for their existence. Somewhere there is a societal dysfunction that needs to be addressed. For instance the divide in our otherwise classless society is something that needs to be investigated and its impact studied more closely before we try and find solutions to the mess we have created.
And then the reactions to the April 4 incidents through letters to the editor in this newspaper also expose the cracks in our society. There is a clear divide between the youth. Those who can’t see beyond Meghalaya think they can get away with rampaging. Others who believe they have a future beyond Shillong are wary of the boomerang effect of such actions. Should we have brought out those letters? Well, it was a call we had to take. If the lumpens can take the floor why can’t those with a counterpoint be allowed the only decent public space – the media- to get their voices out. We are now getting a few angry letters to protest the vehemence expressed against the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU). If the KSU is a public body with a liberal stance it should welcome criticism and dissent without flinching or winching. The age-old excuse that an organisation is not responsible for the violence that follows a bandh/procession sponsored by that organisation is unacceptable. In fact this requires a judicial review. It’s time for pressure groups to take responsibility and not deflect blame all the time. A procession/meeting/bandh called by the KSU must necessarily have only its card carrying members as part of the brigade. If the Union is infiltrated by ‘miscreants’ then it is for the KSU leadership to find ways and means to wrench them out. Safety in numbers or just swelling the numbers to demonstrate the strength of the organisation is a bad idea. Also it is time for the KSU to screen its members and flush out non-students who are well past their shelf life. Contractors and wannabe politicians are not students and we had better get real about this! And for goodness sakes, please do not make the media a whipping boy when things turn sour. We don’t create the incidents or the news; we only report them and we report what we see, not perceptions of what was or should have been. Also we are not mind readers to know the hidden intentions of people. What we see is what we write after due investigation.
Lastly, a word about culture! It does not need an external re-awakening. Culture without values is a sham. Our internal moral compasses tell us what those values are. Problem is we place too much importance on shallow externals but ignore the intrinsic values. On April 4, a shallow cultural pride trumped our moral values.
On that note I rest my case and hope that incidents which reverse all the good that has been achieved do not revisit us.