By Toki Blah
On the 4th of April 2013 the Khasi Students Union celebrated its 35th year of existence with a ‘Khasi Awakening Day’. The exercise was to re-emphasise the need to uphold Khasi custom, culture and tradition. It was a call for unity (jingiatylli). But then instead of the expected cohesion towards unity, the exercise managed to provoke only negative criticism that cast the entire Khasi community in very poor light. At Laitumkhrah the whole idea of unity degenerated into xenophobic expressions of violence. Condemnations on such acts of senseless destruction have poured in and rightly so. Nothing, nowhere, can ever justify violence in whatsoever form! However beyond the violence and condemnations; beyond the blame game; besides the enquires into the incident, there is an urgent need to investigate and analyse as to how a good intention to usher in unity in the community ( as pointed out by Kong Janet Moore Hujon) turned instead into a controversy for all Khasis.
As a community we have enjoyed Indian nationality and citizenship for the last 66 years. It is doubtful if we could have, as indigenous people, enjoyed the same rights, opportunities, concessions and liberty in any other neighbouring country. This questions the ridiculous declaration of “Khasi by blood, Indian by accident”. It makes no sense as any other alternative to the one we have is detrimental to our interests. However, having said that, we cannot deny that areas of anxiety exist, especially in the realm of indigenous identity. This unease over our culture and identity is not a new found sensation. We have expressed it time and again in the past, resulting in the 6th Schedule and full statehood in 1972 – constitutional platforms from where we were expected to democratically tackle these issues of concern, on our own terms. We cannot deny this or the fact that we royally messed up our chances. That we are still insecure about our identity; still remain totally in the dark about our own future is no one’s fault but our own. The corollary to this – beating up others will not improve our lot. We need instead to ask ourselves where we went wrong.
Introspection is a wonderfully rich experience. It usually calls for unreserved soul searching and when we do it as Meghalayans a lot of unpleasant hidden truths pop up. The first horrible truth about ourselves is that we have betrayed the Hill State Movement of the 1960’s. We fought for our own Hill State on the belief that we are the best stewards for our children’s future. We believed, or so we gave the world to understand, that we were the best custodians of our own identity and culture. We then believed we knew where we wanted to go. At this juncture of our introspection a question arises. Has anyone ever heard any Khasi leader ever speak of the future with a sense of Hope? The community has always been cautioned against vague, unknown dangers that lurk in a gloomy tomorrow. On such scary thoughts have small men with small minds been elevated to positions of power!
For the last 40 years, fear instead of hope, has been the steady diet of our community. Apparently we are threatened by outsiders; fearful of land alienation; scared of losing our women; scared of development and for God’s sake we are deeply suspicious and distrustful of the very Governments we ourselves elect! We see ourselves surrounded by threats from all sides. As a miniscule tribal community juxtaposed against larger communities of mainland India, the call for unity is therefore understandable. But then unity for unity’s sake is just an abstract term. It has no substance. It has no validity especially if fear is the driving force behind such a call. Fear makes us defensive. To unite, we try to withdraw into our shells; we tend to lash out since everything and everyone else is seen as hostile and unfriendly. It’s happening to Khasi society today. It’s sad, it’s dangerous and self destructive especially in a globalised 21st century world where survival skills for both individuals as well as communities will depend on the ability to reach out; to co-exist with and to trust others. Under the circumstances, unity prompted by hope and self confidence rather than by narrow unfounded fear, makes a lot more sense.
Trouble with us is that we have a narrow two dimensional world view that is totally at odds with the modern world we find ourselves in. We tend to see the world only from the overbearing complexities of the present and the rosy imagined perspectives of the past. The present and its challenges are so turbulent, so chaotic that only the past seems to offer any comfort to our anxieties. We prefer to leave the future to its own devices. A totally flawed approach! It has resulted in attempts to bring back the past to solve the problems of the present. The emotional clamour to bring in the 19th century Inner Line Permit to solve our 21st century influx problem is one example. Demanding inclusion of the Instrument of Accession and the Annexed Agreement in the proposed 6th Schedule Amendment is another. In our preoccupation with the past and its comforts we have become blind and ignorant of the demands of the third dimension- our future. We speak hopefully about a bright future (ka lawei ba phyrnai) but fail to realise that it will happen only if we plan and have a vision for it. Wishful thinking alone will not work. Tomorrow demands a roadmap and vision for our children. Why are we shying away from it?
Earlier we had mentioned about threats to our community. This perhaps is the most appropriate moment to reveal the real threat that confronts us as a community. Our enemy is Time! Time waits for no one; listens to no one. It is a pitiless and relentless foe; we cannot negotiate, bargain nor oppose it. As a tribe we have always spoken about the need to preserve our culture and tradition. Attire, dance forms, music, language, our land tenure system and matriliny itself are aspects of life we closely associate with our culture and tradition as Khasis. But these are changing, undergoing change everyday, before our eyes. They are victims of Time and to deny this is to deceive ourselves. They change because they are ephemeral; mere expressions of our culture; susceptible to the changes of time. For Khasis, our real culture lies in the age old value systems which we have so carelessly discarded.
The value systems we speak of are the foundations of the Clan (kur) and the Tribe (jaitbynriew). They form the very core of a Khasi’s relation with his fellow men and the environment he lives in. They remain relevant today as they were 50,000 years ago. “Tip briew, tip Blei”- To acknowledge man is to acknowledge God. Can anything be more sublime than this? “Kamai ia ka Hok” – has nothing to do with earning righteousness, as the concept of righteousness was totally alien to ancient Khasis. ‘Hok’ here stand for justice and the adage really means to always strive for justice. It is the corner stone of the Khasi system of governance. It remains valid today as it did when it was first uttered, eons ago. “Ka nia ka jutang”- where laws are the by-product of reason and logic. Can anything be more profound? These and other value systems are what we need to revive as Khasi culture that will impact on the corrupt system of governance we suffer from. It should form the vision of Hope for our tomorrow.
Money by itself is not bad but we cannot substitute it for time tested value systems. We may have acquired money but look at the social confusion, political degeneration, wholesale frustration, fear and anarchy that prevails in our society today. We need hope and self confidence to repair the damage. They will not come through an artificial retention of attire, dance forms or other transitory expressions of culture. Hope and self confidence to face the future will only come through retention and revival of our time tested social values. Perhaps our youth can rethink how to awaken once again these fundamental principles of Khasi culture.
(The author is President of ICARE an organisation that focuses on issues of good governance).