By Patricia Mukhim
Much has been written and discussed about the Khasi National Awakening Day sponsored by the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on April 4th last. Many of the responses in this newspaper centred round the violence that accompanied the event. Others seemed to link the “Awakening” to a sort of wake up call for the Khasis reminiscent of the 1979 outbursts which carried on until the early 1990’s. An ‘awakening’ implies an arousing from a slumber of a few hours or of several years duration like that of Rip Van Winkle. It suggests that the Khasi society has been slumbering or comatose and that it needs to be jolted into consciousness. I will try and analyse this in the next few paragraphs.
About the violence that accompanied the Awakening Day one would like to presume that it could not have happened on the spur of the moment when some deep-seated anger spouted out of a smouldering volcano. There must have been prior discussion about the event much before it was held. Some people must have given a call for action which was not unambiguously spelt out. For those who live an unexamined life, a call to action on such an occasion means only one thing – attack the enemy; hurt him; drive him out. Period. And we are all familiar with what the caricature of this ‘enemy’ is. Sadly some of those who can extend their thinking into more discursive levels also joined this bandwagon of the shallow, clichéd, illogical template to feed their own insecurities. That such people also happen to be opinion makers is a dangerous trend for Meghalaya. For parochialism that is embedded in paranoia can become a toxic, destructive element.
Now for the average youth that is out of school and for whom such occasions are the only outlet for repressed anger and unmet needs, violence is the only tool of expression. As a society we need to understand this and calmly analyse why we are producing, if not breeding, so many youth who slip out of the cracks created largely by an unimaginative education system. They live a life that is neither gainful nor meaningful, much less examined for that is a fearful prospect. Thus far we have created very minimal facilities for such youth labelled as “drop-outs” – a pejorative term if ever there was one. We do not even have statistics of how many young people are not doing anything productive. And when one is leading an unproductive life there is a gradual depletion of self esteem. Psychologist and psycho-analysts have a lot to tell us about what that loss of self esteem can do to a person. This eventually manifests itself in several anti-social acts. I often wonder if our religious institutions are reaching out to this unreached category of their flock or whether they have just written them off as fallen angels no longer amenable to change.
Khasi society is numbed with shock at the action of its own members in the area of sexual violence. The Rangbah Shnong of Malki, Mr H Oflyn Dohling while speaking to the media on the rape of a helpless seven year old girl in the Malki forest nearly broke down by the weight of the incident which can be described as the maniacal act of a highly deranged and depraved human being. But this is not the only incident of rape. Every day there are reports landing as FIRs at different police stations in this State. The fear is that even the police might become inured by the frequency with which these cases come to their desks and that they might develop casualness about dealing with this most heinous of human crimes.
While women’s organisations have been meeting, protesting and condemning every rape as and when it occurs, it is evident that such clichéd reactions are not making a dent. In any case a reactionary society is an unthinking society. One who thinks does not react but gets into a proactive mode and lists out measures that need to be undertaken to address the issue at the very root. Dr Sandi Syiem, a psychiatrist, who is also one of the most notable advocates of mental health, would have a lot to say about the possible reasons for rape. But Khasi society has not used his experience and understanding of the human mind to better comprehend the mind of the rapist and thereby prevent rape in the future. Perhaps this is because we are a society in deep denial of our proclivities because we are bombarded with religious ethical standards that we feel guilty to admit we don’t measure up to. In fact, too many young people today don’t want to enter the church or other religious premises because they feel deeply disturbed by the judgmental nature of the preachers and co-religionists. Although the preaching of the 60’s and 70’s that pronounces someone as sinful and deserving of fire and brimstone is passé, we all know that deep inside we too pronounce judgements faster than any judge would on our fellow men/women.
Parenting that is unforgiving of the child’s wayward behaviour and has believed in the rod than in loving counsel and children deprived of love in their early years cannot love anyone. Those who have experienced violence in their early years also act out violence in their adolescence and adult years. In fact, we human beings are a sum total of our past experiences, mainly our childhood experiences. Most of us carry bitter memories of our childhood years; memories we would rather stuff into our sub-conscious. But today we know the important role that the sub-conscious mind plays in determining our actions.
The problem with Khasi society as I see it is that we have gone from one extreme to the other. While we speak of our valued culture and tradition, our inclinations and aspirations are guided by western values; not by the Khasi value of, “never agonising over what isn’t mine” (covetousness). This is replaced by a Hollywood model of “what’s mine is mine, but what’s yours is also mine” and I have a right to act out that belief.” Look at our fascination for rock concerts and our pride in this city of Shillong being called the rock capital of the North East. Try calling for a meeting to discuss societal issues and you will see the same old tired faces. But have a rock concert and you will have a crowd, no matter which part of the day it is held. Somewhere down the line we have jettisoned our intrinsic cultural values and implanted in our psyche the imported notions from the west. A flash mob is not a Khasi thing but see how it catches the imagination of young people. So we argue to ourselves that if a flash mob is what can get more youth involved in any issue, then a flash mob it shall be. We don’t stop to think if there are more indigenous ways of awakening in our youth those simple yet meaningful Khasi aphorisms on which a man’s life is built and lived – with malice towards none.
In his book The Price of Inequality, Joseph Stiglitz says, “There are moments in history when people seem to rise up to say that something is wrong, to ask for a change. Each of these years of upheavals has marked the beginning of a new era”. The Khasis in Meghalaya too are struggling against institutional failures such as the failure of governance and governments to address serious economic disparities; the exploitative nature of the markets which have gobbled our natural resources without a model of sustainability; the failure of the markets to create employment and their tendency to cause serious societal fissures and inequalities etc. It is time for us to rise up and bring change. But change in which direction? We have never sat to think through issues especially weighty ones. It’s almost as if thinking is too painful a process. Naturally we have no road map of our own and neither do we like the roadmap drawn by government. So we are in a crisis. We need a thousand awakenings or wake up calls but not for knee-jerk reactions. Rather we need an awakening where wise elders and the young can sit together and chalk out a more liveable future.