By Babet Sten
Often I have heard it said that one never learns until one’s own foot gets caught in the noose. No amount of cautionary advice and prescience can instruct people, only experience can. Often that experience has to be unnecessarily painful and sudden before we force ourselves to react. Take the case of the new construction at the site of the old Shillong Municipal Board office. A well known businessman, according to rumours is putting in a large amount of money into realising a 5- star hotel at the site. Firstly, I am a little puzzled by all this because in all seriousness we do not get the type of tourists who can afford to stay in a 5 star establishment. For someone to develop a 5 star complex in Police Bazaar would surely mean a total overhaul of the surrounding area, wouldn’t it? After all, well-to- do folk wouldn’t want to be confronted by the fumes from the adjoining petrol station nor the market sounds of Jail Road market. The Taj Man Singh, the Ashok (both hotels in South Delhi) are not just buildings but also have well-tenured lawns, arbours, walkways, gardens etc. However, this Marriot joint venture space here is far too small or rather the building is far too big which makes me wonder. Do the recent moves to “relocate” Jail Road bazaar have anything to do with that monstrous construction? Are the shop owners being moved out because the Municipal authorities want to please the businessman? Are they going to move the jail now to be accommodating? I find it too well orchestrated a move. Suddenly, after decades they decide to move that market and for what reasons?
This is where I must be critical of the shop and business keepers of Police Bazaar. Did they agree to these things or put up an opposition? I doubt they wouldn’t have heard about any of the plans beforehand. We are slowly losing the variety of the marketplace. The big brands are slowly edging out the smaller competitors. First, Big Bazaar, recently Reliance Trends and soon this hotel. What are the owners of Computer Store, EeeCee hotel, Monsoon hotel going to do in the face of this competition? At Iewduh, if people didn’t constantly fight, we would all be at the mercy of the goods importers, our own products would have been killed off decades back. There is always a tussle even if we are always the ones who come up short most of the time. These PB wallas may feel secure at the moment but when administrators and big business team up, will they be able to survive the storm? They should see what is coming. But most importantly they should resist. There is a pointing of fingers by people who initiate such plans at those who do not go along with it. Reality check – society should have dissent. If one has scepticism, it is considered bad and detrimental to society. Some people though ask the very real question- Whose vision of society was it in the first place? I fear that the same devious machinations extend to other places as well. This Police Bazaar model can now be extended to the New Shillong Township. The New European Ward Shillong Township (NEWST) is the brainchild of the same team that planned these malls and high class hotels within PB. We can see first-hand their “wonderful” schemes and need not bother to imagine it in some near future at the nearby sites of Tynring, Mawpdang, Diengpasoh. You want to see how New Shillong will be like? The same as the Old Shillong. You will still get angry as the red lights bully you off the road; you will still have to fight to get a job in the government like the brave Grade IV fellows, you will still have to wait for justice like the people affected by scams. The only difference will be wider, and perhaps, cleaner streets. The sad truth about this New European Ward is that it is a high-class driven dream. The sad truth is that even now when so many struggle to earn a basic decent salary with little or no guarantee of security, New Shillong is falsely projected as a new beginning, a place for new avenues. It is supposed to be like a slate where we shall write new things, where we shall forget the injustice, the corruption, the dirty politicking.
Truth is, though, New Shillong will still be run by the old order. The old evils will still be there under a shiny new exterior. The need, rather, is to make the old thing new. Do we have that courage in us? Or do we simply run away to the new place where we believe our past will never find us? Let us resist because for most of us New Shillong will be out of reach. It is just another way for the Government to show the balance sheets in their account books. It will make contractors and engineers and ministers and officers richer. Should we wait until the noose is around our necks before we wake up? At the heart of this drive for New Shillong is a certain belief in the power of greed. If you are Christians you are told that this love of money is evil, so too if you belong to any other faith. If New Shillong is a temple for the rich and wealthy, I refuse to enter it. I’d rather that lovely land were wall-less, boundary-less as it is now, where you and I and anyone else has right to passage, right to frolic through and sit around for a picnic or a few beers.
PS: with regards to the local IAS officers, their collusion in this matter has shown their neo-liberalism and gluttony, I recommend boycotting them at church, not pampering.
(The author is a student of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)