Editor,
First and foremost let me express my happiness and gratitude to Rev Lyndan Syiem for his extremely thought provoking article “Dealing with Obstinate World Views” Sept 5th 2013. Rev Lyndan took off from the concluding remarks made at the Price of Superstition Conclave where one of the suggestions was on the urgent need for mass awareness campaigns on the menace of U Thlen. I am to the first to admit that perhaps the term ‘mass awareness campaign’ has become a clichéd expression and most of us glibly mouth the same without really understanding what we mean when we say it. Rev Lyndan has questioned the Conclave resolution from this perspective and has based his challenge on reason, logic and pure simple common sense. A refreshing change in the opinionated society we find ourselves in today.
I yield to the reasoning that it would be futile to try to change a mindset that firmly and sincerely believes in the existence of evil spirits. The belief on Thlen, Taro etc exists in both Christians and non Christians alike while there are also people from both faiths who do not believe. Perhaps a more meaningful and viable campaign would be, irrespective of belief, towards creating public awareness on the supremacy of the Rule of Law and of the offence and felony of taking the law into our own hands. Rev Lyndan has given all of us a new perspective on an issue that has severely taxed our minds in the past.
Aside from the above what impressed and excited me more is how this young Khasi Priest structured his mode of presentation. It was bereft of emotion, sentiment and hysteria. It was to the point; factual and based purely on sheer common sense. To put it in colloquial Khasi “la pynshong nongrim ha ka nia ka jutang hadien ka thew ka woh”(to base one’s conclusions after reasoned debate and deliberation). As dangerous as unfounded superstition is the mind that allows itself to be guided by emotions and sentiment. Our age old value systems were acutely conscious of the pitfalls of emotion and hysteria especially in the realm of administration and governance. In direct contradiction, today’s leaders (political, social and religious) depend heavily on mass hysteria to retain control over their followers. The ability to think and reason has been deliberately and purposely discouraged. The education system dampens it; religion discourages it while politics has simply purchased it! It has resulted in our society being misled in more ways than one. Hopefully Rev Lyndan’s writings will revive this basic trait in the modern Khasi mind once again.
Yours etc.,
Toki Blah,
Via email
Is there a mechanism?
Editor,
“Outsiders taking root in the state is the real threat and therefore we need to come up with a mechanism to prevent outsiders from taking root.” So opines Mr. Toki Blah in his article, Influx: the need to work together, not against one another, appearing in ST on September 3, 2013. And for that mechanism to emerge, he says, what we need is for different concerned bodies and groups to come to the negotiating table. I wonder how many more negotiations are needed and what constitutional mechanism are we dreaming of to solve our influx problem(s) while we refuse to take notice of the inherent lacunae in the dynamics of our family and lineage systems. It is a glaring fact that has prostituted itself in our social and economic midst that we are threatened by the possibility and probability of losing all that we call ours now to those outsiders who manipulate and snake into our benign market through the barbless portals of matrilineality (Mr. Toki gives one sentence to this in his article.) All jaidbynriew-loving people, know this, acknowledge it privately, but when they fight in the street against influx they never utter a word about it. We love making defenceless outsiders hold their ears. The fact of the matter is that we are defenceless against those outsiders who have stationed themselves permanently amidst us because we had so lovingly welcomed them with the beautiful uniqueness of our matrilineal legacy.
I would love to read Toki Blah’s thought(s) on this. I am dying to know what is that mechanism that would prove successful in preventing outsiders from taking root in the ever accommodating and fertile soil of the Khasi and Garo tribals.
Yours etc,
Banlam K Lyngdoh,
Via email