By Harsh Srivastava ‘The Optimist’
Most visitors to the Abode of the Clouds have to go first up GS Road to Shillong. Their first thoughts are: “Oh how beautiful is this city. How picturesque are its lakes. How lovely are its churches?” Their next thought is: “Oh how crowded is this city. How is garbage piling up in some places? Why are some places cleaner than others? How come there’s no parking?” For residents of the state’s capital, their only thoughts are those about their city’s congestion and its cleanliness and how its Khasi character is being taken away by new, rich coal miners or the other dreaded “outsiders”. For them, the prettiness of their city is passé. My previous column said that Meghalaya can do better if all its stakeholders found ways of working together—in a more effective, institutional way. The first place that such joined-up working should be applied is in big bustling Shillong, along with smaller but potentially as dynamic Jowai, Tura, and Williamnagar. Urban development is a challenge across the world. More so in India, where municipal corporations are often short of funds to carry out essential services, forget investing in infrastructure. In Meghalaya, this is compounded by the many traditional institutions and autonomous bodies that conspire to make Shillong the continuing mess that many think it is becoming.
To start with, what exactly is the population of the city? The 2011 census says it is 354,000. Others estimate that it is close to 900,000 or even higher. It certainly doesn’t look like a town of only 350,000 souls. How can a city have such variations in what should be its size? When the city is that of Shillong, whose official municipal area covers only 20 percent of its area. The rest of the city is under the control of various Durbar Shnongs that manage a few services for their own locality. All the other big cities are in a race to become bigger. Hyderabad merged all the surrounding areas into Greater Hyderabad. Gurgaon town combined with the new colonies to former Greater Gurgaon. Bangalore also become bigger, but Shillong chooses to stay smaller! Meghalaya manages to get disproportionately more than many other states of Central plan assistance. Yet, when it comes to availing itself of moneys to improve Shillong under the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission, this state has long lagged behind many of its contemporaries. Why? Because the Government of India put a simple restriction. Every city that gets this moolah must have a democratically-elected municipal corporation. If Shillong-dwellers are eager electors for their Dorbar, for their Autonomous District Council, and for their Assembly, how come they back away from having a accountable municipal corporation that also gets munificence from the Ministry of Urban Development? The answer I’m told is that many local residents fear a municipal election, because such elections will have to be open to all those who reside in the city. Thus all the non-Khasis will also be voters—the Garos, the Jaintias, the Bengalis, and, shudder, the Biharis too! How can this pristine Khasi city have as its elected masters—municipal corporators—outsiders? Better to give up the JNNURM funds rather than the principle of one country, one person, one vote! Or, what’s worse still, having an elected municipal corporation will mean that one-third of the corporators will be women, as the Constitution of India’s 74th Amendment says! As it is, in matriarchal Meghalaya, women get all the moolah, but now they will displace one-third of the men and have genuine powers to boss this deprived gender even more. And, once outsiders or women get used to political power, it will be the thin edge of the wedge that will make all residents equal to each other—what happens to the unique Khasi way.
So, picture this. It’s 2020 and this situation continues. No elections, no municipal corporation, no money, and no proper city—a city whose population will certainly have crossed one million—making it a metropolis. There will be more cars, so parking will be much worse. Sanitation, water supply, and even street lighting might live up to your standards if you’re a resident of tony Nongrim Hills and can snag grants from ministers, but what happens if you live in the Marwari or Bihari areas—will they turn into ghettoes of dirt and deprivation? And this is only Shillong’s situation? How will Jowai and Tura and Williamnagar and Nongpoh look like in 2020? Will there be any way to tap the local wealth of the Jaintia hills to make Khliehriat and Jowai become thriving towns that create jobs, sustain schools, and become culturally vibrant cities on the lines of Shillong. Of course, things can become better. Imagine another scenario. It’s 2020 and Shillong city has had its second municipal elections, in which all eligible voters have enthusiastically participated. The Municipal corporation controls a budget of close to Rs. 2,000 crore. Schools and hospitals are well run. Many roads have been widened. Some have been pedestrianized or made open to bicyclists only. The plazas around Police Bazar are like what you’d see in any European city. There are electric buses on the road. A huge new sanitation and sewerage system has started working and garbage has been segregated. All this can happen, without doing away with the Dorbar Shnongs who revert to the role of Resident Welfare Associations. Just as Delhi has three municipal corporations, but hundreds of RWAs who co-exist with each other, so do the Dorbars.
Municipal governance is implemented by a dedicated municipal cadre of officials who’re directly selected and hired on contracts that are renewed only if they perform. Citizens turn to their corporators to solve their local problems —and not to their MLAs, who in turn are free to look at issues that affect the whole state.
Greater Shillong city will also comprise the “New Shillong” area, which is the erstwhile New Shillong Township. The tax revenues that all residents will pay for the city, along with a good share of Meghalaya’s resources that the city manages to get from the State—and coupled with generous JNNURM funds—will make Shillong a financially rich city that can invest in the future. The city’s Mayor will be directly elected for a term of five-years and she will have the municipal commissioner and the police commissioner reporting to her. Of the 100 wards in the city, 33 will have women, and 10 will have Biharis, Marwaris, and other outsiders. Khasi men will still form the majority of corporators but all one hundred will have to work together to solve the city’s myriad problems—not least of which will be how to get more out of the State Government—at least proportionate to the share of the population. This thriving city will attract the best teachers to once again work in the schools. It will attract an IT industry on its outskirts. Bollywood will start shooting movies at Badapani rather than in Bern, Switzerland. Because of Shillong city’s focus on solar and environment-friendly solutions, the North-East’s biggest green cluster will form here. And, the city will be on its way to beating Bangalore for fashion, weather, and overall quality of life! Will Shillong suffer the first scenario of will it be sailing aloft on the successes that the second scenario envisages? This can only happen if the state takes some tough decisions. First, merge all the areas of Shillong, including the New Shillong Township into a greater Shillong metropolitan area. Then demarcate the city into at least one hundred wards for which elections to be held on the universal franchise that India’s constitution guarantees all citizens. There should be no denying a right to vote if you can’t show that you own property here—the same tactic that the British used in South Africa against Indian settlers and which Gandhiji went to fight. Then negotiate an arrangement with the Dorbars and the Autonomous District Council so that each body still has a role. Then create a municipal cadre that is separate from the Meghalaya civil service. Then hold elections including one for a directly-elected mayor. The last will be the most difficult. If voters go to corporators to solve their day-to-day problems, then who will go to MLAs? What will these MLAs do? If there’s one Mayor for five years, rather than the rotational representation that Mumbai is stuck with (one year a male, general mayor, the next year, a woman mayor, the third year, an SC mayor, and the fourth year, a woman SC mayor—hence no mayor), then wouldn’t that person have too much power. How can the IAS and IPS officers be made accountable—including their Annual Confidential Reports—to a local elected person, who is ranked lower than an MLA! If all this happens, then what will be the role of the Urban Development Department of the state? Here’s the counter-intuitive point that I want to suggest to Ampareen Lyngdoh the erudite Urban Development Minister. If she can push through all these things in the tenure of this government—and doing so will require both political and administrative acumen—she might find that a more prestigious post for her will be to the first mayor of the million-plus metropolis of Shillong, rather than be a mere Minister. And that could be the stepping stone to much bigger things. The Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac went on to be the President of France. The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson is seen by many as an excellent future Prime Minister. So, it should be in the political self-interest of the many ambitious Meghalaya politicians to work together to improve their cities. Which is why I’m optimistic about Meghalaya’s cities.
(Harsh is a Director in the Meghalaya Institute of Governance. He’s the COO of one of India’s leading thinktanks—the Center for Civil Society. He’s worked in the Planning Commission and in the Prime Minister’s Office; in the Confederation of Indian Industry and for Anil Ambani’s business. He has an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad).