By HH Mohrmen
I must at the very outset thank Mr Phrang Roy for shedding some light on the techniques that other indigenous communities of the world employ to solve their problems. I am very impressed with the technique of using stories to develop scenarios to plan for the future of the community. Scenario Planning or Mont Fleur scenarios used by the people in South Africa in the post Apartheid decade, is an example that we in Meghalaya can use to be able to get ourselves out of the predicament that we are facing as a community. Reading Roy’s article made me realize that most of us during debates and over a cup of tea at tea shops or at the bereaved family’s residence have in some way or the other developed scenarios that would most likely happen if ILP is implemented in the state. Taking a cue from the scenario planning technique let us try to visualize the scenarios that are most likely to happen if ILP is implemented in the state of Meghalaya.
Let us start from the beginning. How will a visitor who wishes to visit the state acquire ILP? Most likely the government of Meghalaya would have to setup Meghalaya ILP offices in all the state capitals of the country. Is this enough? Will every potential visitor especially a tourist to Meghalaya take the trouble to visit their respective state capitals just to acquire ILP? There are many hill stations in the country which beckon tourist and welcome people with open arms without having to take the trouble of acquiring special permit. This will not augur well for the state unless our slogan is ‘the less people visit the state the better.’ There is another option; visitors can apply for ILP online. This is a viable option. The same mechanism that has been used by Boards and Universities conducting the various entrance tests can be utilized to produce a computer generated ILP certificate for the applicant, but the question is; what is the percentage of computer literacy in the country? Again the argument on the pro ILP side is that a willing visitor can seek the help of cyber café kiosks in his place to acquire one Meghalaya ILP document, but the truth is only die-hard Meghalaya fans will take that kind of trouble just to visit a place. Then the last option is taking a cue from the tourist friendly country which has the visa on arrival arrangement for tourists. The state can also make similar arrangements to issue ILP on arrival. The government will have to set up ILP offices at the LGB airport, Guwahati Railway station, the Interstate Bus terminal in Guwahati, the taxi stand and bus stands in all the entry points to Meghalaya. Is this viable?
Now that we have done with the task of issuing ILP, the next and the most challenging job is how are we going to implement ILP on the ground? Now let us take the Shillong Guwahati highway as a case scenario, where will the government set an entry point where visitors’ papers are checked? Should it be after the Khanapara flyover? If so, where exactly will the office be located? A prominent lawyer in the state has already created this scenario when ILP issue was discussed at a private gathering in Jowai, when he imagined the traffic jam that it would create. Will Assam be happy with the traffic jam that Meghalaya’s ILP entry check points will create? Suppose we decide to locate the entry check point at Jorabat after the tri-junction where the new flyover is being constructed (Guwahati-Upper Assam, Guwahati- Shillong junction) do we have the space to construct lay-bye for vehicles to stop. Another pertinent question whether Khanapara is still part of Meghalaya? Fenella Lyngdoh was right when she pointed that we need to have a clear demarcation of our borders if we are to introduce ILP in the state.
Now on this same stretch of the border from Khanapara to Jorabat to Byrnihat where the national highway is the border between the two states, do Assamese who live across the street need to acquire ILP every time they cross the highway and visit Meghalaya? Or may they can obtain a multi-visit ILP but can we monitor the entire stretch of the road? Then what about the market days at Byrnihat or Nongpoh for that matter? Can we expect the poor farmers from Assam to acquire ILP every market day? The same question is relevant for farmers and traders from Assam who are trading at Khanduli market and Sahsniang village in West Jaintia Hills. These are few markets that we can cite as examples. There are many more markets on the Assam-Meghalaya border and the economy of the people on both sides of the border depends on these weekly markets. How will the government implement and monitor ILP in these situations? Perhaps the NGOs will be of help like they used to do. They will help check if traders have valid ILP or not which is again not advisable as they are not trained for the job and not empowered to do so by competent authority. And for how long can they go on doing this arduous job voluntarily? Right now the infiltration checkpoint on the Jowai-Silchar-Badarpur road is located at Umkiang, so is Ratacherra, Dona and other villages not part of Meghalaya anymore? Or are we saying that migrant labourers can visit these places on the fringes of the border without any ILP although they are part of Meghalaya?
Meghalaya is also a transit state for people who travel by land from Guwahati to Silchar, Karimganj and other landlocked state like Mizoram and Tripura. It can happen that migrant labourers board a night bus from Guwahati and on reaching Meghalaya check-point declared that they are travelling to a place beyond Meghalaya and that they bought tickets to the stated destination so they would not require an ILP. But can anybody stop this labourer from getting down at Lad Rymbai or other places in the state? States (we’ve been told) that have successfully implemented ILP are Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. Unlike Meghalaya these are not only landlocked states but they are also frontier states where no other Indian state is located beyond their boundaries. Because these states are not transit states for people who travel from one part of the country to another, therefore ILP can be implemented in these states.
If ILP is implemented I can’t help but visualize a scenario when except for students, government employees and traders very few dkhar (because they are the main target) will be found in Meghalaya. Shillong will then lose its cosmopolitan outlook and very few domestic tourists will visit the state not that we have many international tourist visiting the state in the first place.
Although the Editor of the Shillong Times has cautioned me from sharing too much personal anecdote, I can’t help but share this one which in all likelihood will happen sooner than later. My daughter is studying in Gujarat and for every major festival in Gujarat her roommate would invite her to join them during the festival and to stay at their home and spend time with her family. Now my worst fear is if some of these days my daughter in turn decides to invite her friends to visit us then how will she explain to them that they need to apply for ILP to visit Meghalaya? I leave each and every one of us with these scenarios that will most likely happen if ILP is implemented and hopefully we will give ourselves some time to mull over these scenarios which are most likely to happen in the future and decide for ourselves the kind of society and the state we want to live in.