By Phrang Roy
I want to thank HH Mohrmen for his article in The Shillong Times of 16 September 2013 on the likely scenarios if ILP is implemented in Meghalaya in which he has taken forward the case of story telling ” over a cup of tea at tea shops or at the bereaved family’s residence” to build plausible scenarios for solving the influx issue.
I would like to start my comment by stating the obvious: influx is a real issue and small indigenous communities like ours have every right to be vigilant. However, I believe this is a concern not only of the Khasis, Jaintias and Garos but of many who value, respect and admire our traditional lifestyle of elegant simplicity where Nature’s gifts are shared collectively and fairly even with our future generation. We all have a stake and an obligation to protect and sustain this unique bio-cultural heritage of Meghalaya. Thus, let this ILP stalemate become instead an unlikely opportunity for all of us lovers of Meghalaya to resolve the bigger issues of the future we want. Let us not throw away this unique opportunity for a genuine dialogue with all stakeholders on even other issues that pain us. Let us refrain from simply pointing figures at each other because as the saying goes “when you point your finger there are 3 fingers pointing right back at you”.
Taking a lead from Mohrmen, I think we can, like the South Africans, build four possible scenarios for our informal story telling sessions. Having worked with many indigenous communities around the world, I have come to believe in the power of telling “stories” for leading people to expand their worldview and to think in new and necessary ways. Telling about the history of a community is itself a good start and a rehearsal for describing their lives in different future scenarios.
Thus the “what if” story-telling led by a variety of likely scenarios could itself be a provocation to new thinking and alternative strategies about the future. Some of the “what if” scenarios could be the following:
Scenario 1. A negotiated settlement is not achieved and Meghalaya continues to be in a stalemate.
Scenario 2. A lame duck settlement is achieved but the progress is tardy and indecisive.
Scenario 3. A settlement is achieved with a very strong populist policy that is simply not sustainable at all.
Scenario 4. A settlement is achieved and there is agreement by all stakeholders on a governance policy that is forward looking and respects, protects and fulfills the rights of indigenous communities, that is sustainable and that takes a path of inclusive growth with a genuine focus on the well being of the marginalised with the prior and informed consent of all.
For each of these scenarios, it will be wise to undertake a risk analysis and an opportunity analysis.
For the risk analysis, we could tell stories and debate under each scenario, the two following issues:
- Identify the most crucial risk that can deny a common humanity, cause destruction, inflict pain, encourage chauvinism and allow self seekers to exploit our well meaning intention and be the main winners.
- Identify the likely sources of risks and ways to overcome them.
For the opportunity analysis, the two issues could be the following:
- Identify the most critical opportunity that will empower the principle of compassion (to treat each other as we would like others to treat us) to flourish and to refrain consistently and emphatically from inflicting pain on others.
- Identify the sources of such opportunities.
This process of making new stories is empowerment and the imagining should inevitably lead to questions of what is our preferred choice. The process must however be inclusive and compassionate. The principle of compassion provides us with a framework to build a sense of community, and of solidarity. No society can claim to be a civilisation if this principle is discarded. We cannot also consider ourselves civilised if we do not know how to live in harmony with each other and with our Mei Mariang and Mei Ram-ew (Mother Earth). Let us therefore, in our own small and informal circles, start building with these building blocks and later come together to collectively present to ourselves and to the rest of India and the world our inclusive solution that is brewed in our own local pots.
We urgently need to find a clear, luminous and dynamic solution that transcends selfishness and that can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and tribal, non-tribal boundaries. This is indispensable to the creation of a just, good, clean and fair Meghalaya.