By Recordius Enmi Kharbani
The litigious Inner Line Permit (ILP) has become the focal point of the political development in Meghalaya. Deliberations on different aspects of its utility and implementation have taken place through different platforms. Some have vehemently argued for its implementation while others have reservations about its structure and utility. Aspects like the technical feasibility, utility, and the likely scenario that the ILP would generate in the state have been deliberated at length. Mohrmen’s article “Likely Scenario if ILP is implemented in Meghalaya,” is a forecast portraying technical challenges if the ILP is implemented. His argument has a place in the debate except that if the ILP is implemented as a mechanism, all technical barriers that are part of the process may perhaps be dealt with. Much appreciated informed debates have come from A.W. Shynret, Paramjit Bakshi, Sumarbin Umdor and others.
For a while, the state waited for the official stand of the MUA II government. As expected, the government has firmly decided against the implementation of the ILP. It is expected of the Congress-led government whose strength is all-accommodating vote bank politics. Moreover, Mukul Sangma’s claim that the people did not vote for ILP as it was not promised by the Congress who won 29 seats is acceptable given the prevailing ‘first-past-the-post’ system. No matter what happened during the election: whether it involved money power, manipulation, etc., the ultimate result in the 2013 election reflected the point. Parties with promises of ILP or state demands performed dismally. People voted for development and welfare schemes that were promised by the Congress. Even many of the members of the ILP proponent groups were strong supporters or at least voted for the Congress.
In the wake of the government’s stance against the ILP, the presumption of the likely situation if it is implemented in Meghalaya expressed by columnists like HH Mohrmen and others has become a distant imagination. The immediate concern is that the next few days of Meghalaya appear gloomy. Though encouragement has come from different columnists calling for expression of opinions, apparently there is very little space for them.
These points however, do not negate the ILP demand. As a demand in itself it is democratically legitimate. It is debatable to conclude that the demand is not democratic because the pressure groups are not democratically elected bodies. However undemocratic they may be in their structure and functions, sectional interests articulated by these groups with professed ideology are always democratic. Andre Beteille argues that social movements are extensions of democratic opposition against the commission and omission of the government. They are part of the democratic ideals of freedom of expression of opinion and the space of dissent against the government that democracy provides. Seen from this perspective, the ILP demand of a section, even a minority section of the citizens of Meghalaya cannot be sidelined as undemocratic and totally ignored. It is part of interest articulation of a group of citizens who perceive that their interest is being affected. That interest does not necessarily represent all citizens or even the majority of them.
The situation in Meghalaya has become extremely complicated to be understood by employing a simple framework of analytical perspective. The ILP demand is democratic as long as it does not contradict the other basic democratic ideals of individual rights to survival, liberty, equality, right to get access to means of survival, etc. Being a sectional interest, it is democratic as long as it stays within the space between the advocates and the state, without affecting other individual citizens who do not share it. The on-going agitation of the JACATAM is a good example of a democratic expression of interests.
The current political development in Meghalaya demonstrates that the ILP demand has compromised its democratic character. The ideas of bandh, night blockades, office picketing, destruction of private and public property, causing physical injuries, etc., have denied individuals outside the ILP fold the democratically enshrined ideals and rights. As reflected in different platforms of deliberations on the ILP issue, a comparatively large section of the Meghalaya society do not share its interest, not to mention the uninformed and neutral rural folks who constitute the majority of the population. The boundary of ILP impasse has not been restricted within the space between its advocates and the government. It has expanded directly affecting all individual citizens, mostly the majority poor and the powerless, who though may have no interest in it or even know about it, are caught up in its course. It has jailed them in their private vicinity denying them the liberty to get access to the means of survival for no fault of theirs or without their consent.
Meghalaya is structured into a stereotyped mood of agitations such as bandhs. Such system features in almost every expression of sectional interests, except when Samuel Jyrwa was the president of the KSU. We have not learnt that life in this highly globalised world is filled with deadline and targets that cannot be compromised. Individuals from different class and sections have different targets to achieve. The question of individual survival that has become much more challenging is both the immediate and ultimate end. In such a situation, a section of the society cannot afford to restrict the movements of individuals to get access to the means of survival. No individual struggling for survival consents to such restriction unless forced to. The softest groups and the ultimate sufferers who remain mute receivers of all forms of injuries in this scenario are the poor and the powerless. Pressurised by the collapse of his meager business because of the ILP agitation a friend wittingly observed, “pressure groups exist to pressurize the government. Unfortunately now the pressure is shifted to the common public”.
One apparent factor that has compelled the Congress-led government to stand against the ILP is the presence of a strong lobby from the coal barons, contractors and other business enterprises. The cheap labour force that they require may not be easily available if ILP is implemented. However, there seems to be a structural silence on this point from different quarters. While there is so much talk about illegal immigration and the mechanism to combat, there hardly is any voice against the role of the indigenous comprador-bourgeoisie or Lumpenbourgeoisie who facilitate the same. Apparently the fading tribal kinship character has deceived and made us believe that the threat to our communitarian existence comes only from outsiders. The intra-social and economic inequalities and exploitation are sidelined. In all this, the poor who have nothing to do with it have to pay not a cheap price, but one that concerns their survival.
Patricia’s point ‘who will blink first’ reflects the hard truth about agitations in Meghalaya. Once a show- down is started, it is difficult for either side to back down because that would mean a sense of humiliating defeat. Now, neither the government nor the pressure groups show any sign of respite. ‘How long shall we wait?’ Can we sustain till it ends? Let me illustrate the experience in the NEHU students’ agitation 2010 for a change of perspective. Towards the end of the agitation, a delegation was sent to Samuel Jyrwa and Hamlet Dohling, the then president and secretary of the KSU. A thoughtful Samuel remarked that given the situation that if the agitation was to continue for another week, it would lead to the cancellation of the whole semester. It would be unwise to continue the agitation because it would defeat the purpose of bringing the perceived betterment to the University itself. That idea led to the end of the agitation and the continuation of the semester. We did not achieve the immediate intent of having a local Vice-Chancellor in NEHU and much sense of humiliating defeat prevailed. Later we realised that our small agitation had national impact. The UGC notice was reported in The Hindu that it would take into account the university’s faculty members and students in the future selection of VCs on account of agitations in different universities like ours.
To conclude, the current perspective of understanding provides that the ILP as a demand in itself is democratically legitimate. The political development in the course of achieving it however, contradicts the basic democratic ideals, thus turned undemocratic. Political realism believes that the state is the highest human institution. There is nothing beyond the state. Whatever happens reflects the success or failure of the state. In the current ILP impasse, though the ILP protagonists may appear to be the immediate undemocratic autocrats for different reasons, eventually it is the failure of the state to fulfill its democratic mandates that citizens are experiencing (what Bentham calls) “pains”. Therefore, it is the primary responsibility of the state to protect and bring “happiness” to the citizens, the reason for which it is created. Engage in dialogue and make compromise to arrive at a win-win situation where both parties do not have a sense of humiliation, is the solution.