By Sumarbin Umdor
The current phase of agitation by pro-ILP groups has witnessed some sporadic but ugly incidents which have led to the loss and damage of public and private properties and more sadly, caused grievous injury to fellow citizens. I join others in condemning these ghastly acts of violence as they are totally unacceptable and have no place in a civilised world. These acts are against our culture and traditions and have the potential to endanger the safety and security of our own people who reside elsewhere in the country.
The government of Meghalaya has decided to take a tough stance against ILP agitators. It has revamped the MMPO Acts and proposed to set up special courts to prosecute all those found involved in unlawful activities. Many have welcomed the move of the government to hold the leaders of the pro ILP groups accountable for the monetary losses incurred during the bandhs and blockades terming these measures as long overdue.
I too support this position but must insist that this approach be applicable for all crimes and not selectively as per political convenience. Sadly, at present the tough stance of the government is directed only against violence related to ILP agitation. The state government is totally blind to the other crimes involving looting of public money without anyone ever having been held accountable for the same. Many see the state’s inability to enforce the rule of law and its pathetic helpless onlooker image, as the direct outcome of its passive if not active facilitation of all corruption and theft of public funds.
The state CAG reports are littered with accounts of scams perpetuated by government departments causing monetary losses running into crores of rupees. The deteriorating state of infrastructure and public services points to the deep rooted corruption going on in the state. Recently, the CBI had indicted the state education department in a case related to illegal appointment of teachers in government schools. However, instead of taking action and prosecuting those responsible for this scam, all we see is inaction and delay meant to protect the perpetrator(s) of this scam.
What message do we send to the citizens of this state, particularly the young people, who see the corrupt and the crooked moving about freely without having to face any consequence for their action? How to explain the state’s policy of zero tolerance towards ILP related violence but 100 percent tolerance for the corrupt? How do we explain this dual policy towards crime and corruption?
Let me emphasise here that I am in no way justifying the violence committed during the last few days or diluting the seriousness of these crimes by linking them to our inaction towards corruption. Let the state prosecute the culprits of these crimes to the fullest extent of the law. But in the long run if we want to usher in a culture of respect for the law of the land, then the state must act against all types of lawlessness and crimes with the impartiality of equitable justice.
There are those who may argue that corruption is different from violent crime as it does not cause physical harm to anyone directly. The fact is that corruption hurts people and is responsible for death of innocents. An example of how corruption is related to death is explored in an IMF paper titled ‘Corruption and Provisions of Health Care and Education Services’. It concludes that high levels of corruption has adverse consequences for a country’s child and infant mortality rates, percentage of low birth weight babies in total births, and dropout rates in primary schools. A more recent study ‘Corruption Kills: Estimating the Global Impact of Corruption on Children Deaths’ hypothesized that roughly 1,40,000 children deaths annually could be related to corruption.
In the context of Meghalaya, the infant mortality rate (IMR)- the number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births- stands at 49. It is amongst the highest in the country, higher even than that of Bihar (42). Going by the above mentioned studies, how can we delink endemic corruption from the untimely deaths of our children?
In our state, children are more likely to fall sick as we are not able to provide safe drinking water to households. Once they do fall ill, our health centres, particularly those in the rural areas, lack the necessary medicines, equipment and personnel to provide timely treatment. So a sick child has to come all the way to an urban centre to avail treatment, even for minor ailments. But this again is a challenge as the deplorable road infrastructure makes the journey longer and costlier. Many rural families do not have the money to avail treatment as funds that should have provided them support for their livelihood have been swindled away. These children are the faceless victims whose life has been cut short because of unabashed corruption in the state.
This government must address corruption with the same intent and force as with other crimes, if it is to gain the respect and confidence of its citizens. In this respect, the case of Bihar under Nitish Kumar is a fitting example. Before he became the chief minister of Bihar in 2005, the state was considered the wild west of India with criminals ruling the roost. Nitish Kumar came to power on the plank of restoring law and order in the state. As soon as he assumed power, he ordered a crackdown on criminals giving his policemen a free hand to achieve this end. Many of the criminals were put behind bars under the Arms Act.
Nitish Kumar then turned his attention to tackling corruption by government officials. For this he first set up the state vigilance unit in 2006 but then realised that the existing laws had many loopholes which allowed corrupt officials to get away. So a new law was enacted- Bihar Special Court Act which came into force in 2009 which allowed the property of corrupt government officials to be attached even when the probe is under way, if the authorised officer concludes that the acquisition of the property was the result of the offence committed by the accused.
This is the type of approach that we expect our state government to adopt – an approach which holds all those who break the law- criminals, corrupt officials and scamsters- accountable for their misdeeds. Do the police, the administration and the vigilance apparatus of Meghalaya enjoy such carte blanche immunity from political interference? Only when this happens can we claim to have a zero tolerance policy towards crime.
(The author teaches economics at North Eastern Hill University and is a member of ICARE)