By Babet Sten
Come autumn there are always a series of festivals proceeding regularly until the end of the year. We have grown used to this and some grown tired of as well. If there were any outside gazers into our state at this particular time of year it would seem that the state of Meghalaya has Rio’s Carnival fever. It looks as though there are no problems, everyone is enjoying the fruits of hard labour and happiness and laughter abound. There are so many festivals the head spins – from cultural to religious to peace – everything gets a theme and each theme calls for celebration.
The state government loves cultural events. They share that in common with the booze, cement, mining companies whose names appear in big banners all around the town. Don’t get me wrong I am for government protectionism of arts and culture but we need a sustained effort and not one-off showcase events. We need durability and longevity in culture not the business of cultural events. We have all seen the vast amounts of money and resources that are being utilized to fund events through the Arts and Culture Department and yet they say the state is under financial constraint. This is the best answer they can come up with when teachers ask for their long impending dues.
Festivals are important to people. They foster a sense of identity, bring a certain level of intimacy and affirm a joy of living, both on an individual and community front. But in this current mode of organizing festive events are we letting financial considerations overtake the original purposes of our age-old tribal festivals? Isn’t the task of community management at festivals sort of a way to counter the personal greed for commercialization? Are these current corporate sponsored festivals a way to distract us from what is really going on inside our society? Just who are these creators of culture (or cultural events to be more correct) and what type of culture are we celebrating when we take part in such things? These are questions which we must engage with. The most burning question right now which these events bring to mind is what role does the community play at these events? Are we simply like the mannequins at the Don Bosco Museum mere specimens to be viewed by outsiders? Or are we celebrating and adding new things to our ethos and way of living? This latter question is never answered because these gigs are always dominated by a few persons’ ideas of what our culture should be, not by multiple sources. This forces a disconnect between so-called “creator” culture and that of the community.
Though I say this keeping in mind “modern” festivals their influence upon the traditional ones is also apparent. Recently I visited the Iing Sad at Smit and was surprised to see a huge coliseum-like structure around the dancing ground. The divisiveness of such physical barriers will be seen when the Pom Blang Dance commences. This segregating structure ensures that the ones who can get a seat inside will be the ones who see and participate while the hundreds outside can only wonder about what the fuss is all about. So be it! Let the hundreds create their own spectacles and enjoy them. This is how culture should be- dynamic, forward, unbound by the bias of the “creators”.
There is also another type of festival which is defined by the Otherworldly. The biggest festivals in our state are not Monolith-inspired nor influenced by climate (18 degrees or so). They are a mix of war, passion, conquest but with a mild theme – festivals of peace, popularly known as crusades. They attract crowds and cash by the truck loads. What exactly are these peace festivals in the context of our woeful situations? Sure, we all want Peace. It is the essence of the human condition but Peace is also relative and can never be attained without Justice. We fly over “emissaries of peace” from the West but their very own governments are militant war-mongers. Their packaged peace then is a poor substitute. Real peace can only exist when people lead full and wholesome lives which only a just and free society can effect. These events are yet another disconnect from reality of peace since they have nothing to do with justice.
The only type of festival we lack since the creation of this tiny tribal state is the political festival. Although we do have a political circus in which a whip is used to tame the wild, loads of staged acting goes on, people getting drunk on all sorts of intoxicants so on. No one celebrates politics here only politicians. In fact this is the one festival which you are discouraged from joining in. What has happened is the depoliticisation of society much to the happiness and benefit of a few people. Let us engage and celebrate interactively so as to create a new political culture to address the problems and shortcomings of the current. For this we need no sponsors, banners, ads, stage, only the people and their thirst.