By Abner Watre Ingty
During the 1940s, Italian immigrants from Europe made their way to the USA which included some people from Sicily, that famous Island known for the origins of the mainstream Italian Mafia. Israel, a newly created nation in the 1940s has its own problems regarding Jewish Immi-grants from Russia. In both cases, organized crime sprung from the immigrants who, in the environment they had come from as well as the ego-ridden and frustrated work associated with jobs with low pay and unskilled workers who may not be educated or informed enough to be able to know right from wrong, made their way up the ladder through corruption and foul play. They did so with the help of some government officials to earn more money and consolidate their ego-ridden lives of domination and submission from their early days as low paid workers and then began to form gangs. And that is how the La Cosa Nostra in the USA as well as the Yakuza in Japan, the Japanese Mafia which started from the low classes of Japanese society and Korean immigrants, and the Jewish Mafia made from Jewish immigrants from Russia began to make their way into the lands that sheltered them. Also, such crime syndicates show a considerable degree of communal feelings for their own ethnicity and engage in out-group hostility and racism. Some of these immigrants were legal and others illegal but the key point is immigration screening as well as the ability to thwart any egocentric pattern of behaviour that is not conducive to the progression of civilization should be managed well by the administrators and law enforcements of all regions which also brings us to our dear State of Meghalaya!
We cannot justify illegal immigration or uncontrolled lax legal migration with improper screening processes under arguments like, ‘Oh but we need cheap labour’ or ‘Oh, but we should shelter and be kind to those who have come here to earn for a living.’ We have to be pragmatic. At the same time we have people who think the Inner Line Permit (ILP) is going to be the ultimate solution to tackle illegal immigration. The ILP will affect the economy of Meghalaya at large and the economy is the back bone of society from food, to electronics, to education, to tourism and adequate waged jobs, to maintaining law and enforcement, etc. Do some of us not realize this? It is not going to help the state as lax mana-gement and perhaps a nexus of people bent on aiding illegal immigration or turning a blind eye based on communal feelings and vote banking will hinder the goal of proper policy implementation. Therefore we, the society at large must mobilize! But how?
Well, in view of the State government’s efforts as well as the Supreme Court’s verdict to bring about reconciliation in society which should be applauded, we cannot ignore the many self-destructive patterns at play which may not be so obvious to many in society. These self-destructive patterns are what society already considers bad globally which involves organized crime, corruption in the government as well as the nexus between the two and law and bad policy or administration which gives rise to such self-destructive patterns which eat away at the economy and the standard of civilization in a place. Poverty, crime rise, unequal distribution of wealth and general ignorance as a result of the former is what organized crime, corruption and bad management leads to. Now is the time for society at large, which includes government administrators, politicians at the legislative assembly, law and enforcement personnel, NGOs, teachers in schools and colleges, employees of companies, etc., to cooperate. We need to carry out investigations, operations, deportations, education and informing the youth and adult peers and colleagues alike to watch, observe and legally act where it is possible to thwart illegal immigration, organized crime or communal mind-sets not through riots and curfews but debate, discussions, talk, reporting to the law and enforcers and proper enforcement of the law by the government. Tell them all in Khasi, Hindi, English, Garo, Bengali, etc that nexuses, foul play and violation of the law will be exposed and dealt with appropriately. We must mobilize now before it’s too late!