By Paramjit Bakhshi
Merlin is a legendary wizard in the Arthurian tales. It is said that he lived backwards in time, something which we, used to living forward into the future, can’t comprehend. Once King Arthur while he was still a boy asked Merlin to explain why he lived backwards in time. Merlin told him that all wizards live that way and added that living that way, had many advantages. Little Arthur was confused and asked the wizard to explain further. To illustrate the benefit of such a perspective, Merlin asked the boy to dig a long ditch. After digging about ten feet in the hot afternoon, Arthur asked Merlin if that was enough. Merlin appeared satisfied with the boy’s work, but asked him to fill up the trench again. The ever obedient Arthur did what he was instructed, only to be subsequently asked, what he thought of his own work. “It was pointless”, Arthur replied.
“So is most human effort. But the pointlessness is discovered only when all the work is done and by then it is too late. If only one lived backwards in time we would see the pointlessness of most work.” said Merlin in triumph.
This is one of the stories narrated by Deepak Chopra in “The Way of the Wizard”. It is recounted here to highlight the pointless ditch digging that Meghalaya has been doing for decades.
The state was formed with great fanfare and a genuine hope, that self rule would help develop the area. Instead the new (and local) government machinery, turned out to be as self serving, if not more, than the old Assam government.
For forty years there has been talk of developing the tourism potential but there has also been a counter current of animosity towards “outsiders”. People can’t decide whether they want to welcome or to throw out people.
We have implemented the land transfer act but the soul of the land is readily traded in truckloads of timber and coal and what is left behind are just the skeletons of hollowed hills and poisoned rivers.
Most people are bleeding hearts for preserving the local culture while they themselves race to live a life of modern materialism.
Moralistic militant movements which profess to cleanup society and rid it of evils and foreigners have their bases on the same foreign soil and thrive on extortion.
The state survives on financial aid from taxpaying Indians but Indians are routinely targeted, abused and killed in the name of saving the state.
Inexperienced students lead agitations and seasoned well travelled leaders listen mutely. Some want us to go backwards a century or more while others fool us into thinking that they are taking us forward to the next.
The list of our meaningless acts (and rhetoric) is much longer but the above should be indicative enough. In everything that we have done we have behaved like headless chickens in the last throes of death. As a result Meghalaya is not far away from reaching its nadir. In an article about uranium mining (on Oct 22, 2009) I had pointed out that we are in a danger of becoming like Sierra Leone or Nigeria. Any sensible person will see that we are more than halfway there today. Almost all of Jainita Hills, Garo Hills and West Khasi Hills are already far gone and what is left, is for East Khasi Hills and Ri Bhoi to head there.
The Merlin’s story needs to be understood by us all. It means that we have to have a clear vision of where we all want to go together as a state. Once that vision is clarified we can then look backwards and see what needs to be done to achieve that vision.
Till now we have not developed that vision. A section thinks that we have the potential to become an IT hub like Karnataka, some think that we can be a major tourist destination like Goa or Thailand, while others cannot look beyond Mizoram and Nagaland. Yet everyone wants Meghalaya to have the prosperity of America or of Europe. We don’t need a Merlin to tell us that this is not going to happen if we continue to head towards anarchy so prevalent in the failed states of Africa. It is also not going to happen by visionless meandering or communal rhetoric or by having leaders (political or social) who are fearful, dishonest, opportunistic and myopic. And it certainly is not going to happen as long as we continue to hold a begging bowl and expect the rest of the country to keep filling it.
Meghalaya is in dire need of people with integrity and courage. If our leaders have failed us we cannot just sit down and do nothing. We cannot allow ourselves to land from the frying pan into the fire. To quote Edmund Burke, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. For Meghalaya to even have a hope we need the “aam aadmi”, to sculpt a vision and a dream rather than getting lost in fear, hopelessness, hatred and cynicism.
If people in the oft reviled Delhi can, can’t we?
[The writer is a life skills trainer and can be contacted at [email protected]]