Editor,
At last the cat is out of the bag! The so-called pressure groups, a conglomeration of 13 so-called NGOs have at last shown their true colour! They have abandoned the genuine ILP to adopt or devise (how?) another with “stronger teeth” as the KSU president Daniel Khyriem had said after the group’s much hyped meeting on March 3, 2014 to discuss their move in the ongoing see-saw battle between them and the government (ST. March 4, 2014).
We should ask the KSU President and other ‘leaders’ of the NGOs within the group what they propose to do to achieve their objective. But since they have already decided to prefer a “charter of demands” we have to wait for that day when the charter would be ready. Meanwhile we eagerly await the event with bated breath. We would like to see what their secret weapons look like. The FKJGP President, Joe Marwein’s proposed “mechanism which can tackle the burning issue of influx without affecting the tourism and development of the State”. We are eager to have that kind of mechanism revealed in the proposed charter. We also suggest that the group leaders tell us which provision (s) of the Regulation V of 1873 would have adverse effect on tourism and development. We eagerly look forward to the revelation of “an ILP in the State which is different from the ILP system that is already in force in Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland” as proposed by the KSU President as well as by the FKJGP President.
However, we are puzzled by Sadon Blah’s decision “to leave it to the wisdom of the State government which has enough expertise to frame rules for the implementation of ILP whether within or outside the purview of the Regulation 1873”, as The Shillong Times is reported had put it in the front paged news item. The public would like to know why, in the light of this “wisdom of the State government…” the group had agitated for introduction of ILP to hold us to ransom. Would it not have been better to have left it to the government’s wisdom six month ago? Another worrying fact about Sadon Blah’s view is that he had, at one of the meetings I had the privilege to grace, stated that the meeting was intended to discuss the issue of ‘influx’ not ‘land’ which shows that he did not realise the relationship of land to the undesirable influx of land grabbers. I, now, take this opportunity to give expression to my oft-repeated view that land for permanent settlement is the attraction for prospective settlers and land grabbers. Remove the attraction and the influx stops automatically. Section 7 of the Regulation sees to that – remove the attraction by denying any non-indigenous person the right of ‘interest in land and product of land’.
The governments’ mandate is to govern within the constraints of existing laws, or, if no laws exist for a particular purpose, to legislate/enact the necessary laws for the particular purpose. Since in this instance a law (Regulation V, 1873) does exist, any government would have no option other than to invoke/activate it, especially, when people demand it, even if the elected government is averse to it. If the demand is rejected, I leave it to the genius of the leaders of the groups to devise a way to pursue their demand – within the constraints of the existing laws. If the governments are so sure that the law is unnecessary, they ought to have it repealed by a competent authority.
It is sad that the powers that be should choose to discuss important issues like this one only with self appointed defenders of the indigenous people’s interests while ignoring the genuinely concerned individuals of society. It is clear now that the leaders of the NGOs are too immature and incapable of tackling such important issues.
Yours etc.,
Morning Star Sumer
Shillong – 2
