By H H Mohrmen
The government under the leadership of Dr. Mukul Sangma is in the docks and has faced criticism from all quarters because the government has failed on many important fronts. There is call for President’s Rule in the State from almost all opposition parties and the reason could very well be the under-performance of the Congress led Meghalaya United Alliance. The charges are not unfounded. The State has experienced a tumultuous first half of 2014 under the MUA and with regards to the issue of militancy in Garo hills and the NGT ban on coal mining the future is as uncertain as the weather in the Meghalaya.
The law and order situation in the Garo hills district has gone from bad to worse; there is a killing spree everywhere. For the first time in our history Meghalaya appeared in the prime time news of national media and that too for the wrong reasons. It is a matter of great embarrassment for the government that the mothers in the community have to leave their hearths and homes and take to the streets to protest because the government has failed to rein in the militant groups in the region. The future looks bleak for Garo Hills and the Government seems to have no clue as to what is happening there. Militancy in the region has been active for many years and the militants seem to gain the upper hand over the State police even while counter insurgency tactics seems highly ineffective. The State Government must decide once and for all whether it should continue with the peace talks approach and by doing so open a Pandora’s box and thereby give birth to more splinters groups, or call for military action and crush militancy once and for all. Garo Hills is bleeding as someone has rightly said and Government cannot afford to delay any more. The Government should come up with solutions to resolve the Garo militancy problem as soon as possible. We are fed up with violence and terrorism in the region. An effective mechanism that could end militancy and usher a new dawn in the Garo hills is what people want.
Not only is the law and order in Meghalaya in a shambles but even the debate in the Assembly looks like it is in total mess. To a lay person whose only access to the hallowed house is from the news reports in the media, the impression is that now even debates in the assembly lack decorum and discipline. There is finger pointing and name calling by the Chief Minister himself which is uncalled for. The question is, if Purno Sangma is a Bangladeshi who is Mukul Sangma? How can Mukul Sangma point finger at others when his own identity is still a matter under litigation in the highest court of the country. Mukul should learn from the Khasi Pnar saying, ‘one should not point fingers at other because the three fingers point at one-self.’ Better still he should remind himself of the saying ‘People who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others.’
The law and order problem in the Garo Hills is a major issue and the Government has its plate full. Add to that the NGT ban on rat-hole mining in the state which also is a challenging issue for the Government. It is now obvious that Government is clueless about what to do after the NGT upheld the ban on rat-hole mining in the state. What is the MUA government’s next move with regards to coal mining in Meghalaya? Your guess is as good as mine. But one thing is certain. The government does not have a plan B in place after its appeal to the NGT to modify its order had failed. The NGT has made it loud and clear that rat-hole mining is illegal and that leaves us with an obsolete Meghalaya Mines and Minerals Act (MMMA) 2012. The MMMA stance that rat-hole mining in Meghalaya is a customary practice of the people here and hence it should continue is now rendered infructuous by the NGT ruling which defines rat-hole mining as illegal. Now that the NGT order has made rat hole coal mining in Meghalaya illegal, the State Government needs to come up with a new Mines and Mineral Policy which will be in line with the recent NGT order, if mining is to continue in the State. The Government should also come up with a comprehensive mineral and mining policy which will not only cover coal but limestone, sand mining and other mining activities too. What that means is the Government not only needs to recast the earlier Act but it would have to scrap the Policy even before it is implemented, because it has become redundant now.
Arguments based on land ownership and rights of the tribals to mine as they wish to in their own land is not only a no- brainer but it is also illegal. The closest example is that one cannot use a privately owned car for commercial purposes unless one is in possession of a valid permit, a professional driving license, pay insurance, passenger and other taxes. Likewise one needs environment clearance, mining lease and other documents to start mining. Merely claiming ownership of the land does give one the right to mine as one wishes. There are rules and regulations that one has to follow and if the State does not have one, there are national laws in place. The Government should also take the NGT ban as an opportunity to start regulating mining in the State, something it should have done a long time ago.
When an allegation was made against the Government of the presence of a staggering 70,000 child labourers in the coal mines of the Jaintia hills, it did not even have any information to counter the allegation. Not only does Government not have data of the number of labourers engaged in the industry but the Government does not even have the numbers of active or abandoned mines in the region. Last time when the Central Commissioner on child rights visited the state, the Minister in charge of Labour was caught on the wrong foot because the Government did not have its own statistics to counter the allegation. On a positive note, the government should now use the ban to learn from its mistake and start conducting surveys on mining activities in the state. Now that the NGT has ordered the Deputy Commissioner to seal the all active mines in their respective districts, the Government should take this opportunity and start collecting data of active and inactive mines and come up at least with the numbers of mines with names of coal mine owners. That itself will be an achievement even if we don’t have statistics on miners because by now most of them have left their camps.
Dr Mukul Sangma has been able to avoid major inner-party upheavals after the recent general elections basically because the Congress party was reduced to shreds and also because the victorious MP from the Shillong parliamentary constituency is getting wiser and does not want to avenge his detractors. Dr Sangma has survived the mid-year intra-party crisis but the question is can he survive the bigger crisis which is the failure of law and order in the state and the obvious lack of preparedness on the part of the government to address the greater crisis that come after the NGT ban on rat-hole mining. With the encircling gloom facing the Meghalaya United Alliance (MUA) it should now be redefined as Meghalaya Uncertain Alliance.