By Fabian Lyngdoh
On the day he was murdered, Julius Caesar was persuaded by the danger revealed in Calphurnia’s dream not to venture out of his home. So he instructed Decius to inform the Senate that he would not go to the Capitol that day. But Decius explained to Caesar that Calphurnia’s dream was all amiss interpreted; it was a vision fair and fortunate (Shakespreare’s Julius Caesar, Act 2, Scene II). The ancestors of the Khasis had devised land holding systems which were fair and fortunate, but unfortunately this just traditional custom was all amiss interpreted to serve the interests of comparatively few modern businessmen and landlords. Private ownership of land is today over-stressed.
According to the Khasi custom, private ownership of land is subject to the general welfare of the community. No family should claim ownership over land without using it as a homestead or farm land. A plot of land that was left fallow for more than three years reverted to the community. If any family conducts its affairs in any way prejudicial to the general welfare of the community, all its lands can be confiscated and the whole family can be ostracized or chased out of the community. The recent idea that the Khasis have absolute private right over their lands and that they can do whatever they want over them is a misinterpretation by some vested interests, and documented by the modern State.
According to Khasi thought, the land belongs to the people (paidbah), not to the State or the Government. That implies that it belongs to God not to Caesar. The concept of “belonging to the people” does not mean belonging to private individuals, but to the tribe as a whole. Private ownership of land by individuals is an invented tradition enforced by the law, not by custom. Hence, the Government is duty bound to provide the means of livelihood for the landless because it has documented under the seal of Caesar, the ownership of few individuals over vast tracts of land and natural resources which are the gifts of God to all.
Land in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills had two systems of ownership First, land was collectively owned by the community. Individual families can only own private home-stead and some areas of settled farm lands, while the whole territory was a Ri-Raid (commune land). This system was practised in Ri Bhoi area in the northern Khasi Hills. In this system, there was no landless family in the community. In the second system, lands were owned by the kur (clans) as trustees. In the past every clan had a clan land in its original habitation. This system is practised in many parts of the Khasi Hills. This should not be misinterpreted as private ownership of land by a single clan. The clan was the trustee of that plot of land on behalf of the community, and it was also the main protector of that land from foreign invasion.
According to the Khasi traditional thought, the Kur (clan) is an independent religious cult; a full-fledged and permanent member of the society, individuals are not; Clans are an internally sovereign political unit with an independent economy. In the economic aspect, the wealth and property of the kur did not belong to any particular individual or individuals but to the whole kur. Every member contributed something to the kur economy and the kur as a whole was responsible for the economic and social security of every member, man or woman. The kur economy also belonged to the members yet to be born into the kur. Every Khasi uncle bore in mind that his office concerned itself not only for the kur members then living in his life time but also for the future of the kur or the welfare of those yet to be born into his kur. So, ownership of land by the kur was meant for the benefit of every kur member and as a trusteeship for the future generations, not for destruction of the environment to meet the greed of few individuals or households. If these two conditions of land ownership by the Kur are no more in vogue, then its ownership over that plot of land becomes invalid. The practical aspects of these traditional systems may not be applicable today, but the idea of land ownership as a trusteeship for the contemporary community, and for the future generations is valid forever.
The Khasi and Jaintia Hills have been plundered by greed on the pretext of keeping with the custom of absolute private ownership which is misinterpreted. The NGT ban is indeed a welcomed remedy to halt wanton destruction of the land and to set right the custom wrongly interpreted. If the people cannot comprehend the meaning of environmental destruction, which may seem a foreign problem, they would understand the destruction of their own sustainable means of livelihood which is familiar and closer home. If the NGT ban has hit the majority of the people in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills, then majority must have been engaged all along in a dangerous and unsustainable means of livelihood. Rangdajied Marwein has rightly said (New thinking post the NGT ban, ST June, 30, 2014) that it is time for the people to search for alternative means of livelihood other than those which involve environmental destruction. It is also better to bear the hardship now that coal reserves still exists for the future generations than when it becomes actually depleted and then suffer the fatal blow. In the 1970’s people from Jaintia Hills, men and women flocked to Ri Bhoi area to profitably engage themselves as labourers in harvesting paddy, and as traders of earthen wares and clothes. They would stay for weeks and months especially during paddy harvesting season enjoying in their labour along with music and songs, and returning home with pockets full of earnings, and a smile on their faces. That was sustainable livelihood.
The problem we are facing today is not because people lack the means to sustainable livelihood, but because of the artificial set of consumption targets set forth by the international business community through advertisements and other means of mass media exposure. People’s consumption patterns are greatly influenced by the ever rising social and material standards of living portrayed in the media and practised in the society. Everyone would like to own things which supposedly enhance social status, to organize functions which supposedly reflect social standing even if it costs the environment, or the destruction of their own means of livelihood. All types of flattery are devised to satisfy pride and vanity. Today’s industry is the industry of superfluous production. Increase human vanities, and you increase destruction of resources and environment. Set up foreign departmental stores in every district headquarter in the name of foreign direct investment, and we will see the exchange of the precious life of well grown trees that support a natural source of drinking water with decorated plastic flower pots, bottles of perfume, or a few pieces of Kentucky fried chicken, or a costly hairdo in the beauty salon, thus making the people enhanced in pride but poorer in assets.
If the country’s balance of payments and foreign exchange reserves are used up in the purchase of foreign superfluous products by the few haves, it would be a burden to the economy, as well as a grave injustice done to the have-nots.
It is the time for individual thinkers and the NGOs who are concerned about “KA RI bad KA JAID-BYNRIEW” to support the intellectual efforts put forth by H H Mohrmen and others of his kind, to see that the need to conserve the land and natural resources of the tribe for generations to come is far greater than anybody’s complain, be he a Chief Minister, or Adviser to the Chief Minister, or MLA or MP. The livelihood of the people should depend on the sustainable means provided by nature, not merely as labourers in the dubious business of politicians or the trading mafia. It is also the time for the Khasi society to revisit the traditional land holding system in its original concept, not as wrongly interpreted, otherwise the society would be pursuing a walking shadow and people would realise belatedly that, “to the last syllable of recorded time, all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death”.
(The writer is former Chairman, KHADC)