By H H Mohrmen
During our school days English lessons consisted of chapters about Jim Corbett and the fascinating stories of his encounter with man-eating tigers in this country. The stories portrayed tigers as villains, ferocious animals that would munch at any human it came across while Jim Corbett is the hunter and a hero whose skill for tracking and capturing tigers is praised in the stories. The image of the tiger is that of a man-eating predator which causes havoc and fear in the villages and its adjoining areas while the ‘sahib’ was the savior who killed the brutal tiger. As a kid I loved those man-eating tiger stories and admired Corbett’s courage; the hero who came to the people’s rescue and helped many villagers in India get rid of the killer beast that was in the prowl in the area then.
Now the stories are not as popular, and even the textbook which was the Meghalaya Board of School Education prescribed English textbook for class IX and X then has been removed from the list. But the lessons which depicted a negative image of the most beautiful animal in the world had a lasting impact on the young minds. Thankfully, kids now do not have to read the gruesome stories anymore, but as the books have disappeared from the bookshelf so also the tigers from the forest. Thanks to humans the population of tigers is dwindling day by day and tigers are now in the list of endangered species in the world.
The Inquirer a magazine of the British and Irish Unitarian Free Christians in its 21st June issue carried a very beautiful article by John Pickering on the threat of climate change and global warming. The powerful article is part of the church’s attempt to rally support among its members for a motion in response to the recent United Nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.
The writer started his article by asking the readers to imagine what will happen if the tables turned around and instead of the tigers, human are on the endangered list? What if the world is inhabited by 6 billion tigers and all of them man-eating tigers? How will humans with no weapons except their bare hands face the challenge of having to live with 6 billion man-eating tigers in the world? What if human population in the entire planet comprises of few hundred only and most importantly what is the chance of the human race’s survival in such a grim scenario?
July 11 is World Population day and perhaps it is not out of place to remind ourselves that we humans are 6 billion strong now and our population increases every day. With all the knowledge and science we have at our command we are the most ferocious animals that had ever walked on the face of the earth. We are the species that has usurped all the resources in the planet for our selfish interests. We have caused havoc to the world to satisfy our greed. We have destroyed forests, polluted waters and eliminated thousands of our fellow creations from the face of the earth. Yet even in the foreseeable future the end to this wanton destruction of the earth is nowhere near because we are being overwhelmed by our greed that knows no bounds. Pickering said that collectively we behave as though we are in control of the world and the whole world revolves around us and our well being. He called humans freeloaders who contribute nothing, yet take everything from the earth.
A story published in a vernacular paper recently said that the NGT ban had saved the fishes but killed humans in the process. We need to remind ourselves that if fishes live, it also ensures that the water is safe for human consumption and generation after generation of humans will continue to live. But if fishes die then without water even the present generation will not be able to survive.
We justify our actions on the pretext that land belongs to us and we are free to do whatever we like with our property as guaranteed by the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. In my effort to learn more about land ownership, I visited the office of the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council to get some information on the subject. I was told that generally land holding under the District Council can be categorized into three types. People were issued land holding certificate (LHC) for non agricultural land, patta hali for holding agricultural land and community forests are registered with the Forest Department of the Council. But on a second question whether agriculture land registered as patta hali can be converted to LHC, the answer is yes. Agricultural land can be mutated to non-agricultural land without any hassle; there is no rule against converting agricultural land to non-agricultural land. Instead there are even cases where community forests were transferred to individuals especially in the coal mine areas.
The Sixth Schedule provides us rights over our land but the District Councils and in this case, the JHADC has failed in its duty to make rules to implement the Schedule. There is total chaos in the way land is administered by the Councils. Perhaps this is reason why Wah Umkhrah is as it is now. Agricultural land on the banks of the river was allowed to change to non-agricultural land thereby allowing people the right to construct houses even on the banks of the river. This is a dangerous trend and if the Councils do not immediately put a stop to this, then very soon all agricultural land will be converted to non-agricultural land and instead of paddy fields we will see buildings coming up on the banks of the river like Myntdu, Myntang etc. If the Councils allow this mutation of land from agricultural land to non-agricultural land to continue there is not only the danger of buildings coming up near the river, but we will also lose many picturesque paddy fields which should be considered as national heritage. In the case of Myntdu if the JHADC allows people to change their patta hali to land holding certificates, then people will lose the panoramic view of the Pynthor Wah and Pynthor Nein.
I think it would not be wrong to say that we lost the Wah Umkhrah in Shillong because of this claim that the Sixth Schedule guaranteed us this right to own land. Add to that the fact that the District Council does not have rules that prohibit construction of buildings even near the river! People instead built their houses right on the river and if this is the kind of land ownership that the Sixth Schedule gives us then I think we would be better off without the Schedule.
The tribal that we are, we only know how to exert our rights and freedom and have no responsible for what we do. A young man who walked in front of an elderly man was swinging his stick to and fro. When the elderly man cautioned the young man to be careful with his stick, the young man responded by saying ‘don’t you know we live in a free country and I have every right to swing my stick?’ The elderly man said to the young man yes son, we live in a free country and I know you have every right to swing your stick the way you like it but you should remember that your freedom ends where my nose begins.’ Freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. Our freedom ends where our neighbour’s rights begin. While exercising our freedom we cannot encroach on the rights of the others and this is exactly what the NGT ban is all about.
In Jaintia hills, the Sixth Schedule is misinterpreted and misused by some for their self interest. We have destroyed our forest, our land and our rivers and we have no qualms about the future generation. Are we going to greedily gobble (“bam duh”) all the resources for our immediate interests only? Have we become like baby crabs which feed on their mothers even while still clinging to the mother’s body (“ki khun tham mih ruh naka kmie bam ruh ia ka kmie?”)? Are we going to destroy the future of our children before they even know it? Are we going to kill them before they are even born?
Humans are using up all the available resources and eliminating other forms of creation in the process, if the trend continues there will be not much left for humans to eliminate and we will become man-eating-man beasts.