By Patricia Mukhim
The calamitous events of this week tell us that governance in Meghalaya is a complete failure. First came the unprecedented floods in Garo Hills where officials were caught napping. Except for one Deputy Commissioner who was quick to give an assessment of the floods in his district of West Garo Hills and to file a first information report (FIR) the others seemed to have gone into a somnolent mood. Most officers posted in the other districts of Garo Hills were absent from their posts and were said to have been in Tura, their first home. Why do people want to become civil servants if they also don’t want to stay at their place of posting? They can’t have it both ways. Several lakh people have lost their homes, fields, livestock and livelihoods to the recent floods. The Government has its tasks cut out but with ministers and the State Chief Minister nearly always absent from the State and the bureaucracy seemingly unprepared to handle crises situations we seem headed for further disasters.
While floods are a natural disaster, relief and rescue operations follow a standard operating procedure (SOP). It is the SOP which becomes the primary code of conduct during a crisis. So the first principle of governance means that every official knows what to do in case of an earthquake or a flood or any other disaster. Money has been spent for disaster management drills but they seem to fail us when we come to the real disaster. Thankfully in the case of Garo Hills the military and para-military forces spared no pains to carry out rescue operations. It is the civil administration that lacked the wherewithal to do what needed to be done within the least possible time and to take necessary decisions and delegate responsibilities.
Then we have the case of Jaintia Hills where the Meghalaya Indigenous Peoples’ Livelihoods Rights (MIPLR) led by a cantankerous lawyer, Erwin Syiem Sutnga who has fought and lost many an election, declared an indefinite economic blockade. There is no ambiguity that Sutnga represents the coal lobby but he needed a front, an alibi and the legitimacy to fight the NGT ban on coal mining. The ploy he adopted was to use ordinary people whose benefits from the coal mining exercise is minimal. Such people are impressionable. They don’t believe in logic and don’t usually have the mental prowess to reason out why someone like Sutnga would stand to defend their rights. What’s in it for him in this whole game? Those who can think are not beneficiaries of coal mines and so don’t care to speak up and speak out that coal mining is not the only livelihood. In fact it is the most unsustainable of livelihoods. If people are to continue to enjoy the fruits of the earth they ought to be pursuing alternative livelihoods. The greedy coal mafia will of course not want to listen to such arguments. The big names in this game have already bought up half of Shillong. Why would they go back to Jaintia Hills which will one day become a ghost country with no water to drink and no vegetation to replenish the oxygen in the environment?
The Jaintia Hills episode turned murky after the district administration dithered on action to be taken. Reportedly the Deputy Commissioner was not in station and matters were handled by his deputy. On the first day of the economic blockade the police faced the rough end of the stick even as the crowds of protesters turned unruly and burnt up the vehicle of the Superintendent of Police, East Jaintia Hills. Some cops were injured in the scuffle. Here too it is evident that the SOP was not followed. As is the normal procedure, the leader of any group calling a bandh, blockade or public curfew is arrested on grounds that a bandh/blockade disrupts essential public services. Often police refrain from arresting the ring-leader because they don’t turn him into a hero from a zero. But on the plea of not wanting to create heroes out of self-styled, pomposity-driven leaders the district administration took a lenient view of the situation. Now it has to pay for this illogically driven argument. When you have to arrest a person you do that and handle other things later. Perhaps the flashpoint leading to the two deaths could have been avoided.
One has observed that this and other governments in Meghalaya lack a strategic thinking team to tackle crises situations. There are goody-goody bureaucrats working in their little silos, all masters of their respective domains but when it comes to crisis management, the state administration is an utter failure. Examples of this failure to handle crises are many but I will name one related to the media. The BBC correspondent from Delhi tried relentlessly to get in touch with some official or point person in the Meghalaya Secretariat on September 23, to get as she says, ‘the official version’ of the floods in Garo Hills and the number of people who have lost their lives. She tried calling several numbers but no one would answer her call. Finally she called The Shillong Times office and we gave her the figures after speaking to the Chief Secretary. Emergencies demand that one person be appointed to handle media queries. If the media does not get facts it will start writing fiction for which there will be loads of criticism the day after. But it has been the experience of the media here that getting anything out of bureaucrats even in this age of RTI is a tortuous endeavour.
Let me now come to the word “governance” which is bandied about carelessly these days. What does governance mean? I have tried reading up several literature and nearly all of them say that governance is a very complex thing and this complexity is difficult to capture in a simple definition. Governance is required when people or groups come together to accomplish a goal. Hence most literature on governance stresses on three key dimensions (1) authority (2) decision-making (3) accountability. In short, governance determines who has power, who makes decisions and how other players make their voices heard and how account is rendered. All the above must work in tandem to bring about governance. The entire populace of a state have by the process of election vested the authority to take decisions on their behalf on the elected representative. The elected representative is expected to consult and confer with his/her constituents on important issues. The elected MLA/MDC cannot assume that all decisions taken by him/her are in consonance with the public good. Sometimes the decisions are against public welfare because they are guided by lobby groups and business interests. This is where democracy fails us. I have yet to hear of any MLA/MDC going to his/her constituents to get their views on the NGT ban on coal mining. Are all the people of Jaintia Hills against the NGT ban, or is that an assumption? Who will capture those other voices that have not joined the MIPLR protests?
The essence of governance is that those vested with ‘authority’ to take decisions on behalf of the large majority must also be held accountable for those decisions. In short there should be a public forum where a wrong decision must be shown up to be wrong and the one who took the decision can also justify why he/she took that decision. If it is proved that the decision was in the greater public good then that would be approved by the public. However, this is an ideal scenario. So many decisions taken by our politicians and bureaucrats on a day to day basis are not necessarily in favour of the public. They are guided by what is good for the government. And since the government today is so far removed from the people that elected it, those decisions are often not good for us. There is today total confusion in the Government. In the first place why should the Chief Minister, Home Minister et al be present at an Accord signing ceremony between militants, Govt of India and Govt of Meghalaya at a time when the state is reeling from floods and the economic blockade? Why is the ANVC entitled to such veneration? Haven’t such treaties been signed earlier? Did they bring positive results? Does killing and extortion transform into benign acts the moment militants squeak about signing a peace pact? This is something many members of the public find hard to understand. At least we are unable to fathom the political undertones here. Who is the winner in this game?
And what governance principle guides these peace pacts? Will someone please explain? Dr Sangma, the people of Garo Hills expect more from you than just an aerial view of the floods. They want you to share their pain and loss. Instead you are earning flying miles between Guwahati-Delhi – Guwahati. This is not what they expect from their Chief Minister!