By Fabian Lyngdoh
According to oral traditions and as recorded in some historical literature, the Khasi political life always started when a group of clans in any first settlement constituted themselves into a political community, and the eldest uncle of the leading clan became the lyngdoh or basan of the whole settlement which is called ‘ka raid’ (in West Khasi Hills it is called ‘ka ri-khain’). The amalgamation of ki kur in government and administration in an area of occupation is the foundation of a political community proper, called ka raid. The male heads of each founding clan assume the role of lyngdoh, basan, sangot, pator, maji, shutia, sohblei etc”. Ki raid were unique and independent states.
Ki ri raid had been in existence many generations before the formation of the hima. The establishment of a hima with a syiem is of a very recent origin compared to the long period of history that the Khasi tribe had been living in these hills. Ki lyngdoh and ki basan of ki raid agreed among themselves to confederate and establish a bigger state and appoint a family from outside the hima as a jait syiem. The jait syiem may be freshly instituted from a non-Khasi family, or from a ‘kpoh’ (section) of the jait syiem from another hima. The leaders of the confederating raids became ‘ki bakhraw’, and the dorbar of ki bakhraw was the highest authority in the hima whose order, even the syiem is bound to obey.
The confederation of ki raid is only for judicial administration and defence purposes; there was no unification of lands. Therefore the syiem and the dorbar of the hima had no territorial authority. Land remains the property of the clans, and the shnong or the raid. Land tenure system of the Khasis ends with the ‘ri-raid’, and there is no such thing as ‘ka ri-hima’. Ri-Raid exists only at the raid level, and that is why it is called, ‘ri-raid’ at all such levels. All the ri-raid in a hima are under the territorial authority of the dorbar of the raid concerned, and not of the hima as a whole. Each bakhraw in a hima has a raid of his own over which he is the leader and which he represents. The syiem on the other hand does not belong to any raid; in fact the syiem and syiem-sad have to reside in whichever raid the bakhraw in their council think fit and proper. The syiem of hima Shyllong were first stationed by the bakhraw in raid Mylliem, and then later shifted to raid Nongkseh. The iing-sad and the jait syiem were burnt at Nongkseh while some of the bakhraw managed to snatch a girl of the jait syiem from the inferno and hid her in hima Nongkhlaw. Later, some supporting bakhraws built a house for her in a cave at raid Lynshing to hide her from the enemies. From there she was shifted to Nongkhlieng and then to raid Mawlieh. The bakhraws of raid Nongkrem invited the jait syiem to Nongkrem villge. They were then known as ‘Ki Syiem Nongkrem’ in the name of raid Nongkrem. The iing-sad at Nongkrem was again burnt, and the jait syiem shifted to Smit village in the land purchased by U Kumbir Singh, the youngest brother of the syiem, and a new iing-sad was built there. When the hima Shyllong broke up into two sections in the year 1853, one of the sections was called hima Mylliem in the name of raid Mylliem. For the establishment of the jait syiem Mylliem, land was gifted by the bakhraw of raid Mylliem, that is, by ka Mihsngi Kurkalang and ka Khyllun Nongkhlaw. The ri-syiem land at Iewduh (Bara Bazar) and ‘ki ri-bam-syiem’ (lands to support the syiem family in office) in Umroi area were also gifted by ki bakhraw. Since the jait syiem have no raid of their own, they have either to purchase land from private parties, or are gifted land by ki bakhraw.
Ki bakhraw exercised independent control over all the land within their own raid; and the hima is composed of well defined territories of ki raid only. That is why it is said that, ‘a Khasi syiem was never and is not, a territorial ruler’. Colonel Bivar, Deputy Commissioner during the British rule had also observed that the Khasi chiefs are not territorial sovereigns and had no authority over land, and as regards land and rights thereto the chiefs are just on the same footing as any other individual of the common-wealth. Keith Cantlie recorded that there was a contention that the chiefs have no right to half share in profits from minerals neither in ri-kynti, nor in ri-raid if that ri-raid lies within a village or a raid, as the proper person to receive it are the durbar of the village or raid. What Cantlie was not aware was that, there is no ri-raid which is not within the boundary of the raids. The British officers admitted that the chiefs have begun to assume territorial jurisdiction, and that they have been encouraged by the British Government to do so.
The real territorial authority in the Khasi society is the dorbar of the founding clans of the raid or what is called ‘ka dorbar-longsan’. The ‘Raid’ is not ‘Raj’, and ‘ri-raid’ is not ‘raj land’, as interpreted by the British. A ‘Raj’ is a subdivision of the Kingdom of the King or the Raja; but there had never been a Khasi King or a Khasi Kingdom. The raid and its dorbar on the other hand precede the existence of ki shnong and the hima. Ki raid are not the sub-divisions of a hima, but are its primary and basic confederating components. The hima arose out of the union of ki raid, while a raid is not a union of ki shnong as is often interpreted, but it was the actual original political community of the Khasis which gave birth to different out-growth settlements which later evolved into the modern shnong with a dorbar-shnong in due course of history. So the shnong are the subdivisions of a raid.
In the past, the shnong in a raid had no dorbar; they only had ‘ki tymmen-shnong’ as disciplinarians for maintaining law and order without territorial authority. Territorial authority rested only with the dorbar-raid. ‘The Covenant of Hima Mylliem 1935’, in which syiem Sati Raja and ki bakhraw were signatories, says that, “only the dorbar-raid has authority over its own lands (villages in it, included), and only the dorbar-raid can lease land or extract benefit from the fruits of its own land”.
But proper recognition of the raid was not given by the British administrators and even by the District Council today hence its authority gradually decreased with the emergence of the modern dorbar-shnong. The dorbar-shnong today is an institution that evolved out of the amalgamation of Khasi tradition and modern democracy. It is a modern avatar or a sociological replica of the powerful dorbar-raid, operating in a new social situation. The dorbar-shnong unlike its predecessor is no more a clan-based institution but open to all the resident adults of the village. Political affairs and territorial authority in a traditional raid were the prerogatives of the founding clans called ‘ki binong-bishon’; clans immigrating later are called ‘ki shongthap-shongbiang’, have every right except in the affairs of government of the raid. In the dorbar-shnong today, all the Khasi inhabitants become ‘ki binong-bishon’ and all non-Khasi inhabitants become ki shongthap-shongbiang. That is the modern replica of the dorbar-raid.
The malady of governance in the Khasi society today is because the question of territorial authority remains unresolved. In the past, territorial authority rested with the dorbar-raid. In line with tradition, this authority was spontaneously inherited today by the dorbar-shnong. So the dorbar-shnong acquired sociological legitimacy as a territorial authority in the people’s psyche. That is why in spite of the modern constitution, the Khasi people in general, feel that each village with a dorbar-shnong is like a mini independent state, and no other authority in the world can do anything within the boundary of the village without permission from the dorbar-shnong. The resolutions of the dorbar-shnong called ‘ki rai dorbar’ constitute the highest law to which residents render habitual obedience. Neither the District Council, nor the hima has achieved sociological legitimacy as territorial authority in the Khasi society in spite of support by legal enactments.
(It is to be noted that the plural of a Khasi word is not constructed by adding ‘s’ but by the word ‘ki.’ Hence the word ‘ki’ is prefixed to all plural forms of a Khasi word)