Patricia Mukhim
This is the first article for 2015 and as such it should be replete with reflections of the year gone by and key events that have changed the way we do things. But I will focus on one significant event – one that should actually make the Khasi society sit up and take notice. I am referring to the ruling by Justice SR Sen on the powers and functions of the Rangbah Shnong which have been left undefined until this moment. This amorphous nature of the role of an extra-constitutional functionary has made those with venal tendencies transgress into areas that are pecuniary in nature. From working on an honorary basis, most Rangbah Shnong have today begun to aspire for power and status. Quite a few want to hang on to their posts indefinitely. Some have even gone to court to question their removal. If the desire is to serve why should one insist on remaining in the same post forever? Do people not have the right to ask for change? I know of many Rangbah Shnong who overtly and covertly canvass to be re-elected to their post. If one is doing honorary public service why would one crave the job? There must be more to the office of Rangbah Shnong than meets the eye. And we all know what the lure of that office is but we take a secret and private vow to remain publicly silent on the issue and to only whisper our own anxieties about this issue at homes of the bereaved and at weddings (now that it’s the wedding season).
So we mutter under our breaths about the Court ruling stripping the RS of some of the self-appointed duties he was carrying on for a while in the holy name of “tradition.” Did tradition demand that one person certify the character of another? Aren’t all tribes on an equal footing unless someone is a rapist, a thug, a murderer or a Nongshohnoh? How did ‘tradition’ or the Dorbar deal with such waywardness? We have no narrative of a person being tried by a jury for any crime. The Dorbar Shnong decides that a person who has committed a crime is banished/ostracised from the village. Where he goes after that is none of anyone’s concern. In the new village where the alleged criminal goes to live no one would ask him for a character certificate from his previous Dorbar. So criminals from one village moved on to commit crime in another village or were reformed after having faced censure from one Shnong. These were all arbitrary practices. Today the legal-constitutional system says a person is innocent until proven guilty by due process of law. But in many villages the Rangbah Shnong and his cohorts still take unilateral decision of ostracising people who raise questions on the probity of the Dorbar functionaries, especially the Rangbah Shnong.
When the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) was implemented the Dorbar Shnong/Dorbar Raid were equated with the Panchayats for want of a grass-roots administrative body with direct connection to the people. The Rangbah Shnong and his Secretary became the sole arbiters in deciding who was entitled to a job card. Many who deserved did not get a job card. Others who were already employed elsewhere were certified unemployed and managed got job cards. They collected their wages regularly without doing any work or by pretending to be doing some work. In some Shnong however, there were people who complained against this injustice and raised questions or filed RTI queries. The Dorbar Shnong is not used to this scrutiny and therefore took offence. But once social auditors found gross anomalies in the implementation of the NREGS and the Rural Development Department was informed, FIRs were filed against the Rangbah Shnong and his accomplices. This was the first big test on how the Dorbar Shnong actually used public money. And they failed miserably to meet the accountability yardstick. Since the NREGS is a Government scheme the Government could take legal action against the offenders. There are other undefined areas, however, where the Dorbar Shnong exercises arbitrary powers. Take the case of land transactions. These days it is incumbent upon anyone buying land in a particular Dorbar to pay 5% of the transaction to the Rangbah Shnong. Whether this money goes to the Shnong fund or to the private pocket of the Rangbah Shnong is a million dollar question.
A former Rangbah Shnong of a particular locality in the suburbs of Shillong had turned himself into a much hated ogre for agents involved in the sale and purchase of land. He would keep them waiting for hours together and sometimes make them come the next day but not after creating a host of problems. Today a more amenable person has replaced him. But land transactions continue to be a sore point and one that has made the Rangbah Shnong and his Dorbar a much maligned entity. In fact no one really sheds tears for the Rangbah Shnong after the landmark judgement of Justice SR Sen. Many, in fact, secretly rejoice at the prospect of not having to queue up at the Rangbah Shnong’s home for a document to be signed by him. The question to be asked here is, “Who gave the Rangbah Shnong such administrative-legal powers? The answer is simple. A Deputy Commissioner who at one time thought he could administer better by collaborating with the Rangbah Shnong did so years ago when Shillong and its suburbs became ungovernable and the DC needed to share his failure to contain communal conflict with some other entity. From then there was no looking back. The tradition was set and all DCs thereafter gave the Rangbah Shnong a larger than life entity without questioning their own actions. Even implementing schemes such as the cleaning up of the Wah Umkhrah or many such schemes which are supposed to be implemented by the Government had to be endorsed by the Dorbar or would not take wings. And yet it was the Dorbar Shnong of areas along the Wah Umkhrah which gave permission for constructing of buildings and encroach on the River.
Those visiting the State for the first time are perplexed by the layers of governance institutions in Meghalaya. But they also ask why governance is not visible. One person asked, “How many authorities of governance do you have in Meghalaya? What is the role and jurisdiction of the District Council? What is the legal status of this so-called Dorbar Shnong etc.? Why do women skirt questions on an all male Dorbar Shnong when they demand gender equity in other formal political institutions? How do women in Meghalaya negotiate the gender discourse within the Dorbar Shnong? To these questions, we usually try and give vapid answers to the above questions knowing fully well they don’t stand the rigour of modern political theory and practice. The Dorbar Shnong, the Dorbar Raid and the Dorbar Hima are all oligarchic institutions that still rely on clan superiority and a paternalistic structure for their existence. Should they be allowed to continue to erode the principles of democracy in the 21st century? This is a question we need to answer to ourselves.
Coming to the proposal of John Kharshiing, spokespersons for the Grand Council of Chiefs for an Upper House in the District Council, to accommodate the traditional heads who are not going to be subject to the vagaries of a five-year election term, and the concurrence by the Chief Minister to bring in amendments to the Sixth Schedule, one wonders if the CM can of his own volition and without a public consultation acquiesce to a proposal that will affect over two million people. Is this not anti-democratic by any yardstick? What is the CM trying to do with Meghalaya by playing around with the Sixth Schedule which is already a contentious instrument in its present form? Dr Sangma will need to introspect and not take populist decisions which will harm the larger polity in the long run.
The Khasi society needs to sit and discuss these raging controversies and not just indulge in Chinese whispers. There needs to be an urgent seminar to take a hard look at the Sixth Schedule, at the institution of the Dorbar Shnong and also to do a rigorous enquiry into the demands of the Grand Council of Chiefs who have now begun to believe they are equivalent to “kings” of the British era!