Patricia Mukhim
I seek the apology of readers for harping on the above points but since nearly every day we get articles and letters on one or the other of the above topics, it is incumbent on a political observer to comment on the issues. Actually at this critical juncture the Khasi society should, cutting across political parties, classes and sections, be deliberating the above issues so that in the debate we come to a point of clarity. The article coming from a priest recently speaks about tradition as a sacrosanct entity that cannot be critiqued no matter how much inequity that tradition is embedded in. I wish to ask the priest whether he has introspected as to how the tradition of community ownership of land suddenly vanished from the Khasi-Pnar society? Barring a few Raids under the Khyrim syiemship where community land is still distributed to members of those clans that are indigenous to the Raid such as the Marboh, Mawlong clans etc., most other villages have sold off even water sources to private parties who now sell water to residents of Shillong. Nongrah is one such village where the water source is privately owned. These are just stray examples. The privatisation process is happening at a rapid rate and landlessness is a serious issue. This Khasi priest should know that in West Khasi Hills where landlessness is rampant, some Catholic missionaries, the Spanish sisters to be precise, have helped individual families to buy land and even constructed houses for them. I am sure these missionaries would not find the Khasi tradition so sacrosanct and beyond criticism.
Interestingly another Christian leader whose letter appears in this paper today holds a completely divergent view to the Catholic priest insofar as the rigid Khasi tradition of a male-centric Dorbar Shnong is concerned. By now we will all agree that the Khasi matrilineal society is a façade for a deeply embedded patriarchal value system and I will explain why. On February 8 and 9 the PCN a popular weekly cable news network televised a discussion on the Village Administration Bill. The panellists were all male and so was the anchor, a scholarly and knowledgeable person from NEHU. Among the members of the audience there was just one woman and she asked some very pertinent questions which of course remained unanswered. In that panel discussion was a politician (Paul Lyngdoh), a senior lawyer (Bivan KharngapKynta), an activist (Toki Blah), a Rangbah Shnong for 44 years (Mr SD Khongwir). The fact that you can even have a Rangbah Shnong for almost a lifetime is in itself questionable but in the absence of any written code as to his term of office and clauses for his removal, very few would want to stir the pot of tradition and get on the wrong side of the community.
In that debate the person who made the most sense was Paul Lyngdoh. Unlike most politicians and he did not try to score points by being populist. He questioned why the Village Administration Bill was passed only in 2014, when the provisions for making such a Bill arose in 1959. Why the Rip Van Winkle lapse of 55 years! The lawyer on the other hand was trying to teach law to the viewers. He went back into antiquity and listed all the rules and acts of the Government of India and their relevance to the United Khasi and Jaintia Hills since 1937. At one point he even questioned how the State Government could send back the Village Administration Bill to the Khasi Hills District Council with notings from the Advocate General. This he said was improper since the Advocate General’s comments are for the internal consumption of the State Government’s District Council Affairs. In any case, since the KHADC had, after passing the Bill, sent it to the Governor for his assent and the Governor, as is the protocol sent it to the State Government for its views, it is the Governor’s Office that should send the Bill back to the Council. The lawyer went overboard when he suggested that the Councils should disregard the state government’s views completely since they are well within their rights to enact laws that were in conjunctions with peoples’ needs. To this the politician reminded him of Para 12 (a) of the Sixth Schedule where the state laws supersede the laws made by the Councils if there are any contradiction in the two.
The activist Toki Blah was all in support of the VAB, seeing in it the merits of a modern governance system. To him my question is, ‘Where is the essence of modernity in the Bill when it is silent on gender representation?’ Many have tried to argue that you cannot bring in radical reforms in the constitution of the Dorbar Shnong and include women in executive roles because there would be stiff resistance. Well as Paul Lyngdoh later stated to this writer at a private conversation, if the Dorbar Shnong refuses to reform itself how can it access development funds from agencies that insist on gender equity and refuse to fund male-centric institutions. The first IFAD project had that opportunity to bring reforms in the Dorbar Shnong through its community resources management project but it skirted the issue of direct reforms and brought instead a village development council where women were represented in the breach. After the project ended the development councils too wilted. Today though the project continues under the NEC, no one really cares a damn about bringing in gender equity. An opportunity was missed and continues to be missed because no one wants to challenge tradition. If Raja Ram Mohun Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar had not challenged tradition we would still have child marriage and sati today. Hence essentially the Khasi society is afraid of change like every non-progressive society in this country.
It is inconsequential to bring under discussion what the elderly Rangbah Shnong of 44 years said at the panel for all those things are now passé. I would go instead to the anchor of the show the learned scholar who winded up the discussion with a pugnacious defensiveness and cautioned the viewers that we as a society should not castigate the Rangbah Shnong in our conversations and writings because he represents the Dorbar Shnong, the epitome of Khasi tradition and therefore a sacred cow. This, to my mind was so uncool apart from being so totally out of sync with modern political thinking and hence unscholarly. The problem with Khasi society is its reluctance to introspect and its reliance on the past instead of looking ahead. There are many arguing for tradition but how many have really asked this generation of youth what they really want to see in the future?
A society that does not reflect is bound to remain comfortable with the status quo. But the status quo is anti-change. And we know that the only thing constant is change. Change comes from societal engagement on those aspects of its cultural practices that no longer holds good. To keep our tradition on a pedestal because we have refused to engage with our present and to say that any constitutional institution is sacrosanct is unacceptable. As I see it the Village Administration Bill is nothing but a legislation that seeks constitutional sanction and as and when the Bill is passed the Dorbar Shnong will be guided by it. So let’s stop talking about “Dorbar Blei” and other such anachronistic ideas for invoking the divine to argue about things temporal is indeed vacuous. On that I shall rest my case. But let the debate continue.
To Morningstar Sumer who is angry with those who don’t respond to his letters and articles I can only say that we are a society that speaks in hushed tones. We were first conditioned by our ancestors never to argue because it is irreverent. Then the missionaries came and brainwashed us to believe that they know everything and we know nothing so we should just shut up and listen. By the time some of us entered the university and learnt that life is all about questioning and re-questioning (research) facts all the time it was too late. We were already contented to believe that the lesser we question the better it is for us. Questioning, interrogating, introspection is therefore not for the faint –hearted. Those who do question are labelled fifth columnists. The Khasi society loves rhetoric and populist remarks. Naturally our politicians reflect our own penchants. So why blame them for not delivering?