By Janet Moore Hujon
Shadow Men was Bijoya Sawian’s response to her late mother’s question, ‘Balei eh kumne ki jaitbynriew jong ngi (why is this happening to our people)?’ Those words expressed a Khasi matriarch’s bewilderment at being made to confront an absolute low in the moral universe of her once-peaceful homeland. And it is shameful to think that as the events surrounding the tragic and untimely death of the police officer P J Marbaniang unravel before our eyes, we still have to ask the very same question – Why is this happening to our people? Why have our people become like this? And it is only when we have the courage to look deep into ourselves that we might then have the beginnings of an answer.
We owe it to the young dedicated police officer to find that answer. That is the least we can do to honour his memory and his brief but significant service to our community. For while sympathy and condolences are appropriate can we really comfort a family who have been robbed of a loved one in the cruellest way possible? When old age and disease claim lives, we console ourselves by saying this is expected, but to have to learn to accept losing someone you love because he has been murdered is a lesson none of us are taught. But what was so insulting to this particular family was that they were initially told their kinsman had committed suicide thus twisting the knife in a still raw and smarting wound. What rock-hard callousness prompts people to make such statements with such ease? Thank goodness for a family who believe in their own otherwise this most unforgivable of all crimes would be shelved, forgotten and buried. It is not the first time that a murder has been conveniently labelled a suicide. Convenient for whom?
If we allow this killing to go unpunished it will say primarily one thing about Meghalaya. It will confirm our resignation to such horrors or even worse, that we are allowing ourselves to become used to them. With every life lost in this way, the power to shock has lessened and I certainly do not claim to be the first person to recognise this fact. On July 8th 2014 the Shillong Times published an article ‘What is My coal doing in their land?’ by Freddy R Sangma where he describes the progress of this desensitising process creeping up on our society. It is like seeing ‘…a beggar for the first time until they come in their hundreds and we eventually get used to the “normal”‘. This is why I am writing this article today because I don’t want to forget the initial horror I felt. I don’t want to bury it under layers of helplessness, I don’t want to take comfort in the thought that this did not happen to me. I do not want to help myself forget. Because if I do then it means I have to a certain extent surrendered to the same don’t-care attitude residing in the hearts of those who should have prevented this crime instead of colluding in its execution.
Justice must be served otherwise the message sent out to those who will inherit the state will be chilling indeed – they will learn that honesty is definitely not the best policy because new codes of practice are in play and you’d better wise up if you want to stay alive. Today it is a young innocent policeman, who will it be tomorrow? So ask not for whom the bells toll.
I do not envy the investigative body their job because today policemen with integrity are not only at war with criminals but also with members of their own force. If law enforcers are law breakers then what redress can the common man or woman on the street expect? If incriminating evidence is carelessly tossed out without any remorse, will this not be an invitation for all to take the law into their own hands and then when mayhem ensues, pathetic clucks of disapproval are completely pointless if not downright infuriating.
Meghalaya can tell a beautiful story. But for over four decades we have taken that story and mangled it beyond recognition. We now have rivers without life, hills clad in cement plants instead of forests, craters where smooth highways should be, piles of garbage and emissions polluting the once pine-scented air, assaulting our senses… The list is familiar and endless. It is therefore incredibly nauseating to hear the chief minister jumping on the eco-bandwagon and making pious promises about organic farming. Does a man whose family earns revenue from reckless coal mining care about what is organic, what is natural? If he did wouldn’t he be working closely with the NGT? What about Vincent Pala’s observation that “water pollution is the main problem with mining in this part of the world” and that he plans to invite foreign experts to address the issue!!! More than a bit late, don’t you think?
So despite these pronouncements from above we all know there is one factor common to all these natural disasters and now allegedly linked to Mr P J Marbaniang’s death – an uncaring government protecting a cohort of coal barons and politicians whose wealth has been at the expense of the land and her people. What is dangerously problematic about the coal mining scenario is that it is an unholy alliance between two desperate groups – one with an unquenchable thirst for wealth and the other dying to keep alive. I can sympathise with the motivation of the latter but find it extremely difficult to forgive the exploitative streak in the former. Unless measures are put in place to disentangle the two, acts of murder will become commonplace just like those forgotten deaths of hapless labourers in coal mines where life in the dark is cheap. Sadly ‘hard rains’ have relentlessly fallen on Meghalaya making it almost impossible for me to dream ‘I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow’.
Corruption has found a very comfortable home in Meghalaya so why should it leave. It is not that we are unable to see this evil for what it is but that we continue to let it assume such silent monstrous proportions. So long as our own lives chug along and we are not called upon to challenge the system as the police inspector was asked to do, why should we care? But isn’t it time that we should start caring and like him summon up courage to stop propping up those morally vacuous individuals relying on our inertia to keep their positions intact? All this current squabbling over the desirability or not of traditional institutions seems so futile if we do not first decide to always live those moral values traditional not only to Khasis but to humanity in general. No institution will survive unless the moral framework on which it rests is truly impregnable. Had that been the case P J Marbaniang would still be alive today.
Rest in Peace Sub-Inspector Marbaniang. Wherever you are I hope you know that even if the investigations into your death bring about positive change, I would still wish you had not lost your life to make that happen.