Editor,
It is sickening to read on a daily basis, the newspapers whether the English or Khasi editions reporting scary stories about Garo Hills. After being in Shillong for almost 25 years, I got an opportunity to work in Garo Hills for the past five years. My stint in Garo Hills is indeed an eye-opener. My impressions of Garo Hills are completely different from what is projected by the media. Let me narrate a few of them here for public awareness: The road from Guwahati to Tura is one of the best roads that anyone could ever travel on with predictable timing and wonderful scenic beauty all along. While I do not wish to make any comparisons, I invite people from Shillong to make a trip to Tura by road, and judge for themselves.
The natural forestry, the fresh air we breathe here, the non-polluted environment makes it a paradise on earth for anyone. Every year, maximum requests for admissions in our B.Ed college is from Khasi-Jaintia Hills. Ask any of the students who passed out of our college about the safety and security they experienced in Garo Hills. If they ever had a negative experience, they wouldn’t flock to Garo Hills. Even the Tura Campus of NEHU has sizable number of students from Shillong.
Some of the best schools of the State giving quality education to children are in Garo Hills. If any of you have any doubts, make a trip to Garo Hills and enter the portals of Tura Public School, Sherwood School, Aeroville School and you will see the high quality academic climate prevalent in these schools. To tell you frankly, there is an enviable spirit of tolerance, openness and freedom in Garo Hills.
I wonder whether the stake holders have ever asked the question, ‘Why is Garo Hills backward?’ ‘Why are the youth taking into militancy? Why is there rampant extortion and kidnapping? Why the murders even of police personnel? The answers are on your finger tips – lack of development, lack of political will, lack of opportunities, lack of employment, lack of sufficient number of schools in the interior, lack of medical facilities etc.
Quality education is the key to development and progress in Garo Hills. Provide the same opportunities and quality educational institutions, including some crucial Government Departments in Garo Hills, and you will see the difference. It’s a challenge! It’s too much to suffer, too long… long years of neglect and deprivation. You can’t expect good flowers, if you don’t take care of your garden. A garden needs constant care, attention, encouragement, watering, fertilizing and grounding and all the vital ingredients necessary for a healthy growth. Neglect, slipshod efforts, short cut methods will always show up in the quality of the garden. It is rightly said, “As you sow, so shall you reap.”
Within the last five years of my stay in Tura, I have seen a ray of hope and brighter days for Garo Hills. With the efforts that we are making, and the cooperation that we are receiving from the students, I can say with certitude that we are in for better days. Ten years from now, Garo Hills should have enough doctors, engineers and other professionals with global standards. I dream of a day, when all militancy will end and Garo Hills will be recognized by the rest of Meghalaya and Northeast as a paradise to live in!
Yours etc.,
Dr (Fr) P.D. Johny, SDB,
Principal, Don Bosco College,Tura
Disabled or differently abled?
Editor
I have been working for and with persons with disabilities for the past 12 years with Bethany Society, Laitumkhrah, Shillong as a disability advocate in some capacity or another. I do not consider myself an expert in the lives of persons with disability for many reasons.
My colleague [a wheelchair user] irately reacted on reading our Ministers comment in Tuesday’s front page information of your esteemed daily: I am not differently abled – there are parts of my body that simply do not work well. To say that I am differently abled is to diminish the real life experience I have. It is not different to not be able to hear what someone says if they are behind me – I can’t hear them. It is not different to go to Ward’s Lake with my friends and I can only watch them get into a boat from a point which my wheelchair could access. It is not just a different ability to use a scooter to move from place to place – in many cases it is a better opportunity to move through space quickly if the space is accessible.
I am snubbed when one considers I am differently abled, my colleague reiterates. I am a person with disability [person first] and when I accomplish things to the same effect as persons without disabilities it is often because the built environment or people’s attitudes did not provide an impediment to what I wanted to do, not that I did it differently.
The Government of India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of persons with disability. The convention lucidly states that persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. Being a Human being first, a person first, the Disability is Society.
Yours etc.,
Gary M Nengnong,
Head Mainstreaming Disability Unit,
Bethany Society, Meghalaya
More on Khasi language
Editor,
Apropos the letter by Rasputin Bismarck Manners (ST 13 March 2015) ‘On Language,’ I am reminded of these words, “When a people are enslaved, as long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they have the keys to their prison,”
and, “How is it; you pretend to be French man and yet you can neither speak nor write your own language”
in, ‘The Last Lesson’ by Alphonse Daudet. Manners argued that those Khasis who could not get a chance to learn Khasi cannot converse properly in the language – but they can try to do so. So, to say that we are stuck in the age of
tribalism because we stick to our roots is wrong. But what’s worse is that I find Khasi youth born and
brought up in Shillong conversing in English amongst themselves. Khasi as a language is evolving and the
need of the hour is to improve the language in tghose areas where we are weak. I do feel that we need
to combine different dialects to form a rich and strong Khasi language.
Yours etc.,
F Diengdoh,
Via email