By Patricia Mukhim
A letter written by a former diplomat that appeared in this paper accuses the police and district administration of walking on egg shells as far as tackling pressure groups or the so-called NGOs is concerned. This week, on two occasions the members of the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) a euphemism for political activists who have not seen the inside of a school or college in years, obstructed public servants from performing their constitutional duties, which is to enrol the names of potential voters who have reached the age of 18 years, or who have been inadvertently left out of the enrolment process. The Election Commission of India is a constitutional body and it empowers the Election Department of the State to carry out this duty without fear or favour. The onus for carrying out this work in every district is that of the Deputy Commissioners and their officers. To obstruct a public servant from discharging his/her duties is a violation of Section 186 of the Indian Penal Code. Anyone who is a violator of the law has to be booked. That is the basic tenet of governance. A group that decides to take the law into their hands cannot be cajoled to get into a bus to be taken to the Sadar Police Station. Hence it looked foolish that while the KSU activists were haranguing with the district officials the City Superintendent of Police just looked on as if his hands were tied.
Meghalaya has suffered on account of the instability of the political system. We have had short term chief ministers whose only objective is to be “Chief Minister” and nothing else. Except for BB Lyngdoh and PA Sangma none of the others had a clue about what it was to be chief minister. They had no leadership qualities. When Dr Mukul Sangma became chief minister there was much hope that he would provide some semblance of governance which would ultimately translate into good governance. Dr Sangma is also endowed with a native intelligence to understand things very quickly, much like a precocious child who manages to outsmart all his peers in the class and has to be given more tasks to prevent him/her from creating mischief. Perhaps this is the reason for Dr Mukul Sangma’s arrogance and his proclivity to use a sledgehammer to slam the media who he sees as a gadfly aligning with his beta-noire the GNLA. This of course is the result of an over-imaginative mind. But given all these eccentricities, as a citizen of Meghalaya (not as a gadfly or better still an ant in the pants), I also see no other political leader at this point of time who can lead Meghalaya into an era of progress and bring some order to offset the chaos created by decades of bad governance or the absence of it.
Administrators who have had the hard task of being the Deputy Commissioners of Shillong City from the redoubtable Mr VS Jafa to Prasant Naik, DP Wahlang, B Dhar and Pankaj Jain were men of character who were tough, no-nonsense officers. They had a sense of social justice but also took a hard view of those who tried to create law and order problems. Some senior bureaucrats, however, confess that in Meghalaya the general practice is to tend towards leniency when dealing with pressure groups like the KSU because they have the propensity to bring life to a grinding halt and to embarrass the Government. And since the administrators were sent that message from the political class, that same message also filtered down to the police. The unwritten code of conduct or should we call it the “not so standard operating procedure” of the police therefore is to adopt that policy of least resistance. Hence if somebody is roasted alive in broad daylight, the police will carefully round up a few guys to keep public fury under the lid. Since public memory is horribly short (a good example is the Dimapur lynching incident which is now in the back-burner), the guys who have been arrested for allegedly lighting the flames on a live human being are then quietly let off for want of evidence. And no one is any the wiser. There are no human rights groups to stand in solidarity with the aggrieved families. Human rights groups only appear, as if on cue, when the police pull the trigger on someone they have reason to believe is a militant or has links with a militant outfit. Then we have an uproar called a “fake encounter” allegation from these rights groups.
Policing in Meghalaya has never been known to be exemplary. One is unsure if it is because of poor leadership or because they are hamstrung by political pressure to release all the ‘trouble makers’ in their custody. And when I say trouble makers I am not referring to those who are arrested on charges of theft, rape, murder and other heinous crimes who in any case serve their sentences. Trouble makers, to my mind, are people who try to re-engineer society on the basis of some abstract idea of what that society should be but use force to achieve their ends. They invariably end up causing all sorts of fresh difficulties because the social organism is more complicated than we can possibly know. There is disequilibrium in a society where people do not think through their actions and where they see everything in black and white. Life has shades of grey which more often than not is the colour that administrators engage with on a daily basis and which makes their lives difficult. If everything was black or white things would be easier to handle. Then we have further pandemonium when gossip and rumour spreads and soon takes the form of truth. That’s even more difficult to tackle.
There is a problem when illegal immigrants transform themselves into citizens and voters. The Meghalaya political space unfortunately is a haven for all those who have blotted their copybooks with corruption. It is said that those without sin only have the right to cast the first stone at the sinner. The reason why pressure groups are not taken seriously is because their leaders do not live exemplary lives. Try taking stock of all the leaders of the KSU from the 1980s until today. How are they earning their livelihoods? Is a Government contract work a fitting employment for someone who wants to take on the Government? Some of the KSU presidents have joined politics and fought elections. Have they made significant differences to society? But this is not just about the KSU. It is about all pressure groups in Meghalaya. They have not acquitted themselves honourably. The manner in which they generate money to run their organisations is highly suspect. Unlike other registered organisations they don’t even get their books of accounts audited. Now if we ourselves refuse to be held accountable, how can we hold the Government accountable? It is a pity, however, that the elders of this society believe that these pressure groups are the only forces that can keep the Government in check. In other words we believe in using the corrupt to check the corrupt!
This has been the bane of Meghalaya. The elders push their children to fight battles they are not equipped to and stand back and clap. Fighting corruption is a tough ask. One needs to be able to answer how one earns his/her livelihood without blinking. And if we are to suspect the entire administration of conniving to enrol dubious voters then are we also suggesting that the whole government be dismantled to make way for the Dorbar Shnong to arbitrarily take decisions that are not governed by any rule book? This Government, despite all its faults and failings has been given the mandate to govern. We may rave and rant at its acts of omission and commission but it is backed by the state machinery and it cannot sway to the tune of non-state actors.
The new DGP who has just taken over needs to do a reality check! People are already so disillusioned with the system. Please don’t push them to the edge of despair for then even decent people will turn into mobs.