By H H Mohrmen
The Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) has neither done themselves nor the people they claim to protect any favour by calling a bandh on the day the BJP president visited Shillong. The bandh had only confirmed that the HNLC has no other means to demonstrate to the society and the powers that be that they still have some semblance of influence in the Khasi Jaintia hills other than using their one and only means of protest and that is a bandh. Earlier HNLC called bandhs every Independence or Republic day to protest against what the organization believes is the treacherous way by which the Khasi states were made part of the Indian union. Bandhs were also called to protest against the visit of constitutional heads of the country like the president and the prime minister, but rarely did the organisation call a bandh against the visit of a mere head of a national party.
If the bandh called by the HNLC had achieved anything it is only to help make Amit Shah’s image in the state look larger than life. It was the bandh which has helped a lesser known president of the not so popular party, a household name in the state. Who is Amit Shah? Why is so much importance given to this man? Did people in the villages know about Amit Shah before the bandh? Or rather what percentage of the population in the rural areas knew about Amit Shah before the HNLC’s bandh? The guy is a mere president of one of the national parties in the country and of course the party is leading the coalition which is at helm of power in the country. But why give him so much importance? In the past, presidents of many national parties visited Shillong but they exited as quietly as they visited and nobody even bothered to enquire about the visit because it was a routine party affair. This time too, the visit was meant to be an internal affair of the BJP where the president was to address the party’s cadres in the state, but it was the HNLC which has turned a party affair into something big.
Why is the HNLC taking so much umbrage at Amit Shah? Surely the bandh was not meant to protest the attacks on churches and minority schools. The issue was overtly used to camouflage the bigger problem the HNLC is facing. If the issue of the attack is serious why did the leaders of all the churches themselves make a beeline to meet the president of the BJP? It is obvious the churches did not support the militant group because they did not cooperate with the bandh called by the HNLC, but instead they were seen eagerly waiting for the opportunity of a 3-minute meeting with the president of the BJP at Hotel Polo Towers. So who is the HNLC trying to fool? Is it not true that the main reason the HNLC called the bandh is because the NDA government which already knows the strength of the group, did not take them seriously anymore. The olive branch offered by the state government on behalf of the militant organization was also ignored by the centre because the group is no longer considered to be a threat to the nation. Now the worst fear amongst the leaders of the militant group (if they have any) is that the Council will not even get a decent burial. Come to think of it, who really are the leaders of the HNLC now? More often than not it appears as if the publicity secretary of the group is the main and the only leader of the organization and he rules the roost. After Julius Dorphang came over ground and surrendered, the militant group has not come up with the name of a person to replace the Chairman.
Now the HNLC also seems to lack common sense. If that were not the case, then why call a bandh in the entire Khasi Jaintia Hills when Amit Shah only visited Shillong? Why was the entire Khasi-Jaintia population made to suffer? And the most important question is – did the bandh have any impact at all? If the HNLC’s bandh has achieved anything, it was to deprive the poor people of yet another opportunity to earn their livelihood. At the end of the month Government officials will get their salary, but who will compensate the daily wage earner and the petty trader for their loss? And what have they gained in return for this loss? Nothing, and as usual, it is just another day of bandh and everybody will continue with their lives as usual. How many working days have we anyway? But the poor who lose because of the bandhs and strikes continue to suffer silently. And now that the organization is reaching out to the government with a hope that it will provide them opportunity to honourably fold the organisation flag, if that happens will they apologise to the public for all the loss of working days due to bandhs and strikes called by them? And if the organization decides to give up armed struggle, will mere public apology be enough to compensate for all that the people of the state had lost?
In last week’s column I mentioned about Amit Shah’s proposed visit to Shillong and asked if he would be brave enough to meet the Shillong press? I even expressed my doubts if Shah would even meet the media. And lo and behold! It was reported that Shah avoided eye contact and didn’t even look at the waiting press. Why did the BJP president avoid meeting the press? What is there to hide? What is BJP hiding from the public? Or maybe as suggested earlier in this column, it is because Shah does not have answers to all the questions that will come from the press persons, therefore the smart thing to do is to avoid meeting the media and let the general secretary of the party handle the press.
Rather than the bandh called by the HNLC, it was the protest organized by ka Thma u Rang-juki (TuR) which made it to the front pages of the national and regional newspapers. The organizers of the protest claimed that during the TuR’s social media campaign against Shah’s visits, beef was on top list of the ten most popular words on Facebook. The protest was, they claimed, hugely popular in the social media. But the most important lesson from the protest is the fact that it has proved beyond doubt that bandhs and strikes are not the only forms of protest available with us. Small and innovative protests like eating beef in the streets to protest against the BJP’s intent to ban cow slaughter in the country does have a huge impact not only in the state but the entire country.
The only Party that is at the receiving end of the stick in this entire drama is the Congress party and in particular the MUA II government. Amit Shah’s main target of attack was the MUA II government and although he used the same old tirade that is to blame the state government for financial mismanagement of funds from the central government, the fact of the matter is he hits the bull’s eye. It is also ironic that it was Rajiv Gandhi who once said that for every rupee the central government sends to the states of the North East, only five paisa reached the beneficiary. And with their Knight in Shining Armour away from media glare, the Congress and the MUA II has no one to defend them from Amit Shah’s attack.
In the end, the only person who gained either ways from the entire tamasha is Amit Shah himself. He romped home to Delhi laughing with Julius Caesar’s phrase in his mind Veni, Vidi, Vici. In his visit to Meghalaya he gained more than what he had expected and who helped Amit Shah get more than he bargained for? The credit goes to the HNLC which helped Amit Shah fly laughing all the way to Delhi, chuckling, “I came, I saw, I conquered.” The entire episode also confirmed the old saying that in politics as in anything in life, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Ultimately all publicity is good publicity.