THE jumbo committee of 43 persons formed under the chairmanship of senior politician DD Lapang to address the issue of powers and functions of the Dorbar Shnong and Rangbah Shnong following the Meghalaya High Court ruling stripping the latter of their powers to issue NOCs, had lapsed on May 4. The Committee was officially notified on March 4, 2015. The very composition of such a jumbo-sized Committee is fraught with ambiguities. Did the Government really want the Committee to carry out its task or was it just buying time and making a show of participatory decision-making? Does the failure of this Committee now empower the Government to pass an Ordinance listing out the powers and functions of the Dorbar Shnong/Rangbah Shnong?
There is now a cacophony of voices each wanting to appear as the bulwark for the Rangbah Shnong in what is perceived as their moment of crises. There is the Vice President of the HSPDP and MLA Ardent Basaiawmoit who threatens to agitate if Government does not come up with a concrete blueprint outlining the functions, powers and responsibilities of the Rangbah Shnong and the Dorbar Shnong. The CEM, KHADC, Adelbert Nongrum has threatened to go on an indefinite fast if the State Government comes up with its own regulations and sets aside the Village Administration Bill passed by the KHADC. Behind this show of verbal muscle and rhetoric lies a political intent. Every political party wants to reap political capital by championing the cause of the traditional heads. There is no ring of sincerity in any action of any of the political actors at this moment. They had all failed to carry out their tasks when the opportunity presented itself since 1952 when the United Khasi & Jaintia Hills District Council was created. The task for defining the role, function, powers and responsibilities of the Dorbar Shnong/traditional institutions/ Rangbah Shnong should have been taken up in right earnest since then. Today the Councils are late by 63 years. Perhaps if the architect of the Sixth Schedule, Mr JJM Nichols Roy had lived longer he might have foreseen the problems that would have arisen in not defining the roles of these grass-roots institutions.
Interestingly Mr JJM Nichols Roy held the post of MDC only for one year from 1958-59 after which he expired. None of the other stalwarts including the HSPDP supremo HS Lyngdoh who was MDC since 1958 onwards and is perhaps the longest serving councilor alive today even thought of this important task. What does this say about the Khasi thought process if not to expose the conceptual vacuum. And now when the judiciary has stepped in to intervene in what is seen as an attempt by the Dorbar Shnong to overstep its mandate, the society is all fingers and thumbs and bungling its way through even while some are desperately trying to reap political dividend. If this is not a crisis point marked by a complete vacuum of ideas then it is difficult to fathom what else it could be.
