By H H Mohrmen
Sometimes the saying, ‘Silence is Golden’ is apt and there are times when I tend to agree with the pop song which says, ‘You say it best when you say nothing at all.’ But Prime Minister Modi’s stoic silence on the growing intolerance in the country is only going to embolden those fanatic elements whose only goal is to force their own beliefs and ideologues on others. In the span of a few months many precious lives were lost to hate related attacks in the country and this is only going to give India a bad name in the eyes of the world.
Salman Rushdie was right when he questioned why ‘the all the while talkative’ Prime Minister chose to ignore the killing and lynching of citizens who have different dietary habits and opinions and why he does not take control of the intolerant elements. It is really surprising that the Prime Minister who comments and tweets on every issue, maintains a stoic silence on this very important matter.
The more than one year campaign for clean and green Indian is yet to have any impact in different parts of the country but it seems like the Swaach Bharat of a different kind is making its mark in the country. It seems the attempt of this different Swaacch Bharat is to rid the country of all culture and tradition which does not conform to that of the majority and also to do away with all the dissenting voices everywhere in the country. If the objective of Swaacch Bharat is to clean India, then cleaning India of dissenting voices and cultures different from those held by the fanatic elements is making a huge impact on the society. Is this the new Swaacch Bharat?
Selling robust economic agenda to the world is one thing but encouraging hate and intolerance in the society by keeping mum against the attacks is another thing. The Prime Minster who toured the world to sell India as a safe haven for investments is not going to attract investors if the country is not even able to guarantee basic human right to its citizen. The attacks and the silence will be counter-productive to his effort to attract foreign investments. In fact Modi will start losing his sheen and people will realize the true Modi behind the rock star image.
The saying also goes ‘silence means consent,’ so by maintaining a stoic silence on some very crucial issues are we to understand that Modi is also encouraging the fringe elements to raise their ugly heads in the society. Thankfully there was pressure from all around which compelled the government to act and it was this pressure which made Modi and his government succumb and ultimately condemn the many incidents of hate crimes in the country. The credit goes to those writers, poets and artists who returned their Sahitya Academy awards in protest against the growing intolerance in the country. The protest forced the government to make a statement condemning the incidents. People not only returned their Sahitya academy award some even returned their Padmashree awards. This small gesture which was done silently forced Modi and his party to comply and condemn the atrocities that visited many.
Silence is not golden and now we realize that laymen and women can also make a different and protest can be of various forms. We cannot just continue to keep mum and not question and raise our voices against intolerant acts or injustice met on the others. Another case which requires public scrutiny is the murder of the police officer P.J. Marbaniang where the special investigation team concluded that it was a case of suicide. I am not an expert in the subject and I maintain that I am just a layman and as any other common man on the street I try my level best to understand issues that come to the fore and raise questions whenever it is necessary. In the case of the untimely death of the police officer, since the Special Investigation Team has brought the subject to the public domain citizens are entitled to raise questions on the findings.
If truth needs to be told then the suicide theory suggested by the Special Investigation Team is a difficult pill to swallow at least on two counts. How can an officer who till the minute before he died was active and performed his duty to the hilt, would all of a sudden decide to kill himself? How can this mood swing happen in a short span of time? How can a family man, a loving husband who had just called his wife, instantly decide to take his own life just like that? There are just too many questions that the SIT left unanswered. Even if we give SIT the benefit of doubt and agree that P.J. Marbaniang shot himself in the head, there are still many questions that begs for answer. The other question is who has the gun or perhaps the right question is who has the more sophisticated or more powerful gun in this case? How can one compel an officer who has a gun on his belt to commit suicide (using his own gun) until and unless there are more guns involved in the incident? There is something wrong in this premise and I just don’t get it.
Then there is also the question of those more than 30 trucks that he dutifully stopped for violating the National Green Tribunal order. What happened to these trucks? Has any case has been registered against the owners of those trucks? What is the status of the case? Certainly the BDO or the leaders of the pressure group do not own these trucks and if at all they are involved in abetting suicide they acted at the behest of somebody. So the most important question is who owns these trucks? Why is the SIT silent on these trucks which were the real cause of the entire quagmire?
It is common amongst the people of the State to simply mumble and grumble about the bad roads and unsatisfactory services rendered by public institutions and now social media has come up like a new platform that people use to vent their ire or air their grievances. Facebook is one such media that people use to air their grievances but the question is why did people refuse to use the right platform to make their complaints. In the Khasi-Pnar parlance the common excuse is ‘ ba salia’ or ‘sniaw-boi’ in Pnar as a reason for not making a complaint or raising our voices against injustice or poor public services rendered to the people.
A well educated person recently took a photo of the landfill near Pynthor village where the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council and the Jowai Municipal Board dumped garbage and posted the same on Facebook. The landfill has become an eyesore and a nuisance to the passersby travelling on the Jowai-Amlarem road. As expected the blame game started and the local media were first targeted for not exposing the issue. But the question is what have we done as educated persons? Have we addressed our complaints to the right authority? Or do we tend to use any easy available avenue to vent our ire just for the sake of doing it even it is a wrong platform. Although the West Jaintia hills now has a tech-savvy Deputy Commissioner who opened a WhatsApp page to enable the people to register their complaints directly to his office, yet the Facebookers still refused to use this avenue that is available now. Government redress of public grievances is a WhatsApp away now in West Jaintia Hills District so, people should make use of it.
The public particularly the educated sections of the population should come out of the bubble and break this culture of silence that is prevailing in the society. People should break this practice of speaking about issues concerning the public only in the bereaved family’s house or other places where communities congregate and start filing complaint, RTIs, PILs and even WhatsApp the authorities concerned when there is injustice and when public services are not delivered. Let us do away with the ‘ba salia’ and ‘sniaw boi’ excuse and make the concerned authorities hear our voices. Let us stop mumbling and grumbling and start making our voices heard. Let us do away with this culture of silence that slowly kills this state. Let us remember that at times we need to shout and make our voices heard and also remember that Silence is not always Golden.