By H H Mohrmen
Jowai or Jwai as the residents of the town would like to call it is one of the oldest villages in the state and historically speaking, although we have stories about the existence of the place only in the British records, that does means that it did not exist in the pre-colonial period. Although the earliest written records we have about the town was from the British era, yet because the place and the natural phenomena in and around it abounds with legends and stories, we consider the place old. Jowai is old because the origin of the town is based on a folk story with mythical figure which is still being narrated by those who are still follow the traditional religion (niamtre) while performing the many religious rites and especially during Behdieñkhlam festival.
All in all Jowai is a peaceful town and people who live on the hilly portion of the erstwhile Jaintia Kingdom are peace loving people. There were not much records of public violence in the town, yet, the town has its own share of history which is heartrending and also affects the entire village or town as the case may be. The sad story of this small village which is now becoming a major town in the state begins with the first rebellion of the Pnar people against the British Raj when u Kiang Nangbah’s uncle protested and fought against British intrusion into their land. This was followed by the great Jaintia rebellion which saw the rise of u Kiang Nangbah; a common man from Jowai who went on to lead and unite the entire hills portion of the Jaintia Kingdom to fight against the mighty British empire till he was hanged to death on the scaffold.
In the late sixties Jowai experienced another unpleasant incident when few young man were fired at by the armed forces stationed then at the PWD inspection Bungalow, Jowai. It was supposed to be a night of joy and merry making for the people of the town who till now still have an unparalleled tradition of bidding farewell to the old year and celebrating with gusto the coming of the New Year. It was a New Year’s eve and as usual communities from around the town celebrated throughout the night to wish each other happy new year. But on that ill-fated day before the old year could give way to the new one, a group of young men of the town on reaching near the DC’s office and while dancing to the music, were fired upon without any provocation. Many were injured and some succumbed to their injuries.
Even during the heydays of the HNLC the people of Jowai did not willfully support bandhs called by the organization till they were terrorized by the militants and their supporters. People went about doing their chores during Independence and Republic day until the militants manhandled and threatened those who dared to come out at gun point. The residents of the town particularly those who are in the old part of the Jowai are business people and they do not easily support bandhs and hartals for the simple reason that it is going to affect their business.
But the recent police attack on the students who protested in the heart of Jowai against the government’s apathy towards the college is unprecedented. The government in general and the minister in charge of education in particular should be held responsible for what has happened on the ill-fated day. The local MLA who is also currently minister in charge of education and had been minister of this same department many times before has failed to address the grievances of this only government college in the district. The government had time and again failed to address the needs of the college and the students had no other option but to resort to agitation to compel the government to address their grievances. This is not the first time that students of this college had to hit the streets to demand what is necessary for the smooth running of this college. In the late eighties this writer was a student of this college and was also elected as the vice-president of the Kiang Nangbah Government College Students’ Union and even then the students had to agitate to compel the government to provide the college with a bus. The government has been turning a blind eye to this college hence the students of this institution had to hit the streets almost on a regular basis to compel the government to address their demands.
This time too, the students of the college had earlier marched to the DC’s office and withdrawn their agitation based on the promise made by the DC that the government would comply with their demands. The student community had earlier given the district administration time to address their issues, but even after many months had lapsed, their demands were not addressed. It was after the deadline was reached for the ultimatum given to the district administration that the students decided to march again to the DC’s office in protest but what began as a peaceful protest ended up in a mess.
Everybody knows that the District Administration is only a shield to defend the government which has time and again failed to address the grievance of the students. That being the case the district administration should anticipate that something like this could happen. The ill-fated incident has only exposed the lack of preparedness on the part of the district administration because the students were on strike and the students had already announced that they were on the agitational path.
The district administration may claim that they have gone by the book and used Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) to tackle the situation, but what they failed to realized is that some situations do not require SOPs but commonsense. The administration should have used commonsense and taken into consideration that it was a cold wintry afternoon and in few hours the students would have had to go home because they are not prepared for a long-drawn agitation. The district administration should have allowed agitation to play itself out and diverted the traffic on the particular section of the town so that the students could peacefully protest by occupying Iawmusiang. The administration should have at least waited for until dusk before the students would have dispersed anyway, but it acted rather unprofessionally and decided to charge against a crowd of unarmed students.
I used to take a class on land holding systems and mining at the Meghalaya Administrative Training Institute (MATI) for new IAS recruits of Assam-Meghalaya cadre, but now I realize that something that would prepare the administrators for their jobs is to do a bit of study on the people and the place where they are going to serve. Jowai in particular and West Jaintia hills in general does not have a history of violent agitations; the district administration should have also taken this fact into consideration and addressed the issue cautiously. But the more important lesson that an administrator needs to learn is that standard procedures can never replace common sense while performing their duties and handling crises.
Common sense would have made the district administration realize that filing first information reports against the students and the pressure groups would only add fuel to the fire. What property did the students damage? Can we compare the recent agitation of the KNGSU with the agitation organized by the conglomerate of pressure groups which demanded for implementation of the Inner line Permit (ILP) in the state? And about the policemen who claimed that they were hurt by the students, how many of them had to be taken to the hospital? The district administration will do itself a favour if it withdraws the FIR filed against the students unless the government wishes to incite the civil society to join the students in the protest.