By H H Mohrmen
November 26 is being observed as Constitution Day to commemorate the day the Constituent Assembly adopted, enacted and ‘gave unto ourselves the Constitution and solemnly pledged to constitute India into a Sovereign, Socialist, Secular, Democratic Republic. Now, even after 68 years of Independence and 66 years after we have adopted the Constitution a lot of work still needs to be done to achieve the goal that the founding fathers of the Constitution had set out in the Preamble to the Constitution. We are yet to achieve the goal of being a true democratic country in the real sense of the term because social, economic and political justice is yet to be available to all the citizens of this country. Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship is yet to be fully accorded to all the citizens of this country and equality in status and opportunity is still a distant dream for the majority in this country.
It is indeed ironic that the people who are responsible for denying Justice, Liberty and Equality to the citizens of this republic are none other than the public representatives who swore by the same Constitution to deliver the same to the public when they assume respective public offices.
In Meghalaya, the Public Works Department is one institution where nepotism is at its height. It is obvious that in this department democracy is working in favour of the haves and those in power and their cohorts only. This is one department where justice and equality is wanting and the possible outcome of such a situation is that people have to bear the brunt of having to travel on bad roads. There are many reports of sub-standard repairing of roads and the case in point where the headman of Sutnga village had to resort to filing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) to ensure that people are provided the kind of roads they deserve. There were reports of a former MLA threatening to sue the Department for bad roads in his area. There are regular reports of bad roads from across the state. RTI replies on the repair of the NH 44 from Puriang to Mukhla has brought to light the blatant abuse of power by those who own a construction company and also hold an important office in the government. RTI reports stated that substandard and untested bitumen where used by the Dhar Construction Company (DCC) to repair the very important road and this is the reason why the road did not even last three months.
The Executive Engineer of PWD Jowai Central had verbally informed the RTI seeker that materials and bitumen to be used for re-repairing of the mentioned portion of NH 44 were dispatched for testing to Assam Engineering College. He categorically stated that the company will be allowed to resume the re-repair work only after the test report is received, but surprisingly work was immediately started a few days after the meeting. When another RTI was filed to enquire if the department had received the test report, the reply was not forthcoming and the repair work is almost done now. The reason we have bad roads which do not last more than one summer is because of the contractor-politician-engineer nexus. All the contractors who were allotted contract work are cronies of the local MLA. The modus-operandi is that for every work in respective constituencies, contractors who owe their allegiance to the local MLA only are allotted work. In Jowai there is a story doing the rounds about the local MLA and his tiger five. Most of the contract works in the Jowai constituency are allotted to the five contractors who are very close to the MLA.
In the case of the DCC it is a different story altogether; the company is owned by the politicians’ family who are in power and one of them is not even shying from saying in public that he more a businessman than a politician. This is also the reason why many of the major works in the state are being allotted to the Company and one cannot comprehend how can there be no conflict of interest when the politician is also a contractor. This politician-contractor nexus or politicians themselves being contractors is a major threat to the development of this state. It is the prime reason why we have bad roads and in some cases road work already allotted but never constructed or half-done.
Roads in the minister’s own constituency are in a bad shape. The Nartiang-Bamkamar-Khyndewso road which was only recently constructed is in a deplorable condition now. Take a ride on the main road in Wahiajer (which is part of the Ummulong-Khanduli road) and experience the riding quality of this road. One cannot help but ponder that if this can happen in the PWD minister’s own village and constituency then one can very well imagine the kind of roads in the rest of the state. This road is important not only because it connects Meghalaya with Assam via Khanduli and Hamren, but it is also the road which passes through Nartiang, famous for the monolith park and the Durga temple.
In this unholy nexus the engineers by commission or omission are becoming willing partners in providing sub-standard building and construction work in the entire state. The Engineers have no say or rather choose to turn a Nelson’s eye and keep silent even when poor quality work is executed and construction is not done as specified in the work order, in spite of the fact that every month they draw a hefty salary from the state exchequer to serve the public interest.
The citizens are also partly to be blamed for the current stalemate for dearth or lack of public participation in making our country a true and active democracy. The saying goes, ‘it takes two hands to clap,’ therefore we cannot blame the public representative alone for not being able to achieve the goals which the founding father had set out 66 years ago in the Preamble to the Constitution. Public participation in democracy in the Indian context begins and ends with elections only. There is a general consensus amongst the people that their role in the entire democratic process is to exercise their franchise only. They feel that their duty is only to vote and leave the remaining four years eleven months to their representatives.
The role of the general public in a democratic country is not a one-time affair. Neither does taking part in a democratic process in a one month affair of fun and merry making. It is a lot like farmers tending to their crops. Although they depend a lot on the vagaries of the nature but they still have to give constant attention to the crops to be able to get a good harvest. We cannot just go on complaining that democracy is not able to bring development or provide justice and equality to the citizens of this country. The citizens of the republic also need to play their role in ensuring that justice and equality is available for all.
In Meghalaya it is only recently that people have started to take active participation in the functioning of democracy and the most important tool in the hands of the public is the Right to Information (RTI). RTI is used to ensure that justice is accessible where it was denied. It is also used to ensure equality where none exists.
With regard to the various development projects in the state, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is being proactive now. The Committee under the leadership of Paul Lyngdoh took stock of the stalled water supply projects, incomplete slaughter house and many more government projects which failed to see the light of day for reasons best known to those involved in the execution of the projects. But the silver lining beyond the dark cloud is that people are beginning to take the Government to court for failing in its duty to serve the state as enshrined in the Constitution. This is good sign and many more PILs need to be filed on many failed or badly executed government projects. The public need to assert themselves to strengthen democracy.