By Janet Moore Hujon
Words are intangible – puffs of air we cannot hold, cannot capture but potentially powerful in their ability to engage with our feelings, feed our Imagination and give birth to the inseparable twins creativity and destruction. So we have the flowering of Science and the Arts pitted against waste and destruction. Perhaps that is what the Khasi understood. Otherwise why would we have the phrase “ka thoh, ka tar” – ‘to write, to rip,’ the word ‘tar’ ending on a roll of echoing r’s mimicking that action. The promise of cultural permanence offered by the written word to an oral culture is immediately countered by the spectre of annihilation and waste. At first it seems we are simply being offered a choice between obvious good and obvious bad. But that I believe is too glib a conclusion. This is evidently not an easy ‘either/or’ question and the reason why I have begun to ponder upon the hidden implications of this expression is because Meghalaya has been recently treated to a fair amount of writing and ripping which therefore implies a fair bit of rereading and rewriting. This developing scenario has made me aware of the urgent need to rethink and not to blindly accept just because words appear to possess authority simply because they have not been challenged. To be able to challenge indicates courage and independence. If renewed observation stemming from thoughtful soul-searching is then expressed, it keeps alive the constant play and life of ideas signifying that the cultural life of a people is healthy, alert, evolves and remains vitally relevant.
Re-thinking refreshes the mind in the same way as artistic expression can add freshness to the old, the familiar, the ordinary, effectively dislodging any tyranny imposed upon the mind. Yet warning bells must also clang when what was once set in stone suddenly dissolves into flux and you are called upon to recapture its essence awakening a concern as to how and why the once immutable can so easily disintegrate. I am therefore indebted to Gerald Pde (Letter,November 12th) and Babet Sten ( (Not) the Future that I Want – November 14th) for their contributions to the Shillong Times. Here are two writers who are not willing to see through a glass darkly and who express with clarity their horror and unease. They made me examine my own discomfort nudged into life by their words. They shamed me into admitting to a mental laziness which prevented me from seeing the big picture.
Having read Gerald Pde’s article on ‘Vernacular Architecture’ (July 2012), I can see why he is furious to see the meadow near the Mawphlang sacred grove slashed by a black-topped road “giving more importance to cars for the sake of the event”. I agree with him. If we want the outside world to wonder at the foresightedness of our ancients who marked out groves for preservation, surely rearranging the landscape is not exactly the way to do it. We know that our ’law kyntang (consecrated forests) are natural museums of biodiversity which can only flourish if left pristine i.e. untouched. So is it not rather contradictory to encourage pollution from cars in order to publicise an ecological message? In our eagerness to re-construct an identity for ourselves and to show the rest of the world that we are not without a ‘story’, we have despoiled a landscape that should have been left undefiled as was ordained in the past. Bring back that age when we believed that entering the sacred grove would so anger the deities that our limbs would be twisted beyond repair. It was that story, that sacred unwritten law which preserved the wisdom nourishing the soul of the sacred groves. You may call it superstition if you wish but the groves were set apart for a reason. Our pre-literate ancestors were beyond literate – they were wise. Nature suffers when old stories are carelessly retold.
While measures to protect biodiversity and the expertise of local farmers are to be encouraged and while I hope the tribal love for wild foods continues unabated, I cannot see how these aims can take root in a state headed by a morally bankrupt government immune to the exploitation of our natural resources and determined to accumulate material wealth for a few. Meghalaya is in dire need of some restoration of good faith and I fail to understand how forming an alliance with these agents of destruction can in any way contribute to a preservation of the natural. To be associated with the Terra Madre movement was a clever PR exercise on the part of the government although I am sure that not all who ‘helped’ are similarly guilty. Perhaps the local paper U Nongsain Hima inadvertently stumbled upon a more appropriate label for the proceedings. The word ‘event’ is translated into tamasa thus conjuring up visions of sport and entertainment. Was it? And if so, for whom?
Both Gerald Pde’s letter and Babet Sten’s critique have made me dwell upon the ramifications of the event. If the aim of the Terra Madre movement is to promote the innate wisdom of our own farmers then why have we not heard from those farmers and been told whether theyfeel acknowledged and appreciated? Instead we are given the opinions of visiting panellists. And if all the sessions were conducted in English (perhaps they weren’t?) then again I wonder if any local tillers of the soil were given a platform to share their expertise? For those of us who weren’t there and who look for the dismantling of social barriers and the eradication of privileged spaces which the Terra Madre movement seems to promise, that kind of news would have been good news indeed.
I ask these questions because I cannot get away from the fact that Shillong society remains largely in thrall to status and the prestige of position. So I fear that maybe the farmers feel they have been elevated simply because they have been talked about or because some important person has given them a paternalistic pat on the back. But we all know that a true sense of empowerment comes from being able to speak for yourself and not through another agency however well-meaning. It still saddens me deeply that because English is seen as the language of the powerful, of those who have inherited the mantle of the white man, it is still used to draw the lines demarcating the haves from the have-nots, although what the haves have or think they have could well be a topic of interesting debate.
The VIP culture with its patronising mind-set and its sense of entitlement goes against the concept of a Terra Madre, a Mother Earth, a Mei-Ramew who is the mother of us all, whose resources should be shared and not greedily gobbled up by a few. How can a ‘community event’ give itself that caption if it is largely controlled by invitation only? Yet our acceptance of hierarchy has made us subservient to the power perceived in wealth and political clout. We have become a race of hangers-on honing our sycophantic skills in order to gain entry into that exclusive club lit by flashing red lights and all the while ignoring the urgent need to slow down, step out of our cars and walk onto terra firma feeling the pulse beat of life under and around us, tuning in to a rhythm that unites and sustains us all.