By Ananya Guha
The North Eastern part of India is strategically located, geographically defined but politically and socially vulnerable for decades due to insurgency and armed militancy which is still continuing in some states. In Nagaland where armed militancy first started there is now an uneasy quiet after a ‘ truce ‘ with the Government of India pending a final agreement. Though geographically defined, there are some paradoxes even in the demarcation of states as some of the states were carved out of political expediency. Thus Assam which looked after most of these states and what is now Meghalaya has strange quixotic borders; one part of it the Barak Valley has a route through the Khasi and Jaintia Hills of Meghalaya, and the other the Brahmaputra Valley can be entered through the Garo Hills of Meghalaya. The following narrative tries to underscore how one valley which is the entry point to so many other states lives in geographical and hence social insularity being far away from the capital city. Also for the common person road connectivity is the heart line not only here but for the rest of the country. But North East India has always been dogged by poor road connectivity: poor roads, long hours of travel etc. Unless this glaring issue is sorted out with concomitant good rail connectivity, which is comfortable, the ghost of ‘ neglect’ in various manifestations affecting communities will continue to haunt this region which is India’s most vulnerable points, bounded by four or five foreign countries. It is a very culturally diverse region, but it is also this diversity which leads to ethnic tensions.
On the 15th of January I was travelling to Silchar by bus with a friend. The bus started from Shillong at around 10 am and we were told that we would reach Silchar at around 6.30 pm as the road in some patches was very bad. This of course, I had been hearing for a long time. But the last time I remember travelling to Silchar in a bus was 13 years ago. I recollect having a fairly nice and smooth journey. We started at 10 in the morning and arrived at around 3 in the afternoon. A few years later I went to Silchar en route to Aizawl in a taxi and it was a smooth journey again. So all these years although I had been hearing about the bad roads I really deluded myself into thinking that it couldn’t be all that bad and that people always have their own hyperbolic sense.
Anyway till about Jowai it was quite nice and I hummed to myself softly. The next day I was to deliver a talk and I was really looking forward to it. After that the driver or the road started showing their true colours. Or it could have been the ramshackle bus. It lurched forward and bumped like an aeroplane but everyone took things in their stride. I thought that this was normal, though my premonitions started working a little overtime. We had a sedate lunch at Lad Rymbai. I told a co- passenger that the roads were not that bad after all, but he said tersely ” wait”. Ahead of the Assam Meghalaya border the bus chivalrously hit something; there was a noise which rattled me at least and we saw a truck nonchalantly sail by. I thought the irascible truck driver had hit our hapless bus. After sometime the bus halted, the mechanic was brought into action and there were no signs of movement. Getting bits and pieces from co- passengers I was told that the spring of the bus was severely damaged and there was no instrument to rectify this. But wait – they had got one thanks to another charitable truck driver and everything would be alright within minutes.
The bus once again started, and for five minutes the driver drove as if caution was the only thing on earth. I admired his wisdom, thinking that discretion is the better part of valour but discovered such discretion was due more to the mechanics of the bus; the spring was mended by patchwork, and then the bus came to a slow, slow halt, clearly a sign that it would be a long one. By that time many passengers started making their own arrangements rather adeptly I thought, understanding clearly that this was nothing new to them, and they were veteran travelers in this part of the world. I silent admired but started to wonder when I would reach Silchar. The talk weighed heavily on my mind, and I had no idea where the hotel I was supposed to be staying in with my friend was located. It was past seven. A co- passenger from Shillong suggested we try a truck. That he said was the best bet. In the meantime we made effete attempts to hail autos, the drivers of which looked at us with disdain. Our co- passenger kept on muttering the magic word ” truck”. And then the magic happened. A young truck driver looked at us benignly and agreed to take us to Silchar. It was almost 7.30 pm. If the previous bus driver threw caution to the winds, with gusto, this young man was caution personified. He drove cearefully avoided the main roads, if one could call them, took us by the farthest side so much so that we thought that the heavily loaded truck would overturn. But he was an experienced and clever driver. He halted two or three times on the way, once in Meghalaya to pay what I think are called toll fees and grumbled a bit. In the meantime the three of us were sitting literally on the driver’s seat with our legs in all directions.
We crawled our way safely enough to Silchar at around 11 pm and reached the precincts of the hotel.
Unless I narrate all this I cannot of course highlight the moral of this story. But there is more than one moral. The first is that this route which is the lifeline to many states: Meghalaya, Assam, Mizoram, Tripura and even Manipur is grossly neglected. And the people living in Silchar and beyond are not only cut off, which we all know, but no one bothers, and all this talk of ‘ mainstream ‘ is rubbish in this much vaunted 21st century with all its talk of an internet world. The second is that private buses have no right to cheat their customers and should refund the fares in such cases to whatever extent. This so called highway, the gateway to so many states is neglected. No one bothers about the road conditions and I am surprised that people are silent, and there are no protests. True another highway is being developed, but what has been happening all these years? What about the trauma and suffering that the people have undergone? On that day there were two ladies and a child. I shudder to think of what they must have undergone.
Two weeks later there was a major mishap on the same route to a bus travelling to Agartala. I might have escaped, but providence is not kind to everyone.