By Barnes Mawrie
“A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”? Theodore Roosevelt Meghalaya is definitely one of the most corrupted States in India. Corruption seems to have become the DNA of our State. What is sickening is the fact that those who perpetrate such corruption are the so called “educated” or persons in high positions, hereby proving the words of Roosevelt cited above. I have analyzed a few reasons for the success of corruption in our State and I hope the readers will agree with me.
First of all, people of Meghalaya appear either to be indifferent to many issues of corruption or too tolerant about the whole matter. This makes the villains bold and shameless in perpetrating such acts. There are too few RTIs filed against cases of corruption in comparison to the number of such cases. The RTI concerning the cleaning of Wah Umkhrah which has surfaced these days, came after such a long period of time and perhaps most of the citizens have almost forgotten about it. Even NGOs like the ShillongI-Care which had been spearheading the cleaning campaign seems strangely silent about the whole issue now. There are still a number of cases of corruption in the State but unfortunately there are very few who dare to take initiatives to file RTIs. The result of such indifference is that many culprits go scot free and they are emboldened to commit more crimes. Among the Khasis there is a saying “ksan rympei rem dorbar” (vociferous at home but timid in public). It seems that issues of corruption are being talked loudly in families or in villages, among friends or fellow workers, but they all remain as conversations and are never translated into action. In this regard even the Church appears to have been affected by the same attitude. There is a strange fear to get one’s hands soiled.
Secondly, the good people of our State do not possess the virtue of perseverance or persistence. What I mean to say here is that in many cases where RTIs are filed or cases against corruption have been taken up either by individuals, groups or NGOs, all of them lack persistence. They are like red hot iron which grows cold in no time. Even our NGOs who initially display good will in exposing the corruption of government or institutions, sooner or later lose their stamina and the issue is put in cold storage. You can be sure that this Wahumkhrah corruption issue will meet the same fate. Another issue which comes to my mind is the one connected with the acquisition and allocation of land in New Shillong where an RTI report has shown a lot of anomalies on the part of the Government. This was a very hot issue a few years ago, but today it has gone into cold storage. Even other socio-political issues like the demand for ILP, have shown the same trend. Today who talks about ILP and those NGOs who were so vehement about it once, are inaudible today. There is a tremendous deficit of perseverance and persistency among our people when it comes to taking up such issues. It is this weakness that the culprits are capitalizing on knowing full well that all protests against them would fade away soon and then we would be back to square one. Perhaps Meghalayans need to look up to Manipur in order to learn from them the virtues of perseverance and persistency. The people of Manipur are resolutely adamant when it comes to addressing issues concerning their State. Take for example, the fight against the removal of AFSPA by Irom Sharmila and her group, the fight for ILP etc. All these issues are kept alive all through these years without any sign of surrender. The people are determined to get justice. This is what we need most in Meghalaya if we desire to rid of corruption from our State. The perpetrators of corruption must not escape the law and this can be done only if people stand firm and resolutely against such malpractices and fight them to the end.
Thirdly, I may say that the evil of individualism has infested our society today. The interest in the wellbeing of oneself or of one’s family only, is making our people shy away from being involved in public issues. “Provided I and my family are not affected, I care a damn for the rest” this seems to be the philosophy of people in our State. But this is not the philosophy of tribal people for whom kinship and solidarity are primary values. How come that we have lost such fundamental socio-moral virtues? Imagine if we were to uphold our sense of solidarity, then what a tremendous force we would be against injustice and corruption. At times polarization along ethnic, religious and denominational lines is creating communication gap and enhancing individualism and sectarianism.
Corruption will keep on thriving in our State if we do not address these chronic problems that we have within our society. It is important to realize that we can no longer remain neutral or indifferent in the face of such evils in our society. We must act and act resolutely without fear and hesitation or else we would soon reach a point of no return. Let me conclude with the words of Albert Einstein: “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them