By FabianLyngdoh
The idea behind the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India is to provide the tribal people with a simple and inexpensive administration of their own, so that they could safeguard their own customs, traditions, culture, etc., and to provide them maximum autonomy in the management of their tribal affairs. The Autonomous District Councils as envisaged in the Sixth Schedule are meant to provide particular tribes with certain measure of self-government so that they may develop themselves according to their own genius and culture. Hence, Paragraph 3 of the Sixth Schedule empowers the District Councils to make laws for the management of lands and forests and the natural resources therein, the governance of villages and towns, inheritance of property, marriage and social customs; and Paragraph 5 empowers the District Council to constitute village councils or courts for the trial of suits and cases between the parties all of whom belong to Scheduled tribes within such areas.
How can the District Council preserve the cultural identity of the tribe only by making laws without providing it with necessary cultural nourishment? The framers of the Sixth Schedule had thought of that, and had inserted Paragraph 6 in the Schedule to empower the District Council to establish, construct, or manage primary schools; to prescribe the language and the manner in which primary education shall be imparted in the primary schools in the district. By this constitutional provision, the District Council can frame the educational policy of primary education in consonance with the history, culture, the geography and ecological conditions of the tribe concerned.
The principle of modern democracy is being propagated from generation to generation through the educational system. The Communist Party of the erstwhile USSR had used the education system to socialize the children into the party principles, until all philosophers of the Soviet Union saw no ultimate truth except in the super brain of Vladimir Lenin. Dictators, like Hitler and Mussolini too had utilized the educational system to indoctrinate in the minds of the children that the political systems they had created in their own countries were the best of all human achievements. In this modern period, the formal educational system is the most important agency of socialization, and the primary education of the children is the core of socialization process.
It is the prerogative, as well as the responsibility of the District Council to see that the cultural identity of the tribe is maintained and transmitted from generation to generation through the primary education of the children. The management of primary schools in the Khasi Hills by the District Council was taken away by the State Government because the District Council could not bear the financial burden. That is reasonable enough; but we must also differentiate between the concept of ‘primary education’ and ‘primary schools’. Let the District Council be the authority on primary education and the State Government, the authority on the management of the primary schools. Let the administrative and financial management of primary schools be looked after by the State Government if the District Councils are not equipped enough. But the prerogative and responsibility for framing the syllabus or content on study and prescription of textbooks for the primary education of Khasi children should lie with the District Council, and the District Council should be capable enough to do that.
If we think that the Khasi society has to survive with its own cultural identity, then the need to socialise the little children in that culture, is the most important thing for the transmission of culture from generation to generation. The children are like fish fingerlings that are required to be reared in the ponds of cultural nursery; to be inculcated, or rather, to be indoctrinated with the various realities of the tribe and its territory until they are matured enough to be released into the general pond of the educational system. If they are released into the main pond as soon as they are hatched, they would likely be swallowed by bigger and different varieties of fishes in the pond. But we are proud that our little children can sing, “Twinkle, twinkle little star,” while at the same time we lament that Khasi cultural values are disappearing from the people’s hearts. Isn’t the popular Khasi lullaby, ‘Utai u bnai, lakadongdit, / Utai u khlur, lakadongdit,” more appealing to Khasi kids than “twinkle little star”? The nursery rhymes, by u Primrose Gatphoh, “Meh! Meh! I pah I blang; Thrup! Thrup! Ngi ktha sohphlang,” is sweeter and more meaningful to the Khasi children’s ears than “Ba! Ba! Black sheep, have you any wool” of the popular English schools that came up like mushrooms in these hills today. Here is another beautiful rhyme by u Primrose Gatphoh: “Ki ïi kitai kiwa miatdur? / La kam kirap atitoh jur: / Pynphuh pynpheiñ ïa i kamwari-ngaiñ, / Ki lok waroh du ki wow ïakhi-laiñ.” U SosoTham too in his poem ‘U Tiew Pathaw’ had beautifully written: “Ngan bud ïa phi shakut pyrthei, / Kam pher phi lam shano; / Phin shetja ha u wieng sa lei, /Tang ba ha sem paro.” These nursery rhymes by indigenous authors are closely related with the culture and philosophy of the tribe. But why are we in a hurry to convert our little kids into IT specialists or Management gurus overnight? Why are we so proud of stuffing into their little brains with the English language and literature, while they stumble at every step with their own mother tongue? What is the use for the Khasi children to know about the Nile, the Thames, the Mississippi or the Tiber which they would perhaps never see in their lifetimes, while they know nothing about the Kupli, the Kynshi, the Umïam, the Umngot and the Umkhen which they might have to cross most of the time in their adulthood?
Everybody seems to be an ardent protector of the ‘jaidbynriew’ and its culture, but everybody thinks that his/her children have no time to linger with learning about the local language, geography, history, culture and ecology, because they have to be hastily converted into global citizens within their teens. So, the responsibility to preserve the identity and culture of the tribe deep in the heart lies only with the children of poor families in the villages, and the children of the elite section can just keep the identity and culture of the tribe in the head, and exploit it only for economic and commercial benefits when they return from training and had secured for themselves some advantageous position in the network of the capitalist structure.
The founding fathers of the Indian Union had recognised the beauty of the Indian Republic on the principle of unity in diversity. Hence they had deemed it justified that weaker sections of the society should maintain their cultural identities, and had provided constitutional protection as well as operational agencies for that objective. But we chose to socialize our children with foreign cultural nourishments such as, the ‘Ba! Ba! Black sheep’ that is not provided in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution of India. We play dirty party politics with the honourable provisions of the Sixth Schedule, and say that we protect the cultural identity of the tribe as if it is a museum specimen that can be dried up and preserved in the refrigerator, without realising that conservation of cultural identity can only be achieved by transmission of cultural values from generation to generation through the primary education of living human beings.
It is heartening to know that the Bharatiya Janata Party had declared in its Manifesto during the MDC bye-elections that if it comes into power in the State and in the District Councils, then it would equip the Councils with sufficient means to formulate the content and substance of primary education for the tribal children as empowered by the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution, for preservation and maintenance of the culture and identity of the tribal communities through the formal primary educational institutions as agency of socialization and transmission of culture.Let us hope that the deeds of the BJP are in consonance with its words. Let us also hope that whichever parties are in power in the District Councils in the days to come consider this fundamental issue of the Sixth Schedule seriously, keeping in mind that without cultural nourishment, laws alone cannot maintain a living and dynamic cultural identity.