The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) first observed the Khasi National Awakening Day on April 4, 2013. That was a black day for the city as tourists and shop owners around Laitumkhrah area were physically attacked and their shops vandalised. The district administration, then, was caught unawares and so too the police. As usual the acts of vandalism are attributed to ‘miscreants.’ This implies that the KSU has within its fold law breakers and lumpens that only need a small trigger to blow off a fuse. The statement of the SP East Khasi Hills that he would ‘ascertain if miscreants were part of the rally’ is so hackneyed that it leaves you nauseated. The word miscreant is used to befuddle all of us benign and clueless citizens. From 1979 till date every act of arson, killing and vandalism has been attributed to miscreants. Yes hundreds of such ‘miscreants’ have committed serious crimes but have never been apprehended. Can the SP interrogate the KSU leaders and members to find who the identity of the miscreants? It’s impossible for the Union not to know its own ‘rogue’ members. I hope this brings clarity to the poor attempts to obfuscate the issue.
This has been the trend right from those days of communal riots when the KSU launched a pogrom against the Bengalis in 1979 followed by one against the Nepali people in 1987. And then for a whole period, right up to 1992 the state was in the grip of communal tension. Those days the Khasis tended to believe that the KSU were saviours of the jaitbynriew (the Khasis) but they soon came to grips with the eternal truth that ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ Of course there are still very many people who refuse to do the grunt work themselves and take shortcuts. Such laggards go to the KSU office and line up there to get their grievances addressed. Many believe that the KSU has the muscle to even get them jobs in the Government.
The observance of a similar awakening day on April 4 this year was targeted mainly at the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) and the office of the Atomic Minerals Division at Nongmynsong. You wonder why the people living in and around Kylleng-Pyndengsohiong-Mawthabah are not part of the protest? Why have the people of this area not been given agency to speak out their concerns and to put a final stop to the mining of this contentious ore? What is the view of their elected representative? Did he voice these concerns on behalf of his constituents in the State Assembly? If not, why not? If the MLA ceases to represent the voice of the people then who is he really representing? When MLAs abdicate their duties, they are actually creating space for pressure groups to step in and hijack the agenda. After all, pressure groups need to stay afloat by picking up an issue. The uranium mining issue is a readymade one that does not require much homework or analysis but will work on sloganeering alone.
But let me come to the crux of this article which is about the underlying threats from the KSU that they would repeat 1979, 1987 and 1992. So an issue pertaining to South West Khasi Hills would reverberate in the city of Shillong and the consequences as we know would be felt by the non-tribal community living in and around the city. The climate of fear and apprehension would subsume all the good things that are now attracting visitors by the hordes to this state and city. Is the KSU hell bent on destroying the livelihoods of hundreds of villagers involved in tour operations and home-stays merely because the Union wants attention before the state goes to the polls in early 2018?
And by the way let me ask this question upfront. Why is the KSU not engaged in myriad issues affecting education in Meghalaya? Has it ever stopped to think of ways to address the high drop-out rates and the quality of education imparted in the rural schools? Does it analyse the annual SSLC results to diagnose why we have over half the students failing in their Board exams? Has the KSU looked at the CAG report to comprehend the anomalies in the fund deployment etc? Are these not issues that should engage the minds of a student body? Instead the KSU has only engaged in issues that are politically sexy for decades. And we have wily-nilly given them that mandate by remaining silent. And why? Bcause we think they are protecting all of us from being exploited? By whom? By ourselves of course? Landlessness is a clear example of intra-tribal exploitation!
The Union’s allegations that UCIL has taken many lives of people at Domiasiat and that till date children are suffering from several deformities are very serious in nature and ought to be investigated by an independent agency with international credentials such as the Asian Human Rights Commission which has the wherewithal to establish the veracity of the claims. In journalism, we say facts are sacred; opinions are free. In academics you cannot make claims unless you have data and evidence. Does the KSU have enough data to build up their case? If they do they should make it public so that further contestations can be built up around the issue of uranium mining.
Then we have the district administration which includes the police department. Do they not have ways to tie down a potentially violent group to a few riders before granting them permission to carry out a procession which inevitably has consequences for the law and order machinery? The scene was similar in 2013 and it is repeating itself in 2017. Stone pelting at government buildings and burning of government vehicles is a common mode of protest since the government is a soft target, made softer by a weak police establishment which is never able to pursue the cases of vandalism and even cold blooded murder such as the burning of a person inside his shop during the Inner line Permit (ILP) agitation in 2013. We don’t know what has happened to the case. It must be lying unsolved like so many of those daylight murders of 1979. Isn’t there a way to hold the police accountable for abject failure? How do police officers continue to be promoted when so many criminal cases are pending conviction? Naturally this has emboldened the law breakers which include some members of pressure groups that go on the rampage at the drop of a hat and are conveniently termed “miscreants”. Meghalaya’s conviction rate is so dismal (9.5% in 2015, meaning that out of 100 criminal cases only 9 cases reach conviction stage), that law breakers don’t think twice before committing a crime.
While there is room for dissent in a democratic society the audacity to intimidate and coerce are not elements of democracy. Such tendencies thrive in states where the rule of law is implemented in the breach. It also happens when governments are weak and can be held to ransom by threats of a political upheaval. We have had such spineless governments in the past that watched in bewilderment while militant outfits like the HNLC went berserk and killed anyone that did not comply with their extortion demands. That was the weakest juncture of governance in the state of Meghalaya when Salseng C Marak was chief minister and JM Pariat his Home Minister. At that point those who were extorted and expected some solace from the Government were told by no less than the Home Minister that they should negotiate with the outfit to pay a smaller amount. Such are the levels to which Meghalaya fell at one time. And now, because the law enforcing agencies are so weak and ineffective the HNLC has reared its ugly head again. The outfit has warned that it would deal with rapists vide its kangaroo courts. So has governance in this state once again fallen to the pits?
Let the people of Meghalaya answer this question.