The Congress Party in Meghalaya is paranoid. Hence every other day there are unnecessary assertions that the Party will return to power in 2018. As if anyone is interested in their forecast! If the Congress Party at the national level is in a shambles it is no better in the State where each party worker is trying to cover his/her own flank. And now in a desperate bid to appease the powerful coal mining lobby the Government has bent over backwards to outwit the National Green Tribunal (NGT) by bringing in the Meghalaya Minerals Development Corporation (MMDC) as the lifeline so that coal can again be extracted and exported. It will be back to ‘business as usual’ and the revenue generated from sale of coal will be pumped in to win the 2018 elections. Chief Minister Mukul Sangma is under pressure since money is the prime factor for winning elections in Meghalaya. All the humbug and the bleeding heart for the so called suffering poor who have been hit by the coal ban is a lot of hogwash. His Government has not come up with alternative livelihood strategies targeted at the small fries who earned their living not from coal digging, for that is done by people from outside Meghalaya, but by the ancillary businesses that coal mining and transportation provided them. The Chief Minister and his cabinet comprising of “Yes Mr Chief Minister,” sort of allies, has made this desperate bid to win the hearts and minds of the people of Jaintia Hills. It’s a convenient short cut and it might just pay off unless environmental activists like Sajay Laloo get their act together. In Meghalaya, for now, the battle is between survival of the environment which includes all of us or the victory of the few coal mine owners of which the Chief Minister’s wife is one! And this dear readers is the irony! The head of the state who should be concerned with the health of the environment has a direct interest in coal mining! Is this not a conflict of interests?
We are told by reliable sources that some non-tribal businessmen from Meghalaya under the banner of a certain chamber of commerce had recently met Prime Minister Modi in Delhi to carp about the ban on coal mining and how it is affecting their businesses. Apparently the PM gave them a hearing but sent then back saying they should be doing more for the people of Meghalaya rather than just sucking the state’s resources dry. I suppose that this mercenary group will now prefer to align with the Congress since the Congress Government is now facilitating the resumption of this extractive mining exercise. And for good measure, while there is a hue and cry over uranium mining none of the proactive NGOs have a problem with the devastating limestone and coal mining activity and the large scale pollution from the cement companies in Jaintia Hills. The other day someone posted a picture on Facebook which lamented at the smoke-stacked cement industry that has all but killed the environment around Lumshnong! But who cares?
Coming to other more important matters such as the scams galore that have plagued Meghalaya for years together in appointment of aspirants to the Meghalaya Civil Service and Meghalaya Police Service, one has to look at neighbouring Assam where the former Assam Public Service Commission Chairperson, Rakesh Paul is arrested in the, “cash for job,” scam. Only a Government without a history of dodgy deals can afford to unearth these scams. Well, the BJP Government in Assam had promised to clean up the Augean stables before the elections and has done so in right earnest. Hence three Assam Civil Service officers working as Circle Officers (ADMs) have been arrested from Nalbari, Silpathar and Halem. The answer scripts of the three arrested individuals were found to be carbon copies of each other’s. This therefore means that someone was paid to write the exams for all three. A senior journalist from Assam says that the three arrested are just the tip of the iceberg. There could be several such aspirants serving other departments over the years who paid Rakesh Paul, now languishing in jail. Will Meghalaya ever see such people who have served in the MPSC and have yielded to political pressure or have accepted bribes to appoint non-deserving candidates being arrested? In the infamous Education Scam the Education Minister of the time, Ampareen Lyngdoh was given a list of names of aspirants to teaching jobs given by several MLAs and serving ministers as a ‘sifarish.’ If what happened in Assam is repeated here will those who have canvassed for their undeserving constituents also be given jail term? Not unless we have a new untested government, which is all the more reason why we should elect a new set of legislators and throw out the present lot!
Now there will be cynics and critics saying that I am campaigning for the BJP. Frankly speaking, I don’t care which group or party/parties emerge provided they are not the tried and tested variety and provided they have in their manifesto the clear commitment to unearth all the scams that have deprived many young people over the years of the jobs they rightly deserved. I have come across many such MCS aspirants who failed to make their grades here but later ended up getting into the UPSC conducted allied services. I am sure if those who wrongfully occupy the seats of power in the Sub-divisions and Blocks of Meghalaya today are told to sit for another examination and are kept under tight scrutiny, they would not even score pass marks. And to think that these are the people who are entrusted with the governance of our State. The very thought is disgusting! But our politicians have handpicked the members of the MPSC and the DSCs. All of them are political hangers-on with a history!
This culture of political appointment to posts such as the State Information Commission, the State Womens’ Commission, the State Security Commission, State Social Welfare Advisory Board and the different Boards and Corporations actually sucks big time. It is political patronage at its worst and it certainly is not what democracy is meant to be! That even the educated amongst us choose to sit in silence and wait for out a Government to be voted out before we even squeak just shows that perhaps we all have some vested interests in remaining silent. The poor and the meek of Meghalaya are voiceless. It’s the pressure groups, the media and the Opposition parties that are supposed to articulate their deep-seated anxieties, their exacerbating poverty and their growing disenfranchisement from the system that is supposed to serve them. As a media person I say, ‘mea-culpa.’ We are so busy chasing politicians and reporting about their inauguration of this, that and the other that we fail to see the tears in the eyes of the poorest; we fail to give voice to the frustrations of the growing number of youth who are falling between the cracks every day and who we blame as ‘drug users and peddlers.’ Those who preach to us about why our youth are taking to drugs should first shine the mirror on themselves. Living in Meghalaya today is a frustrating experience for the ordinary citizen who does not move around with the siren and the red beacons.
A Government that has turned a five-year mandate into a joke by not enunciating a single policy paper on the critical areas of Health, Education, Power, Roads, Water Supply and Sanitation and does not know where it wants to take us in the next five years is definitely not a Government that deserves a second tenure unless we all want to self-destruct and become another Arunachal Pradesh or Nagaland where corruption has become second nature and everyone remains silent under the weight of their own guilt.
And by the way, the church types who are busy smelling problems that happen in Maharashtra and elsewhere but don’t preach on Sundays about the massive corruption in their own backyards also have a lot to answer for. It’s pitiable when the so-called spiritual leaders begin to enjoy the company of the high and mighty of this earth instead of challenging them.
Truly we seem like a lost cause. Pardon my despondency!