Patricia Mukhim
In these tempestuous times it is difficult to keep up with who said what. There is a judge of a High Court who has insulted the poor peacock and turned it into a castrated sanyasi of sorts that procreates through its tears. Such mumbo-jumbo is a slur even to Hindu mythology. And to think that such a judge presided over a high court! Indeed one’s senses are continually assaulted by cantankerous social media users without the grace of language. They believe that generous use of swear words borrowed from that country which appropriately represents ‘Empire’ in its power and might, actually embodies a modern, intellectual culture. That such people even carry the sobriquet of scholars and regularly torpedo the idea of democracy makes us vulnerable to schizophrenia. The cacophony is enough to send you reeling with vertigo.
But let me come to the substantive part of this article. So we have a slew of national spokespersons of ‘national’ parties bombarding us with their brand of politics. Each one is trying to outdo the other in a competition on who cares more for the people of Meghalaya; who is taking away jobs; who is defrauding the exchequer and who is more democratic and liberal than the other. Both spokespersons fulminated thunderously and as can be expected the BJP which wants to establish itself as a new governing structure has painted the Congress as the villain of the piece while the defendant spokesperson tries to not only deflect all the pot-shots taken at his party but also launch his own litany of tirade against his competitor. This is the first round of the match; the teaser so to say. Narendra Modi has not even landed in Shillong or Tura or Jowai or Nongpoh or Nongstoin as yet. That’s when the blitzkrieg will start; the voluble thundering will begin and the ruling party of Meghalaya will be torn to shreds.
This time it was Nalin Kohli and Gaurav Gogoi both ‘national’ spokespersons for their respective parties that thundered at each other from different platforms. I would have loved to watch the Gogoi scion- a product of dynasty and with little exposure to the real problems of the hoi-polloi take on the articulate legal eagle, Nalin Kohli from the same platform. That would be intuitive. A political debate is not necessarily a sparring match where two people respond to each others’ cat-calls. An enlightened debate is uplifting and educative and throws light without generating too much heat. In this case Gaurav Gogoi is only reacting to Nalin Kohli’s litany of allegations heaped on the Congress. The war of words between the BJP and Congress stems from one party whitewashing its past sins and the other promising the good governance model – sub ka saath- sub ka vikas. The Congress has not coined any slogans yet and nor has it reinvented itself and sadly it does not even realise that nostalgia does not win elections; the promise of solutions to problems and better times ahead does. The beef ban is about the only stick which the Congress has at the moment to beat the BJP with.
The tragedy of our times is that all political parties will embrace obscurantism if it promises to bring them to power. On the part of the Congress, it has failed to understand the political calculus that drives party politics. You cannot win elections without a dedicated cadre to take your message to the last mile. Over the years the Congress primary units have weakened and those who have supported the party feel betrayed when they are forgotten by the powers that be. In politics the chief minister is also the person who rallies the party flock together by being accessible and by acknowledging the efforts of those who keep the party wheels oiled. In all these years the Congress is led by a person who is no longer compos mentis and is hardly someone that the youth can rally round because of the huge age difference. But try telling that to the Congress High Command. There is no meaningful mobilization and grass-roots engagement and after 2014 the Congress seems to have sunk into the cesspit of déjà-vu of, “that was how it was when we ruled this country.” But déjà-vu can only take the party thus far. One wonders after whom the deluge!
The BJP has a clear advantage in terms of its branding here since it has no history yet of ruling Meghalaya except for that brief wedlock with the regional parties in 1998 -2001. The Congress on the other hand is a history- sheeter when it comes to corruption and bad governance. The party is infamous for its failed, delayed and incomplete projects (remember the Nangalbibra Thermal Power Projects and all the machinery that has turned into scrap? And also the Nongshram Bamboo Chips project amongst others. Who pays/paid for all that?). No one asks questions on these failed projects, on bad roads, on polluted water supplied to our homes, on the failed solid waste management system, or the abattoir that is taking ages to complete, as if, having a time line for project completion in this state is not part of good governance!
Add to this the fact that we don’t yet have robust civil societies to challenge government through alternative research but that you have instead pressure groups with expertise in lobbing petrol bombs on the eve of elections so that some vested interests can ride on the bandwagon of a fear psychosis inflicted on a vulnerable electorate. An electorate that believes it is in needs of warriors to protect itself. But protect from whom? From the ubiquitous outsider? Is the outsider the enemy here? Was the outsider vested with power and resources to govern this state? Isn’t the outsider the underdog here? Did he not pay with his life during the Inner Line Permit agitation? Have the perpetrators of that heinous crime been arrested and charge-sheeted? No they never are and no one in these many years has questioned the Meghalaya police for its dismal conviction rates! Is this governance? Is this what the Congress will repeat for another five years as Gaurav Gogoi claims? One must fear the fact that the absence of the rule of law will eclipse every other tenet of democracy. And the Congress has proven it to us in all these years that it cares zilch for the rule of law. A tainted Home Minister still rules the roost, lest we forget. And we are great ones for selective amnesia!
For too long the people of Meghalaya have put politics at the centre of their psychological, emotional and even spiritual consciousness but have not used reason to question political misdemeanors. Politics is embedded in our social lives but we have shrunken that space by not having community dialogues even in the face of social crises such as the rapid breakdown of social values, the rampant rapes and incest; the substance abuse that has grown exponentially; the failure of the law to check violators and the fact that most offenders believe they can get away with crime. In healthy societies there exist galaxies of warm spaces – such as families , neigbourhoods, religious groups, cultural affiliations, hobby groups or community based organizations seeking to work for a common good. These groups help us to figure out how we can get out of our self created mess since each layer of life is nestled in the other to form a coherent whole. If this web of human relationships is broken, we cannot expect politics to deliver us from our predicament. There is a lot of fixing to do as a society it we want to fix politics! It is an illusion to believe that politics will help fix all the societal ills that confront us. In fact we have to shrink politics and nurture the web of social relationships to churn out a political leadership that will address our basic insecurities.