Editor,
The letter by Barnes Mawrie (SDB) (ST June 22, 2017) stating that Government should give up the rail project once and for all as it is a threat to the indigenous community is one of the most ethno-centric and parochial letters I have read in The Shillong Times. Since Mawrie has added the acronym SDB after his name indicates that he is a Catholic priest. My research informs me that he also teaches in the Sacred Heart Theological College. Being a priest he also enjoys a position of privilege over the captive audience he preaches to Sunday after Sunday. I am an academic myself so I want to ask Mawrie if he has conducted a survey to find out how many people actually want the railways and how many oppose it? He used the word “We” don’t want railways in Meghalaya. Who is he including in that “We?” Is he a sympathizer of the pressure groups opposing the railways? It is ironic that in the same breath Mawrie pushes for the upgradation of Umroi airport for ease of travel. Obviously Mawrie, is one of the few in Meghalaya who can afford to travel by air. He therefore is the voice of the elite which also can afford air travel; not of the ordinary people for whom rail travel is still the cheapest.
The rail project to Byrnihat is essentially for bringing essential commodities and food grains from across the country to Meghalaya. This is expected to bring down the price of those commodities. But Mawrie astonishingly is propagating the idea that trucks should be used to bring goods to the State. Does he know how much money is extorted by different pressure groups from trucks carrying coal and other goods? Isn’t that also the reason why every food item and essential commodity in Shillong is more expensive than anywhere else? These pressure groups fear that their incomes would be lost if trains were to carry all the goods? Or is Mawrie the voice of the truck owners association who will be the biggest losers if the railway comes to Meghalaya? One has serious doubts about the credentials of this priest who is feeding people with the fear of influx to scuttle a development project.
The problem with priests and religious is that they don’t know the economics of life. They are served food on the table, have shoes on their feet and a vehicle to drive around and preach inanities. Let them get into the market economics and see if they can survive even for six months with the kind of underhand payments that have to be shelled out day in and day out by those who run small businesses and even by fish and vegetable vendors in Iewduh. To become a spokesperson of the community Mawrie must be backed by the community and not only by followers of the Catholic faith. Does Mawrie have that following? Not everyone can claim to be a leader of the people. They must demonstrate that leadership by walking the talk. And if Mawrie really wants to be a leader then he should abandon the priesthood, join politics and fight elections.
Yours etc.,
AS Syiem,
Shillong- 8
We welcome Open Discussion on Marriage Act
Editor,
We appreciate Rev. Thanlijoy Diengdoh for owning up responsibility for that comment fiasco on broken homes. That particular comment appeared only in the Shillong Times on June 14, 2017. We waited till the June 18, 2017 for any clarification/ rejoinder but since neither came, we had no other alternative but to write that letter on June 20, 2017 to clarify on that statement which elicited a reply from Rev T Diengdoh on the June 22, 2017. Had we not responded there would have been no clarification from Rev. Diengdoh and the ‘stupid’ comment would have been attributed to have been made by Mr. VGK Kynta. That aside, to be critical of a comment or statement does not always imply casting aspersions on the person who made that statement.
However we welcome Rev. T. Diengdoh’s suggestion for an open panel discussion on the subject- Meghalaya Compulsory Registration of Marriage Act 2012 vis a vis broken homes and marriages that will further enlighten the public on this very important subject.
Yours etc.,
Michael N. Syiem
Via email
The Kumble-Kohli episode
Editor,
Apropos your editorial, “Kumble vs Kohli” (ST, June 23, 2017), the first and foremost task of a coach is to bond with the team. How much a coach is willing to become the immediate family of the Team along with its head is more important than his reputations as a player. A coach must win the trust of Team India captain as well as other members of the Team. A coach like a parent should let the players get all the attention and enjoy their success from the sidelines without trying to steal the show.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata
No room for dissent
Editor,
In the backdrop of the ongoing KSU stand against the move of the Govt. to bring the railway line into our land of Hynniewtrep, the Chief Minister Mukul Sangma has conveniently taken advantage of the ruling of the Hon’ble Meghalaya High Court which has outrightly outlawed the holding of any bandh etc., and a synchronous directive to the fourth estate to desist from publishing any news pertaining to purported agitation programes to be chalked out by the agitators. In this context, I offer my unfeigned appreciation to our Hon’ble High Court and our incumbent Chief Minister for effecting a non-hindrance flow of daily chores where a veritable public bandh could have been invoked on the premise of the latest rail-line stir up.
Markedly, public strike, bandh, non-co-operation, Civil-disobedience etc., were essentially the inherent nationalist upsurge so effectively executed by our beloved freedom fighters under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, to vindicate their patriotic rights until the colonial powers left India lock, stock and barrel in 1947. Thankfully, the British rulers did not outlaw such application of agitations adopted by our patriots! Thus, such popular crusades have since become our unique legacies bequeathed on to us by our freedom fighters consisting of scientists, academics, legal luminaries and others from different walks of life by way of non-violence.
Furthermore, taking into account some of the renowned academic institutes from home and abroad like JNU, Hyderabad Central University, IITs and Oxford, Cambridge, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton etc., respectively, we notice that whenever the students’ inalienable rights therein are put in the bind, the latter, in a body, resort to protest by holding demonstrations, abstaining from attending classes etc., to partake in such dharnas. Notwithstanding students hullabaloo, these varsities in question have invariably retained their academic excellence which wholly goes to vindicate that discreet dissent, rebellion, demonstrations etc., are unquestionably the integral essence of democracy and the brutal police repression thereof makes the significance of Indian democracy a virtual misnomer thereby turning the same into an abject slave tethered under the chains of autocracy. Hence, putting two and two together, I am afraid that Meghalaya, under the extant dispensation is gradually tilting towards the frightful days of 1975, the darkest era of emergency in Indian democracy.
Yours etc.
(Jerome K. Diengdoh)
Shillong 2