Patricia Mukhim
This time politicians have started the electioneering process a little early. We will be hearing high-pitched political rhetoric in every nook and corner of our state. Such political noises are devoid of a vision for 21st century Meghalaya. The cacophony is centred around the failures of the present government with no formula for doing things differently. The problem with Meghalaya is that those with cerebral stamina and the ability to think rationally don’t speak in street corner meetings because the crowd will not listen to them. The crowd has for 40 odd years learnt to tune in to hysteria; to shout out hyperboles and to sing so-called “patriotic songs” where Tirot Sing will be lauded to the skies and some of the political wannabes will assume the role of imaginary heroes who will redeem their people (jaidbynriew) from the woes inflicted by political leaders of the past. There is no new roadmap because that requires rigorous political, economic and social research which no one will invest in. None of the political parties have a reliable think-tank they can pick ideas from. One is in fact appalled at the lack of thinking in this state. A society that does not think dies an intellectual, political and economical death. Inviting consultants with no idea about our societal dilemmas to pour out wisdom gathered from some obscure books is not going to help and I hope the next government stops spending money on consultancy services. The need for consultants is an admission that our government has no expertise and specialty. That specialty may be required in the preparation of detailed project proposals. And if one looks at the condition of our roads one is forced to believe that perhaps the PWD itself is best outsourced to road construction experts and the Department itself be winded up because it has become the number one money guzzler.
Meghalaya has suffered from a parochial political climate where people lay the blame for all failures on the ‘other’ – the non tribal – the convenient scapegoat. Societal introspection is absent. The reason is because introspection might unearth unpleasant facts about our own selves which we have never been ready to face up to. The non-tribal is, however, also a piggy bank from where all the ethnocentric groups that castigate them at the drop of a hat, draw their resources from in order to carry out their overt and covert agenda. Try tapping the tribal businessman for money repeatedly and see if he/she will not throw a fit!
In fact parochial politics is the undoing of Meghalaya. For decades the non-tribal is caricatured as the exploiter of our resources, our jobs, our businesses et al. Even if the non-tribal resident and his ancestors are born here, he is not entitled to participate in our civic management because that is the last vestige of parochialism and is given the name “traditional institution,” so that exclusion of the “others” become a legitimate excuse and gets societal sanction. The argument is that including a non-tribal in the traditional body would defile the purity and sanctity of the institution. Hence for a long time, the genuine non-tribals who wished to contribute to state building activities upfront have had no opportunity to do so except through inclusive organizations like the Lions Club or the Rotary Club.
Can a society survive when interest and pressure groups operating in a pluralistic environment claim to work only for the interest of one ethnic group? Isn’t this what leads to societal schizophrenia? Take the case of the Khasi Students Union, what happens to students who need help but are non-Khasis? And if such students wish to form an organization to look at the issues of education would they be allowed to do so? Hence when such ethnocentric interest groups speak of principles and ideological convictions in this climate it invites a horse laugh.
Meghalaya is yet to witness inclusive development 45 years after its creation. This can be attributed to the occupation of sensitive state offices by a crop of visionless men and women who are only concerned about how to appropriate and grab collective wealth for personal aggrandizement. The state is basically constituted for the development of its citizens. The state is supposed to formulate policies, provide infrastructure, provide resources for education, (vocational, moral and political), create enabling environment for investments and economic growth, provide employment opportunities, mobilize a sense of inclusiveness etc. But the role a state plays in economic development and how it plays that role are determined by the prevailing political ideology and political culture among other factors. The fact that a good number of Meghalayans now live below poverty levels in a society so blessed by natural resources amounts to monumental injustice, and failure of leadership. This is purely because of the political culture of Meghalaya. We have not had political leaders who espoused a spirit of pluralism. Every self-styled leader has ridden the wave of ethnocentrism and parochialism of “I, me and mine.”
The parochial political culture breeds instrumental leadership. Most leaders are mired in the pursuit of selfish and personal goals at the expense of larger public interest (check out their properties). Terri Apter, psychologist writer and senior tutor at Cambridge has aptly branded such leaders as “Consumetory leaders”. They use official power and influence primarily in the pursuit of private goals. To such leaders, the progress and growth of Meghalaya is secondary as they are merely concerned about using official position to achieve personal objectives. And because citizens are largely passive and lack knowledge about their own roles in a democracy, they seem to expect little or nothing from the government. They are not interested in what happens in the political system and are happy to be paid money during elections or before them. People of Meghalaya find it very difficult to challenge or criticize authority and ironically MLAs/MDCs insist on being treated as tin-gods even when they are not performing.
In a democracy, society is not expected to accord undue and undeserved respect to public officials and political office holders. Prof Chinua Achebe rightly stated that no society can function well with fools, rascals, or non leaders in leadership positions. That is the crux of the matter. In fact Samuel Johnson summed it even better when he said, “integrity without knowledge is weak and useless and knowledge without integrity is dangerous.”
Every year, huge sums of money are budgeted for the construction of roads and its maintenance but the money usually disappears into few pockets. The health sector is in a deplorable state, infant and maternal mortality are on the increase; hospitals are not well equipped. The education sector is in shambles as reflected by the Public Accounts Committee in its briefing. The rise in drop- out rate does not seem to worry the elected representatives and one does not see any skill building exercise worth its while as yet.
And in all this environment of mayhem we have self-styled leaders shouting their lungs out that they are here to protect their ‘people’ as if those people live in some sort of isolated vacuum. We need to call the bluff of such charlatans parading as custodians of an egregious patriotic fervour. History is a great teacher if we care to delve into it. For instance, the Chinese ‘Cultural Revolution’ was an unsuccessful attempt to halt modernization. Even peace movements world-wide which are quasi-ideological have not met with success in the most heavily armed countries. The interest groups in Meghalaya don’t have an ideology beyond offering to protect us. That’s not a good enough ideology. And lest they forget the ideology they peddle today is an inherited one (protesting against the railhead). Such inherited ideologies are today in a state of decline. While our value systems remain unchanged, most of the ideologies spewed out by groups like HNLC had inherent contradictions with the value systems of Khasi society.
None of these pressure groups are in a position to offer us a convincing model which will solve the moral and ethical dilemmas we face. Our politics is guided by our own schizophrenia of preaching one set of values and practicing the opposite. None of us are walking the talk because it’s a tough challenge.
So even as we leap into yet another election do we have the right to expect change when none of us are willing to change. I end with Gandhi’s exhortation, “Be the change you want to see.” Until society decides to introspect and analyse its fatal flaws; until we have the courage of conviction to call the bluff of all those interest groups with different acronyms but whose sole interest is to hold power, we will be missing the bus yet again. The next government is unlikely to be any different. After all, in a democracy if the citizen is apathetic then politics becomes only a power game. And governance only a word in the dictionary!