By HH Mohrmen
Cases of vigilantism and highhandedness have happened before but they were mostly against men and of course there were also cases where the vigilantes supported by the community punished the entire family. In the past such cases were against people suspected to be the keepers of u Thlen, ka Taro or or ka Bih, but this time around it was the women who had to bear the brunt and ironically the perpetrators of the crime are also of the same sex.
Like any popular issue reported by the media, the news of the assault on the three women also sparked a debate and it happened in the hearth and homes of the people and since another space also exists, the debate also happened in the different social media platforms in the cyber world. And of course opinions vary from those that justify the action taken by the women’s group to those who outrightly condemned the incident as illegal. The Khasi Pnar community or the Khun u Hynniewtrep naturally have different opinions on the issue.
When I read the report that women of Pynthor have to patrol the village from midnight till the wee hour of the morning, the first question that came to my mind was, what is wrong with our community? Why is it that our villages are not safe anymore? The other pertinent question is, where are our police? Why do women have to patrol the streets? The police are supposed to protect the public and particularly (the vulnerable sections of the society) the women so that they can get a good night’s sleep. Instead they are losing sleep to protect the neighbourhood. I think the first lesson from the incident is for the law and order machinery in the state, particularly in Pynthor area because the people have to take unto themselves the responsibility to protect themselves.
The police have to do some introspection and ask themselves questions like why do people have to do night patrol of the streets? Is it because the people of the area have lost faith in the law enforcing machinery that they have to do what the police are supposed to do. Surely if the case was handled by a trained law enforcement personnel, the victims would not have had to suffer and it would have saved both the victims and the Seng Kynthei the embarrassment and the trouble of litigation. But that was not to happen.
The case can also be looked at from another angle which is conflict between the traditional institution and the prevailing laws in the country and international basic rights that each human is entitled to. We have laws in the country which deal with all kinds of crimes and we must also remember that each and every citizen of this country is entitled to free and fair trial and what happened in this case is that the victims were not even provided the basic human rights that they are entitled to. This is because the case was tackled by lay people who have no training or experience and hence have no idea how to deal with such cases. Instead of a doing the right thing and handing over the suspects to the police the Seng Kynthei’s decision was influenced by a mob mentality. Hence it was not handled professionally.
The Seng Kynthei and even the community justified that their action is sanctioned by tradition as the Seng Kynthei is also part of the dorbar shnong. But some even questioned legality of the very existence of organisations like Seng Kynthei. People rightly questioned the authority of the Seng Kynthei to take upon themselves the role of a court and a law enforcing agency all rolled up in one. Another important question is whether the Seng Kynthei or for that matter even the dorbar shnong has the right to a try an alleged criminal? Till the Honourable High Court order on the matter related to the dorbar shnong, each and every community used to have their own cells where they imprisoned a person that the shnong found to have committed a crime. Is this even legal in the contemporary society?
The method of punishment by shaving the head of the victim (khii-lai-nuid) is also a tribal way of punishment which is still being justified by many in the Khasi Pnar community even today. A Facebook post claimed that the only mistake the Seng Kynthei of Pynthor did was to physically assault the victims otherwise shaving their head is fine he said. Khii-lai-nuid is a penalty which is only intended to shame the supposed criminal, but it is a punishment no less. So can educated people who live in the modern world in a democratic country continue to allow people to indulge in such acts? Is it not true that only competent institutions with authority can deliver judgement and the duty of all other institutions is to hand over such cases to the law?
Not only that the victims were tried in a Kangaroo court but even the punishment that was given to them by shaving their heads was barbaric. We have seen many cases of vigilantism in many nooks and corners of the state. This should be stopped immediately. What the community should do when they apprehend a suspected criminal is to hand him or her over to the police because no one has the right to take the law in their own hands. The other lesson that we can learn from the incident is that there should be regular interface between the police and the public not only to create a good police-public relationship but more importantly to educate the community on the do’s and don’ts when an incident occurs in the area or when they apprehend a suspected criminals.
From the other point of view, the case can be seen as a conflict between Christian values of love, forgiveness, justice and not being judgemental and the tribal way of providing instant justice and vengeance among the majority in the society. In every conflict, our tribal values prevail over cherished Christian values of love, forgiveness and empathy. In fact the gospels recorded a similar incident when Jesus challenged the crowd who was about to stone a woman to death, and called on the first man who thinks he has not sinned to cast the first stone. And we all know the rest of the parable which not only teaches us not to be judgemental but to also forgive others because we are all sinners.
Christians say the Lord’s Prayer on a regular basis and part of the prayer says ‘forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us,’ but where is forgiveness now? Another parable which teaches us about love and the importance of forgiveness is that of the prodigal son, but we have failed in our moral duty as Christians to forgive others. We seldom practice forgiveness especially when we deal cases such as this one.
As Christians we even overlook the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount which reminds us ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be satisfied, and blessed are those who show mercy for mercy shall be shown to them.’ And the most important of all is ‘Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called God’s children’ (The Revised English Bible with Apocrypha). The questions that we need to ask ourselves are, have we ever felt the thirst to see righteousness prevails? Did we ever show mercy? And where have all the peace makers gone?
The incident not only challenges us to do some self introspection as a community but we must also try to understand ourselves and refrain from taking the law in our hands. That the incident happened in Pynthor which is part of the city also shows that we still have an awful lot to do to educate our people on this very important subject.