By Kit Shangpliang
The question at hand is about whether there is lack of leaders and leadership in the Khasi-Jaintia hills or a glut of leaders against the backdrop of non-nurturing, non-acknowledging, the indifference and the pessimism that looms large. So, why have the Khasi hills not seen true leaders who can and have delivered in recent years? Is it the sheer lack of leaders or the community system that wrongly positions and depreciates them? Or is it both?
For this article, we have put out these questions to the thinking lot and all of them said ‘both.’ While one of them said, ‘The Khasi Hills still has leaders around’. Do such questions arise as an aftermath of the last elections? Yes, but they have been lingering in the minds of many for many years now. There are leaders in every field, but political leaders by default is what requires one to have a 360 degree perspective of things.
In the recent past, have more leaders emerged from the other hill states and the other region of Meghalaya than what we see in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills? Is it the rural-urban divide or the ethnic nitty-gritty that has propelled leaders in the Garo hills to work on their vision despite the challenges? Is it the media that exposed us to flamboyant personalities, so that when we are back to reality, huge disappointments strike and it is tough for us to recognize the next of kin as the able leader despite the existing ability or potentials? The answers perhaps lie in the questions themselves.
If the answer to most of these questions pointed is ‘yes’, the popular notion of political leadership is:
1. Perfect leader incapable of human error
2. Leader who can micro manage and it doesn’t matter if he misses the big picture
3. Leader who can please me and to eternal damnation with the world
4. Leader who is the exact replica of those leaders of yesteryears
The four pointers above give us clear signals that we might have got it all wrong on our notion of a good leader. Where are the likes of a JJM Nichols Roy, a GG Swell or a BB Lyngdoh, not that they were flawless but people accepted them for who they were or there was lack of public awareness of their leadership style. One can reason that the culture of integrity, mass following and the presence of the less opinionated majority made it possible for past leadership to function the way it did.
Getting stuck in the past:
The call of the past is overwhelming, so much so, that our worship of the past glory has blinded us. There is a community longing for past leaders to live among us once again, to the extent that we fail to notice the tall leaders of pre-Meghalaya right here in our midst. What if the leaders of old have to face the pluralistic and techno-savvy followers of today? Would they do well?.
The leaders of the 60’s, 70s and 80s were not super human, but the environment was relatively conducive for them to deliver as most of their leadership deliberations were kept privy to themselves and their close associates. These days are tough because before the able leader speaks – social media have spoken it for him or her. Not because of any fault of social media or the leader, it’s all circumstancial but the mess is also created by the self-proclaimed social saviors, elite or semi elite – pro or anti-establishment who think they can save the world – all with good intentions, but good intention in itself is far from good. The present social scenario stuck in the past except with more contamination is not good breeding ground for sensible leaders to emerge. Sad.
Value the electorate in deed:
In the world of stage performance, they say the band is as good as the sound system. The political equivalent of that is, that the leader is as good as his followers, or the legislator is as good as the electorate (not true always, but true nevertheless). Here we see the need to tag the electorate along for the sake of drawing people to more political consciousness. Come to think of it, perhaps, the Election Commission itself has to rethink its strategy for electorate engagement as one of their key focus. They need re-strategising, reformatting and up-scaling. And should this happen, the Election Commission’s job in creating political consciousness especially informed ethical voting is a whole year job – so the electorate are politically cognizant from the end of one elections to the start of another one.
The time of the Youth is now
In the governance culture of these hills, the abled youth do not get that coveted leadership space that their counterparts in other parts of the world do. Whether it is in the context of traditional or mainstream governance, youth leadership is belittled. What has been projected and accepted so far, is the alpha male-elder style of leadership preferably with values but the latter takes a back seat when money is at play. Just imagine the loss we have incurred by not appropriating our system of selection and election to go for credible people, age no bar. “No worries,” they say, “The youth of today will be given the opportunity at a later stage!” But when? When that youth’s ideas and capabilities are no longer relevant? However, all this leadership space surrounding age, gender and ethnic representation should be based on merit, integrity and democratic numbers.
Create the environment for leadership to deliver
For some able leaders who wait for conducive environments to offer them opportunities to deliver, indecisiveness seeps in when timely decisions need to be taken. This raises a question as to whether leaders who are called need to wait for the opportunity or whether they should create that opportunity when they have the capacity to do so. In either case, Meghalaya needs some intervention based on introspection and courage to look at one self first. Followers need to reserve their impetuous judgment and create a culture of following, counselling and cross-mentoring with the leader.
Things to watch out
The symptoms of tyranny that exists in the government are the same symptoms that exist everywhere, even in our organisations, our village-governance, our places of worship and even our families. It is very easy to blame it on the government because that is what everyone does best and because that is what we have been taught. This is especially true with Meghalaya, since the state inherits the unionized mentality of Bengal and erstwhile Assam, where government is hero, villain, god and devil at one given moment. The dilemma is that there are more people who ask what do I do to gain, than there are people who ask what do I do to give.
A fortnight ago we saw a video doing the rounds on social media where a person wearing a BJP scarf with domineering nature responding to the question of a journalist by almost violently challenging ‘that Meghalaya is not a Christian state’. Constitutionally, he is right but factually, Meghalaya is a state with 83% of its population affiliated to the Christian faith (2016 census). For the sake of debate, let’s say Meghalaya is a Christian state and if we have to contest from the perspective of the Christian faith, it is also not. For testimonial argument’s sake, had 10% of the people in Meghalaya been true followers of the Christ they talk about – the state of affairs wouldn’t be as bad as it is today. Our government employees would have reached office ten minutes before time, our schools wouldn’t have been in such shambles, our hospitals would have been able to help and save more people, the gap between the rich and poor would have narrowed down, and injustice wouldn’t have been the order of the day. To that extent, the BJP scarf guy is right. He is also right, as his statement helps to reconfirm that India is a secular state that cannot be dictated by one religion or one section of that religion.
Back to the crux of the matter! Leadership crisis is here to stay but hopefully the crisis is a passing phase. To prove the point, a leader’s DNA is hard to die down soon – it is there, it takes the people’s systems and culture to recognize a true leader and leaders come in different variations, colours, shapes, sizes and ages. I choose to believe that hope rests in our collective introspection and decision to go for true, tough and Servant leadership. No more, no less.