From CK Nayak
NEW DELHI: The unprecedented violence in Shillong in recent times over shifting the Sikh community from Punjabi Lane (Them Iew Mawlong) might seem to be communal in nature but if studied closely, it exposes the underlying socio economic tension among the people of the peaceful hill state.
The resourceful Punjabis settled in the Bara Bazar area or Punjabi Lane and Gora Line have achieved a modest degree of prosperity by sheer dint of hard work over the past decades though originally they started as manual scavengers. Much of this sentiment is driven by the fact that economic space is limited in Meghalaya and there is little by way of job generation, a portion of which these settlers have taken.
Secondly, that the location of the Punjabi settlement is on prime land is another problem though the original settlers had no choice in this. Some local leaders want to build a multi-storeyed mall in this market area, which was once a residential locality.
The Sikh leaders from Punjab and the settlers do not want to vacate the land they have occupied for more than one and a half century.
If there is a relocation plan, there are suggestions from various quarters to have multi-storeyed apartments on the same place and rationalise the settlement.
Besides the economic reasons, the Sikhs in Shillong unlike their counterparts in neighbouring Assam have also not assimilated themselves into the local society. But in neighbouring Nagaon district of Assam, Sikhs who came from Punjab about 200 years ago as soldiers live peacefully with locals without any major incident in the past.
They are not only living peacefully but have also assimilated with the Assamese society. They help the locals during floods even before the government relief comes. Over the years they have married local girls and adopted the Assamese culture even while maintaining their original Sikh tradition.
Some Sikhs in Shillong have also married local girls but their number is few.
They also maintain separate identify may be because of differences with Christianity unlike in Hinduism.
Even within Shillong, the Sindhis and the Marwaris who have also been there for generations have managed to stay under the radar and go about their businesses quietly. The Punjabis happen to be on a plot of land which is centrally located leading to some demands that the colony be relocated.
A peek into the history of the hill state capital shows that the ongoing violence with the Khasis pitted against the Mazhabi Sikh settlers is not without precedent. In the eighties, there were uprising against Bengalis, Nepalis and Biharis.
The tendency to view settlers who have lived in a locality for generations as outsiders is not characteristic of Meghalaya alone. It is seen across India.