By Yona Nonglang
As a middle-aged Shillong born and raised citizen, I, like many fellow Meghalayans of my generation, saw with our own eyes how our state came into being. Even though we were very young at the time, we all felt a sense of pride at the idea of our very own “hill” state, even as the grown-ups among us did their best to explain what it all meant. Our leaders of that generation deserve our applause, respect and gratitude for ensuring that we were granted self-determination in the quasi-federal system of the broader Indian polity. Our collective memory of those men and women should be kept alive and they should be given pride of place in our state’s history books.
That freedom to decide and fulfil our common destiny by pursuing local policies that would take us all forward into the 21st century was a golden opportunity. But, alas, after the euphoria of the birth of our state died down, there has been very little to cheer about and be proud of in terms of sound policy formulation and implementation. The lack of far-sighted, credible and dynamic leadership, and continued systemic failures to lift our state to its rightful potential, by those at the helm have been disappointing in many different ways.
For far too long, Meghalaya has been an underperforming state in key areas that should have laid the groundwork for realistic development and social progress. What’s painful to observe has been the blatant display of ingenuity in the profiteering from high office and the misrule with impunity that goes along with it. There has been absolute generosity towards one’s own interests by the powers that be and a highly embarrassing level of stinginess in how schemes for the welfare of the general public are being executed. One only has to look at the pathetic conditions of our roads, the sanitation, and the water and power supplies to prove this point.
We older Shillongites have been lamenting our beloved hometown’s gradual descent into a place so different from the idyllic and unsoiled place of our childhood. The absence of sound planning and the resultant messy and chaotic growth have turned our urban landscape into an eyesore, for a long time now. In an age of well-planned and well-maintained city centres, pity that our younger generations only get to know the malodorous and ramshackle space that ours has become. To add more to this would feel like insulting the very place we love and where we were born and brought up.
There should have been concrete measures to ensure that our city’s roads are able to deal with the ever increasing vehicular traffic and our commercial spaces have enough room and amenities to facilitate relaxing shopping trips for our population. Right now, the opposite is true. Our experiences in such public places have been agonizingly dehumanizing and distressing to our dignity.
And what are we to say of the squandering away of the precious youth energy that should have been instrumental in helping us march along with the times? Barring a handful of educational institutions that are like islets of comparative quality in our vast sea of educational mediocrity, even our college and university graduates are being thrown into the wasteland of non-employability because of the lack of necessary skills and proficiency in the languages that drive local, national and international engines of economic and social growth.
If that happens to those with higher education, what hope is there for those with lesser paper qualifications? Where are the concrete initiatives to support skills and personality development? Why has a section of our youth been, to borrow a line from the acclaimed author Marilynne Robinson, “turning away from the future,” and heading for, magic realism-like, some over-romanticised insular existence where love for one’s own roots has come to mean hating and victimizing those more vulnerable than themselves?
As it is, a whole generation is now trapped in a rather bizarre sociopathic state of mind. Time and again, our cities and towns have had to bear the brunt of that belligerent and self-defeating mind-set. “Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes,” as Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo famously said.
But it would be fundamentally dishonest to blame our boys and girls for falling prey to the siren call of that brand of heroism. After all, the dream of all children is to be “somebody” when they grow up. And the idea of being that somebody very much depends on who shapes their existential worldview and what opportunities life offers them. Where are the leaders who inspire our struggling young to embark on the path of hope, hard work, civility and the fulfilment of their individual potential? Was it John F. Kennedy who said, “Those who can’t help their poor can’t protect their rich?”
At the risk of sounding naive, I’d venture to say most of our misinformed youth really think that bigotry is the only way to express their “patriotism” because they don’t know better. If given the necessary awareness, they’d probably channel their energy into something more constructive.
These days, as our badly-in-need-of-infrastructural-overhaul state capital is witnessing another “limping back to normal” from another fallout from the absence of a blueprint for good governance, the question is, will there be the much needed political will to redress the maladies and the apathy that have been plaguing our state’s executive branch?
What gives me hope is the fact that our current generation of political leadership consists of men and women who are, more or less, really in their prime. A number of them have travelled widely, are well-educated, articulate and exhibiting admirable composure even when they’re being tested by the current spate of unrest.
If their reason to join politics is a noble one, then, it’s really high time for them to go all out in steering the ship of government into more favourable directions. It takes a visionary generation of leaders to rise above petty jealousies and politicking to turn things around and command the respect and co-operation of their peers, the young, and the old, too.