Patricia Mukhim
Leadership is no cakewalk. Nowhere do you learn this better than at the Asia Plateau, Panchgani which houses the Moral Rearmament Centre now known as Initiatives of Change. Here batches and batches of young people are trained by people who have dedicated their entire lives to train the youth of this country to lead by example. That’s quite a tough thing to do! To lead by example means to make sure that we don’t wear masks to hide our real selves. It means being ourselves, saying what we mean and meaning what we say.
At this training centre, I met a young person from Senapati District of Manipur was so concerned about the poppy cultivation in his area that he started a movement to stop this. Today, about a hundred youth have joined the movement. He said that he was appalled at the rapid pace at which jungles were being cleared to make way for poppy cultivation. He also said that after poppy has been cultivated in virgin land it depletes the soil and growers have to keep clearing forests to grow poppy in fresh soil. He said those growing poppy are not the poor. They are the elite. The same group is also campaigning against use of plastics. Recently the team collected 1700 kilograms of plastic but they are at a loss of how to dispose of the plastic waste so they have just tied filled them up in those super large garbage bags.
Another youth from Nagaland said that before the Lok Sabha elections he and others formed a group called ‘Chain for Change’ and campaigned widely asking people not to take money from candidates contesting the elections. However, they were intimidated and even summoned by militant outfits. So even trying out something to bring change has its downside in states where corruption is second nature and where elections are reduced to vote buying.
A young lady from Arunachal Pradesh who is also a lawyer by profession and had joined the NPP said she too tried to campaign against the use of money power in the recent state elections. It is an established fact that each candidate contesting the Assembly elections in Arunachal Pradesh spends at least Rs 20 crore. Where does this money come from if not from development funds since Arunachal does not have any resources except forests? The young lady was however taunted that she is campaigning against the use of money power because her party the NPP did not have money to shell out. She now thinks politics is not her forte.
The youth of Karbi Anglong are trying to document and conserve their culture and are using all resources at their command to revive the language and get it included in the Sixth Schedule. They were very aggrieved when two Assamese youth were recently lynched by some men from the Karbi community and media reports tarnished the entire community. They wondered why media was not more sensitive to this aspect since not all Karbis were involved in the lynching, nor condoned it. Besides, there are criminals in every community, they said.
The youth of Bodoland too are very upset at the use of the word, “Bodo militants” to define a particular militant outfit that has its origin in Bodoland. However, they used a very unique strategy to convey their displeasure to the media. They sent a red rose to all the journalists with a request that they be more sensitive and not give a bad name to the entire community for the transgressions of a few. They said that media persons later apologised for this infamy.
Then there are young tribal leaders from different part of the country who also have a story to tell. One of them said after he got his Masters Degree in Social Work from TISS, Mumbai and worked for a couple of years, he wondered if the sole purpose of his life was to get education, get a job, marry, have kids and then die. He tried to explore the larger purpose of life and started to educate poor children from the tribal community pro-bono. He felt that they should also get the best education that he was deprived of in his childhood. And there are many such inspirational stories that restore your faith in humanity. These young people are poised for leadership but they also worry that if they get into politics, they will be subsumed by the system.
It is a travesty of democracy that those we elect as leaders ultimately serve themselves and their interests. When we vote we believe our collective interests will be taken care of. But does that ever happen? How do elected representatives represent our aspirations when they have not spoken to us and assessed our needs? They represent a political ideology. Does that ideology take case of our aspirations as citizens? People accept democracy because of the perception that people we elect represent us and that through our representatives we are governing ourselves. But isn’t this a symbolic representation? When political parties nominate their own candidates only because of his/her winnability, which of course is based on the candidate’s money power, then is that doing justice to people’s aspirations? We can blame people for taking money but that is because politicians have first taught them what patronage democracy is. So aren’t we moving further and further away from governing ourselves when we don’t even have a voice? And do we think we need to change this? Is there a talk-back system that we now have to create so that we can call out our “representatives” when they cease to represent us but work for their personal interests?
In Meghalaya, can we name one candidate who after becoming minister would want to give up his/her creature comforts and live a minimalist lifestyle as an example for other young leaders to follow? That indeed would be asking too much. The moment our politicians are elected they are quick to seek their dues. And those dues are a SUV with personal security and a whole list of other perks. Everyone is in the game of grabbing. No one wants to give away anything unless they get something in return. I am not sure that this is how the tribal value system works. Look at the avarice as far as land is concerned. People don’t seem to have enough of land. The wealthier they are the more land they want to acquire. And who do they acquire such land from? There are the poor who need to sell out land due to some domestic compulsions. But it is also a fact that the so-called ‘community land’ which is supposed to be held by the so-called custodians of Khasi customary practices namely the traditional institutions headed by the Syiem and the District Councils are actually the agents for turning community land into privately owned “property.” I am now seriously beginning to wonder if there is indeed the concept of community land in Khasi society. If there were, then how come only a few Khasi clans are termed as “zamindars” while the rest are landless? Of course no one wants to raise these uncomfortable questions since we are all in cahoots. How I wish we had a courageous government that will bring in the cadastral survey so that we know who owns how much land and where. This is where true leadership comes in. Will Meghalaya ever give birth to that leader who will not think of the self first but who will have the courage of conviction to change some of the pernicious practices that have created a depraved system? When it comes to the worship of wealth we are all in the same boat.
Yet we cannot lose hope for the young too are disillusioned and impatient for change. One hopes that institutions created by selfless visionaries that envisioned the MRA (IofC) will bring that much needed change. We need to mentor many more young leaders so that we can create that critical mass that will bring things to a tipping point. May that silent prayer of many who have no voice but who yearn to see a better future, be heard!