Patricia Mukhim
This being my first column in 2020, let me begin by wishing all readers a very happy, and, hopefully a prosperous and peaceful year, although peace seems like a distant dream in these tumultuous times. I had skipped writing two Friday columns not because there was nothing to write about. There’s plenty to cogitate on, so much so words tumble over each other. I was on ‘pause’ mode because writing in itself has ceased to become an intellectual catharsis. Who does one write for anyway? Let me be honest. Every writer hopes that his/her writing makes an impact on the readers and wishfully imagines that it will also make those in the business of governance pause to think before they embark on the same old clichéd trajectory that leaves the governed hugely dismayed and frustrated. But that’s purely wishful thinking that writers including this one, indulges in.
When a new Government took over in March 2018 we expected the brand new chief minister with a foreign degree to boot, to be different from his predecessor who was booted out because his colleagues said he did not consult them and that he was a one man army. Nowhere else would it have been kosher for two members of the family to hold the two most powerful posts in the government, namely that of the Chief Minister and Home Minister. But those elected did not even have the stamina to object to this concentration of power in one family, thereby undermining the very spirit of parliamentary democracy! What’s worse is that even the public did not object. We haven’t had a single person yet denouncing this tyranny of ambition. And so we now have a Government where the Chief Minister cannot possibly censure his elder brother even if he wished to because it’s all in the family and families consolidate power; they don’t do a course correction. What’s worse is that the elder brother also holds the Power Department and we are now left nursing our grouse against the two-hour load shedding from 9am-11 am daily at a time when we need to cook food and keep ourselves warm especially when mornings are bitterly cold. I have met several people who feel that the power cut timings are bad. My question to them is whether they have expressed it publicly. If not, why not? As is the practice here, people only murmur but will not take 30 minutes to write a letter to a newspaper to express their anxieties. Yes we are a long suffering people when it comes to bearing up with bad governance. But talk about the Inner Line Permit and everyone is an educated activist who will write ILP in blood. That’s how convoluted the politics of the day is. Hence those in Government prefer that the public squabble over ILP, CAA and what have you, so that their minds are diverted from more contentious issues which are a result of a failure of governance. Why the hell is Meghalaya having to suffer power cuts in the thick of winter? Will the Government answer? Will the Chief Minister and his brother the Power Minister answer? What steps have they taken to sort out the mess with NEEPCo? What is happening to the money collected from the consumers month after month? If there is a problem in the manner in which the Electricity Corporation is run then fix it; don’t give excuses about not being able to service NEEPCo’s debts.
Throughout the campaign period in Jan- Feb 2018, there was overwrought bellowing about the monster in the closet – namely the Congress Party – which we had all connived to throw out because of some legitimate reasons but largely because we wanted a change. The NDA Government at the Centre looked attractive; we thought the BJP was kite-flying when it spoke of the Citizenship Amendment Bill; we thought the NDA Government was pro-development and we felt that at the state level we needed a Party with a link to the BJP. Right? Wrong…Now everything has gone haywire. Before we knew it the MP from Tura voted for the CAA when a few months ago the NPP President was the poster boy for the anti-CAA campaign. Now everything is so muddled up that we don’t actually know whether we are coming or going. No, we may not know where we are headed but those in the Government know exactly what they want for themselves and they have charted out a perfect course on how to reach that goal. It’s we the people who are confused and we have ourselves to blame.
Now we have a government but no governance. Pressure groups are scolding the government on a daily basis and telling them to come back to work and to end their vacationing. They are pushing the government to meet the Union Home Minister on the ILP. In fact the pressure groups are actually governing Meghalaya. They have done it since 2018 March and they have got this government where they want it.
What the pressure groups don’t talk about and which is what surprises political observers is the complete lawlessness in the mining sector. Coal mining and transportation is banned by no less than the Supreme Court of India but this happily carries on. Anyone who wishes to witness this lawlessness should go to the Umroi bypass up to Jowai and see the thousands of coal bearing trucks being supervised by handpicked men who ensure that money is collected and transit is smooth. We are yet to see such blatant defiance of the law. Why are pressure groups not keen to address this issue? What’s the deal? Isn’t this corruption at the highest levels of government? And is the Home Minister innocent of these goings-on? What about the police? Whose tune are they dancing to and where is their allegiance? To the ruling party politicians or the Constitution of India and the Indian Police Manual? And who will stem this rot? Some in this government suffer from the malignancy of insatiable greed, perhaps because they know they have only this one chance at running a government! Who’s going to break the speed of greed?
And what is weird about this government is that the Home Minister never speaks even in the midst of a crisis when people get beaten up and there is anarchy in the streets. He shuns the media because he really has no answers to the questions put up to him. All politicians think the media is laying an elaborate trap for them when we are only doing our duty of questioning because the Opposition today does not do enough of that. Yes, this is where we have arrived at. There is both political and moral anarchy. Such is the situation today that even the ordinary person on the street knows the character of this government. Sadly the public is not organised to take on corruption. The public is not a pressure group. There is need for a different kind of mobilisation.
The rot today has spread to the three district councils too. An MDC from Garo Hills is kidnapped so that he does not become a stumbling block to certain ambitious projects. The KHADC is today hanging in the balance. The JHADC is in a mess too and everything is related to money and power. Nothing else! And we dare believe these institutions will correct the wrongs in our customary governance practices which include our traditional land holding systems among others?
It’s time to put the mirror to ourselves and to stop blaming the “other” for the wretched mess we are in. There’s a limit to asserting the moral superiority of victimhood. We are not victims. In fact we victimise others because we don’t want to address our congenital faultlines. If the government of the day has failed us it is because we don’t speak up enough. Silence always means consent! Period!