When the entire country is on shutdown mode on account of the Covid19 pandemic and no less than the Prime Minister has appealed to citizens to practice social distancing as the only way to combat the Covid19 pandemic, the Councillors of the KHADC violated the social distancing norms by shaking hands and sitting at close proximity to one another after electing the new Executive Council (EC) on Tuesday. The propensity of such elite to violate the norms set for ordinary citizens has now prompted Prime Minister Modi to enforce a 21- day shutdown from midnight of Tuesday. Some questions arise here: Was there an emergency to constitute the new EC? If so, what urgency prompted the Councillors to throw all caution to the winds and violate the lockdown? Were they given special permission to break the lockdown enforced on ordinary citizens? In view of the mutability of the Corona Virus, are the Councillors not being foolhardy in exposing themselves and by extension their families and the community to it? What is indisputable here is the power lust to control not just the resources in the Autonomous Council but the attendant ancillaries that come with holding power. When the State Government is striving to enforce quarantine of citizens and emphasizing the, “Stay Home,” rule, the Councillors have violated the same with impunity. Do we expect them to provide the leadership that this state is in dire need of?
We could however take the benign view that these Councillors are in a tearing hurry to use the resources of the District Council to provide relief materials such as food and medicines to their constituents in what is now an emergency situation. If that be the purpose of Tuesday’s emergency meeting and the violation of all norms of social distancing then it is worth keeping a watch on their actions in the next 21 days. We are of course no strangers to the goings-on in the KHADC and have witnessed them too often with weary cynicism. Political observers have questioned as to what the Councillors will deliver when the Council is waylaid by instability and uncertainty and requires the intervention of the High Court to resolve the claims and counter-claims of the opposing groups claiming majority in the House. The ADCs represent a tragic and tired contrast to the claims made by the Councillors about their ability to protect and preserve the customs and practices of the tribes of Meghalaya. The District Councils are today treading a path that breaches the spirit of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.