SHILLONG, Jan 20: Meghalaya, the abode of clouds carved out of Assam in 1972, remains beset with several issues through the 49 years of its existence.
Prime among these issues raised by political parties and pressure groups from time to time include illegal immigration, boundary dispute with Assam and Inner-Line Permit (ILP).
For former Home Minister RG Lyngdoh, the most crucial of the issues is the “sad state” of the rural economy.
“No government since 1972 has given priority to regenerating the rural economy in a systematic and sustainable manner. Agriculture and allied activities still remain economically unviable mainly because it remains in the unorganised sector,” he said.
The consequences have been unabated migration and brain drain from rural to urban areas, leaving the rural sector stagnant and bereft of any innovative growth opportunities, he added.
Lyngdoh said capacity-building in the rural areas is still being done in the conventional government approach where training programmes are conducted for the records without studying their impact on the community and the rural economy.
“As a result, these programmes continue to remain just a drain on the scarce economic resources of the state. Unless priority is given in terms of both planning and budgeting, I fear that the rural sector will continue to remain a huge drain on the government exchequer,” the former Home Minister said. Lyngdoh felt the focus on high-end tourism has also placed the future of rural entrepreneurship and small business in jeopardy.
“I fear that high-end tourism, because of the higher investments required, will support only the big players, thereby leaving the small players in the lurch. I, therefore, urge our political leaders to take a closer look at this new policy to ensure that small entrepreneurs also get a decent chance to survive,” he added.
Landlessness was also an area of concern for the rural economy, Lyngdoh said. “Innovative solutions will have to be found for this problem. Setting up land-banks, along the lines of the traditional “jaka raid” or community plots that can then be leased out to landless farmers, can perhaps be a solution,” he added.
“Simultaneously, the government will also have to make efforts to bring these small farmers into the organised sector so that they can then enjoy the various economies of scale, thereby making their businesses more profitable and sustaining in the long run,” Lyngdoh said.
Former KSU leader and Cabinet Minister Paul Lyngdoh said Meghalaya’s attainment of statehood was a culmination of a long-drawn struggle for a separate state for the Khasi-Jaintia and the Garo tribal people.
“While the attempts to impose the Assamese language were thwarted, the long-term aspirations of the movement like demarcation of frontier lines, the threat to the demographic profile and massive unemployment are yet to be resolved,” he said.
He added that the absence of a dedicated, highly motivated class of political leaders and the state’s steady fall into crass cartelisation are frightening and unless people are shaken into action, Meghalaya could soon be a failed state.
Retired bureaucrat and activist Toki Blah said, “I tend to believe that 49 is ideal for a soul-searching exercise. An honest introspection of Meghalaya will show that we have allowed ourselves to simply drift for the last half century. We failed to craft a vision for ourselves; there was no roadmap, no sense of direction. We simply didn’t know where we were going. A wider and broader worldview of our place under the sun was overshadowed by our misplaced obsession with petty political bickering that produced nothing; irrational fear and panic raised by unprincipled demagogues and a longing for an imagined glorious past.”
He said that in the process, the basic infrastructures that build and develop a healthy state and society, such as education, healthcare, and elimination of poverty and protection of our environment were kept in the backburner.
“As we approach 50, we are paying for these lapses,” Blah said.
Hynniewtrep Youth Council leader Roy Kupar Synrem said the organisation would carry out a candlelight vigil on Thursday to shows its displeasure against the failure of successive governments in resolving ILP, influx and other issues such as inclusion of two local languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.