Editor,
Poverty and the sufferings of ordinary citizens are not sexy subjects to write on and debate about. Social media is replete with discussions on politics. What triggers debates especially in Meghalaya and among our urban millennials are topics on corruption and the trading of charges between political parties. Even newspapers are full of such topics because it is assumed that readers are interested in only politics and crime and nothing else. Of course, sports aficionados scan the sports pages religiously and those interested in feeling the real pulse of Meghalaya read the articles by our local writers who prise out the entire gamut of issues plaguing the State and its people.
It takes a certain sensitivity to understand that people are suffering the consequences of the pandemic to the point when they no longer feel shame to enter peoples’ homes and ask for food and money. This has been the experience of quite a few people these days. I am not sure if that is called begging. When people are desperate (and what can be a more desperate situation than to not have food to eat when one is hungry), everything is fair. In Khasi we call it – “Ka banse ka thom ia ka sang” meaning that when one is at the end of one’s tether then the word taboo is alien.
Meghalaya is nearing three months of lockdown and it does not look as if things will open up any time soon even as the State awaits the third wave. The daily positive cases seem to move like the tide; one day up the next day down. Thankfully the daily death toll has waned. And what’s troubling the Government is peoples’ stiff resistance to the vaccination. But the continued restrictions on movement on account of the lockdown is beginning to tell on peoples’ mental health as their small and medium businesses struggle to survive. Then there is the plight of taxi drivers who only get to drive twice a week and whose salaries have been drastically reduced.
Owners of retail stores across Shillong too are feeling the pain and they see their businesses folding up. Their only option is to take a bank loan but with repayment looking problematic in these times, even banks are reluctant to lend. I was speaking to a shop owner in Laitumkhrah who bitterly quipped that those in the State Secretariat who take decisions to open and close shops according to an undefined rationale get their salaries every month without fail so they can juggle around their decisions even if those don’t make sense. He went to state that the Government seems to have a special affinity only for hawkers who are allowed to sit and sell their wares until 8 pm when all shops are asked to close at 3 pm.
Since shops open on alternate days even in in localities if people run out of groceries they have to get their cars out and go to Laitumkhrah or Police Bazar where shops are open. This is a nightmare they can do without in an already distressing situation.
Shop owners in Police Bazar, Laitumkhrah and other commercial areas wonder whether it is not the brief of the MLA to speak on their behalf. They moan that no one is representing their voices in the Government. The question that arises is – who is the Government consulting when it passes these arbitrary orders? Almost all states of India have opened up because the economy is crumbling even while inflation has shot up but in Meghalaya we are paying the price for the Government’s bungling in handling the second wave of the pandemic.
And sadly those who have never encountered poverty are now taking decisions on behalf of the poor.
Yours etc.,
Phrangsngi Dohling,
Via email
On the 2-child policy
Editor,
Far from becoming a burden on the nation, population is actually a national asset which needs to be harnessed to the full to make a nation truly prosperous in all respects and in different fields. And India is fortunate enough that this huge population includes a very large percentage of youth brigade who have the luxury of years, energy and agility to lead the nation for a significant period of time. Hence when leading figures of Indian politics lament about the “population explosion” as if it is a hindrance to the nation’s growth, it certainly invokes laughter. It resembles ignoring the value of precious minerals by sitting upon unlimited gold or oil reserves.
To ensure full utilisation of human resources, the concerned authorities are required should create more job opportunities. But far from creating it; be it in the central sector to the states – all are engaged in a lunatic rat race to shrink human strength just to lessen the “burden” of paying salaries, pensions and related benefits like medical assistance. However, there is no shortage of funds while spending on bullet trains, organising mass yoga, gigantic statues, lofty flags, new capital project, temples or space missions!
Today there exists not a single sector in the country where vacancies do not exist! When necessity demands more creation of job openings to provide livelihoods to the youth brigade and in turn render proper service towards the society, the hard reality is that even the existing posts are rendered vacant! While vacancies have increased the youth are not getting jobs. The ever-shrinking workforce is burdened with more and more work load and as a result the delivery is unsatisfactory.
Moreover, in a chain reaction the vacancies in several sectors have a ripple effect. In office premises many people gain sustenance by vending food articles, tea and snacks. Most of them have a fixed clientele and earn their livelihoods in that manner. But with the passage of time while personnel retire, recruitments have either stagnated or the intake is negligible. Automatically with loss of clientele, their income also gets reduced often compelling them to wind up their business.
With Covid forcing more retrenchments even the children of the hapless job losers will have to drop out of school or college and enter the market of child labour. If more job openings are created along with filling up of all vacancies in all sectors our borders can be protected with more vigilance, our medical centres can provide better service, our educational sector can ensure better teaching, policing in society can be more stringent, people would have more money in their pockets, their children can get highly educated. Also purchasing power will increase demand thereby providing that much needed boost to the economy. Hopefully economic inequality will give way to all round prosperity.
However, which path the concerned authorities adopt is their prerogative, but this excuse of “population explosion” must stop immediately.
Yours etc.,
Kajal Chatterjee,
Via email