By Patricia Mukhim
“The HNLC was responsible for the elimination of several business persons; of bank robberies and kidnappings. Those were meant to send a chill down the spine of others so that they comply to extortion demands.”
August 15, 2021 is a landmark in the history of Meghalaya. It was a day when the keepers of law decided to retreat to a corner and allow the youth who were fired by rage, frustration, belligerence all the transferred variety that shoots up rapidly like uncontrolled blood pressure to vent their rage. One can imagine the situation. It has all the makings of an urban legend. The more one listens to narratives dished out by excited raconteurs who have come out of their homes after a lockdown hiatus and have just felt the winds of freedom blow across, the more adrenalin courses through our blood.
Indeed the fateful incident of Friday the 13th will be locked in our memory banks for a long time. Millions of people across the globe suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia, or a fear of the unluckiest day on the calendar, Friday the 13th. But no one really knows the origin of that fear. So let’s leave it at that! It was the events that played out on Independence Day, (Sunday) which portend dark days ahead for Meghalaya. Sunday was when the slain HNLC leader, Cheristerfield Thangkhiew was to be buried. It is ironic that a person who questioned India’s claim over the Khasi-Jaintia land and who had for decades sent out warnings that people should not observe the two national holidays of January 26 (Republic Day) and August 15 (Independence Day) should be buried on that very day. Talk about karma!
The Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) has, for decades beginning 1990’s to about 2004 considered itself the sole custodian of resentment against the Indian state which it considers an alien coloniser. This is a privilege they believe frees them from accountability and gives them justification to extort money from the business community of Meghalaya. For nearly three decades Cheristerfield Thangkhiew was the master strategist of the Organisation and its founder General Secretary. Those who have come over ground confide that it was Cheristerfield took all the important decisions on behalf of the Organisation and we know what those decisions were. The HNLC was responsible for the elimination of several business persons; of bank robberies and kidnappings. Those were meant to send a chill down the spine of others so that they comply to extortion demands.
When Cheristerfield surrendered in 2018, not a single criminal case was filed against him and his other colleagues. This must be one of the most fatal decisions of Government of India’s surrender policy then. And that two surrendered militants would successfully contest elections is also a reflection of the exaggerated sanctity of elections in India. Actually election subordinates democracy to the tyranny of representation. There is nothing sanctimonious or democratic about hardened militants joining politics – many of them without even going through the process of re-socialisation and re-adoption into civil society (because militants violate the laws and live by their own laws). It is no accident that insurgent organisations are outlawed. It is intuitive that the HNLC Chairman, Julius Dorphang even after his surrender and his election as an MLA, believed he could live by his own rules and rape a minor girl, for which he is facing imprisonment today!
While the police action of killing Cheristerfield is condemnable in the harshest terms, we cannot choose to forget that in his own time he caused the death of many innocent people. But of course the public mood is not easily tamed, especially for a highly charged, emotionally volatile crowd. What became a Black day for Meghalaya is that the Police on account of their own actions had to retreat into their barracks on August 15. A senior police officer said the bike rally in Mawlai and the funeral procession that violated all Covid norms and for which anyone else could have been booked under the Disaster Management Act, was allowed free rein, ostensibly for the youth to vent their anger. This seems to be the new model of policing in Meghalaya.
But what took the cake that day was when some masked men who were part of the solidarity group trespassed into the Police Outpost at Mawlai, Mawkynroh, vandalised the gate, made off with a Scorpio vehicle and with INSAS assault rifles and then drove away boldly without police putting up any resistance. After their joyride, with one masked person in the front seat brandishing the weapon in an act of mockery against the state – the hotheads set the Scorpio ablaze. That was actually an act of terror and the perpetrators should have been booked under relevant sections of law including the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
Unfortunately while those cops who fled the scene have been booked, the perpetrators are still at large. The tragedy here is that these were not ordinary constables. They are a special force – the SF -10, who as we are well aware are tested to the maximum for their endurance. They are trained in various mind games to help them deal with militants. They are a strike force – commandos – but that they should abandon their weapons and run for cover shows a complete loss of morale, perhaps brought on by lethargy inherent in the system. These series of actions in fact represent the nadir of Meghalaya’s governance. After this we can only sink lower.
What is puzzling is the action of the State Government following this incident. A naïve Chief Minister, Conrad Sangma “appealed” to those who stole the rifles to quietly hand them over to the Dorbar Shnong and their names would not be revealed, nor would any action be taken against them. Perhaps the CM forgets he has to follow the Indian Constitution at all times because he has sworn by it, and that Constitution clearly says that entering a police outpost with the intention to vandalise and steal weapons and a vehicle violates several legal provisions that cannot be easily condoned. One is unsure if the entire cabinet is privy to this act of political naivety. It, in fact, resembles schoolyard bravado.
It is a fine thing for Conrad Sangma to reach the summit of his aspirations – to be Chief Minister at a young age. But governance isn’t easy and leadership is much more than running the day to day business of government. Leadership is to rise to the occasion during a crisis. That’s when leadership is tested and the CM has failed this litmus test miserably. The Taliban-like image of August 15 has spread like the pandemic across the country and the globe and everyone wonders what the government was doing to allow this, not on any day but on Independence Day! Sometimes one wonders who the CM’s closest advisers are. They don’t seem to comprehend that he is not running a tribal council but a government in a state of the country which is also the world’s largest democracy. Mr CM, that Scorpio episode is no innocent prank; it’s part of a carefully thought-out strategy and you have been outwitted.
What is a grave tragedy is the quiet acquiescence of the regional party MLAs who seem to have become victims of their own success even when their narrative has run its course.
As citizens we are made to feel that Meghalaya is now a private limited company, governed by the rules of pure business and where profits are all that matter. This private company with only 40 shareholders (not sure if Adelbert Nongrum is a shareholder) is running the show and running it with the ineptitude of a bad CEO. Officers working for the company get their salaries and perks anyway. The company has to develop roads and create infrastructure to promote its business. It also has to allow some of the crumbs to find their way to healthcare and education for the workers and their families who are needed to sustain the company.
But let these 40 people now in the government turned private company remember that defeat is the distance between a bed time story and a wake-up call. The former starts with, “Once upon a time;” and lulls the voter to sleep. The second is an energiser that announces a new dawn! Don’t live with the illusion that you will sit on those comfortable chairs in 2023.