By Patricia Mukhim
We are a society that believes everything in the past was good; the present is problematic. But how far into the past can we go back and is it possible to translocate the past into the present? What purpose will it serve and who will it benefit? Isn’t this like driving in reverse gear? Recently, Congress MLA Ampareen Lyngdoh raised the question about the MDA Government’s stance on the Instrument of Accession (IoA) and Annexed Agreement (AA). My genuine question is why are we overly worried about the past? Is the worry an honest attempt to understand the past or some kind of a bandwagon to ride on and gain international fame by projecting us Khasis as victims of history? One can understand that an insurgent outfit needs an alibi on which to base its demands on but for an MLA to ask these questions shows that the person gives credence to the contentious demands made by the HNLC that because the 25 Khasi syiemships have not signed an Instrument of Merger with Government of India so they are not fully annexed and that India, therefore is an occupation force.
Even the astute Wickliffe Syiem, the Deputy Syiem of Hima Nongstoin who was against the signing of the (IoA) by his uncle Sib Sing Syiem never raised the issue of the Instrument of Merger because he understood the status of the Syiems which is not akin to that of the rulers of kingdoms in the rest of India. He understood that the (IoA) is a final agreement to accede to India. It was because Wycliffe Syiem disagreed vehemently with his uncle on the signing of the IoA that he decided to leave his Hima and country, India and settle in Rajai village in Tahirpur Upazila of Sunamganj, in the then East Pakistan, later Bangladesh until the time of his death in 1988.
The Khasi society has never had an academic debate on the issue of the Instrument of Merger and whether the Khasi states have not fully acceded to the Indian Union as claimed by HNLC and the few claimants to being exclusive interpreters of Khasi history. If there have been such academic discussions I am not aware of them. But a close reading of David R Syiemlieh’s book, “Layers of History: Essays on Khasi-Jaintias,” gives a very unequivocal explanation of why the Instrument of Merger was not signed. Syiemlieh writes, “The Khasi states had acceded into India but refused to merge on the grounds that the chiefs were elected heads of their respective states.” Sardar Valabhhai Patel visited Shillong on in January 1948 to sort out the merger issue but it ended in a stalemate for the Khasis said that only a constituted durbar of states could arrive at such a decision. Accordingly, the Dominion Agent drew up rules for constituting the Khasi State Constitution Making Durbar which took nearly 16 months. This Durbar was inaugurated on 29 April 1949.
Perhaps the confusion vis-à-vis the Instrument of Merger lies in the fact that at about the same time Indian Constituent Assembly was also preparing the final draft of the Constitution. According to Syiemlieh, JJM Nichols Roy was a member of both Constituent Assembly and Khasi States Constitution Making Durbar. Nichols Roy urged the Khasi states Durbar to accept the broad framework of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution. A report by the North East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas Sub-Committee headed by Gopinath Bordoloi, the Premier of Assam, had stated that the Khasi states had comparatively little revenue or authority and seemed to depend for a good deal of support on the Political officer in their relations with the people.
It appears that Sati Raja the Syiem of Mylliem had filed a case against the Dominion of India and the Assam Government asking that his state had recovered or was entitled to recover sovereign rights, power, functions and jurisdiction over his state. Syiemlieh writes, “This must have been quite an embarrassment for the governments of India and Assam. Sri Prakasa the Governor of Assam met Sati Raja and others on December 31, 1949 and was able to make the Syiem withdraw his case.”
Another surprise that awaited the Federation of Khasi Chiefs was the swift order passed by the Assam Governor a day before the Constitution of India was adopted to cancel the Khasi States (Administration of Justice) Order 1948 and its supplement that same year. This was apparently done in order to conform to the Constitution for Part A of the First Schedule of the Constitution reads that the territory of Assam, “shall comprise territories which immediately before the commencement of the Constitution were part of the Province of Assam, the Khasi States and the Assam Tribal Areas.” As a result, the Khasi states became part of Assam without any agreement of merger and disregarding the provisions of the Standstill Agreement. In fact, the integration of the Khasi states into India was drafted into the Constitution even though the Khasi chieftains had no role to play. Dr David Syiemlieh remarks that this was possible because of the divergent views among the Khasis and their inability to come to any consensus on the merger with India. This was used by the powers in Delhi to their advantage.
With the adoption of the Constitution the power of the chiefs so far as administration is concerned, came to an end. Article 244(2) of the Constitution makes special provisions contained in the Sixth Schedule which were to apply to the administration of the Tribal Areas in the State of Assam. Hence the Instrument of Accession stands superseded with the coming into force of the Constitution whereby the tribal areas of the State of Meghalaya today are governed by the provisions of the Constitution of India. Further the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court had in the matter of T. Cajee v. U. Jormanik Siem, (1961) 1 SCR 750, had settled the law on this matter
Going by the Constitution therefore it is a well settled case that the Khasi states have acceded to India and there is no point raking up this issue today because it only exposes the faultlines in the Khasi society. Besides, we need to take into account the fact that Jaintia Hills and Garo Hills were territories under British subjugation and had therefore naturally acceded to India after the British handed over all territories to India on August 15, 1947. The Khasi states without the Jaintia Hills would not have been administratively tenable. Those bringing up the past today should realise that Meghalaya is a state and the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo people make up an indivisible unit and attempts to create divisions now are fraught with undesirable consequences.
Its important at this juncture, when technology is taking people to new heights that we speak of the future and get our young people to be future-ready rather than push them to look over their shoulders to a past that is built on an incubator of disillusionment. Ironically the past always seems full of possibilities while the future wan by comparison. That’s because we need to do a lot of grunt work to create our paths to the future. It is neither easy nor as romantic as the past. The present and future are real. Unfortunately, the past is subject to manipulation and nearly always involves memory trafficked into an inflammatory myth. We need to look at the past with our eyes wide open and with objectivity leaving out the romantic bits because as pointed out by Roger Cohen in a well-argued essay, “When the past overwhelms it can turn victim into oppressor. While history illuminates it can also blind.”