By Patricia Mukhim
Someone has rightly pointed out that Meghalaya’s 50th year celebration appears to be very statist with no involvement of civil society. Apparently there is a top heavy committee of the who’s who of the State including a few Padma Shri recipients who are on the Committee chaired by the State Chief Minister. As can be expected, the list of members comprise the acquiescent variety. Politicians in Meghalaya can’t handle dissent which they equate with hostility. Dissent is the lifeblood of democracy. Dissent means dealing with a range of ideas. An example of where dissent matters is that we don’t accept as gospel everything suggested by the state. We want a public debate especially on issues directly affecting us the public, so that in the end the best idea which is rigorously tested is accepted and implemented.
In 1927, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for discovering a structure of cholic acid was won by Heinrich Wieland. Within a year other scientists proved him wrong. Similarly, in 1959, Severo Ochoa and Arthur Kornberg shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of enzymes that carry out the synthesis of RNA and DNA in living organisms. It turned out that these enzymes were not the right ones and this was testified by other scientists. Academics is all about arriving at the truth through robust methods of testing by knowledgeable individuals be they scientists or people of other professions. Such corrections are possible because of informed dissent, meaning that the person who suggests an alternative does so based on rock solid evidence. Humankind would not have progressed without dissent. It would have been a boring one-way traffic of ideas as happened in Hitler’s regime.
In Meghalaya, however, if you are a dissenter then you are construed to be anti-government. If you point out the government’s flaws you are considered the enemy and looked at askance. Does this mean that all wisdom resides with the government and those outside it are bereft of intelligence? Look at the State Planning Board. Do we know what it is planning? Have we ever seen the State Planning Board Chairperson briefing the media on what policy briefs it has suggested to the State Government? The NCP MLA has correctly stated that if the Planning Board is unable to show action and outcomes it might as well fold up. Unfortunately, most of such institutions in Meghalaya are defunct or functioning in the breach. On Meghalaya’s 50th year it would be prudent to do a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats) analysis of all the Institutions which have an appointed Chairperson who reports to no one – not the Assembly, not the public. They earn their pay and perks and sometimes even a ministerial rank for doing nothing. This is not acceptable and we should question the heads of these institutions because they are paid from the public exchequer.
Coming to institutions, most of them moribund, on Meghalaya’s 50th year it might be a good idea to do an audit each of these institutions which are actually political largesse bestowed by the ruling party to buy the loyalties of the individuals appointed as chairpersons. Are these institutions delivering anything at all or are they just white elephants eating away public resources? At present after the State Planning Board we have the Meghalaya Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC), Meghalaya Government Construction Company (MGCC), the Khadi Board, Meghalaya Urban Development Authority, Meghalaya Minerals Development Corporation (MMDC) and Meghalaya Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (MIDC), Meghalaya Non-Conventional Energy Agency, Meghalaya State Law Commission, Meghalaya State Housing Board, Meghalaya Transport Corporation, Meghalaya State Grievances Committee, Forest Development Corporation et al.
May we ask the Chairman, Meghalaya Non-conventional Energy Agency what he has suggested to the Government in terms of alternative energy sources? What has the Chairman, Meghalaya Transport Corporation suggested by way of better public transportation system so that private vehicles do not all converge on the narrow roads, thereby leading to interminable traffic jams which seem to have reached a flashpoint? The other day several of those red buses funded by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) were being towed to Assam perhaps. Recently those buses and maxi cabs that were never maintained and therefore have been condemned were auctioned out. With so many public transports out of commission the commuters are at the mercy of local taxis which charge a bomb these days. Is there any reason why we should be celebrating Meghalaya’s 50th birthday when every aspect of human development and ease is going south?
If we have a State Grievances Committee can we ask when was the last time it sat and what were the public grievances brought before it? You may take this as an RTI. And about the Meghalaya Government Construction Corporation the questions are (a) Is the Corporation running at a profit or loss? What are the major construction works undertaken by the MGCC considering that it has a rival in the Dhar Brothers Construction Company? What about the Chairman of the Meghalaya Urban Development Authority? What is its brief? Can we get a gist of the responsibilities of this Chairman and what recommendations he has made to the Government?
I would also like to pose a question to those in the Opposition too. Why are questions about these public offices never raised in the Assembly? Can Meghalaya afford to pay all for all these superfluous positions from the public exchequer? Why do successive governments treat the State of Meghalaya and its resources like their personally inherited fiefdoms. But more importantly why do people of Meghalaya allow this to happen? An unquestioning populace will have a government that loots its resources from under its nose. If we can’t raise questions in public platforms about issues that matter then we have as good as lost our democratic rights.
Meghalaya is not in that cosy position of celebrating its 50th year. On the contrary the people of the state must start taking stock of all the areas that require redress to bring Meghalaya on track in critical areas of governance and administration.
And then there is one question that has bothered many of us who have analysed how the State Health Department and the Government as a whole has battled Covid. To the credit of the senior officers manning the health administration they have been candid about where they had gone wrong in the initial stages and where they were able to show innovation in Covid handling. One Institution that has stood the state in good stead is the Indian Institute of Public Health (IIPH), Shillong which was set up over a decade ago by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). It is the IIPH Shillong that crunched data and provided it to the State Health Department to better understand the Covid situation in Meghalaya and therefore to tailor-make the interventions. Also, a pandemic is a public health issue and the IIPH has started several courses for local researchers in different aspects of public health. The State Government should have been giving more assistance to this much needed public health Institution but it appears that there is a subtle resistance from a section of the state medical fraternity, which like the dog in the manger are not used to collaboration or cooperation. It’s a case of departmental ego playing spoilsport. The Health Minister would do well to nip this politics in the bud. The Government cannot allow petty-minded individuals to sabotage a good cause.
The preamble for setting up the IIPH Shillong clearly states that it was started “in collaboration with Government of Meghalaya.” I recall that in those early years, Assam’s Health Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma was very keen to get the IIPH to Assam. He promised land and other assistance but the UPA government then was definite that it should be located at Shillong.
The IIPH has been able to attract several foreign foundations to fund and assist its research, particularly in tackling malaria. On Meghalaya’s 50th birthday we should be supporting such proactive institutions instead of clipping their wings. Please leave politics out of health care. Period!