By Patricia Mukhim
The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) by its very nomenclature is meant to devote its energies to students’ welfare and hence its releases to the media should be on issues primarily related to education and what ails education in Meghalaya today. There have been several articles and letters in this newspaper from teachers, heads of institutions and parents, all very concerned about the two years lost to the pandemic and even now we are staring at the possible loss of a third year, unless some decisive steps are taken by Government to start offline classes with due precautions. I have not seen a single release or engagement from the KSU, putting forth it’s views on how to deal with the issue of mass drop-out of school children in the rural outback of Meghalaya where over 80% of children reside . It’s actually very rare to see any intellectual inputs from this student body which is expected to add to the intellectual capital of the state. The KSU has always adopted pressure tactics to get its point across. Is this the mandate of a student body?
Why are almost all the issues taken up by the KSU of a political nature? If it had invested the same amount of energy into the education system of Meghalaya that it has into the demand for the Inner Line Permit (ILP) and other political issues, perhaps it would have benefitted the children and youth of this state to move towards a more progressive future. I have seen this organisation over the years and its style of functioning and have also collaborated with it in the past. We were joint signatories to demand a ten-year moratorium on tree felling as part of an environmental campaign. We were co-petitioners in the Supreme Court to stop tree-felling for timber, since Meghalaya was losing its forest cover at a rapid pace. The apex court brought a 10 -year ban on tree-felling from 1996-2006.
As part of the Peoples’ Rally Against Corruption (PRAC) too we have worked together to salvage the Meghalaya House, Russell Street, Kolkata which in 2000-2001 was sought to be given away for a song to a private party for use as a commercial space by the then Government. Our collective campaign with other organisations helped to retain the Meghalaya House as it is today.
What I have never been able to understand is why a students’ body should have a jail in its office premises. This matter has been pointed out several times in the past too but successive governments have winked at this illegality. It is not the mandate of a students’ body to punish anyone. If they find a wrong-doer they should hand him/her over to the law enforcers. The state is the only legitimate authority to decide who is a wrongdoer and under what sections of law the person should be punished. It’s unprecedented that any organisation should have a jail to mete out its own brand of punishment on who it decides is a law breaker and which law has been broken. This has to end because it is overstepping the mandate of a body that claims to oversee students’ welfare.
The other problematic point is the KSU jumping into every issue and arm-twisting people and organisations in the typical style of bullies – ‘My way or the highway.’ It is surprising that a students’ body would now enter into the domain of what is considered the private affairs of a Club – a legacy of the British that has for decades now been run by ‘Indians’ of Meghalaya. The Shillong Club Ltd can by no stretch of imagination be considered to belong to the Khasis only just because it is located in Shillong. If that is the yardstick then would it also be correct to say that every institution located in Shillong should be manned only by Khasis? Up to what point can a state and society allow this ethnocentrism to boil over? What right does a student body have to enter into a discord between one Club member who lost the elections and his antipathy towards the entire Club? What is the locus-standi of the KSU here? Can its leaders explain why and on what grounds they have entered into this dispute? Is it in any way related to educational pursuits or is this a private quarrel? Does this mean that anyone with a grudge against any institution can use the KSU to intimidate the members of that institution/organisation? What does this make the KSU then? An organisation that can be hired to intimidate? Should students have time to engage in such activities at the expense of their academic welfare?
Today we should all be asking the KSU if they are using their resources to try and bring kids that have dropped out of the school system back on track. Do they have a strategy they can share with the public so we can all work together towards this noble goal? Has the KSU tried opening an evening school where young people can gain some additional life skills and social skills on how to speak convincingly (not rhetoric) at public platforms; how to question those in authority cogently and with facts and figures; how to face an interview board with confidence; how to debate and not talk down to those that one has differences with; how to respect all humans and grow out of the little cocoon. Let’s remember that each cocoon must allow the butterfly to fly out and seek its own food and fortune. The butterfly has to be self-reliant and cannot keep coming back to that dried up cocoon for its food. Each butterfly has to now find its food chain and chalk out its own future.
Why should the KSU take on the fight and squabbles of the moneyed class of an elite Club that can fight their own battles? On what grounds has the KSU entered this battle? And who are they threatening to take action against? And for what? How does the functioning of a Club that is run on certain rules become an issue of the KSU? Also how does the student body afford to frequent this elitist space that most of us cannot afford to? Otherwise, why would they get involved in its quarrels?
It is high time now for the Khasi community to move out of the victimhood syndrome and to stop taking all their grouse to a students’ body whose prime duty is not to provide jobs but ensure a better standard of education; to groom the youth and empower them with the confidence to stand tall and compete with the best. It is those looking for shortcuts to life that need to rely on sundry organisations to fight their battles. Of course, we have also witnessed that the KSU is a springboard to politics. Do we the people of Meghalaya agree that a students’ body should use itself to derive political clout so that its members can fight the next and the next elections and when elected forget what they once promised the people?
It’s time for this society to mature and speak its mind. Enough of the studied silence. Many of us have given up hope that churches and religious institutions will produce voices of truth and courage. These institutions have become so insular that they have lost their flavour. They are no longer what Christ said – the salt that gives flavour and the light of the earth. They and their inmates have become flavourless and dark and therefore evil triumphs especially in politics.
Last but not least, we would like to be educated from the KSU leadership if all the members are students. If so, how do they find time to engage in a range of issues unrelated to and divorced from education? Above all, how do they generate revenue to run the organisation? Is the KSU leadership gainfully employed? If not, how do they manage the day- to- day affairs of the Organisation? These are very fair questions which all public organisations have a duty to give honest answers to.