By Patricia Mukhim
“Meghalaya is heading for the polls in 2023 and politicians, especially those that will be battling anti-incumbency will find a hundred ways to show the voters that they have not been remiss in delivering on their promises.”
Governments are made up of political parties that work on a 5-year self-serving agenda. Whatever they do is aimed at winning the next elections and not necessarily to serve the people that have voted them to power. As voters we would be naïve to expect that politicians will deliver on the promises made. On Thursday as the results from the five states that went to the elections rolled out the poll pundits wondered why when they spoke to people in Uttar Pradesh they heard a lot of ranting and raving against the Yogi Adityanath led BJP government yet when asked who they would vote they all said they would vote BJP. Perhaps there is a sense that somewhere the BJP and Yogi are delivering on poll promises. And guess what? Women voted overwhelmingly for the BJP notwithstanding the bodies floating on the Ganga; the no hospital beds and no oxygen during Covid. Those are all forgotten in the heat and dust of electioneering. The women were pleased with the different schemes targeted to reach them through their Jan Dhan accounts. The Hindutva agenda works only partly and largely for the upper and middle class. The common man and woman look for what helps dispel hunger and bring food and oil to the kitchen. This time the exit polls worked well too in all the 5 states. Of course, there is the ugly saga of the EVMs being transported for training purposes in UP. But all said and done, predicting polling behaviour requires knowledge of both Sociology and Psychology for it’s fraught with grave uncertainties.
Meghalaya is heading for the polls in 2023 and politicians, especially those that will be battling anti-incumbency will find a hundred ways to show the voters that they have not been remiss in delivering on their promises. But they also know that mere election campaigns and speeches don’t work. Money has to change hands too. In this context a ruling party politician had bragged that he will spend over Rs 200 crores in 2023 and get not less than 15 MLAs who will be mostly kith and kin. But over and above the 15, he is also looking at the other 21 constituencies in the Khasi-Jaintia region. His intention seems to aim at giving the Sangma brothers a run for their money. Perhaps this man feels that if he is in the driving seat it is easier for him to exercise control over the state’s resources for him to expand his business empire. Not bad to have ambitions provided they don’t run wild. Let’s see how a home-grown business magnate gives the challenge to a Wharton graduate in business administration in entrepreneurial management and MBA in Finance from the Imperial College London.
But let’s take a look at the much-hyped peace talks with the HNLC that is now being touted. There are many problems with this offer for talks. Why now? Has the ban on HNLC been lifted? If so on what grounds? Has its fire power been audited? The first rule of engagement with militant outfits is that the state does not talk to an outfit with no fire power and which has now started recruiting wide-eyed adolescents. The outfit says it is ready for unconditional talks. So that’s clear. Perhaps the members of the HNLC, some who might be having a number of criminal cases against them, want a general amnesty. That is for the Government to consider. Perhaps the HNLC also wants a monthly pay-out as is being paid out to militant outfits in Manipur which are under Suspension of Operations (SoO)agreement with the Government. But does the Government need an interlocutor for that?
Firstly, the talks with the HNLC have to be transparent because the outfit claims to represent all of us the Hynniewtrep people. We have every right to know what’s going to be on the table from both sides. As far as I have been able to gather from sources in the Union Home Ministry, the very term “interlocutor” has been discontinued by the Government of India. It has done that with Nagaland which is the biggest thorn in the flesh of the Government of India because it has to resolve the biggest challenge which is to give legal closure to the hundreds of murder cases pending against the members of the NSCN(IM) and to rehabilitate them. And murder cases are not time-barred. The Modi Government does not want to entertain any disaffected group that goes against the idea of nationalism. Home Minister, Amit Shah is no dilettante when it comes to such ticklish issues. He is a nationalist to the core and does not understand why some groups in a corner of this country would want out.
To understand this “talks” conundrum better I spoke with a few senior, retired police personnel, some of whom have been at the forefront in fighting militancy in the State. They said that some years ago when the HNLC was at its height, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in Meghalaya had proposed peace talks with them without taking the local police into confidence. When the local police heard of this, the higher-ups in the force spoke to the Union Home Secretary then, asking the premise for such talks. They convinced the Ministry then to abort the talks since police were fighting the outfit and had lost a few of their men in that fight. They preferred to fight the outfit than to give them a walkover. The talks were aborted then. I spoke to a retired IB official on this issue and was told this is an old habit of the Bureau and old habits die hard. We hope this time too that it’s not the IB that has given the HNLC the idea of peace talks.
The youth of Meghalaya have by and large realised the futility of toting guns and living life on the run. They want a fair chance at employment that is not marred by nepotism, favouritism, backdoor entry and corruption. This is something that successive governments in Meghalaya have failed to do. They have failed to clean up the Meghalaya Public Service Commission (MPSC) and every interview conducted for any job vacancy takes years for the result to appear. This is what is frustrating our youth and what makes them feel that there is no justice and fair play in this State.
It takes a lot for a young person to leave home, take up arms and live a life of uncertainty in the jungles. It would have been worthwhile for institutions to talk to some of the surrendered militants and try and understand what gave them the final push to pick up guns against the state – guns that are mostly trained towards individuals who are victims of extortion; guns that are finally used not for the larger good of Ka Ri Hynniewtrep but which cripples it economically. Worse is that these groups are often used by politicians to intimidate rivals. This had happened in the past in Meghalaya until RG Lyngdoh became Home Minister and cut the umbilical cord that tied the HNLC to some of our politicians.
There are of course those dewy -eyed young men that genuinely believed they would change the course of politics in Meghalaya until they realised what a futile chimera that was.
So the question the Government needs to answer is : Why talk with HNLC now? Who from among the 60 MLAs proposed this peace talk? And what is the justification for the peace talks now?
And just as a tailpiece: The NPP accused the BJP in Manipur with whom they were in an alliance for the last five years that Chief Minister Biren Singh did not have a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) chalked out to include the electoral promises of the coalition partners. Is there a CMP in Meghalaya where the NPP is heading the government? If not, why not? The last time we heard that Mr Bindo Lanong of the UDP was supposed to prepare the CMP. But it seems the regional parties are fine with not having a CMP. After all, the public is not likely to go back to the manifesto of 2018.
We voters are indeed taken for a joyride every five years and we seem to enjoy his ride. It’s like enjoying sex with a rapist!