The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 which was carried out in 2019-2020 calls Meghalaya a ‘matriarchal’ society. The Khasi, Jaintia and Garo people still believe they are a matrilineal society where lineage is from the mother’s clan line. Harini Natarajan who has studied the work of several sociologists, including the German scholar Heide Abendroth Goettner has explained the essense of matriarchy in an article titled ‘What Is Matriarchy? A Brief History Of Matriarchal Societies.’ Natarajan says, “matriarchy is a system that revolves around the principle of mother-rule in which mothers or females are at the top of the power structure. They dominate in roles of moral authority, political leadership, social privilege, and control of property. For a social system to be viewed as a matriarchy, it would need the support of a culture that defined women’s dominance as desirable and legitimate.” Going by the above definition of matriarchy, Meghalaya hardly qualifies as one. Here women are not included in traditional institutions (Dorbar Shnong) which are male-centric grass-roots governance institutions. This exclusion of women from the Dorbar Shnong is a live issue.
Another contradiction in this survey relates to land ownership in Meghalaya. The earlier findings by the Socio-Economic Caste Survey, 2011 is that 76 % of rural Meghalaya is landless. It would be prudent to believe that if the picture in 2011 was so bleak then it would have only aggravated with time. NFHS -5 finds that 70 percent of households own a house (76%) of rural households and 48% of urban households). The survey also says overall, 33 percent of all households in Meghalaya own agricultural land. The 33% could well be urban elite that own agricultural land for contract farming.
The NFHS-5 fieldwork for Meghalaya was conducted in all 11 districts of the state between July 8, 2019 to November 15, 2019 by IQVIA Consulting and Information Services India Pvt. Ltd. Information was collected from 10,148 households, 13,089 women age 15-49 (including 1,965 women interviewed in PSUs in the state module), and 1,824 men age 15-54.Some findings however are of concern if they reflect the ground realities. One is that only 33% of the population have an Aadhar Card. This confirms the poor enrolment into the electoral rolls of the state and poor voting percentage in certain rural constituencies as most people consider the Aadhar Card to be taboo. In terms of household composition, the NFHS-5 finds that in Meghalaya, over three-quarters (78%) of the households are in rural areas. On average, households comprise of 4.8 members. But what’s also shocking to learn is that 41% of households are headed by women, with 42 percent of the population living in female-headed households.Does the Government of Meghalaya pay attention to the NFHS survey data? Or is this just another statistic?
