The agenda items listed out by the Opposition Congress for deliberations in the forthcoming session of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) are interesting. The issues it threatens to rake up range from the MoA signed between Meghalaya and Assam on settling the border disputes between the two states without consulting the Council; issues of illegal coke units that are environmentally destructive; the ban on sand and stone mining and illegal check gates etc. What’s curious is that the Congress MDCs threaten to even rake up the history of “Ri Khasi” (Khasi states) before the arrival of the Sixth Schedule. Attempts to return to a romantic past are not new in Meghalaya. Instead of taking up issues that affect the daily existence of citizens, the MDCs prefer to hold forth on something that they know is set in stone. The Parliament of India is unlikely to revisit the Instrument of Accession (IoA) – an agreement signed and sealed 74 years ago. In these 74 years the people of the Khasi states have learnt to live within the ambit of the Indian Constitution that guarantees them certain fundamental rights and privileges as citizens.
The Congress MDCs know that these political gimmicks will not take them too far. The issue of illegal coke units has been dealt with by the State Government after the High Court came down heavily on it and because the mining of coal as a raw material for coke units was already banned in Meghalaya. Rampant mining of boulders and sand banking has destroyed the life of our rivers. It is timely that these two activities are being strictly regulated. Regarding the signing of the MoA between the two governments of Assam and Meghalaya, there was ample time for the Congress to be involved in the process if it chose to. It could also have raised the banner of protest at Dispur where the agreement to give and take land as agreed by the two sides was executed. Now it is a bit late in the day and is being raked up only in preparation for the 2023 polls.
Politicians have used nostalgia time and again to win elections but it usually backfires. The people of Meghalaya are reminded of a hoary past as if everything was hunky dory in that past. This is because politicians have no vision of the future. Their concern is only the next election and how to win it. But that is a strategy that is unlikely to work now. What people want is a promise of solutions to problems and a better economic future. The Councils should be engaging themselves with environmental challenges and the state of the rivers which they claim to be under their jurisdiction. People are no longer fooled by obfuscation. The Sixth Schedule is not above the Constitution.
