By Gregory F Shullai
Chance has willed it (or is it not chance at all) that the BJP has come to terms with the long standing internal feud and the problems that prevailed in its ranks in Shillong. Perhaps there are some definite reasons but let us not go into that in this article. Those familiar with the news and the goings-on in the Party know fully well what I’m referring to. Let us put that aside for now and examine why the BJP is suddenly in demand for Government formation in Shillong and in the Garo Hills.
Number one on the list undoubtedly is the “stark reality” that whoever comes to power in 2023 will have to start from scratch as they say. Our infrastructure is outdated owing to the rampant corruption that was the hallmark of the Government, and dare I say, still is. The public are now looking at other options to take us out of this vicious circle of corruption. They believe there is only one way of pulling the State out from where it is and that is to bring in a National Party – a party in power at the Centre to run the State. Is there any other choice? I doubt, for reasons that will be stated in the following lines. Thus, as we are celebrating the Golden Jubilee of our Statehood (or have we forgotten this joyful celebration?) and unknowingly searching for a solution to the problems that the State is stuck in, no Party is offering any solution to the problems that we have but they all want that something should be done and in the process are turning to the National (outsider) Parties to kick up dust.
People are skeptical of the Congress even after its success in Himachal Pradesh and so for our problems here, there is nowhere else to turn but to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and fortunately a number of locals have joined the Party which has raised the hopes of a greater representation in the coming years. I have been reading some reports in the newspapers and some letters as well and it annoys me that some of the most fastidious and refined intelligence of the present day in Shillong should be so beside themselves about the secular credentials of the BJP. People still try to make a sharp distinction between the Party and its secular credentials based on the seriously misinterpreted idea of Hindutva that is (and rightly so) linked with the Party.
Let me remove the misconceptions. Basically Hindutva seeks to maintain the identity of the culture of the people east of the Indus and that includes us. It has no religious connotation at all – zero in fact. Only the intellectuals understand this and are capable of removing this stigma of a word foreign to everyone here in the North East where the peoples’ conception of Sanskrit is so foreign, in fact as foreign as anything they’ve ever heard. But the intellectuals are as always slow to respond and move around with feet of clay. It takes time for them to embolden themselves to openly declare that the National Party ruling at the Centre is a Political Party and not a religious denomination. We must, it seems to me, discover afresh the whole difference between the BJP and any other National Party and lay aside once and for all the hybrid concept of the BJP and religion.
Towards a fair result on this matter let me state a simple fact. Nothing is harder for a person than to conceive of a political party impersonally, I mean to see it as an object and not a person. And because of that when the people who are expected to steer a Party, abandon themselves to the course of events instead; the Party becomes a residue of what it originally was. This is what happened to the Indian National Congress – it became empty of further progress although there was a time when it was full and rich, and instead of discovering new progressive strategies it distracted its focus and sought to represent the important elements that the BJP stood for as unimportant and when it did not succeed it attacked those elements all the more severely and when it still does not succeed it attached a religious stigma to the BJP, and this has now become the only drum it beats which any right thinking person will admit is a terrible injustice – a racial one, especially here in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills where people believe religious outpourings more than they do reason and logic.
Whereas the cornerstone of the BJPs ideal is, “India First – India is my religion” people here and elsewhere have allowed themselves to be led astray by the black art of obscurantism which clouds their brain, and darkens the picture of their opponent which is what the BJPs’ opponents have perfected themselves in. But in politics as in real life the truth remains that when a party fails in its main task – the administration of the State – it must be rejected and replaced by another that can claim achievements in administration, and that is how the BJP came to power in the country in the first place and there seems to be nothing that can prevent it from returning in 2024, because wherever the BJP has come to power, there is a change for the better…at least that is what many in Shillong see when they visit Guwahati and other cities in the country. They want Shillong and Meghalaya to grow in leaps and bounds as well. It cannot be helped … but if I am to make things clear, I must bring distress to all the readers by exposing the mess Meghalaya is in and hope that they will get over the distress just as I did with the solution I am going to administer.
Firstly, the loan the State has taken far exceeds its ability to repay its creditors; loans have run into thousands of crores. Add to this terrible debt there is the backlog of payments of another thousand crores to NEEPCO. The figures of the Finance Deptt of the State for 2020-21 indicated a repayment of loan to the tune of 23% of the Budget Allotment. Can we afford such huge cuts from our budget allotment? Is it right for us to repay loans that have been misused and made people rich at the expense of progress and development in our State? Definitely not! Just the thought of this debt-trap can make anyone ill and practically alienate them from good temperament till they see where the solution lies. No Party can claim that it has the resources to mitigate this catastrophe but a Party in power at the Centre can if it so wishes.
After a careful introspection of the financial mess we’re in and searching for an answer to it I finally arrived at the only one I could say made sense to me. The BJP believes it has the wherewithal to wipe out these debts within the first year if it is brought to power in the State, and to come to power in the State it needs at least 20(twenty) of its candidates to win. The ball is in the peoples’ court.
Secondly the traffic jams in and around Shillong require that huge infra structural investments must be made to tackle this problem. Is there any Party that can be bold enough to even mention a solution and the source of the money to mitigate this problem? No; apart from the Party in power at the Centre. Thirdly, and controversially, can any Party claim that it has the ability to introduce the ILP in the State? No again, apart from the Party in power at the Centre. Fourthly, can any Party say with confidence that it can bring about the bifurcation of Meghalaya into Garoland and a Khasi-Jaintia State? Impossible, except if it is a Party in power at the Centre!
There are many, many more issues, but more I will not say but let me see my dear brothers and sisters what your frank answers will be to these few necessities among the dozens more that the people raise time and time again because my answer to them is to bring to power in Meghalaya, the Party that is in power at the Centre – bring in the Bharatiya Janata Party.
(The writer is Spokesperson Bharatiya Janata Party Meghalaya. These are the views of the writer. The Shillong Times in no way subscribes to any political ideology)