By Patricia Mukhim
Two Abba songs ‘Money money money’ and ‘The winner takes it all’ come to mind during this election season. The first song goes, “Money, money, money/Must be funny/In a rich man’s world.” Yes money’s funny in a rich man’s world but it can buy so much for the poor voter. Money is the poor woman’s need. Even Rs 2000 will go a long way to ensure she has rice for at least two months and some money to pay the school fees when classes begin in February. And in this open season, the more candidates the better!
It’s pointless denying that with time, money power in elections has taken precedence over issues. Why should anyone care about issues anyway? Issues are good for intellectual sparring. For a poor person who knows that she will continue to have a raw deal five years down the line, ‘it’s now or never.’ Hence the conversation these days whether in the market place or public transports or some adda like a tea shop where people sit and chat over chai and samosa, the banter revolves around, “how much did you get from…..” “I got so Rs…. but I believe the other candidate gives more.”
As far as issues are concerned, they are the same old, cliched ones anyways. Education, Health, Roads, Power, Water, Agriculture etc. Haven’t these same issues figured in the last elections? Were they addressed? Do we have better schools? And why should schools matter when a good chunk of rural kids are not even in school; when women still die of childbirth complications which are no longer issues in the developed states. And infant deaths? Who cares? When there are already so many kids in the family one death is just a number.
As far as roads are concerned, the affluent have their SUVs so it doesn’t matter how bad the roads are. The less fortunate ones relying on public transport or small vehicles can break their heads and deal with their problems and nag the insouciant government for the next five years. After all they were all paid before the elections to shut their traps for the next 5 years.
The rich don’t need government intervention in education. They are all in private schools and a good number study outside the state. Those forced to study in government funded schools and colleges don’t get the right kind of education that can get them to think and question authority. Their’s is a case of memorising and vomiting out facts during an exam. That’s the breadth of their education. So meaningless is the education imparted (book knowledge) and so far removed from their day to day existence that they prefer to drop out and earn to supplement their family incomes. The standard reply from parents who have pulled their kids out from school is, “What’s the point of schooling when so many educated people are without jobs?”
And there really
is no answer to this
vexed question.
Coming to the next Abba favourite, “The Winner Takes It All,” the song has proven true of the 2018 election. The winners- those in the MDA Government – have actually taken more trophies than they deserve and which should have come to us the voters. Indeed, these winners have had their finger in every pie and every money-making venture and added substantially to their list of properties in an around Shillong. Even their hangers-on and facilitators running the muddied coal trade who had nothing in their bank balances before 2018, now live an affluent lifestyle having acquired property in Shillong- 1; a very expensive address whereas most of us had had to move to Shillong 6, 8, 13, 14, 19 or 21 where land was affordable at one time. We know those people and they smile politely at us when we meet them; they are overly courteous and ooze with congeniality. But they are a viciously avaricious lot who will stop at nothing to add to their wealth ranking. Apart from being part of the ruling conglomerate they are also the mafiosi of Meghalaya.
But the reason why we continue to elect the same set of carpetbaggers – living in Shillong but representing the back of beyond constituencies – is because those living in the urban and peri-urban areas believe their area of influence extends to the whole state when in reality their sway ends at Upper Shillong, Nongkrem, Mawryngkneng and Mawiong. The influencers live only within 7 constituencies of Greater Shillong – the bulk of voters live in 29 other constituencies spanning Jaintia Hills, Khasi Hills, Ri Bhoi and not to forget the 24 constituencies in Garo Hills that not only think differently but also have different voting behaviours. Generally, the Garo people decide who forms the Government in Meghalaya hence we have had more enduring Garo CMs than we have had from the Khasi-Jaintia region. The Garos do have bitter political combats but in the end they close ranks to enable one of their own to become the state leader.
Democracy itself is not so straightforward. Voting is just one act but it requires a thinking, questioning, reasoning citizenry that can hold the elected to account. That’s only possible with educated (not just literate) voters who are not victims of patronage. Anyone who has been reduced to a position of having to queue up at the MLA’s home early in the morning (which is a common sight these past few months) and beg for crumbs can hardly exercise free choice. Their choices are already decided when they surrender their EPICs in lieu of money. Some voters may not receive money from candidates but they vote on the basis of personal relationships, religious and clan affinities and many other factors.
Let us admit one stark reality and that is that we live in alternative universes. Our expectations from the MLAs are different. Some believe in immediate gratification others look for the long- term benefit of the State. But the second category are too few to make a difference. The reality is that we live in different worlds, desire different things and have almost nothing in common. This is reinforced by a partisan media environment that is heavily consumed over mobile phones. And such media outlets that operate in a very cruelly competitive orbit deliver news like a consumer product. No wonder, every electoral contest becomes an existential dilemma with each party looking at the other as a mortal enemy and each party then trying to woo whichever media they can.
At the end of the day therefore the media plays a very influential role in deciding the democracy we want. Hence solutions to our governance problems won’t come merely from better legislation or institutional reforms or more virtuous politicians. A healthy culture of democracy can be established by a improving the communication environment. There are many ways of doing this but none of it will matter without a media literate citizenry. The idea that communication skills and media literacy ought to be introduced in secondary education dates back to the 1960’s at least in America when Marshall McLuhan a Canadian philosopher whose work is among the cornerstones of the study of media theory, suggested it. This was reiterated by Editor-in-chief Washington Post, Marty Baron. In the book “Paradox of Democracy,” by Zac Gershberg and Sean Illing the authors say, “Citizens are surrounded by communication technologies and bombarded with bullshit from an early age; they need tools to discern their environment as they mature. In a consumer world rife with choices, everyone must be their own intellectual defense-system. There’s no way around this in a democratic society; ultimate responsibility falls to the people. Public opinion is perpetually vulnerable to hysteria and mass manipulation from opportunistic politicians, from attention merchants, from corporate media. And now its subject to its own self-induced misinformation.”
What the authors deduce is that democracy is a paradox and to be a democratic citizen is to be continually at the mercy of a communication environment full of Sophists, swindlers and tools of distortion. Gershberg and Illing give a strong call saying, “The citizenry will have to save itself from the elites who have abandoned them and from populists (read politicians) who won’t stop lying to them and from the tech industry which constantly surveils them.”
In exactly the same format are hoardings of CM Conrad Sangma at every corner of the town that assault our senses with the promise, “Best today, better tomorrow,” and photographs of the CM along the Shillong-Guwahati highway with poor farming women who hardly understand that they are being photo-shopped for big time adverts. This is what media technology is all about and we are but consumers of products.
So, 2023 is an insurmountable challenge for Meghalaya as it is for other democracies.