By Dr Larilin Kharpuri
Around the first week of August 2019, The Shillong Times (TST) celebrated its 75 years of works in progress and continuing till date. A unique project was initiated by TST as part of its platinum jubilee celebrations. Project Operation Clean-Up (OCU) was led by its Editor, Patricia Mukhim along with other like-minded people as members. The members met, discussed and debated the project’s mission, and finally walked (and still walking) the talk. The Project primarily involved cleaning up the Urkaliar part of the Umkhrah river; it also includes other parts of Shillong like Golflinks, Laban, Umiew river near Umphrup village, Shillong peak and Umpling. With the exception of interruptions caused by the lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, the team of Project OCU met almost every 2nd or 3rd Saturday of the month to clean the Urkaliar river. Today, in its fourth year of existence, Project OCU has seen many members come and go and come back too.
Operation Clean-up included individuals like Rudi Warjri, Jiwat Vaswani and his Team Jiva, Brian Wallang and students of K.C. Secondary School, members of Make Someone Smile, students of Martin Luther Christian University (MLCU), Shubham and NGO, the Col Sishupal Security Company (CSSC) Home Guards and quite importantly the drivers of garbage trucks and earth moving machines and the cleaners from the Shillong Municipal Board have been the constant presence at the OCU activities.
On April 6, 2023, the Government of Meghalaya called a meeting to discuss the cleaning and rejuvenation of Umkhrah, Umshyrpi and Umkhen rivers with various stakeholders like the KHADC, Dorbar Shnongs, Civil Society Organisations and concerned Government Departments on board. Although an informal group of concerned citizens from disparate fields, members of Project OCU like were also invited to share their experiences and provide valuable suggestions. Looking back over the years and now, one has to give due credit to the exemplary leadership of the core members of Project OCU, for their tenacity, grit, and strength of character, in going on and on, over and again, without fail. The Government did take note of Project OCU activities!
The article, ‘No more meetings on garbage, please,’ by Avner Pariat (TST, Dated April 28, 2023) made some interesting points about the total waste of time on TALKING. For cooperation and engagement rather than a confrontational attitude, a consensus before any action is always necessary. Unless of course, humans are only driven by impulse and emotions and they take action without any thinking, deliberations or any regard for the consequences.
The Anglo-Khasi War (Khasi Resistance against the British Raj) of 1829-33 under the leadership of U Tirot Sing Syiem was started only after due deliberations in the general Durbar of Hima Nongkhlaw. A few months before the War, a durbar was held for two days to deliberate the application for permission by the British to construct a road from Sylhet to the Brahmaputra Valley through areas under the independent Khadsaw-phra Syiemship. This durbar, witnessed by British officials, invited admiration and respect from the white men with one even comparing it to the proceedings of the Westminster Parliament. Historically and as part of oral narratives, it has been recorded that such deliberations did take place before the Achiks under Pa Togan Sangma and the Jaintias under U Woh Kiang Nangbah took up arms against the British in 1872 and 1861- 62 respectively. Historically and to date, the indigenous tribals of Meghalaya are known to have a deliberative process of decision-making, from the family, clan (kur and mahari) level to the village, Raij/Raid, Nokmaship, Elaka and Hima level.
The Preamble to our Constitution states that India is a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic. That means, its citizens matter the most. Any decision or law-making by a democratically elected government will have to be weighed well, with considerable time taken. Afterall, citizens’ lives are impacted and it’s a matter of losing or winning elections, i.e. Power.
Our country is not a People’s Republic of chai-chai or Democratic People’s Republic of kor-kor or some monarchy where decisions are made by a very few members of a non-democratic Politburo or an unelected General Secretary or some dynastic heir or heiress. To reduce deliberations, discussions and debates to “pseudo democratic stakeholder meetings” is to disrespect our Founding Fathers Mothers, our freedom fighters (both living and dead then in 1947-1950) and members of our Constituent Assembly, who took 3 consecutive years to frame our democratic Constitution that gave legal/official form to our country called the Republic of India (Bharat Ganarajya), a Union of States.
Awareness or IEC (Information, Education and Communication) or Social Marketing activities are important for any event or scheme implementation. They may take the most ever-ready form of a poster, hoarding or word-of-mouth to a street play, roadshow, social media posts or even a flash mob. One may like or dislike RJ Nicky personally, but one has to give due credit to him; he does his bit for Mother Nature. The students and faculty members of the Department of Environment and Traditional Ecosystems (DETE), MLCU have been involved in many awareness activities, community camps and other field-based activities including Project OCU.
As part of the implementation of the Mott MacDonald blueprint, the Meghalaya government distributed the green and blue bins for separation of wet and dry waste at the household level. DETE-MLCU students conducted locality-wise and door-to-door campaigns to generate awareness for the same in Shillong City, as part of their internship programme. With experiential learning being a key component of MLCU education, the involvement of the students in field-based activities is recorded and credited as a part of their degree programmes. For our Gen-Z MLCU students, participation in Project OCU activities is a different learning experience, they come in contact with individuals and groups from different walks of life sharing the common concern for our rivers and waste management and Mother Nature in general.
Recently after a Project OCU activity, a student took some photos of the garbage dumped in the river and put them up on her social media posts with the caption, “Balei ki briew kim pyrkhat, kim sngewthuh?” (why don’t people think or understand) Isn’t that what Awareness is all about – a future behavioural change in a democracy?
With a Ministry and a Department named Forests, Environment and Climate Change, both the Central and State Governments are well aware of the challenges related to waste management. Acts (and Rules framed thereunder) have been legislated and passed. Consumerism and Individualism has marked our ancient tribal society that we live in today. The quantum of waste generated has multiplied. Of course, dustbins and landfills are necessary now but they cannot be the all-time answer to our waste problems. What we need to think now and act upon is “zero waste” behaviour change and policy. Reduce, Reuse, Recover and Recycle should be the mantra for all.
To conclude, why just leave everything to the government? Why can’t we as concerned citizens, individuals or informal groups like Project OCU, do our bit and be a part of the solution rather than the problem? It is easy to rant but ranting without lifting a finger to help change things on the ground is misplaced.
(The writer teaches at the DETE, MLCU, Shillong.)