By Gregory F Shullai
Public opinion in the Khasi Hills, or to be more precise in Shillong, seems to strictly forbid us from referring to the numerous hardships we are coping with. Instead, we take them in our stride, even though the hardships we face actually have simple solutions. It is common knowledge that Government has one principle – responsibility to the people and that is to provide them the three basic life support requirements – “food, shelter and water.” Every other requirement is secondary to these three. Food and shelter can be imported but we cannot import water. For our water requirements the State has to depend on its inherent internal generation sources – namely forests and catchment areas because they are the only sustainable and renewable water generation sources in our State. If we clear our forest areas for widening the roads, which is what we are hearing is under proposal, Government will eventually fail in its fundamental duty to provide water to its citizens.
We all ought to have become aware of this of our own accord. Roads cannot take priority over water or forests just because we permit ourselves to be flattered by a nonsensical assurance that we have found a solution to the traffic jams. It does not take a mighty mind to see that by decreasing the tree cover area we will eventually be exterminating a primary life support source in Shillong as a whole, and when that is done what do we do, where do we go? Do we really believe that easing the traffic congestion in Shillong town is more important than the source on which life depends? Surely, we can’t be that foolish?
Already we can see the pathetic condition of some of the localities in Shillong with regard to the availability of water and for them it is one hard task understanding what development is. I can never believe that our public and private life is so manifestly devoid of all signs of a productive and a characteristic culture that our senior citizens, with their great vehemence and honesty for that which is right are content to sit back and allow the destruction of forests for the sake of roads. This complacent spirit is as bad as the spirit that proposes such an atrocity.
Indeed, everyone, especially the Shillong based writers and thinkers, who command and attract attention in the things they write and comment on and who have a way of moulding public opinion, should come out openly with the hardships we face and their solutions, and not leave it to Government to rediscover and reinvent and revive in the Assembly. Just because we have elected leaders to represent us in the Assembly, does not mean that our responsibility towards the people and the State have been forfeited. Far from it we should be all the more demanding because what we are experiencing will be a far more accurate description of what reality truly is. There are things that we the public, the common man, should do and leave the elected members to do. Let the opposition leaders agitate against everything the Government does – it’s what they’re expected to do in a democratic set up – and let those in the ruling benches lie back in the arms of their leader who shoulders all the responsibilities and faces all the flak on their behalf; he has willingly accepted that responsibility.
It is we the people that have to come out openly with the hardships we face and vie with each other in offering solutions, where we can, so that our moral, cultural and historical responsibility is fulfilled. Yet even as we suggest solutions to the problems we face, we must confess and be humble enough to accept at all times, that our solution is not the only way out of the problem at hand because in doing so we might actually be bringing upon the people an even greater danger. Any solution we propose will entail a loss. We must weigh the losses and not opt for one that causes us a rout, because that is what is staring at us. In this regard of all the evil results that could come our way from the myopic solutions on offer, the most devastating is the one we cannot turn around or undo. This is what I will address in this article.
The most widespread and common hardship that the people of Shillong face, is the water problem. The other self- created problem everyone talks about is the traffic problem. Yes, we are faced with traffic problems but its solution must not be something that will create a more serious problem in its aftermath. And this is that we have dismissed with a shrug of our shoulders anything that called for the destruction of forests, but of late we have seen the affectations and the fooleries which a drunken spirit may be responsible for, such as the widening of the road along the stretch in Upper Shillong where the tree cover has been depleted. We are told that the construction of link roads through the Laitkor Peak (P) Forest and the Riat Laban Reserve Forest is under proposal consequent upon the Shillong High Courts’ order to the State Government to come up with a proposal to ease traffic congestion in the city.
If this is the only solution Government can come up with, it needs to be revisited because it is a pernicious solution of the highest degree. It was solely through the more extensive knowledge of the Forest Officers in days gone by (1883) that all sound decisions were taken in preserving and creating these forests to which we now ascribe the water source to lakhs of inhabitants of the city. If our planners are so manifestly devoid of an understanding that they can suggest a solution with such an earnest vehemence of honesty without considering the even greater problem this plan would bring, then we have no option but to oppose them.
How could our planners come up with such a proposal? Do they not realize that it would bring an end to the water supply of lakhs of residents of the town? Do they not realize that there is no way the Government can supplement the loss of water to the affected people? Do they not know that every locality and village living on the fringe of the forest is drawing water from this forest on their own financial, material and human resources since the 1950s? It is clear they do not know all these facts because if they did they would never have come up with such an insane idea which is questionable from the very start. That they are acting like modern day Philistines is surprising to one and all of the affected localities.
The intention of Government to ease traffic congestion in Shillong town by destroying our forest cover – our water sources, must be prevented at all costs, because if we don’t all we would have succeeded bringing about the end of Shillong itself. We should be capable of seeing another route that would neither involve the felling of trees nor the destruction to our forests. Our traffic problem is not one of depravity or failure, because in truth it is an indication of economic growth. But this perceived success could turn into a failure. Perhaps we could even declare it to be the uprooting of the tribal mind by progress. When the tribal mind was dominant we never knew traffic problems; with progress the tribal mind has been displaced and transformed into an urban mind and urban minds cannot appreciate the value of a forest until they are no more.
Are there any other consequences that come along with the development of the urban mind over the tribal one? Yes, there are and that was very clearly stated during the pre-election period when candidates were required to declare their assets and to which the Income Tax officials made a passing reference on the need to re-examine the exemption of wealthy tribals from Income Tax. In short we, as tribal people, have conquered our old culture and justifiably excel in self-glorification at our progress but we may discover that our rapture is misplaced. The acquisition of wealth and the sudden increase in the number of vehicles undoubtedly improved the lifestyle of the people in the urban and the rural areas but the threats posed have caught us unawares. This new culture came fast and upset the balance that our traditional ways had established between society and the environment – the self-sustaining lifestyle which we unconsciously adopted in the past from one generation to another. We have conquered ourselves or this “thing” which dubbed itself as “tribal culture,” the one that insists on the maintenance of forests for our survival and now we are seeing forests as an obstacle to our progress.
We must awaken to the fact that our new culture and forests must co-exist and opt for a simple solution that turns its back on the cutting down of trees and destruction of forests.