By HH Mohrmen
The Shillong Times carried a news item on the NITI Ayog report which shows that Meghalaya is ranked as the second poorest state in the country. This however does not surprise many as people who are acquainted with the development activities in the state are also aware of the ground realities. The sad fact is that the general public continues to be poor while the ruling class and their supporters are getting richer every day. While the people of the state are poor, the only people who get rich are the politicians and the high-level class which continue to patronise them. While the politicians and the bureaucrats continue to live in oblivion and a denial mode on this fact the poor in the state continue to get poorer.
The richest farmers
in the country
In one of the panel discussions during the G20 meeting at Shillong, a retired bureaucrat proudly claimed that the farmers in Meghalaya are the richest in the country. I wondered how our farmers can be richer than the farmers in Punjab or elsewhere in the country. Now the NITI Ayog report came like a bolt from the blue, and it has shocked me more. The question is if, our farmers are the richest in the country, then how come our state ranks second as the poorest state in the country? If the farmers as officials in the state always say, constitute about 70% of the population of the state, then the majority of the people in the state are rich. And if we go by this logic then, if seventy percent of the population are already very rich hence the state should be the richest in the country.
The growing population
of unemployed youth
On the sidelines of the G20 we also had a meeting with another senior bureaucrat in the state who explained to us the unemployment scenario in the state. The officer I think was referring to the job reservation issue in the state when he said that the state each year produces 30,000 to 40,000 young people who are looking for jobs. It is true that if one only looks at the SSLC result; each year not less than thirty thousand students pass the examination and if we add an estimated number of school dropouts to that then certainly the number of youth entering the job market in the state will increase by not less than 30,000 every year.
The officer explained that the state can only generate less than 1500 government jobs through Meghalaya Public Service Commission, the District Selection Committees in the districts, and other government agencies, yet everybody is fighting for 1500 government jobs. The senior officer is right in his observation, but the question that one needs to ask is why young people are always running for a government job. Why is it that the goal of every youth in the state is to land oneself a government job? Not only job seekers, even their parents want their children to get a government job? The most unfortunate understanding is that the youth or their parents would not consider them as employed until it is a government job. The question is what makes government jobs very attractive to the youths of the state?
The charm of a cozy
government job
Every young person in the state dreams to land a government job; the reason is the comfort and the security that the job offers. Unlike other jobs which include contractual jobs, government posts guarantee a steady income to the person and even if the government has done away with providing pensions to its employees, government employees are provided pensions through their contributions. Government jobs also provide other allowances, health benefits, and incentives that employees in the other sectors are denied. Government employees are also easygoing and do not have to work as hard as employees in different sectors. Even if the person is not interested in a job and does have the passion to do the work, the goal of every educated youth in the state is to get a government job.
Not only does a government job offer job security, but one cannot deny the fact a government job is also not as demanding as a contractual one or working in a private enterprise. At the Blocks, there are government posts where the staff will only attend office once or twice a week or only on a market day in the area. Staff who are appointed in the field always have a field day. Very often the staff in the field are not even required to attend to their jobs every day. It looks like the government offices are already over-staffed.
Make government
jobs less attractive
If the government wants to lessen the charm of the government job and to make them less attractive, then it should do a complete makeover and change all government jobs to work under a contract basis. It is also time that the government pays the workers based on the jobs they do and the employee’s performance. It should ensure that there should not be a pay disparity between a government job, a contractual, and even a worker in the private sector. To reduce the charm of the government job, the government should also provide the same benefits or perks for all its employees. This may sound radical and hard to digest even for the bureaucrats but, the question is whether there is an alternative to this?
The mama boy’s image
In another government meeting a certain high-ranking officer who had also worked in Assam shared with the group his perception about the men or particularly the young boys of the region. The group discussed the young people of the region reluctant to work outside the region. He shared stories of how young men who did well outside the state had to return to their native place because they want to be close to their mothers or the mothers want their sons to live near them.
He is right in his assumption that in general men in the society are quite lethargic and not as hardworking as the women folk. His argument is based on the fact that in every meeting organized, women will always outnumber men. I suggested that even attending church, the women’s pews are always full and the men’s pews are always half empty. But the reluctance of young people to work outside the state may also have a connection with the tribal’s general attitude to life.
The difference in
perception of growth
Perhaps it is the difference in our perception of the world. The modern scientific way of calculating the growth of the state is based on economics and numbers, whereas like many indigenous people, the most important thing for a tribal is the wellbeing of the family and the community. The modern way of calculating growth always led to over-exploitation of resources. The goal of which is to extract more to get richer and richer which will help improve the economy, but the question is at what cost? Perhaps here lies the difference in understanding of growth and development between the modern and the indigenous way.
This is perhaps best described by the story about an investment banker that I read a long time ago. A certain investment banker went for a holiday with his wife to a small island. While taking his morning walk on the beach of the island he saw a man who was enjoying his early siesta. The banker went to talk to the man and asked him what his profession is to which the man not surprisingly said that he is a fisherman. The banker then asked him why he was not out fishing in the sea, to which the man said “Well, I had fished in the morning and caught enough fish for my family’s consumption and little to sell in the market to buy for my family’s need”. The banker then asked him “Why don’t you fish more so that you can buy yourself a boat?” the man asked the banker “What for?” The Banker said “So that you can go fishing as much as you can.” The fisherman again asked the banker “what for?” The Banker said “that you buy yourself many boats and then a ship and go fishing in the deep water.” “What for? Asked the fisherman again?” “So that you can be rich like me and sometimes take a holiday and enjoy your life.” The fisherman then asked the banker, “What the heck do you think I am doing now.”
The banker’s perception of happiness is that one has to get rich to become happy and he waited till he got rich to enjoy his life, while the fisherman enjoyed his life all along. In the human pursuit for wealth nature and the earth in general are exploited and ultimately destroyed.