By Patricia Mukhim
Climate change is real and frightening as it can result in catastrophic and unpredictable weather conditions. What’s tragic is that people have such short memories and have already forgotten how homes and humans were carried away in the flash floods in May and June 2022 in West Khasi Hills, South West Khasi Hills and Garo Hills. Much of this devastation is triggered by unregulated stone quarrying which first involves deforestation and then gouging out the earth to pull out the rocks and boulders as if there is no tomorrow. And most of those boulders are transported to Bangladesh via Dawki. Just looking at the long line of trucks parked at Pongtung village waiting their turn to drive to the border will inform that this quarrying business is not only unsustainable but it will also lead to water crises in the short run. While the Government of India is trying to implement the Jal Jeevan Mission with the promise that piped water will come into every home even in the distant hamlets this promise may end up with only gas coming through the pipes instead of water, if we don’t get our act together.
As citizens we all have a PhD in blaming the Government for everything that has gone wrong and that is likely to go wrong in the near future and in the long term. Now Meghalaya has an atypical land holding system. The people of this state started off by saying that they are a tribal community. By their very definition tribals have a shared heritage, culture and shared value systems of which the prime one is, “common property resource.” Forests, rivers, land etc., were supposed to be community-owned. But by some strange arrangement master-minded by the British during their rule over these hills, the concept of private property seeped in. This is because the British needed land for their cantonments and institutions and had to harangue with clans, syiems and dorbars for such land. They deemed it easier to negotiate with individuals and that was what perhaps brought in the idea of ‘Ri Kynti’ or privately owned land. It was the beginning of the commodification of land. Since then there has been no turning back.
In the past week this newspaper carried reports of massive stone quarrying along the Laitkroh-Laitkynsew range which in turn threatens to dry up the reservoirs in Wahniangleng and other rivers/reservoirs downstream which feed the Greater Shillong Water Supply System on which the residents of Shillong depend. But quarrying is not the only evil happening. Flanking the Wahniangleng river on the other side opposite the stone quarry is a huge bald hill after all the trees were mercilessly slaughtered very recently. On questioning the residents of the area one is told that the hill is owned by an individual and that person has decided to sell the logs. After all, in Meghalaya if a person owns a forest we can say goodbye to that forest. The question therefore is what are all the institutions doing if people have the right to do anything they want? And how many institutions do we have at the moment that are supposed to conserve the environment (forests, rivers, and this very earth). Let me name them one by one.
1.Water Resources Department 2. Forest, Environment and Climate Change Department 3. State Pollution Control Board 4. Soil and Water Conservation Department 5. The State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA).6. Public Health Engineering Department (which of course is engaged in providing water to households and perhaps has very little say in pushing the water conservation agenda). 7. Autonomous District Councils 8. Syiems & their Dorbars 9. Dorbar Raid 10. Dorbar Shnong 11. The MLA 12 The MDC.
So we have 12 very powerful custodians but they are either blind or deaf to what’s happening around them! With a dozen or more institutions supposed to be overseeing our environmental concerns in Meghalaya, how come individuals get away with quarrying without any permission? Who is granting the no-objection certificates to quarry owners? Which of the above authorities is granting export licenses for boulders to Bangladesh? Until what point will it be a case of ‘enough is enough?’ Have all the above authorities/institutions sat together to thrash out these issues of environmental depredation? There are some individuals who can only think of the immediate and not beyond their own generation. For them there is no tomorrow. In a world where we live on borrowed time can a few individuals be allowed to monetise this very earth that they claim to own? While it is true that humans need a home to live in and land is required to build a home. But can one individual monetise several hectares of land and gouge out everything inside the earth to export to another country? The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has come down heavily on rat hole mining (a) because it is dangerous for the miners (b) because it is environmentally unsustainable. How come the NGT does not see the potential dangers to Meghalaya’s ecology from unregulated limestone mining and quarrying?
One has to only travel some 20 kms from Shillong city in any direction to see the massive destruction of the environment. First the trees are cut and then quarrying begins. No one cares if that area where the quarry happens is also a catchment feeding a river downstream. Take the case of the massive quarry in Mawlyngad which is owned by the construction company co-owned by the Deputy Chief Minister in the MDA Government. The River Umkhen is now just a trickle of what it used to be before the quarrying started. But does anyone care? We are told that the Dorbar Shnong granted the quarrying permission. Does the Dorbar Shnong have the right to grant quarrying leases? We really need clarity on this because it is this very ambiguity that is killing Meghalaya’s ecosystem by degrees.
In the Mawkynrew area the so-called Meghalaya Community Led Landscape Management Project (MCLLMP) was implemented with a bang and with World Bank funding. If people visit the area today they will witness miles and miles of relentless quarrying and the trees that were supposedly planted are invisible or have disappeared. This happens because anything that is a project has short term interest both for the implementers and the community. Once the project period is over the community has no interest in pursuing the exercise. In the first place the community does not see a livelihood beyond quarrying and mining. In fact, the most prolific livelihoods in Meghalaya are all extractive.
There used to be so much brouhaha about jhum agriculture because it supposedly brought down forests when people moved to a new virgin area after every five years or so. Now we have largely settled agriculture but the forests are still being slaughtered. Clearly we the indigenous people of Meghalaya have lost our tribal values and we have become as avaricious as any other community on this earth. All we wear is a fake exterior and loud claims to an empty indigeneity. The intrinsic nature of our tribal roots has all but vanished. That’s why perhaps we rely so much on costumes, dances and songs! Some sincere soul-searching is called for.