By Patricia Mukhim
There are many things that are not going right in Meghalaya and these are aggravated by the sullenness of polite society. This polite society prefers to keep silent in the face of all kinds of evil because speaking up has consequences and few want to pay the price. This silent and polite society knows that the future of Meghalaya if it continues the way it has is a bleak one. But taking action seems to extract a heavy cost.
Then there is a cacophonous category of loud speech makers who appear especially during the elections but who have now gone into their rabbit holes. They too have decided to take the vow of silence. All of them are silent on the deteriorating rule of law in Meghalaya. This group is the infamous political class that seem to have done a deal with the devil.
While Congress supremo and the present Leader of the Opposition, Rahul Gandhi was in Manipur to wipe the tears from the eyes of suffering internal refugees, his Congress Party in Meghalaya has not a word to say and no condemnation against the non-state actors who have been relentlessly pursuing the path of ethnocracy and spreading hate against defenceless labourers. Those labourers are in Meghalaya because some contractor has brought them here. It is the contractor who should be held up for not following procedures and applying for work permits through proper channels for their labourers. Why assault and intimidate the labourers while being silent on the contractors? Or is this one way of doing a deal with the contractors?
One would have thought that a rejuvenated Congress would be speaking out against all wrongdoings of not just the MDA Government which anyway draws flak irrespective of what it does or does not do but of all other anti-social elements who go around asserting their pseudo- patriotism in the name of the “jaidbynriew,” and that by assaulting helpless non-tribal labourers who are here to earn a livelihood. If there was no vacuum in this labour market; if the locals executed their work professionally and timely and with precision and the contractors have no reason to complain why would they employ labourers from outside the state who they have to provide living accommodation as well?
If the Congress is silent as a mouse in the midst of all the inhuman treatment meted out to other humans, the VPP too is not far behind. But the VPP is an ethnocentric party that has ridden to power during the MP election on the premise of the “jaidbynriew” politics. So expecting the VPP to call out hate crimes committed by groups that operate along the same premise as them is a futile hope. But since the VPP also never fails to invoke the name of God at every public event does God not shake their conscience when groups take the law in their hands without any respect for laid down procedures? The VPP can take on these Government departments that fail to perform their duties but it cannot remain silent when non-state actors pretend to be the government.
Now coming to the BJP in Meghalaya whose leader is on a European tour to ostensibly hold the peace of this precariously balanced world, the party is as silent as every other political group in Meghalaya. One of their state leaders is a former top cop but now seems to have mellowed down after having contested the elections and being a full-time party worker. The two BJP MLAs too are tamed. It’s a case of “If you can’t beat them, join them.” And if political parties have failed us there’s also not a single politician with the moral fibre to call out this constant taking over of the law by those with the propensity to break the law.
Now if the political class is silent for reasons of protecting their vote bank, we have an enlightened society that is otherwise very cultured and many are avid church-goers. But this very ‘civil’ (donburom class) society too will not condemn wrongdoing. Meghalaya society today is so dehumanized that it renders other suffering humans as inconsequential and invisible.
Then there is this group of hot-heads who argue that if they are not there to defend the jaidbynriew from the “illegal” migrants (for them anyone who is not a Khasi-Pnar is an illegal migrant (poi-ei), then Meghalaya would have become a Tripura, without understanding the historical background of that state. They rage if only to convince themselves of their own rightness. But it’s time for such people to be suspicious of their own rage and to ask themselves as to who or what is igniting that rage. Yes rage might make them feel luxurious because it makes them convinced of their own moral rightness but ultimately that rage blinds them and turns them into hate-filled monsters. Such people are so consumed with self-righteous fury that they become cruel and authoritarian zeitgeists of this 21st century. People with this attitude force themselves to believe that the enemy is out to destroy them and that belief tells them that savagery is necessary. But that savagery also gives them a sense of power especially when they can go around committing violence unchecked by the arms of the law.
What we need in Meghalaya is to embrace a certain way of thinking that is fundamental to being citizens of a democracy. We need what philosopher Isaiah Berlin calls “value pluralism,” which is an ethical concept of systematically examining the relations of human beings to one another, the conceptions, interests and ideals from which human ways of treating one another spring, and the systems of value on which such ends of life are based. These systems of value are ‘beliefs about how life should be lived, what men and women should be and do.’ It is about learning to live and let live and not to expect conformity. We are at a point when societal debates are urgently needed on whether we should only be loyal to a particular community or work at universal solidarity with all humankind; whether we have respect for authority or individual autonomy. Do we want social progress which comes with its share of challenges and upheavals or do we only look for social stability and resist change?
Instruments like the Inner Line Permit (ILP) have limited utility if the people entrusted with implementing it are prone to taking money and letting in anyone who pays. Then other groups will have to police the police but that group too cannot be expected to be above board where money is concerned. So laws that depend on strict policing which is something we haven’t seen in a long time in Meghalaya are just placebos that will not yield anything. The politicians know this very well and so does the educated class but all will shout in unison – We Want ILP..
For decades Meghalaya has seen performative activism that has not resulted in any real change on the ground. Meghalaya is also infamous for its lack of reasoned public discourse. Whatever debates happen on social media are actually tit for tat crudities full of the tantrums of the merchants of rage. Politics too has sunk to a point where people regard those in other parties not as political rivals who can sometimes find common ground but as sworn enemies. Think of the Congress and the BJP sitting across the table to discuss the pressing problems of Meghalaya. Can that ever happen? Political parties should be questioning why the Labour Department is amiss in its duties. This will seal the vacuum that allows other actors with the wrong intent to fill in.
At this point I only know one thing – our collective silence is opening up the floodgates for disruptive elements to capture spaces they should not. It may not affect us now but this culture has diminishing returns which will have devastating impacts in the not so near future.