By Bhogtoram Mawroh
Meghalaya is finally getting its own state university named after the first Chief Minister of the State, the Captain Williamson Sangma State University. Inaugurated in January 2023, the Meghalaya government is preparing for a massive Christian prayer service to consecrate the occasion. Rakkam A Sangma, the Education Minister, defended the highly irregular decision, arguing that if Hindu rituals can consecrate the new Parliament, “why not Christian rituals in a Christian state?” On the face, it sounds like a reasonable argument. If the Union government can choose to favour a particular religion, why shouldn’t others do the same? However, such tit-for-tit action is going to be highly counter-productive.
The BJP-led NDA has to take a lot of the blame for this mixing of religion and politics that is becoming pervasive in the country. Not that religion and politics were kept separate in the past. Vote bank politics, by dividing people based on religious identity, was what gave birth to the modern nation of India. However, while Pakistan declared itself an Islamic republic, India chose not to adopt a state religion but favoured a version of secularism where, officially, all religions received equal validity. However, the government did not give official recognition to indigenous faiths such as Niam Khasi, Songsarek, and Sarna Dharma, categorizing them as “others”. This was an injustice done to the indigenous people of the country, which persists till date. The wait will go on because the intention of the BJP-led government is to ultimately play the politics of janjati, vanwashi, ghar wapsi to get these smaller religions assimilated into Hinduism.
As for the other religious minorities, harassment is a tool which is being deployed extensively. During the recent Christmas celebration, a video surfaced depicting two indigenous Christian women from Orissa bound to a tree and being compelled to chant “Jai Shri Ram.” These women appear to belong to one of the local Austroasiatic groups who are linguistically and genetically related to the Khasis. Imagine a non-indigenous mob tying up Khasi women and beating them in their own homeland. This happened in Orissa. Reports came from across the country of many disruptions to Christmas celebrations. If there’s one minority which has faced the brunt of this toxic concoction of religion and politics, it’s the Muslims. The year 2024 saw a continuation of violence on the pretext of cow protection and attempts at finding destroyed temples under almost every mosque. The situation was getting out of hand, prompting the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to condemn these attempts of raking up temple-mosque disputes by ‘wannabe Hindu leaders’. However, at the beginning of the year another Muslim was killed in the name of cow protection. The experiment of the RSS has worked only too well for their own good. When one looks at what is happening in the country, it is understandable that the minorities, which include the indigenous people, will be wary and concerned. Bigotry in the country will force them to respond with their own bigotry. The consecration of the state university by organising a Christian prayer and by ignoring other religions in the state, including the indigenous faiths, is a mirror image of the Hindutva politics that is playing out in the mainland. But this is not the first time that the MDA government has tried mixing religion with politics. Chief Minister Conrad Sangma had held similar Christian prayer services in the past when the cabinet took charge. In 2020, he had led an Easter prayer service when the state was reeling under COVID-19 with a Christian prayer. Why should the head of a secular state lead the prayer service of a particular religion? Irrespective of what Rakkam A Sangma and others like him think, Meghalaya is not a Christian state, just like India is not a Hindu Rashtra. We must condemn the bigotry that is unfolding in the mainland, but we must also condemn attempts at replicating it in our state as well. What instead is required is what the CPC (Central Puja Committee) of Shillong did when a YouTuber Akash Sagar desecrated the premises of the Church of the Epiphany by chanting ‘Jay Shri Ram’ using the church microphone. The CPC immediately condemned the incident, urging the district administration to investigate the matter and take stringent exemplary action against the offender as per the law. I was involved in this issue because I had accompanied Angela Rangad to file the FIR against the individual. Apart from the CPC, what was most heartening is when I went to the personal Instagram page of Akash Sagar, under the comments section, I saw many Hindus condemning his actions and some even stating they were going to unfollow him after the incident. It is absolutely important to reiterate that the desecration of the Church by this individual was an individual act and had nothing to do with the larger Hindu community. Despite all the bigotry unleashed in the country, majority of the Indian voters still voted against the BJP. It was only money power and the capture of institutions that helped them narrowly win the 2024 Parliamentary elections. This shows that not every Hindu in the country has been radicalized. Any reaction to the Hindu fundamentalist, therefore, must not be based on Christian fundamentalism in our own state. There is a need to build solidarity, not division. This solidarity has to be built on respect for the rights of minorities and their history and culture. An excellent example of this is the ongoing issue of a ban on worship at Mawjymbuin cave in Mawsynram.
After the ban was announced by the Mawsynram Durbar Shnong a group based in Assam known as Kutumba Suraksha Parishad (KSP) issued threats against the people of Meghalaya by vowing to disrupt their travel to Assam. They demanded a meeting with local stakeholders to resume worship. What was most curious is that they wanted the local Seng Khasi organisation to be part of the discussion. It’s undeniable that Christians have discriminated against Niam Khasi faith adherents. But this doesn’t mean that they will somehow become part of Hinduism. Niam Khasi is a religion connected with the Khasi people, who are the second oldest inhabitants of South Asia, with their history going back at least 5000 years. Hinduism emerged in the region only after 1500 BCE (3500 years ago), having arrived with the Indo-Aryan speakers from Central Asia. Many Niam Khasi know this very well and, they are very aware of their indigenous identity and the distinctiveness of their religion. A well-respected member of the Seng Khasi conveyed this to me during our discussion.
This individual was a member of the BJP and had accompanied a high level leader of the party when he visited the state. But when the party leader entered a Hindu temple, the Niam Khasi adherent refused to follow him inside. When I asked for the reason, he/she replied that Khasis (Niam Khasi) don’t worship idols and therefore he/she refused to take part in the worship. It makes perfect sense. Khasis are nature worshippers but they don’t have any idols of the gods they worship. Khasis venerate natural objects (like the monoliths where they conduct their rituals), but unlike Hindus, these objects don’t represent a particular deity.
Khasis know the cave in Mawsynram as Mawjymbuin, which translates to a rock which resembles a breast and not a phallus which represents the Shiv-ling. The structure is actually a stalagmite, which are mineral formations made by water dripping onto the floor of a cave and are a common feature of limestone geomorphology. If we consider this a religious symbol, then every limestone cave in Meghalaya is a potential religious site. I am not sure when the practicing of allowing worship in the cave started, but a non-Christian and non-indigenous friend of mine told me that till around 30 years ago the site was a picnic spot. He had visited the cave in his childhood and played inside with his friends. There was no worship happening back then. So, it appears to be a recent phenomenon.
We must condemn the attempt to force the Khasis to allow Hindu worship at a picnic spot in Mawsynram which is a distortion of their traditional belief system. Any attempt to twist the history of indigenous peoples and weaken their identity by forcing cultural assimilation should be rejected. Instead we should condemn both Christian and Hindu fundamentalism. It is only by rejecting such attempts at polarisation of the state, which is being attempted by both the State government and the Assam-based Hindu group, that we can have peace. Any hypocrisy in this matter will only create more problems in the future. We must not allow that to happen.
(The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect in any way his affiliation to any organisation or institution)