By Patricia Mukhim
In an earlier article Bhogtoram Mawroh had questioned why the onus for conserving culture is always with the Khasi woman. Mawroh was referring to the MLA candidate of the VPP from Mylliem – Aibandaplin F Lyngdoh – who had come very close to winning that seat in the 2023 election. Aibandaplin lost by 38 votes to Ronnie V Lyngdoh of the Congress Party and that happened because the latter got more postal ballots than her. Without the postal ballots Aibandaplin would have won because she got 8689 votes from the EVM and 177 postal ballots while Ronnie Lyngdoh got 8616 EVM votes and 288 postal ballots. That’s called losing by a whisker and perhaps her time had not arrived.
This time Aibandaplin is contesting the ADC election from the VPP. What is very disturbing however is that she had to publicly defend her personal life and who she is likely to marry and also to make a commitment that she would marry only a Khasi male. To have to make such a commitment to complete strangers and on a public platform informs us of the desperate need to win the present election to the Khasi Hills District Council. But is this what the electorate is demanding of her or is this a result of her fellow competitors making wild allegations about her personal choices, for which she is compelled to defend her virtuosity? The whole idea is sickening and it is a male conspiracy to put all women on the defensive so that even those with the ambition to contest elections in the years to come would have to fall into the straight and narrow confines of a societal diktat to marry a Khasi or not be trusted to deliver governance as per the Constitution. So much for freedom of choice granted by that very Constitution!
According to her affidavit, Aibandaplin F. Lyngdoh is 32 years of age and self-employed. She studied up to Class 12. She is not one of those affluent candidates and her total declared moveable assets are only worth Rs 2.4 lakh while her liabilities stand at Rs 15 lakh. The VPP could not have found a more credible candidate than this one. Evidently, Aibandaplin will not be in a position to distribute anything to the voters except to work within the mandate of the Sixth Schedule.
In the general recommendations given by the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution section (ii) it states thus: Traditional forms of governance must be associated with self-governance because of the present dissatisfaction. However, positive democratic elements like gender justice and adult franchise should be built into these institutions to make them broader based and capable of dealing with a changing world. This is an important recommendation and has to be paid attention to especially because the Autonomous District Councils in Meghalaya seem to be regressing instead of being progressive in their views. It is enlightening that the recommendation even then speaks about ‘gender justice’ – two words that the Councils have never used in their deliberations and which perhaps they don’t consider important enough because of the illusion that Khasi society is a gender just society. That illusion needs to be seriously questioned.
The fact that Aibandaplin had to say what she did in that video which Has gone viral reveals the Khasi male mindset which in turn is imbibed also by some Khasi women of the “donburom” (respectable) class who prescribe a strict set of norms for their children and grandchildren to follow. One of those rules of course is that the girls should marry within the tribe no matter what. This is a matter of avid discussion among a number of young women studying and working outside Meghalaya. Most of them don’t want to return to what they term as a very stifling eco-system where their liberties are curtailed even when they earn sufficiently to manage their own lives. In Khasi society marriage has never been forced on women. They have chosen their marriage partners and married the man of their choice – irrespective of whether the man is a tribal, non-tribal or a non-Khasi tribal. So why have these societal prescriptions come in now? Can the Sixth Schedule be used as a weapon to curb women’s rights to marry the men of their choice? Is this not unconstitutional? And then to hang the sword of Damocles over women’s heads by threatening to disenfranchise them by taking away the tribal status of such women and their children is an injustice that women need to challenge. This is gender injustice of the most perverse kind.
Moving away from women related issues the Recommendations also suggest that careful steps should be taken to devolve political powers through the intermediate and local level traditional political organisations, provided that their traditional practices carried out in a modern world do not deny legitimate democratic rights to any section in their contemporary society. The details of state-wise steps to devolve such powers will have to be carefully considered in a proper representative meeting of traditional leaders of each community, opinion builders of the respective communities and leaders of state and national stature from these very groups. The statement underlines that a hasty decision could have serious repercussions, unforeseen and unfortunate which could further complicate and worsen the situation.
One wonders if the elected councillors have read this excellent exposition in the book by Justice BL Hansaria. If they have not it just shows how ill-disposed they are to new ideas and the idea of inclusivity which is what is needed to take the State of Meghalaya forward. This ever present fear that is embedded in the tribal mindset that we are victims of a cruel system that threatens to dispossess us when we are ourselves invading our forests at a rapid speed and mining away everything without a thought for the future as well as destroying our water sources because of the need to get rich quick are very troubling indeed. These messages will be loudly sent out through social media that we have to elect MDCs who will protect us because we are completely defenceless citizens. Should we be taken up by such deceptive messages?
The KHNAM candidates have already stated that they would review the issues of trading licenses. The targets here are non-tribal traders including permanent residents. They are already facing needless delays while applying for renewal of their trade licenses because the online system which should work seamlessly simply does not work. The reason is because the physical presence of the applicant is needed for the simple reason that unless money changes hands the licenses will not be renewed. The ADCs are not known for transparency and they are unwilling to change their mode of functioning. This is what the Comptroller and Auditor General has been relentlessly pointing out to. Now that the Councils have a Public Accounts Committee one hopes to see better accounting methods and a more robust reporting system. In fact there has to be a system of inbuilt safeguards in the Sixth Schedule so that demands for central funding for certain projects can be meaningfully considered.
What the District Councils need to do is streamline the governance system in the shnong and have a set of prescribed rules and regulations so that they do not become free for all institutions especially when it comes to the purchase and sale of land within their jurisdictions. The District Councils should devolve the responsibility to the Shnongs to protect the rivers under their jurisdictions and to prevent the rivers from becoming garbage dumps.
Tradition includes many positive actions such as conserving the ecosystem which in our case means protection of forests which are the green lungs that provide us clean air to breathe; protection of water sources and restricting rampant quarrying which have destroyed water sources. If the Councils have failed in these very basic functions they have no right to pretend to be protectors of the jaidbynriew. In fact, the jaidbynriew politics is intended to deceive! Enough of it. Now its time to discuss the real issues and filter out the noise.