The Dorbar Shnong that took a decision to have a common platform for all candidates have obviously done so after taking into account the noise and inanity that election campaigns have come to signify. Common platforms allow each candidate to list out his manifesto and appeal for votes based on it. The people have had enough mud-slinging by different candidates without demonstrating a roadmap for better governance in the Autonomous District Councils and also by pointing out past ills and how those will be remedied. Unless candidates have meticulously studied the past failings of the ADCs how do they envisage to bring about changes in their governance models? These discussions are more meaningful than the noise minus substance. In a sense the Dorbar Shnong are proposing a more interactive type of campaign rather than a one-sided lecturing that is disparaging towards fellow candidates. It is high time to change the campaign strategies and the Dorbar Shnong are well within their rights to decide what is in the larger interests of their residents. Those good old days of hiring buses to take supporters from one campaign site to another as a show of strength is unnecessary bluster. Now is the time to get real and get down to brass tacks. People have been fooled enough in 50 years. Now they need to see action on the ground based on the mandate provided in the Sixth Schedule.
The State of Meghalaya never had and still does not have a land use policy which is integral to the equitable development of the State. Land lies at an important intersection between different competing values and priorities. Decisions about how land is used—and who controls that use is crucial to tackling major issues of climate change, biodiversity loss, social division, food insecurity, energy insecurity, amongst others. The ADCs, if they are sincere about conserving community land and not watch idly as such lands get bartered away to an elite group of tribals, should actually push for a cadastral survey. The ADCs should have used the cadastral survey as a tool for laying claims on land now under dispute with Assam. But the idea of a cadastral survey seems anathema to the political class, more so since it will expose which minister and MLA/MDC owns how much land. A glimpse into the affidavits filed by MLAs and their spouses on real estate ownership would shock many.
When land is the only investment it is natural that the affluent would indulge in land purchase but that’s at the cost of the poor who have now been reduced to landlessness. That this should happen in a tribal society shows the extent of the problem. If the ADCs cannot even tackle this basic social inequity then are they really addressing the needs of society and checking the erosion of community ownership of land? If not, all other issues are peripheral.
