By Patricia Mukhim
Even the stupidest of politician would not want to quibble with anyone during the election campaign period. In fact, the general consensus among candidates and political parties is not to offend anyone at all during elections because people are spoilt for choices and easily take offence. They are compared to a person suffering from Measles who is cantankerous and easily offended. Khasis have a term for this grouchy nature, “I kumba thut niangpyrsit,” (cranky and hard to please like one afflicted by measles). It is therefore surprising that the VPP should be taking on the Dorbar Shnong who should be their closest allies, as much as they are of other political parties since the dorbars are the ones organising the platforms for candidates to campaign from and the Rangbah Shnong actually chairs the meetings.
Are Dorbar Shnongs overstepping their mandate?
Only the belligerent would disagree with the decision taken by the Dorbar Shnong that all candidates should agree to speak from a common platform where each candidate can list out his/her party manifesto before the public and also be gracious enough to answer questions from the public. This is definitely a better proposition than having 5-6 candidates wanting to disturb the peace of a locality one after another for the next two weeks even as students are preparing for their Board/University exams. A political party like the VPP which is appealing especially to the youth should be more considerate about distracting them from their studies by weaning them towards campaigning for the Party.
However, it is also true that large sections of youth are happy to just be going around in vehicles and shouting party slogans as long as they are being fed and looked after. Such youth are generally the jobless variety that see election as a time for merriment and exploitation. The youth who are preparing for their exams or who are working would not have time to go around playing loud music to announce the arrival of the candidate. Political parties that indulge such youth are doing a great disservice since they will not be able to entertain those same youth once the elections are over. Would the political parties be concerned about the fate of these so-called enthusiastic supporters once elections are over? Doubtful.
Campaign mode has to change with the times:
The question before us today is whether we should be leaning into the future or get sucked in the past. Should new methods adopted consciously by the Shnong in deference to the academic calendar of students be contested? Why would any Dorbar Shnong have ulterior motives in wanting to hold a common platform for candidates? The candidates who are prepared and ready to make impassioned appeals before the electorate should have no problems with the new arrangements. The old must give way to the new. Nostalgia about the MP elections and how well the VPP did will not win it the ADC elections. The promise of solutions to problems and better times ahead is more likely to get votes.
This is the digital age and the VPP could make more impact by making creative videos and circulating them online where every Bahdeng Bahnah and Kongdeng Kongnah will merrily watch and perhaps even be influenced. What’s the point of lectures where those present are your own supporters and those whose hearts you expect to change will not step out in the cold? Traditional campaigns of going door to door and large gatherings are passe. No one has time to listen to lectures that like drones go on and on without any real impact. And if the Dorbar Shnong are allowing equal time for all candidates, what’s the problem with the VPP? Why the antagonism? Why the suspicion? Its time to eliminate the shields and shenanigans that create room for distrust in the first place. Once elections are over, the VPP candidates who are elected will have to work closely with the Dorbar Shnong. So does it make sense to antagonise them?
Why target the media?
The Dorbar Shnong are not the only targets of the VPP. They have also accused some media channels of being purveyors of fake news simply because the reports go against some of the Party’s acts of omission and commission. With two of their candidates being senior media persons, they should been have better advised not to antagonise a section of the media, since in Meghalaya the media is not a divided house. It’s unfortunate that politicians across the board think we are laying elaborate traps for them. That’s not the case at all. We report facts and those who feel we have violated media ethics should send in their rejoinders. And it is important to acknowledge that no political party is without faults either. Leaders of political parties more than anyone else should understand this and keep their ego under check. Nothing can destroy a political party as the ego can, unless Donald Trump is the role model that some are following.
What’s the problem with common platforms?
One is also left wondering why other political parties in the fray are not against the common platform idea. This platform is an excellent opportunity for candidates to demonstrate their public speaking skills which all politicians must be endowed with. In common platforms there is a code of ethics applied where candidates are not allowed to go on a mud-slinging spree. Mud-slinging is the tactic of those who have nothing to say for themselves other than indulging in fault-finding and have their supporters clap over those shenanigans. These cheap campaigns are better left dumped in the waste basket of time. Candidates must learn to state their case cogently and smartly and not let their speeches deteriorate in to the “I” singular as if they can do everything as lone rangers. Politics is not for such lone rangers.
The problem with Meghalaya is that people are obsessed with politics and they lose their rational faculties during the election season. People put politics at the centre of their psychological, emotional and even spiritual life. This is asking too much of politics. Once politics is reduced to our ethnic and moral identities then it becomes impossible to compromise because compromise becomes a dishonour. It’s important to understand that politics is a power game and those we elect are not superhuman beings. On the contrary some of them have the lowest moral standards and don’t think twice about owning up the entire earth, given a chance.
Protectionism gone overboard
Elections are also a time of claiming to clean up the system. Each political party tries to outdo the other on this plank. One would like to know where that cleansing has to begin. Politicians across the board have used the idea of protectionism as a vote-winning strategy. How much protection is enough? When protectionism goes overboard it stifles human enterprise and creativity. The world is progressing at a rapid pace. Is protectionism preventing us tribes from joining that futuristic bandwagon? Why are we made to believe that we are endowed with lesser mental faculties than the ‘dkhar?’ Who has drilled this into our psyche and prevented us from pushing boundaries? Politicians of course who, before elections prepare us to walk with mental and physical crutches and instil in us the victimhood syndrome which we have become so comfortable with.
Clearly Meghalaya needs some young prophets of hope as opposed to prophets of doom. We need young, dynamic and radical thinkers and philosophers to redeem our people from the clutches of politicians who have learnt to treat citizens like their eternal dependents. Hence they never really want to empower people because an empowered citizenry will start asking uncomfortable questions which politicians will be caught stammering on before their lies are called out.
May the youth see through the mirage that politics is and lead their people from the trauma that politics in our state represents.
Politics: A battle of perception:
Politics is always about perception but perceptions are distant from reality. The perception today is that the NPP is a party of the affluent and corrupt elite and the UDP and HSPDP are hangers on, sharing power with the NPP because they need to be in power. Its only the VPP that is outside the realm of power holders and they are at pains to prove that they are the change that people want. Its easy to convince people that they are where they are because of the MDA government and that the VPP will change their economic statuses once it gets a grip on power. Since the VPP is yet to taste the intoxicating wine of power it can still claim to be “clean” until its Councillors get to sit in the ruling side after this election.
Let’s wait and watch!