By Kitdor H. Blah
According to the social evolution theory of state, people have existed prior to the State, and the State arises out of the need for a neutral arbitrator of justice. Consistent with this school of thought, history tells us that the Khasi people would choose a Chief/Syiem from outside the clans that made up that Hima/State in order to have a neutral arbitrator of disputes. For example, tradition says that the people of Hima Mawsynram took a Chief/Syiem from the Malngiang clan from another Hima, Madur Maskut. The divine origin story of the Syiem clan of Hima Shyllong may also be an allegory to the reality that the Syiem clan was brought from outside the Khasi clans. The Ri Raid was the foundational village state and the Hima emerged later. The Ri Raid was made up of the clans whose economy was situated in clan land holdings. Moreover, the Hima was not permanently fixed, but malleable. It could be reorganized territorially. Hima Shyllong was reorganized as Hima Mylliem and Hima Khyrim. Hima Sutnga was expanded or assimilated with the Jaintiapur Kingdom, which was ruled at one time by Brahmin kings, until the British annexed the Kingdom in 1835 and the King retired to his home in Sylhet. Meanwhile, the Doloi of Sutnga was used by the British to impose house tax and income tax on the people which triggered the rebellion led by Kiang Nangbah. Today we exist in a very different political State, defined as a Constitutional Republic and a union of states, with tribal autonomy. Further, the Khasis in Bangladesh today have a different political history from the Khasis in India. Thus, the Hima or State is not the base identity of the Khasis, but is an emergent and malleable entity.
The culture, which includes social customs, is just as emergent and malleable as the Hima, hence they can vary from one Raid to another, and from one Hima to another. For example, the matrilineal system is not absolute or sacrosanct. If it was either of these, then there would not have existed among the Khasis living in Ri Bhoi, the custom known as Shaw Bhoi, where the Khasi men take wives from among the non Khasis, and have their children take the fathers’ surnames. Culture is therefore dynamic, and customs arise out of the changing social dynamics of the people. In this case, the Shaw Bhoi custom emerged out of a need to preserve the clan’s lineage, when there was a lack of female members to continue the clan’s lineage, to ensure the continuation of the Clan economy.
Moreover, the Khasi ideas of matrilineality and its kur based consanguinity known as ‘jingiatehkur’ is not based on blood relations or DNA. This modern DNA based interpretation of ‘jingiatehkur’ is a misplaced appeal to science for legitimacy. This is an interpretation based on modern science which says that offspring of parents who share similar genes from common ancestors have a high risk of ‘homozygous recessive genetic disorders.’ The simplest proof of this is that Khasi social custom allows me to cohabit with the daughter of my maternal uncle, but my sister cannot not do the same with his son. In both cases, the closeness of the relationship is exactly the same – that of first cousins. Therefore, Khasi custom of ‘jingiatehkur’ is not the same as the Western idea of consanguinity which refers to a union between close blood relatives such as first cousins or second cousins.
Therefore, like the political state, the social customs of the Khasis may have emerged out of the need to ensure the survival of the clan based economy which is situated on the clan land holdings, to ensure the continuity of the clan lineage and to ensure that the wealth of the clan is not diluted or transferred. The idea of ‘jingiatehkur’ could possibly be to enlarge the clan economy by recognizing the different clans that emerged from that same clan economy, or to maintain that economy over a vast geographical region.
There is also the idea that the Clan takes care of its own, hence the ‘jingiatehkur’ could have also served to deepen the sense of belonging, beyond territorial boundaries. There is also the possibility that after a section of the clan wanders off to create their own economic unit, and changes name according to their new geography or functions, the primary clan wants to remind them that they are part of the same economy. Just to take one example, the Kharshiing clan’s matriarch was an alien woman who subsisted in the Blah Clan, so there emerged Kur consanguinity between the two clans.
This base reality of clan economy and village states, out of which the Hima or Khasi states emerged, existed in all of what we now call Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and Ri Bhoi. Thus, it is a misplaced errand to appeal to any kingdom or Hima to legitimize the idea that a section of the Khasi people, namely the Pnar people, are not Khasis simply because they had a political history that was culturally and legally different from the rest of the Khasi States. This is a misplaced appeal to legitimacy because the Hima or Kingdom is an emergent and malleable reality, but the Clans are the base reality of the Hima and the kur based consanguinity between them exists in all of the present day Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills and RiBhoi.
Similarly, just as there is diverse political history among the Khasis, there are also diverse social dynamics which lead to diverse customs, such as the above mentioned case of the custom of Shaw Bhoi. But this diverse social dynamic does not just span the length and breadth of the land, but also of time. First of all, there is all kinds of evidence that Khasi society has become more individualistic. The first is private property. The Khadduh is no longer seen as just the custodian of the ancestral property. The Khadduh now inherits the ancestral property as her private property. With the arrival of private property, the Kni or Maternal Uncle has also lost his governing powers over the property. These are emergent customs.
Another major sign that Khasi society has become more individualistic is the emergence of orphanages, nursing homes, old age homes, women led economic units and single mother households. These were all absent in the clan based economy of old where the father was never seen as the provider or head of the economic unit. So, even if the father passed away or separated from the mother, the children were not left destitute, nor the mothers left to lead the household, as the clan economy provided for both. Another major sign that Khasi society has become more individualistic is the fact that the Clans are seeking legitimation through statutory laws of the Autonomous District Council. Another major change in Khasi society is urbanization, where single family units from different clans, village states, and Himas, settled in urban towns. Urban towns became melting pots of diverse clans and hubs of nuclear households. Another major change in Khasi society that is a result of all the above, is the rise of father-led single household economic units, where the father has more say than in the Clan economic units of old. Amidst these changes in social dynamics, the culture was bound to change but for the same reason – the good of the family economic unit.
The debate over whether matrilineality is sacrosanct and absolute or whether Khasis can adopt their father’s surname should be viewed from the point of view of the family economic unit, and the well being of the mother and children, in case of death of or separation from the father. On this note, I will only add that the law of the land provides only for the husband/father to provide financial assistance to the mother and children, in case of separation.
In this time of individualism, rise in destitute children, rise in women led households, rise in nursing homes, dilution of the clan economic unit, rise in single family economic units, it is not only a good but a necessary cultural progression that the fathers take up the responsibility over the family economic units. Thus, it is another misplaced errand to seek to freeze the culture in a statutory law and to appeal to that statutory law for legitimacy of the idea that a section of the Khasi people is not Khasi simply because they have a cultural progression that is different. i.e. that they take the father’s surname. The Sixth Schedule and the ADC’s were not given to freeze the culture, but, to quote Nehru, to allow the Tribe “to grow according to their own genius.”
The statement of object and reasons of the Lineage Act claims that the Law is meant to “prevent claims of Khasi status by unscrupulous persons purely for the benefits, concessions or privileges conferred on the Khasis as members of the Scheduled Tribe under the Constitution of India.” The Lineage Act has done nothing to this end, but has instead become a stumbling block for the Khasi society to grow organically according to its own genius. It is time for the KHADC to repeal the Lineage Act, and to introduce a law which will actually fulfil its statement of object and reasons, i.e. an Act for Prevention of Misuse of Matrilineal System by Non-Khasis.
