By Patricia Mukhim
Gauging by the news we read every single day the Government and its enormous apparatus cannot be accused of not working. The Chief Minister and his colleagues are either distributing cheques or some award or certificate of merit in some field or the other. Politics demands optics and politicians have worked around that. They get plenty of photo-ops on a given day. Those in the Opposition seethe with anger because they are unseen except when they fret and fume; shout and bang tables during those sporadic Assembly sessions which come like seasonal storms.
And what about all of us citizens? What is it that consumes us and our thoughts for the most part of the day, other than our smartphones which currently take up so much of our time. I think the algorithm on my phone is wired to the current war; hence every five minutes it gives me breaking news about who bombed whom. In the end all the parties have bombed each other to smithereens but we are yet to see this war reaching its final stages. All calculations by the “most powerful country” and its orange-haired president have gone awry and Isreal is playing footsie with him while pulling all the strings that make this war rage like an inferno.
Closer home we have such terrifying news that shock us out of our senses. Or are we even shocked? The adolescent boy from Nongrah whose body was found at Mawpat six months ago was actually strangled to death by some mentally sick man who couldn’t control his rage. He took the life of a young boy just because he told him to do something and the boy was busy watching television. Is that a reason to kill someone, we ask? But when one’s mental health is all awry there’s not much reason needed to turn violent. And then there’s that 16-year old boy who just wrote his ICSE final exams at a school in Assam and had returned home to wait for his results. He left home ostensibly to meet friends but his shell-shocked parents had to receive his lifeless body.
Yes, we are shocked out of our senses to hear such devastating stories yet quickly move on to the next thing and the next because like they say…life has to go on until the next tragedy hits us. We are told times without number that Meghalaya has about three lakh drug users which is about 10% of Meghalaya’s population. The Chief Minister reminded us on the day he inaugurated the Shillong International Film Festival that 50% of our youth are below the age of 20. All these data points should make us sit up, take notice and take charge as society. We cannot just wait and throw all responsibility at the Drug Reduction Elimination & Action Mission (DREAM). Sure this programme launched in 2023 is a targeted mission to build a “Drug Free Meghalaya.” In its own words, DREAM uses multifaceted coordinated strategy that leverages the combined efforts of the state and local “communities” to eliminate the incidence of substance use in Meghalaya. But let’s take a pause and ask ourselves is the word “communities” that DREAM is going to rely on really reliable? Who is the community? Too often we have bandied this word around only to realise that it is but an idiom and not a concrete reality because its suggests that people would automatically rally round an idea. And in this case, they are expected to help solve the impenetrable problem of drug use. Community suggests some kind of unity, a shared vision, goals and action plans and also a spirit of mutual care which is actually a mirage. Groups of people even in the same locality disagree politically, socially, economically and even culturally. Community is therefore more of an aspirational word rather than a reality. Yet we have used this word almost as if communities exist and work on shared goals without the critical community building steps which begins with conversations.
Today we have a plethora of societal crises ranging from mental health crisis, social media pressure, education inequality, unemployment and job insecurity. Then we have climate change which in turn triggers environmental anxiety as new diseases surface and crops fail. There is growing social inequality and discrimination even in hitherto cohesive tribal societies. Now we are divided by affluence and poverty. All these pressures have pushed our young adolescents and adults to drug use and other risky behaviours. Our families are mostly unstable with many single mothers managing single-handedly to earn and feed a family of five or six. For such families, education is an unattainable goal unless Government provides the wherewithal and the kids can study free of cost in every sense of the term.
Add to all of this the identity politics that seems to consume our youth, fed as they on the notion that the “other” is taking away their share of jobs and opportunities, without for a moment thinking deeper that Meghalaya is a state not entirely inhabited by tribals. When the state was created there already existed non-tribal residents whose children are now the fourth and fifth generation and as per the Constitution they have certain rights as Indian citizens, which some of our frenzied youth with an eye on politics don’t seem to see. They tend to believe that Meghalaya is a different universe and not a part of India. Perish that thought for reality is a different ball game.
After every election, no sooner has the government been formed when we are ready to throw shoes at politicians adorning the governmental responsibilities. It never occurs to our blindsided minds that we have repeatedly elected the wrong people for the wrong reasons because most of us who knew better, decided to keep our mouths shut and allow the half-baked to shout slogans and songs and carry the day by capturing the emotions of the unthinking lot whose idea about elections is how much money and liquor to pocket during the month-long campaign. Then when the Government is formed we begin to count the loopholes!
And then we are a society divided by religion, by ethnicity (Khasi versus Jaintia versus Garo versus others) and by wealth ranking. The wealthy have their own priorities and groups they share similar thoughts with those that they form a social group. The underdogs have their own groups but these groups are not organised around an issue that the society is grappling with. Drug addiction is spiralling out of control and it is attributed to poor mental health. Yet we don’t have enough de-addiction and counselling centres that are good yet affordable. There are no safe spaces in our localities where the troubled youth can share their angst without being ridiculed or judged. We have too few recreation centres where the young can just sit and talk. Not every young person has to play football or basketball. They may have other interests. Talking about our homes, they are no longer places where the young feel safe and free to express themselves because the moment they say something, the parents who are already overworked and carry their work stress home, tell them to shut up and leave them alone. It’s natural for children to prefer to spend time with friends or with their mobile phones. For most young people their parents are their enemies because those parents don’t understand their deepest angst. In such a situation don’t we as a society need a lot of psycho-therapists to attend to the number of youth afflicted by mental health problems? Does the Government treat this as a priority? Do we demand for such facilities?
DREAM may be doing their best but without the collaboration of the people of every locality they face an uphill task. If people in every locality can rise above their differences and be motivated to find a common purpose in addressing the reasons why the young turn to drugs and arrest that downhill slide then we still have a chance of reclaiming young lives else they are doomed to an existence of hopelessness. Instead of the much-touted demographic dividend that governments spout out incessantly, the young will become an economic and social liability with far reaching consequences, even while families suffer the pangs of seeing a family member chained by drug dependency.
So far we have taken the word community for granted as if it can be summoned at will to carry out a defined task; any task at all. That’s the wrong assumption. A community is a diverse group of people with equally divergent interests. However, solidarity can be built around shared beliefs, shared values and objectives and the crisis confronting us all today – Drug Addiction – which is claiming young lives, destroying futures and creating miseries in families. Such a community bonded by one common goal is likely to achieve its mission and perhaps lead to better outcomes in other spheres too – politics being one important sphere as it decides which way the state goes – uphill or downhill.
