By Fabian Lyngdoh
Before the advent of the British Rule, the Khasis lived in numerous clan-based traditional political communities called the Raid(s). Traditional politics and religion in these communities were interwoven as political proceedings were always accompanied and sealed by religious rituals. Social norms and traditions were at the same time religious norms and traditions. Social affairs were also at the same time religious affairs, and the political authority was also the religious authority. Hence, there was no idea of separation between Religion and the State. Religion related to the rites of passage of each person from birth to death, and the departure of the soul into the spiritual abode, was mainly the concern of the clan. Religion at the community level was only concerned with the welfare of the living in all aspects of their social and economic affairs, as well as for the socio-political order of the community as a whole. Each clan had a clan religion, and each Raid had a community religion. Every Raid had a common ossuary where the bones of the dead were deposited in the religious stone cairn of each clan. In this way, the physical welfare and the honour and dignity of each individual in the community was guaranteed within this traditional social structure.
There are five important things in the lives of the people in any human community: First, the birth of a human being; second, the need to undertake economic activity to sustain life; third, the need to propagate the personal genetic identities of the individuals through sexual relationships; fourth, the need to propagate the cultural heritage of the community through socialization, and fifth, the need to dispose of the dead bodies of deceased persons properly and honourably through socially recognised religious rites. It is on the basis of these five realities of human life that the religious and socio-political cultures and traditions of human communities are built upon.
With the emergence of the new political and economic order, this traditional socio-religious structure of the Khasi society is no longer extant anywhere in the Khasi and Jaintia Hills today. In the majority of villages, the Christian Churches took over the religious roles and functions of the clan, and the modern Shnong (village) with its dorbar shnong took over the roles and functions of the Raid. But unlike the traditional Raid, the modern Shnong with its dorbar shnong is secular in nature and based on membership of the individuals and the nuclear families, where the clans have no assigned role at all to play. In majority of cases, the Christian denominations had also replaced the role of traditional community religions for determining and supervising social morality among the inhabitants of the villages, and in keeping the society alive in a new emerging socio-cultural identity.
The rites of passage of the people from birth to death is under the control of the church denominations; and whoever is not a worthy member of any of these church denominations is like a spiritual outcast regardless of the position or status he/she holds as a member of the secular-legal community.
In this new social situation, common community religion and common community graveyards no longer exist. Social, spiritual and natural resources which had been under the control of the community’s traditional authority are transferred by default, to the hands of the church denominations. There arose as many graveyards, cremation grounds and worship centres as there are church denominations within the same village. Practically speaking, a religious institution in today’s circumstances is able to bind its members not so much by hope of heaven as by its control over the facility of providing proper and honourable disposal of the bodies of its members after their deaths. Therefore, to establish a new religion or to start a new church, a graveyard as a necessary religious infrastructure is imperative so as to be able to convince and bind the believers to the faith.
The Khasi society today stands divided to a great extent by numerous religious affiliations among the people, so much so that even marriage between members of different church denominations is prohibited. It is not a question of faith and doctrine that bred disputes and conflicts in the community, but the control over material and social resources. “Social resources,” in this context means social support, human honour and dignity of individuals and families that arise from collective recognition of the society. Even though the secular-legal community under the authority of the dorbar shnong is still there in the background, each church denomination has strong psychological and social control over all aspects of moral, spiritual and social life of its own members. Hence, each village or local community is a secular-legal entity, as well as a cluster of independent church denominations that give rise to distinct subcultures within the community.
Every human person is highly apprehensive not only of how he or she would be treated by the society while alive but also how his/her body would be treated by the society when he/she dies. The greatest of all these needs is ironically, not during his/her lifetime, but at his/her death; how to honourably dispose of the dead body, and assist the soul in a happy journey to the spiritual abode. It is in this death ritual which the church denominations are in complete psychological control over their members. From the moment a person expires, to his/her burial or cremation, the secular-legal community is involved only with the material aspect of things, but it is the particular church denomination which takes the centre stage. In some villages, even at the burial ceremony of a person who has been declared unworthy to receive the church’s liturgical burial rite, an array of church leaders would still congregate at the important seats of the ceremony to throw stones at the deceased and his/her family members by making public announcement to the multitude who came from far and near that liturgical burial ceremony cannot be performed since the deceased had not been living the doctrinal, sacramental and liturgical discipline of the church. Then follows long sermons on how to live to be worthy of an honourable liturgical burial rite.
The liturgical ceremony is merely a social honour given to the deceased for being a diligent and disciplined member of the church. But, since in the Khasi traditions, the performance of cremation rites and the final deposition of the bones of the deceased into the stone cairn of the clan was the most important religious requirement in the life of every man and woman, the Khasis take this matter seriously even as Christians. Hence, what binds most of the believers to the Church is not the question of sin and righteousness in life, but it is the fear of being denied the honourable liturgical burial ceremony at death. This demonstrates to what extent the Church has taken control over the lives of the people even as members of a secular-legal community.
We cannot deny the fact that in the absence of traditional agencies of socialization and social control, the Christians denominations and the Seng Khasi/Seiñ Raj organizations in the villages, play a big role in guiding the society in the moral and spiritual path. However, it is also a fact that when any of the church denominations in a village is in a majority, there is tendency for the secular-legal community to be identified with the dominant religious denomination, and subject all the rest to various forms of discrimination whether of the Christian faith or the Niam Khasi/Niam Tre.
The physical security, honour and dignity of every human person from birth to death are primarily, matters of universal human rights guaranteed by the Law of the State. Therefore, they are also the concerns of the secular-legal community at the village or local community level which no religious organization has the right to hijack and appropriate by default. Every inhabitant should have equal right to the material and social resources of the community regardless of belief, faith or religion. All inhabitants, whether theists or atheists are equal members of the secular-legal community, and religious organizations should not make public declaration or pronouncement of distinctions between them on the basis of belief, faith, or religion. If there is a need to do so for their own members, let the church denominations do that privately within their own circles, but not in public platforms which belong to all, believers and non-believers alike.
There is a need to reinforce the authority of the secular-legal community over the material and social resources so that oneness of the people as equal members can be safeguarded, and to stop fragmentation of the community into antagonistic groups and conflicting subcultures by multiplicity of religious beliefs. There is a need for the government of the State to make laws and regulations that every village or local community should have common infrastructures and facilities like public graveyards, cremation grounds, and social resources which are not under the control of any church denomination, but directly under the control of the secular-legal community.
The Khasi society today can no longer bind itself to only one form of religious faith, but it needs to think of how to resurrect the basic idea of a traditional community graveyard where every inhabitant irrespective of his or her religious faith, theist or atheist, can hope to find a resting place for his or her bones after death. In spite of the low density of population, the Khasi society today might have become so unjust that many persons do not have even a square foot of land to call their own while still living; but besides heaven, at least let everyone also have a decent parting ceremony and a terrestrial location to rest after death.
