By Patricia Mukhim
Dear Bro Sainkupar Nongtraw, its now 30 years (3 decades) since the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) was formed and about two decades since you have been sending press releases to the media stating your grievances; condemning someone’s statements or proposing your own set of prescriptions and injunctions to the Government or to different politicians. Of late you have been going hammer and tongs at the Voice of People Party (VPP) and its President, Ardent Basaiawmoit who you feel is not following long-held traditions in the appointment of the Syiem Sohra after the demise of Late Freeman Syiem. One can understand your sentiments since you come from Khlieh Shnong, Sohra. But this article is about another agenda. That agenda is to request you and your team to come overground and fight the real battles that ordinary folks like us are doing all the time without coercion and intimidation. We don’t believe subterfuge can push any Government to improve governance. And I am sure good governance is also what you are pushing for, right?
Since those traumatic years of the 1990s you have held the people of Khasi-Jaintia Hills to ransom. We cannot forget how Rajesh Saigal who owned a car spare parts store in Police Point, Laitumkhrah was gunned down in broad daylight because he did not respond to your organization’s extortion notice. There were several killings thereafter. Is killing a human in cold blood part of your written agenda? How can you and your team live with such a heavy conscience as a burden you can never be free of? You might not have been part of the group then but you still carry the weight of guilt for all the killings that happened during that phase of your operations. Remember the gunning down of innocent people in Aristo Store, Malki-Dhanketi. We had a big gathering at Malki Ground to condemn that. Then there were people who were kidnapped and whose bodies were never found. In the beginning the HNLC targeted non-tribal business houses and individuals. Later you did not spare the “jaidbynriew” either. Yet for decades you have gone around claiming to love the jaidbynriew more than other organisations. How can an organization that claims to work towards eradicating corruption and dealing out its own style of punishment to rapists etc., even indulge in such merciless killings? This is a dichotomy that we could never understand then and we are no wiser today. What were you all doing with the money collected from different individuals and groups?
I recall the case of a businesswoman who was served an extortion note from your organization and went to meet the Home Minister of Meghalaya (I will not mention his name since I don’t want to shame him) to inform him that she was served an extortion note and that despite being a Khasis she was not spared from extortion. But guess what the Home Minister said. He told her to negotiate with you guys and pay a certain percentage so that she could continue with her business and the HNLC with theirs. That was the level to which Meghalaya had sunk then and the Government was a Congress-led one. It just did not know how to respond to the crisis or it chose not to. There were, of course, a few cops who sought to honour their profession who took on you guys. Some lost their lives in such encounters.
It was only in the year 2000 when RG Lyngdoh was Home Minister that he took serious note of the matter and filed FIRs against those businesses he learnt were regularly funding your Organisation. It was when the income to the Organisation dwindled that many from your ranks chose to come overground and were perhaps enabled by the Government then to start some self-employment activity. Two of your members – Julius Dorphang and Banteidor Lyngdoh – fought and won elections. Dorphang went on to commit a crime and is serving a jail term under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act after being convicted to serve a 25 year sentence. It’s paradoxical that a man heading the HNLC which punished rapists, himself ends up raping a minor. Banteidor is a 2-time MLA of Mawkynrew and was also a minister in the last government. Hence if you too wish to change the present circumstances in Meghalaya you should come overground and work towards a responsive, clean governance.
I am not sure what you are doing at the moment and what your sources of income are. The large majority of our people are struggling to survive a hand-to-mouth existence. Judging from the tone and tenor of your releases to the media you seem like an educated guy. For all I know we might even have met sometime, somewhere. Now tell me one thing. The Naga Peace Talks between the NSCN (IM) and the Government of India (GoI) has been going on for 29 years beginning in 1997. Some of their leaders are dead and gone and there is no sign of the peace talks ever materialising. You know better than anyone about the wiles and guiles of the GoI. You know how street-smart the National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval is. We tribals cannot match their mind-games. So for how long are you going to remain underground? And what do you seek to achieve by operating from some sneaky space? If you really care for the jaidbynriew I request you to come overground and take on the politicians you think deserve to be exposed.
The cloak-and-dagger business that the HNLC is currently engaged is a worn-out script. Those who really care to serve their people must walk alongside them and feel their pain. Let’s hear your suggestions for improving our educational status which is now in the pits. What have you done as an Organisation to draw attention to the poor schooling conditions in the rural hamlets of Meghalaya? Does it bother you that in Meghalaya many more children are dropping out of primary school than anywhere else in the country? Does it give you sleepless nights? Well let me tell you that it bothers many of us who are trying in our own way to help assist some schools. We can’t do much as individuals but we are at least trying.
Yes, we engage with the Government from time to time about the rapidly deteriorating environment. You would know that hundreds if not thousands of trucks are carrying away limestone, boulders and sand to Bangladesh the land that once gave your organization shelter and which is perhaps still sheltering some of your cadres. How do you feel watching your “Mei Mariang” massacred and plundered by your own “jaidbynriew?” Do you ever remind them that they are destroying this Mei Ramew (Mother Earth) and will be leaving behind a barren land for the future generation?
Come on Bro, let’s get real. Stop playing these games of hide-and-seek, for you fool no one and frankly, people are quite tired and disinterested in your press releases. The only reason you are sending those releases is to remind all of us that the HNLC is still active and capable of resurrecting itself. But Bro, what are you doing about the capture of land by your own jaid bynriew to the point of leaving many of our own rural people landless? Also, there is corruption at every level of governance so why don’t you come out of hiding and file RTI complaints against so many wrongdoings? You must have read the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) which says that there were no utilization certificates submitted for money amounting to Rs 7460 crores spent in 2024. This means the money was misutilized and has gone to someone’s pocket. Does this not trouble you and the Seng? And what about the Drawal and Disbursement Officials (DDOs) who put the leftover money at the end of the financial year into private bank accounts? Is that not stealing?
So, you see Bro, there is a hell of a lot of work to be done if you can come out of hiding and do ‘real’ work beyond press releases. The agenda-less talks with the government (I am saying so because the agenda has not been publicly spelt out) are not going to lead you anywhere except the garden path. It’s time to sweat it out and earn your living the hard way like everyone else is doing and stop the extortion business. Only then will you prove to be a real “nongieid jaidbynriew bashisha, ban im ka kyrteng, sah ka nam” (a true patriot whose name will live forever).
