The events of April 15 are very disconcerting. Firstly, the body of the first Covid infected patient a respected medical doctor and owner of Bethany Hospital was refused burial in his own plot of land at Nongpoh the headquarters of Ri Bhoi district, by none other than the Dorbar Shnong there. The reason given in a letter from the Dorbar was that Dr Sailo, the deceased was not a permanent resident there. But the sub-text was that the people feared that the Covid virus would spread through the dead body. Obviously this is ignorance worst confounded. Ironically, Nongpoh is also where a branch of Bethany Hospital is located for its outreach programme. Following this denial of a resting place for the departed soul which violates all the tenets of Khasi society – where respect for the dead is paramount, the state then attempted to cremate the body at the crematorium at Jhalupara. Here the cremation was halted by a mob that defied curfew orders. The crematorium is located on Government land and was constructed by the Government, although it is now run and managed by an organisation. Since the onus of cremating or burying the body of Covid infected persons lies with the state, it would be fair to assume that the state would not face problems in carrying out those last rites. But that was not to be. The cremation was halted not just by the mob but also by the local Dorbar of the areas and the state retreated. The body lay at the morgue for the whole of April 15. It is learnt that the Deputy Chief Minister, in the MDA Government, Prestone Tynsong intervened and finally managed to convince the Riatsamthiah Presbyterian Church to allow the burial on their cemetery. This saved the day and the funeral rites were conducted with dignity and grace by elders of the church.
But this should not be the end of the ugly saga. Responsibility has to be fixed on why the state failed to carry out its constitutional mandate and succumbed to public pressure on two occasions. People are watching to see if those who openly defied curfew orders during a lockdown ordered by the state would be booked under relevant sections of the law. If not, anyone can in future follow this same pattern of defiance and make a mockery of the laws of the land. Both at Nongpoh and Jhalupara the state failed to discharge its duties by giving in to extra-constitutional forces. This dichotomy has to be resolved sooner than later. Is the Dorbar Shnong above the constitutionally elected government and its administrative arm? We cannot have good governance if the roles of the different constituents in a democracy are not clearly demarcated and one is allowed to transgress into the domain of the other.
