By Janet Moore Hujon
Those who hold aloft the banner of identity need to define it. Isn’t tribal identity linked to our rivers, hills, valleys, caves? If one day I wake up to read that a band of Khasi youth have held hands around our forests to protect them from the chainsaw, then I will be convinced that we are safeguarding the foundations of our belief systems. If one day the currently vocal urban Khasi joins hands with villagers to protect traditional agricultural practices, medicinal plants and halt destructive mining practices, then I will start to hope. Yet which NGO rushes out to protect our forests, our rivers, our flora, our fauna to stop the ticking of that time bomb threatening to blow up our natural heritage? Maybe that is too quiet an activity with little of the sensational attention that engagements in the city produce. Or is this reluctance linked to the fact that those robbing our heritage are actually natives of the soil? Would not such an exposure cast a different light on this ethnic cleansing of the foreigner be he the poor Bangladeshi, Nepali or other plainsperson?
At this point however I have to add that prejudice is not always a dirty word. The Khasi mistrust of the dkhar businessman is not entirely without foundation. So what complicates the issue and galls the right-thinking citizen of Meghalaya is the current unholy alliance between our rich tribal politicians and wealthy dkhar entrepreneurs both of whom care more about monetary gain and nothing about Meghalaya’s fragile ecology. So will the pressure groups do the ordinary citizen a favour and focus not on the soft but the hard targets who are turning the state into a desert populated by warring factions. Basing your judgement of an entire community on the sins of a few is dangerous as it always leads to random acts of unkindness and cruelty which say more about the attacker than the attacked. If both the recent crimes in the city were committed in broad daylight and the public were reluctant to help the police, do we not have to ask the damning question – would people have come forward more readily had the victim been a tribal? Therefore I ask the pressure groups to please give us a credible choice. Make it easy for us to choose between clear cut goodies and clear cut baddies, because the other kind of deliberate blindness is equally destructive – letting your own off the hook contributes nothing whatsoever to our indigenous identity and reputation. There are some moral commandments that span all cultures.
Fear of being swamped by a foreign culture has been an ongoing concern in Britain. As part of a minority culture I can wholeheartedly sympathise with the host country. But then I also happen to be a member of this so-called invading force. Having a foot in both camps makes me see that what lies at the heart of British and Khasi culture is not anything concrete. Like the Khasi ‘tip briew tip blei’, the British concept of fair play is a belief. The profound simplicity of these beliefs makes them both attractive and often unworkable because the onus is on the individual to respect their essence, and that is not a responsibility we easily assume. On the whole the British public tends to accept the visitor, until those who land on these shores abuse not only the welfare system but exploit that most valuable of all freedoms – the freedom of expression. Such abuses infuriate the ordinary person and right wing groups then have a cause to latch onto when they see local councils pandering to the outsider in order to fend off any charges of racism. (Don’t we see shades of this in Meghalaya where the selfishness of vote bank politics distorts an already delicate situation?) So government policy is destabilised by the rawness of public gut reaction. To find a method in this madness therefore requires a willingness on both sides to listen.
Continuing as devil’s advocate I have to say that the KSU did highlight a blatant discrepancy when they queried the arrest of their members while rampant corruption among government officials goes unpunished. By arrogating itself above the law the government gives militants justification to take up arms. The petrol bomb attacks do not represent the inclination of the ordinary man or woman on the street but are the actions of a certain section of disillusioned youth longing to taste power and discovering an appetite for this drug available only to a few. It seems that the game ‘follow the leader’ has taken a sinister twist. The occasional petrol bomb wins attention and the deprived no longer feel ignored. But what a dangerous and divisive precedent that is. Violence is unpredictable and the intoxicating nature of success spawns competing egos and the outbreak of ‘a million mutinies’ e.g. Garo Hills. So the sooner we take this into account the better.
Yet even the non-violent amongst us are complicit in this mess. Why is it that the government feels so smugly unassailable? Isn’t it because we still think of ourselves as marginal people in need of elevation and in awe of prestige and the perks which status brings? Hence we turn our politicians – even those who have leapt to the top by unethical means – into gods who can do no wrong. We are content to be lit up by reflected glory and as groupies endorse and sanction the rise of the unscrupulous forgetting our own power to effect good. So the abject hoi polloi are kept happy with a sprinkling of favours while ministers legislate their way out of inconvenient truths. Added to this is the deep aversion in Meghalaya to recognise the proven potential of their own. Our architects and draughtsmen create with love and sympathy for our landscape, but they are largely ignored. Our farmers and wood-folk possess experiential knowledge handed down through generations, yet our government sends delegations to consult experts in the west. Why?
By breaking the taboo sacred to mankind – the taking of human life – we seem to have passed the point of no return but ours need not be an inheritance of loss. We must emerge from this crisis to retrieve the unique features of what it is to be from these beloved hills. We have to dig deep and discard all those pretensions that have obscured and diluted the true tribal nature, for a culture built on insecurities and glossy exteriors will never withstand the storms of time. It is the ostensibly simple but understated aspects of our culture that need redefinition and support. Our easy-going friendliness wins us friends wherever we choose to live. Our innate intelligence and humour, (the Mawlai, Laban and Malki varieties are especially devastating), the diversity of our dialects and accents, our age old skills in weaving and woodwork, our musical temperament and our native produce cannot be underestimated. Most of all let us not ever belittle the fact that the Khasi brain is hardwired to solve all mechanical and technical problems without the need of formal training. I still remember the ingenious Bah ‘Sen who could coax life out of virtually any dead car.
There is much we can offer the world and much we can receive. Operating in this spirit will obliterate any issues of inferiority or superiority, of tribal or dkhar – both the insider and the outsider can exist in an environment of mutual respect ensuring the peaceful continuance of the jaitbynriew – the human clan. Where would the world of knowledge be if the Arabs had not taken the Hindu concept of zero to Europe? And despite all my misgivings about colonisation what a huge void there would be in my life if I had not been able to read Shakespeare in the original to know the man who amongst all the greats expresses so well what it means to be human. Do not let pomp and power beguile or intimidate you. True and lasting power lies not in the flexing of muscles but in initiating meaningful change. Do not give up on what it really means to be Khasi, Jaintia or Garo. I haven’t.
I now quote from a living great who religiously refuses to flaunt the trappings of success continuing instead to remain steadfastly true to himself and his artistic beliefs.
“I’ve heard you say many times/ That you’re better than no one and no one is better than you/ If you really believe that/ You know you have nothing to win and nothing to lose/ From fixtures and forces and friends/ Your sorrow does stem/ They hype you and type you/ And making you feel that you got to be just like them”… (To Ramona – Bob Dylan)
So find your own path, plough your own furrow and sing your own song. …
