The misappropriation of fund by the Chief Executive Member, Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC), could not have come at a better time for the voting public. Here is an opportunity to vote out an aspirant who stinks of corruption. Interestingly, the police have summoned the beneficiaries of the grants withdrawn by the CEM in their names to record their statements. Normally, police summon suspects for questioning to the police station. The beneficiaries of the amounts withdrawn are victims. They deserve empathy for being defrauded of the amount withdrawn in their name. And why are the police dragging their feet and not arresting the man who has misused public money? He should have been the first person to be taken to the police station for questioning. But it seems that the law keepers want to find out every loophole in the system so that they do not have to arrest MB Rymbai the former CEM of the JHADC. That’s the law for you!
Under the leadership of this CEM many clearances were given to cement companies to carry out unabated mining in the thickly forested areas adjacent the Narpuh reserve forests and also around the limestone caves of Jaintia Hills which are ecological sanctuaries. It is appalling that custodians of land, forests, rivers and water sources have themselves become the pirates defrauding the environment and all living beings of their right to a clean, sustainable eco-system. In a sense the District Councils have let down the people of Meghalaya far more than the State Government. The ADCs have a limited mandate of securing the continued rights of the indigenous people to their land and resources and to customs and traditions. For the indigenous tribal, customs, rites and rituals all revolve around land and its resources. With globalisation and the marketisation of land and all natural resources, those who are at the helm of governance both in the state government and the Councils have diluted the intrinsic connection that the tribes have with the land. The Councils have failed to moderate and deconstruct the customary practices that privilege some clans above others and have therefore presided over a traditional practice that has calculatingly made its own people a landless, rudderless nomadic tribe all flocking to the urban centres for livelihoods. Is the JHADC not aware about the land grabbing in the coal mine areas? What has it done to assist the weak and powerless? But then why would the MDCs do that when they are under the pay roll of the coal mafia and the cement companies. Do we need to sustain an institution that has defrauded people of their rights? Sadly people in Meghalaya get hyper-active come election time. These are the signs of a society that stubbornly refuses to sit and reason out why it faces these horrendous nightmares.
