Editor,
I am writing as a worried parent. What happened in Jaiaw last Saturday where some KSU members reportedly beat up young people is not just a fight. It is a warning sign that something is wrong in Khasi Society. Students are meant to be in classrooms, not on street corners at night. They should be reading books, not throwing punches. Yes, drug abuse is a big problem and we all want to stop it. But beating people is not the answer. That is not justice. Not leadership too. And it is not what the Khasi ethics teaches us.
When some young people asked KSU members to just warn or counsel the drug user instead of hitting him, they were trying to do the right thing. But instead of listening, the KSU members got angry and came back the next night to attack them. That is not brave. It is bullying. I wonder if these members ever enroll themselves in any educational institutions.
No police case has been filed. But just because no one complained does not mean it was right. And where is the main KSU leadership? Why are they silent? A student union must lead with wisdom, not violence.
Dear KSU members you are our future doctors, teachers, leaders, and lawmakers and future politician too. Do not waste your energy on street fights. Go home. Study hard. Talk to elders. Help those who are lost, do not hurt them. Be the good example our society need.
Parents are watching. Your little brothers and sisters look up to you. Do not let them learn that strength means hitting people. You have the power to change things not with your fists, but with your minds and hearts. Please choose the right path for a better future of ka jaidbynriew.
Yours etc.,
Marbiang Lyngdoh Rymbai
Via email
Meghalaya’s Teachers Fight Back: A Battle for Respect, Equality, and Justice
Editor,
In Meghalaya, the very architects of the state’s future—its teachers—find themselves shackled by neglect, injustice, and a system designed not to elevate, but to suppress. The story unfolding here is not of a single classroom or of a solitary protest march, but of decades of systemic betrayal perpetrated by both the government and private educational power brokers. The consequence? A state whose educational promise remains stunted, not by the ability of its children, but by the refusal to value those tasked with their enlightenment.
Vanishing Value of Educators : Across Meghalaya, the treatment of teachers veers from disregard to outright exploitation. Shunted between delayed salaries, broken promises, and a glaring lack of appreciation, these educators must make do with ever-shrinking resources and vanishing morale. Public records and journalistic investigations tell a chilling story of teacher advocacy groups staging hunger strikes and marches, desperate merely for what is owed — fair compensation, dignity, and respect. Instead, silence or tokenistic reforms greet them, and the state’s inaction becomes the fuel for perpetual malaise in its schools & Colleges.
Unforgivable Plight of Ad-Hoc Teachers : No tale reveals this malaise more starkly than that of Meghalaya’s ad-hoc teachers. Born as a “temporary fix” in times of need, they quickly became the backbone of the system, never earning the benefits, pay, or security accorded to their “deficit” colleagues. Imagine laboring beside a peer, working the same hours, carrying the same burdens—yet, for years, earning less than a third of their salary, with none of the safety nets so essential to professional dignity.
Through the 2000s, ad-hoc teachers clawed their way up from wages that would insult any sense of justice, rising from mere hundreds to a few thousand rupees—slow progress achieved only through relentless protest. In 2017 and again in 2022, under mounting public outrage, the government announced modest increases. Yet even now, ad-hoc teachers can only dream of salaries parity, their current pay overtaken by ever-escalating “deficit” scales. What is more damning is that this signifies not just personal hardship, but a constitutional affront: the denial of “equal pay for equal work,” enshrined under Articles 14 and 39(d)—a principle set aside with near impunity.
Systemic Rot: Nepotism and the Exodus of Excellence : The wounds go deeper than wages. Our system doesn’t inspire excellence; it repels it. How else to describe a hiring apparatus riddled with nepotism, where talent and integrity take a backseat to favoritism? Qualified teachers are overlooked, bypassed by opaque selection panels that reward connections rather than merit, leaving Meghalaya’s classrooms under the care of the favored, not the finest. The message to those with dreams of teaching is as clear as it is damning: Meghalaya prioritizes loyalty over excellence, to the detriment of every child in its classrooms.
Scourge of Exploitation in Private Schools : In private institutions, educators face another set of indignities. Salary withholding—a malignant practice—has become commonplace, with unilateral deductions and multi-year delays now routine. Promises of restitution collapse into empty air, while teachers, the legal and moral backbone of schools or colleges, are left financially crippled and professionally humiliated. Such abuses, in open violation of the Payment of Wages Act and the Meghalaya Shops and Establishments Act, go largely unchecked, eroding trust and extinguishing hope for systemic redress.
But these are not merely technical infractions—they are acts that bleed the very spirit of the profession, driving the talented and the passionate from classrooms. Every delayed salary, every unauthorized deduction, is a cut not just to individual livelihoods, but to the state’s collective future.
Urgent Call: Dignity, Justice, Reform
What unites these stories is a fundamental betrayal—the abandonment of teachers as partners in progress and as citizens deserving fairness. It is not enough for Meghalaya to tinker at the edges. The state must deliver sweeping reforms: transparent and merit-based recruitment, statutory wage protections with real enforcement, and the immediate restitution of withheld salaries. Only when teachers are paid fully, on time, and without prejudice or favoritism, can the ripples of dignity spread from educators to their pupils—and outward, throughout the state.
Let this not be another report to gather dust. Let it serve as a call to conscience for those in power: the fate of Meghalaya’s future is written today in the fate of its teachers. Until their worth is recognized—not just in word, but in wage and unwavering respect—Meghalaya will continue to limp. And it will do so not for lack of talent, but for want of vision, justice, and the moral courage to do what is right.
Yours etc.,
Name withheld on request,
Via email