By Napoleon S Mawphniang
Fellow Meghalayans, you know what I mean. They are only giving it ten days total. Seven of those for whatever the government wants to push through. Then three days left for other things, I guess. Ten days. For everything. The budget gets pushed through on the 20th. Speaker says they’ll extend sessions till 3 PM if needed. Very generous.
Except—and maybe I’m just cynical after watching this circus for too long—isn’t that exactly the point? This manufactured scarcity of time, this theatrical urgency… it’s not a bug, friends. It’s the entire operating system.
Take a moment to consider Fabius Maximus. The Roman commander refused to confront Hannibal’s superior forces head-on. He used strategic procrastination to evade, postpone, and wear down his opponent. Excellent military strategy. Our government has also learned this tactic, but they have completely changed the course of events. They’re hurrying to avoid being examined, not waiting to become stronger. Because consideration leads to scrutiny, and scrutiny breeds scrutiny? For princes who rule with more ambition than solutions, that is poison.
The 10 days to finally address the Inner Line Permit that civil society has been screaming about for years. Ten days to discuss the Rs 2,366 crore road scandal—yes, you read that right—where nine officials got charged with corruption, and the highway connecting Shillong to Tura still sits unfinished since its 2010 inception. A decade and a half. Billions of rupees. One incomplete road. But sure, ten days should cover it.
Machiavelli knew. He wrote in The Prince that “the promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.” God, that stings to read now. The Inner Line Permit— that constitutional safeguard the Khasi Students’ Union keeps demanding, that the Voice of the People Party won’t shut up about (and rightly so), that civil society organizations have been pushing for—it just hangs there. Unfulfilled. The government “explores ILP-like alternatives,” they tell us. Watered-down mechanisms. Half-measures that satisfy absolutely no one but let them claim they’re doing something without actually doing anything.
Have you heard the term “manufacturing consent”? A book about it was written by Herman and Chomsky. Controlling the framework in which people can even speak is more important than controlling what they say. They guarantee that consent is never freely given by packing everything into ten hurried days and devoting only seven to government business when we’re dealing with existential issues like tribal autonomy, demographic survival, and systematic corruption eating away at us from the inside out. It’s designed and produced by starving people of time.
And the Sixth Schedule versus Article 371 debate? This thing that’s tearing our autonomous district councils apart? The VPP says—and they’re not wrong—that Paragraph 12A of the Sixth Schedule lets state laws override council regulations. Basically neutering indigenous self-governance. They want Article 371 to actually strengthen tribal authority. The UDP, Congress, BJP… they say no, Sixth Schedule is fine. Paul Lyngdoh asks why Ladakh would want Sixth Schedule protections if Article 371 were so superior.
These are massive constitutional questions. They deserve weeks of deliberation. Expert testimony. Public consultations. Town halls. Instead they’ll get squeezed into a session specifically designed to prevent exactly that kind of deep examination.
Aristotle taught that the polis— the community— exists not merely to live, but to live well. Can anyone here honestly say we’re living well? The 2025 budget speech bragged about “reversal of fortunes.” Meanwhile our education system limps along, healthcare remains a cruel joke for most people, road infrastructure crumbles when it exists at all, traffic strangles Shillong daily, and corruption allegations grow like mushrooms after rain.
That 2010 road project… let’s talk about that for a minute because it makes my blood boil. Started at Rs 1,303 crore. Somehow—mysteriously, magically—ballooned to Rs 2,366 crore through “revisions”. The FIR filed by PWD Chief Engineer AM Kharmawphlang doesn’t mince words. Senior engineers and private contractors from Telangana and Haryana allegedly “fabricated records, engaged in cheating, and adopted corrupt means causing huge losses to the public exchequer”.
This isn’t ancient history requiring archaeological excavation. This is recent. This is our money. This is now. Will the Assembly spend adequate time investigating how billions meant for basic infrastructure vanished into private pockets? Or will this too get rushed past in the avalanche of a ten-day session?
Socrates said something about a life without real questioning not being worth much. I guess that applies to how we run things in government too.
This whole assembly thing just doesn’t give enough time or openness for any kind of proper look at stuff. The speaker mentions problems with the schedule and says they’ll be more flexible. But honestly, that sounds like just talking without doing anything.
If they actually wanted people to have a say, they’d block out twenty days at least. Or thirty, whatever it needs to feel like real democracy. It seems kind of off how they skip that part.
Instead we get this—what Chomsky called “the engineering of consent.” Creating conditions where opposition looks unreasonable. Where demands for thoroughness seem obstructionist. Where later they can claim “we had a session, we discussed these matters, the opposition participated” while knowing the whole apparatus was rigged from the start to produce predetermined outcomes.
The autonomous district council situation is what kills me. BJP’s Bernard Marak accused Congress and NPP of scuttling the 2014 Agreed Text for Settlement. The thirteen major departments have not been transferred to the ADCs as agreed. No meetings for five years. The state departments have “hijacked” funds allocated to the councils. This is not a matter of mere administrative glitches but a deliberate breach of trust in tribal self-rule. But where, in this ten-day blitz, will the MLAs find the time to probe whether contractors with ties to the ruling party actually did “mismanage special package funds” as Marak has accused?
The Hynniewtrep Integrated Territorial Organization has written to Amit Shah, requesting an extension of the ILP to “improve border security, protect the indigenous population, preserve the demographic balance, and facilitate the identification of anti-national persons.” These are not paranoid delusions but very real fears for a country where the indigenous population feels its homeland drifting away. The government’s answer to this? “ILP-like” alternatives. The political equivalent of holding out a picture of water to a man dying of thirst.
Machiavelli knew that sometimes it is appearances that count more than reality when it comes to politics. And the NPP… with 53% of our assembly seats, they have no Lok Sabha members. One Rajya Sabha member. Their ambitions far outstrip their power. Perhaps that is why the governance is so rushed and shallow—Conrad Sangma’s focus is divided between consolidating power here and spreading throughout the Northeast. As reported by The Shillong Times in March of last year, “the growing criticism and failures of governance indicate a waning confidence in his leadership.” The current majority may be merely providing “a false sense of security while opposition forces remain strategically silent, preparing for the future.”
That silence from the Opposition, it seems like they might be playing some kind of long game. Like waiting for the government to mess up on its own with all these rushed meetings and promises that fall apart. Then they can jump in when people are really fed up.
The February assembly thing, its not really about democracy or anything. More like a show they put on to look busy. They set it up so tight with the schedule that nothing gets done for real. No one has to answer for stuff. I think the short time is on purpose, not just some accident.
We are stuck watching this, the regular people. Supposed to clap along and not pay attention to what’s missing. Those big issues about control over our lives, the money and land we have, what comes next for everyone. They stay off the table, not even brought up. It feels kind of frustrating, like no one cares to dig into it.
Plato warned that democracy could collapse into tyranny when citizens stop thinking critically. This ten-day assembly session is our test. Will we accept the performance… or demand an actual reckoning?
(The author is Advocate, Trade Unionist Ethicist & The Humanist Architect.)
