Democracy withers if people don’t take responsibility to demand their rights under the Constitution. While it is regrettable that two persons lost their lives in the violent protest against non-tribals contesting the District Council elections and also voting in such elections, in the Garo Hills. The fact that the amendment to the Assam and Meghalaya Autonomous Districts (Constitution of District Councils) Rules, 1951, has been successfully achieved by the Garo Hills District Council (GHDC) and ratified by Governor CH Vijayshankar shows that such amendments are possible and could have been undertaken decades earlier. Garo Hills, BJP leader and Members District Council, Bernard Marak has been leading this demand to keep non-tribals out of the Councils, essentially because they were created to govern the tribals and to conserve their customary practices and traditions but above all, their land holding rights and to be custodians of the natural resources. It is no secret that despite the Meghalaya Transfer of Land Regulation Act, 1972, land has changed hands even after the Act was enforced. Already, much of the prime land in Meghalaya, especially in Shillong city had passed into non-tribal hands while the state was part of Assam and before any Act was passed to restrict land purchase by non-tribals.
Land being a finite entity, once lost it cannot be retrieved. Land is linked to tribal identity. Yet it is ironic that there is landlessness among large sections of the tribes today. The question is what did the District Councils, created way back in 1951, done to secure the land rights of tribals. A reading of the amendments to the 6Th Schedule in Meghalaya, made from time to time shows nothing of consequence was amended or enacted other than increasing the membership of the Council from 24 to 30, increasing salaries of members of the Executive Committee, the populist Khasi Lineage Act and the ADCs now empowered to issue building permissions, a power they don’t strictly exercise since most buildings constructed in recent times are flouting the rules and are building right on rivers without leaving the mandatory 50 meters of the highwater mark of the waterbody as directed by the Meghalaya High Court in 2023. Herein lies the weakness of the District Councils which includes safeguarding the natural resources of the state.
Even with regards to mining and quarrying the District Councils have been found to be remiss. It’s a go as you please policy as long as the hands of the Councillors are greased. And we are talking here of a Council that has all tribal Councillors – the Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills District Councils. Now that the Garo Hills District Council will have only scheduled tribes as Councillors can it be expected that the interest of the Garo people and other minor tribes will be better served and that land and other finite resources will be better protected? An emotive issue such as the one granting the right to contest the ADC elections only to Schedule Tribes should not be allowed to drift. The people of Garo Hills must ensure that the natural resources of the region are not bartered away by elected MDCs surreptitiously which is what has been happening over the years. Business deals are struck with non-tribals, hence many own coal mines in the State, in the names of tribals of course. If the Councils cannot stop these benami transactions then they are as good as redundant.
