PRESSURE groups in Meghalaya don’t have enough issues to ensure that their names appear in newspapers and YouTube channels every single day so they have to invent trivial issues to trigger the imagination of an unthinking public led solely by emotion. This is not the first time that the controversy of finding an appropriate name for this state had created an uproar. The issue had gripped the minds of the political leadership at the time of fighting for a separate state. But they obviously hit a rock in trying to arrive at a mutually acceptable nomenclature. Some had suggested names like KhaJaGa state and all kinds of acronyms which were not agreed to by one or the other ethnic community. This time a pressure group from the Garo Hills has petitioned that the name of Meghalaya should change to Khasi-Jaintia-Garo Land. Such ridiculous suggestions are not only a waste of time but reveal how pressure groups try to earn brownie points. There are many pressing issues in Garo Hills with education or the lack of it being a major crisis point. There’s a huge vacuum in health care and other governance issues. But such issues are never flagged. In fact, very few citizens from Garo Hills express their views before the media. Issues are regularly articulated by one or other pressure group as if citizens have outsourced all their problems to those groups.
Those who suggest the name change argue that “Meghalaya” is a Sanskrit-derived name meaning the abode of clouds, a name coined by noted Indian geographer, Shiba Prasad Chatterjee way back in 1936. This name is most suited for a region that’s covered with cumulus nimbus ( low lying, cotton-like puffy clouds) or cirrus clouds (thin wispy white high altitude clouds) generally seen in the evenings. Imagine arriving at a consensus on a name that is inclusive and acceptable to all. It might take dozens of heated discussions with little hope of reaching a consensus. An attempt to craft the Meghalaya anthem when the state turned 50 met with heated protests because it was not inclusive enough. The anthem used by North East Slow-Food & Agro-Biodiversity Society (NESFAS)in 2015 when they observed the International Slow Food Festival – Ko Mei Ramew is in fact the most inclusive anthem by far.
There is a feeling now that the state’s name should reflect the local tribal identity and ethos in the same way that Nagaland acquired its name and so too Mizoram. There are 16 different Naga tribes but they agreed on the name Naga which probably came from the word Naka – a Burmese word for people with pierced earlobes. The word Mizo comes from two words ‘Mi’ – meaning person and ‘Zo’ meaning highlander. The fact that people of these two major tribes agreed to the names is nothing short of a miracle else the battles that would have been fought just to agree on a name would have taken many lives.These days indigeneity or indigenousness is being asserted in various forms. This name change is just one such assertion. There may be more to come. As it is, the three tribes are still debating the fairness of the State Reservation Policy which the Khasi and Jaintia claim is not based on the population ratio. Ordinary citizens feel that Meghalaya is already a well-settled name and representative of the three major tribes hence there is no need to upset the apple cart at this juncture. Besides, people already know this state and any attempt to change its nomenclature will have other unforeseen consequences that will affect tourism.
