By Janet Moore Hujon
I love the word ‘glimmer’ with all its suggestions of fragile delicate beauty. But most of all I love it because within its frail gossamer being it holds a relatively more robust phenomenon – hope. A glimmer is the faint image heralding the greater light that is to come, the light that will banish darkness whatever that darkness may represent. So a glimmer marks that breathless moment when we begin to believe that perhaps change is at hand and we can move forward instead of being dragged backwards by the past and the present. But who am I kidding? I can forever indulge in the pleasure of words but until words represent reality, these sounds that puncture silence, these marks on the (type)written page are ultimately meaningless.
In our protests, our diatribes, our exposés and our songs of praise for Meghalaya we have used a huge range of words in our attempts to save this green corner of the globe we call ‘ours’. But it seems we are not even winning the battle of words and why is that? The answer lies in another word – OMNISHAMBLES. Voted as word-of-the-year by the Oxford English Dictionary, it is easy to see why omnishambles has been so wholeheartedly endorsed: ‘omni’- all, and ‘shambles’ – a situation of total disorder. It is not with any sense of writerly triumph that I write this, it is more to do with a reluctant and realistic admission of defeat. Is it now too late to dream that a glimmer of hope can re-enter the lexicon of daily life in Meghalaya?
After reading Angela Rangad and Tarun Bhartiya’s detailed analysis of the shortcomings in the then older Lokayukta Act and their equally detailed framework of a new Lokayukta Act, I finally felt that Meghalaya was going to rise from the ashes. With an act like that there was no way anyone could get away with proverbial murder. But D’oh! Naïve or what? How could I again fail to reckon with the brutal fact that as far as our political leaders are concerned, where there is a will to subvert the course of law and order, there is always a way. To even talk about lines of battle seems pointless as the opposing side already believes it has won. Past masters of selection and guile these materialistic predators pretend to adopt a Bill in order to be seen to be doing something and then they carve us up nice and proper. So to the drawing board once more my friends for neither the battle nor the war has been won.
I absolutely fail to understand (or perhaps I do) how a predominantly Christian Cabinet of Ministers in Meghalaya can have forgotten the anger and passion with which Jesus Christ entered the temple and proceeded to “…cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, overthrew the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of them that sold doves”…before thundering – “My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves”… If Meghalaya is to show she has the courage of her religious convictions then this is the kind of uncompromising act that we need. So pessimistic though I am at the moment, I salute those who refuse to be deterred by the knowledge that the Government will not deviate from its age-old agenda of self-enhancement and state-destruction. So all hail the RTI movement and all those who have toiled to show us not only what clarity of thought and expression is but what transparency and accountability of action means.
It is however only too easy to blame the criminals at large for what is now not even an impasse anymore but an ominous scenario of unrelenting doom? As has been suggested by others who have written in, the blame perhaps lies within you/us, the public. There is a natural tendency in all of us to worship power whether it lies in a person, a body of persons or a work of art, or a scientific treatise. Such an inclination is not necessarily to be despised, indeed it could be construed a virtue implying both humility and a generosity of spirit willing to recognise excellence in others. So long as the object of our worship is deserving of respect, there is no harm in a bit of restrained deification. But if in the process we are simply overawed by a sham display of power and are led into thinking that that is the ‘right’ way to be, then we are all laying the foundations of a slippery slope down which we will all slide holding hands or not.
It is sad to admit that public life in the state is all about the power of position. Yet we could be different – it’s actually quite easy. “Strip the bishop of his apron, or the beadle of his hat and lace; what are they? Men. Mere men. Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.” This, as Matthew Davis points out in the BBC News Magazine, is Charles Dickens ‘cutting to the heart of the pomposity of officialdom’ in Oliver Twist.
But unlike in Oliver Twist we in Meghalaya have to deal with more than the superficial pomposity – it is the rotten core that we cannot excise. It is because the unprincipled actions of the person holding a position of power are accepted wholesale, that we are morally in big trouble. We are nurturing celebrity culture in its sickest and most mindless form. We all know how corrupt our ministers and MLAs are, but we still insist on inviting them as chief guests to a variety of events auspicious and not so auspicious. Why? Does it not occur to anyone that in doing so we are not only handing them a free photo opportunity, free publicity, and even worse we are basically telling them that they are okay and that somehow their being there exalts the occasion? No wonder they can so easily take us for a ride even if it is the wrong way down a one-way street. How can anybody completely unrepentant about their membership of a ‘den of thieves’ add anything positive to any proceedings?
This is sycophancy at its best and it is not so much the chief guest who comes out in a poor light but the hangers-on who either reveal a pathetic lack of discrimination or are unashamedly blatant about their shady ambitions. Instead of seeking out the quiet figures distinguished by their moral stature and good deeds, we go for the easy in-your-face options – the blaring sirens, the entourage, the high-up connections. These are all delusions of grandeur and yet they are working overtime. What would school children for instance learn from such people? I hope the answer to that is nothing except a sobering sense of disillusionment.
It is at such moments that I recall how Prince Charles infuriated Tony Blair’s government for refusing to attend a banquet in honour of the then Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The Prince who is known to be sympathetic to the plight of the Tibetan people and an admirer of the Dalai Lama, decided to make a stand. I am indifferent to the monarchy but I have to admit that on that occasion I did take note. That to me was an exemplary way of using one’s position and power for the greater good. The heir to the British throne refused to kowtow to political expediency and briefly the palace became the backdrop for a real fairy tale.
According to newspaper reports it seems we are once more going to be served up the same political fare next year. It is still all about the money, still about people whose words play dangerous games with our lives and our futures. Whether you vote or not the result is pre-ordained for whoever has succeeded in buying the most voters will win. We know Meghalaya needs new faces with traditional ideas of right and wrong but the dirt surrounding the word politics is not likely to attract any new recruits. But we do not need to enter politics to effect change. We have the weapons needed to transform Meghalaya – a conscience and the will for good although both come with a proviso – we have to use them otherwise they will rust through disuse. Our activists, our young people who have already unsheathed their arms must be supported, brought centre-stage and not marginalized. The fires of their passion must be kept alive and who knows maybe Meghalaya may yet witness a Conflagration of the Vanities