Learning to survive despite the Government

You only need to travel the length and breadth of Meghalaya to see people struggling to beat the pandemic at its own game. Farmers are reaping their harvests and are now trying to sell them at different points in their respective districts. The Agriculture Minister may mumble strange inanities that don’t make sense to them and they really don’t care. People have learnt that other than the 2000 Rs that they are given during elections to buy their votes, they cannot expect anything much from their MLAs or MDCs. In fact, people are leading from the front where leaders fear to tread. Go up to the Lad Smit the junction between Jowai Road and the road leading to Smit and one can see a market emerging. Stalls have been built and farm fresh vegetables, bananas and other fruits from the surrounding areas are sold to an interested clientele from Shillong. Another farmer’s market has come up at Upper Shillong too. One nurtures a faint hope that this will decongest the over-crowded, unorganised and unregulated Iewduh and that those who seriously wish to do their weekly vegetable shopping go to Upper Shillong or to Lad Smit where social distancing is possible as there is adequate space in these areas.

This was what should have happened in Shillong decades ago but did our legislators in the Assembly and the District Council ever engage their minds on these critical issues? The former used to be involved in pulling down governments after every 18 months or so until about 2010. The latter (District Council) continues to indulge in the infamous sport of toppling the Executive Council once every six months and sometimes even sooner. That has remained their sole pre-occupation. They are not there to engage in issues affecting the ‘silly’ voters, which to them is a waste of time.

After two months plus some days people have learnt to endure the lockdown and also to capitalise on the relaxations. Construction workers are up and about early morning walking to their workplaces. Shop owners and those with farm products set themselves up at convenient spaces to sell what they have harvested. Not for them the whining of victimisation. True, those who run other businesses such as those in Police Bazar, mainly clothing, fabric, gadgets, shoes and eating joints are facing an economic squeeze as they have not earned a penny since the lockdown. And one does not see these businesses getting any reprieve from the much touted Rs 20 lakh crore financial injection into the economy and which the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) are supposed to access.

The other day the MDCs of KHADC and the Syiem of Hima Mylliem decided that it is not opportune yet for Iewduh to open. Fine, but what alternatives have they suggested for the thousands who earn their daily bread from the market. And this exactly is the problem of politicians. They don’t walk in the slippers of those on whose behalf they take decisions. Were the people of Iewduh or the Association of sellers there consulted and their views considered? No. And yet all decisions are taken as if the elite know where the shoe pinches for the poor. Imagine what it is to live in uncertainly for over two months with no one offering any alternative whatsoever. Not the Government; not the KHADC; not the Syiem of Mylliem. So where do people turn to? Collective unemployment equals collective rage! And this rage will soon surface. I am not too sure that our smug politicians are quite ready to face this rage of the youth returnees who may never again want to step out of home and work in other states, for now. Not after the horrific manner in which they arrived on trains whose toilets remained unserviced for weeks and with not enough space to lay their heads on. Trying times leave lasting memories.

The pandemic exposes the quality of representatives at the level of the nation and in the states. Meghalaya recently witnessed a truncated Assembly session with just six working days. Considering that there are critical issues to discuss on the relief and other measures provided to people who have lost their jobs and also about Meghalaya’s preparedness to battle the Coronavirus, one would have thought that every single minute would be utilised to elicit answers from Government and that those in the Opposition would raise relevant issues and steer away from the pedantic. Alas! As onlookers we were shocked at the quality of the debates, which in any case have been going downhill over the years. As always, the Chief Minister had to rise to answer questions that his colleagues could not provide because they were ill prepared. The Agriculture Minister admitted that he gave answers based on what the officers of his Department fed him! Imagine a minister who does not even do his homework and has to rely entirely on bureaucrats and technocrats! It’s sure as hell that he will be led down the garden path. Would any bureaucrat/technocrat dare mislead the CM? No, because no matter what, Conrad Sangma is on top of things and has the acumen to know his Department inside out.

It’s a fact that some of our legislators are not educated and informed enough to detect bureaucratic flaws. Someone has rightly said that lack of education produces two qualities – the instinct to simplify and certitude about things they don’t know much about. Leaders who excel in certitude are also dangerous because they believe they are infallible and hence take instant decisions to show they are “decisive.” In India we have the example of Sanjay Gandhi (a High School drop-out) who launched the family planning method forcibly and caused more miseries than helping the cause. It is said that enlightened people express doubts about any matter, test it out and then seek to apply it to life. It was certitude that India would emerge free of black money that led to the surgical strike on the Indian banking system called Demonetisation. This led to untold sufferings. It was certitude that led to the implementation of the GST even before the system was perfected. Certitude is not equal to decisiveness because the leader who possesses that certitude does not benefit from opposing arguments and from accurate data and information.

It is a truism that in a democracy real power lies with the people. Nothing is further from the truth especially in the light of what’s happening in India and in Meghalaya today. People are not at all involved in decision-making because it is believed that we are already RE-PRESENTED by our MLAs/MPs. Sorry! They don’t represent us; they represent business interests and lobby groups. Look at how our Government tirelessly works to protect the coal mining lobby! From facilitating the issuance of fake challans  to allowing transport of coal illegally mined that’s what our Government is doing because a set of MLAs supporting the Government are coal mine owners! Where are the people here?

 Democracy in the country and in our own state is pulverized. No wonder we have an MLA prostrating himself in the August House, to pray, not for himself and his MLA colleagues but for sinners who abort their unborn child; the transgender community, same sex marriage etc., which has brought the curse of Covid19. He has violated all norms of secularism. As far as this MLA is concerned he and his legislator colleagues are blameless!  In the next election, if we do come out of this pandemic and are still alive we must prevent further damage to democracy by telling people to stick to the basics and hold politicians accountable for delivering on our immediate concerns: jobs, economy, infrastructure, corruption control and social reform.  All these go to make up democracy.