Patricia Mukhim: Old wounds reopened….Old hurts return to haunt
The public lynching of a man alleged to have raped a Naga
girl in Dimapur followed by his being hanged from a pole in a public square
after being labelled an ‘Illegal Bangladeshi Immigrant’ – a generic term for
all Bengali speaking Muslims – has rekindled old memories of the communal
carnage in Meghalaya, more specifically Shillong. Social media is rife with
comparisons between the Dimapur incident and the horrors of 1979, 1981, 1992
etc.
Those who grew up during that traumatic phase have now taken up jobs
elsewhere but the memories remain. They cannot delete memories of their
homes being set ablaze; of being panic stricken when stones are pelted on their
houses by other young people their age, who probably did not even know why they
were doing what they did. That too was mob frenzy. To the Khasi youth of
the time the non-tribal (Bengali and subsequently Nepali) was the cause of all
his predicaments. The political construct then (and this continues) was that
the non-tribal is taking away the women, the wealth, the jobs and the business
opportunities of the tribal.
About the women, one can only say that since Shillong had a
substantial non-tribal population, the regular social interface was bound to
turn into romance and marriage. If the union between a non-tribal man and
tribal woman turned sour and the man left to marry one of his own ethnicity it was
no different if the union was between a tribal man and woman. Abandonment is
endemic, and equally, even among those who were properly married, divorce was
and continues to be high. There is no point denying this or pretending that all
is well since statistics prove the fact. Meghalaya must have the highest
number of female-headed households in the country.
About the job, the wealth and the business opportunities it
is debatable if the non-tribals have it easy. Eighty per cent jobs in the State
Government are reserved for tribals. Similarly for educational institutions of
medicine, engineering and other professional courses! For the non-tribal it has
been an opportunity squeeze. He may be a permanent resident of Meghalaya but he
could only make the cut as a general candidate which meant that he would have
to score very high marks to qualify for the 20% unreserved seats in the general
category.
Even in central universities, 60% of seats were reserved for tribal
students. As far as the wealth is concerned the source of wealth in Meghalaya
is nature. There is timber, coal, limestone that has been exploited over the
years by human beings both tribals and non-tribals. The latter had to find ways
and means to do business to survive economically and that was through the
benami route – taking the name of a tribal to avoid the rigmarole of a trading
license from the District Councils and also to avoid paying certain taxes. This
is an equal game. If someone is willing to sell his name and sit at home and
wait for the money to come in while someone does all the hard work, and if no
one is objecting to this transaction then it’s a fair game I guess.
In the area of business, the non-tribal was already far
ahead of the natives by the time Meghalaya was created. Most of the wholesale
trade and stockists for food grains distributed through the fair price shops
were run by non-tribals. When Meghalaya became a full- fledged state in 1972
and in the years following that, several tribals also got into this government
sponsored trade and contract and supply work. It is not a state secret that
many tribals only lent their names and the non-tribals were actually doing the
trading. Most of the rice, wheat, sugar etc that came in for supplying to the
ration card holders in Meghalaya were sold in the open markets of Assam and
Meghalaya and the profits were shared through a system of mutual benefit. It
was not possible for a tribal to have the reach in the markets outside their
state.
The modus-operandi was well-oiled. No one objected. Of course it was
benami but unless the Government took suo-moto action no one was going to
squeak. The passive tribal business partners became very wealthy and so too the
non-tribal collaborators. But this trade/contract could only benefit a few
people. Wealth begets wealth. From fair price shop owners, stockists and
wholesalers the tribals diverted their interests to other wealth creation
activities.
Those who did not have the wherewithal to join the bandwagon
of trade and commerce, but who wanted to get rich quick, turned to politics. It
was the surest way to wealth through the carpet-bagging route. The politician
arm-twisted every contractor for a cut and a deal for every contract work
issued by his department and made money just by using his pen. This rip-off
continues. Meanwhile the number of poor people has increased because no
opportunities were created for them. Governments only gave audience to
mercenaries and collaborators in their wealth creation ventures.
The 1979 communal flare-up has nothing to do with the
economics and the anguish of the poor who fell through the cracks in the
system, although they were promised so much while fighting for a separate
state. That was orchestrated by politicians who wanted to upstage the sitting
MLAs and ministers and to usurp their spaces. The politicians cleverly used the
infamous students’ body – the Khasi Students Union and ignited raw passion in
several young men for whom logic did not matter and who knew only the lingo of
violence. Like mercenaries gone berserk they launched systematic attacks on the
Bengali population and created a fear psychosis never experienced before.
Several Bengali teachers, government employees, lawyers, doctors who have
served this society had to flee for their lives overnight and take refuge in
school buildings which were used as make-shift camps. Their homes had gone up
in flames. All their earthly belongings had turned into ashes. Many of them
left to settle in Guwahati and Kolkata but I am not sure that they would ever
be able to forget or forgive this gross act of inhumanity inflicted on them.
There was no government to defend them or take up their cause. It was and still
is a government of by and for tribals. The police force was compromised. There
were people who were pulled out of buses and massacred or burnt alive. There
was Gouri Dey, a pregnant woman from Malki who was lynched by a mob and yes,
there were witnesses but the police could never convict a single person.
This
is a shameful track record for Meghalaya Police although it hardly matters to a
force that seems to have taken a vow never to arrest a murderer or to do it so
shabbily that the defence lawyers rip apart their charge sheets.
Year after year thereafter, but particularly when the state
was heading for an election, tempers would rise and so would the fear psychosis
among non-tribals still residing in Shillong. The next bout of violence was
faced by the Nepali residents. They too fled into camps and many left the state
altogether. What is ironic is that the churches and religious institutions
failed miserably to reduce tensions and bring about a climate of mutual trust.
Curfews were common and the farmers suffered but no one really bothered. The
only people who reaped a rich harvest out of these communal conflicts were politicians.
After 36 years (from 1979-2015) the Dimapur lynching
incident has reopened the wounds of those who suffered the humiliation, the
hurt, pain and agony of that dark period of Meghalaya’s history. On social
media there are people who relive those fearful moments; those curfew-bound
hours of uncertainty; the fear of moving around even during the day time and
the deep sense of alienation – that of being called an outsider in a place one
has always called home – the only home one knows. If home is no longer home
then where does one go?
There is as no closure to those terrible moments. Yet there
is need for those who have suffered to be able to speak up and bare their
hearts. That’s the only way they can move on. For them too forgiveness is
important because revenge eats at the human soul and corrodes it. Some are of
the view that we must let go off our past. That is easier said by those who
have not suffered trauma. That is why we have something called
Post-Traumatic-Stress- Disorder (PTSD) and a special branch of medicine to deal
with it.
It is important for the tribal community of Meghalaya to
provide this platform where those who have suffered can release their pain and
move on. We owe them this much as fellow human beings. I know there are some
who committed those crimes in 1979-80 who have since confessed publicly because
the weight of their sin hung heavy on their souls. But if only they could make
that confession in a non-threatening space, where those who suffered would find
it in their hearts to forgive and let go of the past, it would be a new
beginning for all.
