What happened in the hinterland of South Garo Hills in Meghalaya on Tuesday did not catch the attention of even the northeastern media so much as it deserved, while to even talk of the ‘national’ media picking up such stories and deliberating on them is just like asking for the moon. But the story is interesting and has a huge lesson to impart to those bent on disrupting normal life on the pretext of championing some cause just because they feel they have the right to expression in whatever way they want in a democracy even if such expression were to completely wreak havoc on normalcy and law and order. On Tuesday, a two-day protest shutdown was called by the Association for Democracy and Empowerment (ADE) across South Garo Hills over the abysmal condition of roads in the district. The shutdown was to be between 5 am and 5 pm on Tuesday and Wednesday. It would be a total shutdown of shops, educational institutions, and transportation, among other establishments. But the worst affected would be students as it was a crucial college examination time. This, however, did not deter the shutdown votaries. They were bent on disrupting everything in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘empowerment’ – without having to bother anything at all about the doom such shutdowns bring to the lives of students, and without having to realize that such bandhs only militate against the cause of empowerment of the student community, such a vital human resource as it is. So what happened was that, angry over the sudden ADE decision at such a crucial time, students at several places defied the ADE diktats and opened their schools and colleges for classes and examinations. ADE posters calling for non-cooperation were pulled down and burnt by students outside Captain Williamson Memorial College in Baghmara town. The just grumble against the shutdown was that the ADE leaders did not consult the student community before going ahead with their programme. As reported, as a result of the shutdown call, about 28 out of 251 students of the morning shift and eight out of 210 students of the day shift missed the ongoing First Year BA examinations at Baghmara College on Tuesday. In the wake of the students’ uproar against the sudden shutdown call, the ADE was forced to call off the strike. Which meant the students, who were justifiably more concerned about their future than about cooperating with the ADE call, had won. And the win has at least two lessons to impart to all those who recklessly call strikes and bandhs without having to worry about students and patients in particular.
One, in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom of expression’, you cannot hijack greater causes, such as the cause of students. It is these students who are our future, and it must be the responsibility of one and all, including non-state actors with guns in their hands, to ensure that their future is not endangered. This responsibility is a profound one, especially in a democracy where if one has the right to call a strike or shutdown or bandh, one has an equal right not to abide by the diktat because this diktat runs counter to some greater causes, such as the cause of education or of a patient being taken to a hospital in emergency or of one who must catch a flight because he has a life-and-death issue involved in an assignment somewhere far away. And two, at the end of the day, no shutdown or bandh can ever resolve any issue – it never has. Take the case of the Assam Agitation of six long years, in which so many students lost their precious academic years. The Assam Accord was signed eventually. But has even that famed agreement between the then AASU leaders and the government yielded anything tangible when it comes to the core issue – freedom of Assam from the vicious clutch of illegal Bangladeshis? Not at all. What is imperative is political will – the will of the elected representatives to ensure that the ones to whom they are accountable are served well and justly. As for the horrible roads across South Garo Hills, it is the Conrad Sangma government that ought to take the call on its own – by virtue of it being an elected government in the first place – and respond to the aspirations of the affected people. The students who forced the ADE to cancel its pompous programme deserve a huge round of applause.