sentinelgroup@gmail.com
Stop xenophobic tendencies
The recent violence that took place in Shillong has perturbed everyone. What began as a Black Flag bike rally by the Khasi Student Union (KSU) turned into a deliberate rampage through the city. Masked participants of the rally destroyed vehicles bearing Assam registration, intimidated tourists, vandalised properties and injured bystanders, trampling the law and order in broad daylight. The exposure of xenophobic tendencies in Meghalaya is not a new phenomenon. In the quest for indigenous autonomy, the state recorded several similar incidents of violence where non-tribals were targeted horribly. Since achieving statehood in 1972, the tribals of Meghalaya have consistently blamed non-tribals and other communities for taking their jobs, businesses, and lands. Every non-Khasi face is deemed an outsider here. Whenever the clamours of anger and frustration for land rights, jobs, and empowerment reached a crescendo, they never receded without taking a few lives in Meghalaya. Every non-tribal resident in the land has paid the price of 'being other' at some point in time. From time to time, the state has witnessed arson and killings in the name of "ethnic cleansing", ignoring the fact that a large number of Meghalaya locals depend on tourism, and each act of violence can cost them economically. Effects of each stone thrown at a car from another state can ripple immediately and hamper the hotel and travel industry in the form of low tourist footfall. In fact, there is evidence of how blockades imposed on the Assam-Shillong highway in retaliation for treating Assamese as outsiders have led to severe economic loss in Meghalaya in the form of supply and transit disruption.
The broader question is how can Meghalaya develop and create job opportunities when one of its student bodies (KSU) has successfully impeded the entry of railways in the land for more than 40 years? And the reason behind it was that, according to them, railways could lead to a mass influx of outsiders. Can a state flourish which depends only on roadways? Many businessmen moved out of Shillong during 1994-2000, facing heavy tax payments to the non-state armed actors, revealing the gap between government promises of security and protection and the actual reality that exists in Meghalaya. In a state where pressure groups have the freedom to carry out acts of intimidation and vandalism without consequences, and where the government remains silent out of fear of electoral backlash, people can expect little in terms of stability and protection. The problem of Meghalaya lies somewhere else, so unnecessarily targeting innocent people will do no help. The Meghalaya government needs to maintain a clear transit policy with its neighbouring states and neutralize the fringe elements which always wanted to destabilise the state. Civil society should openly condemn whenever hatred and mob culture crop up. If the state were to expand its tourism industry, it could not allow the law and order to collapse in front of its eyes. Parochial mindset and isolation will always lead to economic stagnation, rather than bringing development.
Kabir Ahmed Saikia
Rajabari, Jorhat