In India, pre-election violence is almost customary which the ruling class uses to divert the focus of the common people from fundamental necessities to petty ethno-religious issues. The forthcoming Meghalaya Legislative Assembly (MLA) election, which is scheduled to be held on 27 February 2023, is no exception. In the last few months, Meghalaya had witnessed several violent incidents that are used to further the purpose of suppressing the real issues, such as extreme unemployment coupled with pathetic conditions of the working class, tremendous corruption, plunder of national resources by the corporates, expensive healthcare and education, and constant erosion of inclusiveness which once was a beautiful feature of the state. This article is an attempt to turn the focus back on ground realities.
According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India, the Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of Meghalaya for the decade of 2011-2021 is a meagre 2%, the slowest in the country. If we include depreciation and consider Net State Domestic Product (NSDP) then we find the shocking truth that Meghalaya is the only state in our country that has a negative CAGR of per capita NSDP (-0.5 as per RBI data), for the same decade. Although the ruling coalition government of Meghalaya is trying hard to shed its responsibility and blame the previous government for this situation, it is clear from the same RBI data that the average inflation rate (Consumer Price Index) has doubled in the last five years. In addition, the per capita annual income of Meghalaya in Rs. 8,382 and Rs. 11,748. This proves that the workers do not even get the paltry amount of minimum wages. Moreover, the calculation of per capita income implicitly assumes equal distribution of income among everyone, which is far from the reality. The situation is duly pointed out by a progressive platform named KAM Meghalaya, which remarked “we also have a small minority of Meghalayans who can afford to buy Lamborghinis, SUVs, erect gleaming glass-fronted buildings, have swimming pools, watch world cup matches in Qatar, do their Christmas shopping in Dubai”
Studies also show that there is an ever increasing amount of land seizure by private capital, while more farmers are becoming landless. According to the 2011 census, in Meghalaya, 76% of rural households are landless, compared to a national average of 56%. Extreme inequality is at the very heart of Meghalaya’s economic life, having onethird of the population (32.8%) as poor and deprived, according to NITI Aayog’s first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report released in 2021. This report also revealed Meghalaya as the poorest state in the North East Region (NER), and the fifth poorest state in the whole country after Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh. The RBI data mentioned earlier, also suggests that the urban unemployment rate has been increased from 2.8 in 2011-12 to 6.1 in 2020-21. According to the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), it has reached to 7.7 (and 9.5, in case we consider the age group of 20-29) during the last three months of 2022. The quality of existing job also matters. As per Periodic Labor Force Survey (PLFS) of 2018-19 only 20.5% of the total workforce of Meghalaya is salaried employee which is less than the national average (23.8%) and lowest in the NER. Therefore, no wonder that the young people are migrating, more children are stunted, the number of school dropouts is increasing, and criminal activities like drug peddling are engulfing the youth.
Unfortunately, none of the sixty MLAs in Meghalaya seem to work on improving the policies that can systematically improve the state of affairs. Rather before the election, they can be found busy buying votes through the distribution of one-time doles, such as cheap quality cups and dishes, blankets, lottery tickets, and cash. Then there is the question of blatant corruption. The money for MLA schemes is being utterly misused on people or business houses that are directly or indirectly related to the MLAs or their family members or friends. In short, people’s money is being siphoned off to the pockets of medium and large businessmen, who in turn provide the monetary backbone for their extravagant election campaigns. It is unlikely that the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), who will contest in Meghalaya for the first time, will make any difference, as they practise the same in their respective home grounds.
Before the election, another standard tactic is polarization by creating unrest between communities. Just before the festive month of December, Shillong city witnessed two violent incidents. The first one was on 28th October 2022, when some participants of a ‘rally against unemployment’ organized by the Federation of Khasi Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP), created a ruckus that is nowhere related to the issue of unemployment. They assaulted non local passers-by and bikers, pelted stones at shops and a petrol pump owned by nonlocals, and shouted jingoistic slogans like – “In my land, I can do whatever I want”. Patricia Mukhim, editor of The Shillong Times aptly noted that “The cry is intended to provoke violence and inequality among citizens. It also spreads hatred for the ‘other’ who does not belong.” Despite police presence along the route of the rally, no action was taken against the ] attackers. Again, after the recent firing by the trigger-happy Assam police at the Assam Meghalaya border on 22 November 2022, Meghalaya has witnessed another spate of violence, which too on some occasions turned hostile to the non-local population. Vehicles from outside Meghalaya had been torched in different places; several cases of stone pelting and targeted assault/harassment had been reported; even the Shillong Civil Hospital was vandalized by some protestors. Interestingly, “… none of the legislators or political parties is taking a clear stand on condemning the violence because they are doing their electoral calculations”, as pointed out by Angela Rangad – a social activist from Shillong.
The big guns of Meghalaya, irrespective of political inclinations, fund numerous pressure groups (like FKJGP), directly or indirectly. To the unemployed local youth they portray the non-locals as jobsnatchers to create hostilities between local and non-local communities. This, along with a few cases of targeted violence, creates an environment of fear for the non-locals; and then the non-local population is promised safety and security at the cost of their votes, which is very crucial in Shillong city. Safety and security have become the prime concern for the minorities in the state, and the ruling class is consciously trying to convince them that safety and security are not a part of their basic human rights, rather it is ] something they can only achieve by casting their votes to the most powerful goon, armed with both muscle and money power. However, the positive side is most of the local people condemned this recent violence against their fellow citizens, as such unwanted episodes hamper day-to-day small business transactions, leaving a large portion of the working class further distressed. One must remember the famous saying “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”.
