By Melarbor L Thabah
The Khasi Inheritance of Property Committee was formed by the KHADC on March 28, 2025. As the name suggests, the recommendations made by this committee will be extremely important in the matter of inheritance in Khasi families particularly the Khasi males inhabiting all 5 districts of the Khasi hills. This committee comprises 4 members, namely the Chief Executive Member, 2 Executive Members with legal backgrounds and one opposition MDC. These 4 MDCs were tasked to make a recommendation on regulating the rights of the parents or either surviving parent’s decision to decide on who or whom will inherit the procured property or properties of the parent or parents or ancestral property handed over to the parent through generations to their offspring(s). It will be 10 months on January 28, 2026 since this committee was tasked with this job without any tentative deadline, I might add, for submission of its report.
In the Khasi community there were many instances where the right of the sole male offspring or males-only offspring in which their rightful property that they were supposed to inherit as per the parents’ will or deed was usurped by related family members having female offspring or the sister siblings upon the death of the parents or more specifically the mother in the case of the Khasis.
Many a time such cases go unheard and unreported in which the rightful male heir(s) have to keep quiet and swallow a hard pill in losing their ancestral or parents’ property which the parent(s) had granted to them in writing since the right to inherit property lies with the daughter(s) or sisters or those relatives having daughter(s) especially the youngest daughter in reference to Khasi families. Most of the time, Khasi males do not challenge this in the KHADC court or lack the finance to challenge such cases in the court since such cases are lengthy and time consuming or even when they challenge, chances are that they may lose the case since the inheritance of property in Khasi society is tilted towards females.
The time has come for reform in Khasi society in that the parent(s) who have only one male offspring or many male offspring only or offspring having both male and females in this era; that their fundamental right to privacy, decision, thought, belief and action in their personal space is not infringed, interfered and superseded upon by any law or bill which is unbalanced and leans towards one sex, be it females or males and that the right of the family in taking such a decisive mode of action in writing be it deed or will is respected thereby falling in consonance with aforementioned fundamental rights of the nation including the fundamental right to equality under law so as to ensure equitable distribution of ancestral property as per the wishes of the parent(s) and not determined by any constitutional body.
The constitutional body may, however, make it equitable via its recommendation, bill and subsequent law, leaving the final right in decision making to the parent(s) which adheres and is in sync with the fundamental ethos of our constitution. The time has come that the disadvantages that a Khasi male has to endure in this world in almost every facet of his life be mitigated to a great extent with the recommendation and subsequent passage of such a bill into a law which grants those fundamental rights to the family namely the parent(s) and leave it upon their wisdom. The recommendations made by this committee will reverberate in each and every Khasi household in the Khasi hills.
This bill, when passed into law, may also serve as a precedent for the JHADC or may be even the GHADC. It is hoped that this committee will take pity upon the plight and, yet, deserving rights of the Khasi males whom these MDCs themselves or the 4 members of this committee may have male offspring in taking a hard look on their own male offspring to realise the hardships that they will face in their adult life as Khasi men within the Khasi community before submitting their recommendations or later passage of this bill.
It is urged that this committee submit its long-awaited report before the start of the February 2026 budget session so that the recommendations and latter bill can be debated and passed by the Council to be eventually pushed through the government to make it into a law. There has been a lot of anticipation for change. I hope that the EC will walk the talk by taking this matter with the seriousness that it deserves and that the aggravation of the parents will be over sooner than later on this extremely important and pertinent issue.
