By Gregory Shullai
The most common way of raising men and women is the family theory. In a family we belong to each other in solidarity; we grow greater in our own eyes when we act in accordance to a norm known to us. The family grows and it imbibes teachings which it feels make it more worthy. In time one attributes the accomplishments and failures to God and this imparts a different value to that act, and with this religion is born – because we do not believe we are worthy of appreciation. The ideal of any religion can be deeply, yet unconsciously influenced by our low self estimation: examine for yourself everything that is going on around you and you will see there is an overwhelming abundance of that in any religious minded society. I will elaborate on this as we proceed.
The point that I am drawing one’s attention to is that if we didn’t underestimate ourselves in society, there would be no religion. In other words, religion found a place in society because of a human weakness that cropped up in some individuals when society became the way of life among men and women. Along with this weakness there were the naturally unruly elements in society and the latter took advantage of the former. Something had to take control of the polarity in society, and religion became that agent that established a set of rules upon which commandments came about and judgements were passed when wrong was done. It is therefore in a declining society that religion formulates what the social ideal should be and since society is a dynamic organism the ideal created outlives its utility and something new is required to be created all over again. And in a multi-religion-based society with no common centre of gravity, the ideal that counts for the most imposes itself upon the others. Our entire sociology did not know any other instinct upon which it could rely except to adopt a freedom of religion approach where all religions were treated as equal regardless of numbers…and this does not work. One religion dominates the others are zero. And with this the herd instinct develops where the herd that is the largest believes it has the sovereign right to represent the whole in a manner as it deems fit disregarding with disdain those that are outside its fold. In course of time constitutional governance came into being and democracy ensured that mediocrity came to the fore without attributing any importance to intelligence, honesty, statesmanship, etc. and numbers decided what is good and not good for the people; making numbers the virtue that one must seek after. These twin processes are totally foreign to the organization of a society where the intelligentsia would normally have a greater say in the manner society is governed.
As Khasis and Jaintias we would like to believe that just as time has moved forward so has our culture, and that the two are marching forward in step which is the biggest lie because though the 20th Century has progressed in leaps and bounds to the 21st in technology, science, philosophy, etc. the 21 st Century Khasi is not a better version of the 20th Century Khasi. The Khasi/Jaintia society of today in general does not represent any progress towards anything that is of significance or can claim superiority over other cultures and societies, and we should not be deceived about this fact. We like to believe and know that civilization moves forward with time and that with the passage of time culture is also progressing towards something better. The majority is led astray by this common belief; the truth is we are led by the current illusion of material progress these days: and in a sense to those that are concerned about this matter the Khasi Jaintia spirit of today actually represents a regress from the spirit of the 1960s and 1970s and before.
It is almost as if we have forgotten that as a society, we possessed a spirit and owing to some strange circumstances that developed from then till the present day we have suddenly forgotten that we are supposed to be in possession of a national Khasi/Jaintia character. The overall attitude that has come upon us is one of a laboratory experiment in which some experiments succeed while on the grander scale there are untold failures of anything resembling logic and social order which is what culture is all about. How have we failed to recognize that our culture is degenerating – if not already degenerated? How have we failed to take remedial measures to halt this degeneration of the Khasi Jaintia culture? Are we even bothered to find out what has taken precedence over our culture? Something ‘unclean’ that is innately decadent has taken ascendency over our recognition of ourselves as Khasis and Jaintias and though we know it for a fact, we have not found the courage or the desire within us by which we can call out and halt the “thing” or “things” from taking over us completely. One thing is certain, we have come to accept the belief that there is more to our physical being than just this earthly phenomenon because who we will become in the afterlife has now gained precedence over who we are, and because of this belief in the afterlife, who we will become is validated as more than who we are.
Let me be blunt and place a question here and now…has an outside religion transformed the Khasi Jaintia or has the Khasi Jaintia transformed that religion to blend in with his culture? One way or the other something had to be arrived at which required the giving up of something to gain what the other was offering and in the bargain it is apparent that we have been transformed by a religious character above our tribal identity because of what is promised to us in the afterlife and therefore, we could neither stop ourselves from becoming what this afterlife belief wants us to be in this life, nor could we grapple with the thought of letting go of our culture.
Under the above statements it cannot be denied that we know that we are losing our tribal uniqueness because of the hope of the afterlife but we do not want to forsake as irrelevant the fact that we are what we are in this life because we are uniquely and proudly identified as Khasis and Jaintias? but what really is this tribal uniqueness that we so proudly talk about? As a race we have not advanced – perhaps we never thought of ourselves advancing along with our customs and traditions. There may be some success that we have scored as a race but there are untold failures that are of a far greater consequence, and we lack the courage to point them out. So, I will make an effort to place them before my readers.
How can we fail to recognize that the descent of the “Dorbar System” is a sign of our decadence? The system was something even the foreigners admired beginning from the Dorbar Kur to the Dorbar Shnong to the Dorbar Raid and finally to the Dorbar Hima. A decision taken was weighed against natures’ scale of what was at stake from one stage to the next. This set up laid the foundation upon which impartial customs and traditions grew from generation to generation. It was this Dorbar System that ensured the progress of our culture with the changing times, there was no higher goal than to maintain and perfect the system, but today we have eclipsed our development in the wake of our enlightenment. It was perhaps in the mid twentieth century that the decline of our cheerfulness began to be noticed. We were happy monsters then not the boring sentimentalists we are now. Ask yourself the question, what has become of the instructions contained in the “Ways of Life?” (Ka Jingsneng Tymmen shaphang ka akor Khasi). We need to be clear that who we are comes before who I am, but it’s too late now to hope for a revival of our ways. We could not transform the religions we adopted…they transformed us instead.
Secondly, it was necessary to weigh our ancient customs against the democratic nature of what was being imposed upon us and compare the two because both do not lead to the same goal – one is a progress towards decadence while the other is a progress towards goodness and righteousness. If a Khasi were required to conscientiously choose between the two in the present day, my guess is that there would be an overflowing on the side of democracy because to win anything these days one is required to resort to unethical means to get it…cheating, stealing and lying knowing that an overflowing abundance of forgiveness is available from religion and we have joyfully accepted the democratic ideal that no one is guilty till proven so; whereas the same misdeed would be met with an immediate penalty of some sort in the Khasi tradition and custom. I do not know if there has ever been forgiveness for one’s wrong doing without some form of retribution, penalty or restoration in our Khasi tradition. Our system may have been a monstrous one but it was joyful. One thing it was not – it was not a sentimental bore. That in short summarized us as a nation. We perfected ourselves when we approached nature and broke ourselves when we approached godliness. There are those who would consider differently and that is expected but either way one would be an era of progress the other a time when injustice and inequality grew worse.
But what was the opinion of our ancestors in this regard? In the translated advice of our elders (Ka Jingsneng Tymmen) “if we do not stay in touch with the roots of our customs how will we ever be able to judge the actions of the clan? Our customs are the foundation of a strong character and the clan is the mother of our becoming a nation.” Sadly, we have squandered the opportunity of developing ourselves into a nation with a strong character. Today we have reduced the clan to a formality; how can we progress to becoming more than just another tribe? We are assured of only one thing and that is that our progress in this life will be nothing better than the progress taking place in our domestic animals. Western civilization has made tenderfoots of us as compared to what we were. Some maybe proud in regard to what we are, but we are beside ourselves when we are reminded of what we were.
