Though belatedly, please allow me to react a little bit on few issues that emanated from what some editorial comments and articles which came out in some print media of Shillong which came out on September 21 on mob violence in the public hearing at the cement plant at Thangskai, on New Parliament House and Modi, and on battling pollution in Shillong.
First of all, the eruption of mob violence at the public hearing at the Thangskai cement plant was indeed unfortunate which we all condemned and should not have happened. The incident has occurred due to failure of the law enforcement authorities to anticipate possibilities of violence that might take place at the event.
Moreover, the failure of police intelligence in gathering knowledge of the mood of the people of the Thangskai areas against acquiring more mining areas deep into the famous Narpuh Reserved Forest area to expand and enrich not only the cement plant in question but nearly ten plus giant cement factories.
Now the important question is who are the primary culprits responsible for the rampant degradation of the famous virgin Narpuh Reserved Forest from 259 square km in 1918 to just around 59 square km today? Apart from others those which gave the legal clearances and licences to operate for the giant cement plants are the Ministry of Environment and Forest, Meghalaya State Pollution Control Board (MSPCB) and Commerce and Industry Department.
The environmental catastrophe that these giant cement plants have caused by way of industrial wastes in the form of air and liquid pollution to the water bodies like the famous Lukha River and land especially to the flora and fauna, and aquatic lives and humans is beyond description. The environmental pollution in Jaintia Hills comes not only from cement plants but most of all from unscientific coal mining and coke factories which keep coming up unabated in spite of the strict laws put in place by the NGT but remained muted by the State authorities.
Now coming to the other issues which emanated from other articles which had appeared in print media on that date the new Sansad Bhavan (Parliament House) and Narendra Modi there is nothing wrong either with the Bhavan or PM Modi. In fact we should all be proud of having the new beautiful Sansad Bhavan built within a record time and with the PM overseeing the construction from time to time to ensure quality of the national asset and time of completion.
What about our Meghalaya Assembly building? Till today we don’t have any even after 22 long years and the new one at Mawdiangdiang may not come into fruition. It seems anything done by or associated with Modi is condemned as bad or taken as saffronisation or Hindutva politics. Are we looking at him and whatever he does with jaundice eyes or what? What is wrong in installing some Indian symbols like Sengol in the Sansad Bhavan?
Perhaps I may not be wrong if Modi will get another term as PM in 2024. The combined opposition, INDIA, it seems, pitches Rahul Gandhi as the PM face but he is far behind compared to the popularity and dynamism of Modi. We all have seen enough how Rahul Gandhi is capable of here at home and when he toured abroad. He is still immature, hot headed, and who talks first and thinks later. In all he is still a lightweight leader in whom we find it difficult to entrust the future of India.
On battling pollution in Shillong I must my kudos to Rishot Baskhem Kharlyngdoh for his recent write up in Highland Post on the subject. He has identified the causes of the pollution in the city and its adjoining areas and suggested how to combat it by calling all inhabitants of Shillong and the suburban areas to restore the cleanliness, freshness and pristine beauty which once Shillong had.
In unison with him I also appeal to all Shillongites let us all cooperate to keep our city clean beginning from our own backyards and surroundings daily by proper collection and segregation of our own garbage in the right bins and relegate the same in the public garbage trucks which punctually come to collect in front of our houses or near our neighbourhood. Yes, we can if we are determined. In this connection I congratulate some NGOs like ‘Shillong I Care’ which volunteered to clean Umkaliar River and other parts. But the rivers and streams in our city are still polluted because the Shillongites do not cooperate.
(The writer is a senior journalist)
