By Roney Lyndem
Shillong likes to project itself as a progressive, cultured hill city—clean air, scenic roads, a gentle pace of life. Yet for anyone who does not own a car, who relies on walking, or who lives with a disability, injury, or chronic illness, the city tells a very different story.
Shillong is not designed for pedestrians. It is not designed for people with limited mobility. In many ways, it is not designed for all people at all—it is designed for the few and their vehicles, appearances, and a deeply regressive habit of blaming the wrong people for structural failures.
For persons with disabilities, those recovering from injuries, senior citizens, or people living with sciatica, inflammatory arthritis, or similar conditions, moving through Shillong is an exhausting and sometimes humiliating experience. The city silently communicates that if you cannot drive, you do not belong in public space. Walking is not merely inconvenient; it is unsafe, undignified, and often impossible.
From Mawlai to Police Bazaar, from Laitumkhrah to Madanriting, proper footpaths are either absent or badly designed. Where footpaths do exist, they are frequently so narrow that two pedestrians cannot pass comfortably.
In many areas, they are uneven, broken, abruptly ending, or blocked by railings that are supposedly meant to “protect” pedestrians but in practice restrict movement even further. For someone using a walking aid, crutches, or a wheelchair, these paths are not just inconvenient—they are unusable.
The irony is cruel. In the name of safety, railings are installed that force people to step down repeatedly, navigate sharp turns, or climb unnecessary elevations. Footpaths near schools, hospitals, and busy localities often include high steps and poorly planned gradients, making them inaccessible to exactly the people who need them most. As a result, pedestrians—especially those with mobility challenges—are pushed onto the road, forced to compete with cars and two-wheelers. This is not a matter of personal choice; it is a failure of engineering, architecture, and governance.
Yet the public conversation rarely focuses on this. Instead, the blame is repeatedly shifted onto the weak, the easily targetted like the hawkers.
Hawking is portrayed as the primary reason walking in Shillong is difficult. This narrative collapses the moment one looks honestly at the city’s infrastructure. Even in areas without hawkers, walking remains hazardous. Roads are poorly maintained, footpaths are illogical, and vehicles routinely occupy pedestrian space. Cars and two-wheelers park on footpaths with impunity, yet there is little outrage about this daily encroachment. The selective anger reveals not a concern for walkability but a comfort with blaming economically vulnerable groups.
Public Works Department repairs are sporadic, opaque, and seemingly disconnected from lived realities. Potholes linger for months. Dug-up roads remain half-finished. Temporary fixes become permanent hazards. There is no coherent vision of pedestrian movement as a right rather than an afterthought. Infrastructure is treated as something to be patched up for appearances, not designed for long-term public use.
Street lighting offers another example of neglect. In many areas, streetlights are missing, poorly placed, or constantly flickering. For pedestrians, especially women, elderly people, and persons with disabilities, this is not a minor inconvenience but a safety risk. Darkness magnifies every uneven surface, every unexpected step, every passing vehicle. Yet this issue rarely makes headlines because it does not lend itself to easy outrage or sensational blame.
The absence of basic public amenities further exposes the hollowness of development claims. Public toilets are scarce, limited to a few pockets of the city. Dustbins are inadequate or missing, yet cleanliness is constantly moralized and blamed on citizens. Crossing zones with functioning traffic light systems are non-existent, forcing pedestrians to gamble with speeding vehicles. The city demands discipline from its people while failing to provide the infrastructure that makes discipline possible.
The situation becomes even more absurd during the rainy season. Shillong’s monsoon exposes years of poor planning as roads transform into pools, rivers, and ponds—entirely man-made disasters. Flooded footpaths and roads force pedestrians into deeper danger. School students wade through waterlogged streets daily, their safety apparently too mundane to qualify as news or office gossip. These realities are normalized because they do not fit into dramatic narratives of moral decline or urban disorder.
What is striking is how little public outrage exists around these issues. The reason is uncomfortable but clear: poor infrastructure affects everyone, across class lines, and therefore cannot be easily weaponized against a single group. It does not offer the pleasure of finger-pointing. Hawkers, by contrast, provide a convenient target—visible, vulnerable, and politically safe to blame. This regressive mindset allows society to avoid confronting systemic failure while preserving a sense of moral superiority.
Meanwhile, large sums of money are pumped into “beautification” projects across Meghalaya. But beautification rarely means usability. It means nameplates, welcome signage, decorative installations, and the glorification of a selectively imagined past. Monoliths are erected while toilets remain absent. Signboards multiply while dustbins disappear. Heritage is aestheticized, not lived. The needs of people navigating the city today—children, persons with disabilities, workers, pedestrians—are sidelined in favour of symbolic gestures.
This obsession with surface-level beauty reflects a deeper regressive attitude: the belief that looking developed matters more than functioning humanely. True development would prioritize accessible footpaths, safe crossings, reliable lighting, and basic sanitation. It would treat walking as a legitimate mode of transport, not a nuisance. It would recognize that a city’s moral character is revealed not in monuments but in how it treats its most vulnerable users.
Shillong’s infrastructure crisis is not merely technical; it is cultural and political. It is sustained by a public discourse that prefers gossip over accountability and blame over introspection. As long as society finds comfort in targeting the powerless instead of demanding structural reform, nothing will change. Private Cars will continue to dominate, pedestrians will continue to suffer, and people with disabilities will continue to be erased from public planning.
The question, then, is not why Shillong is difficult to walk in. The question is why this reality is tolerated—and why regressive thinking keeps redirecting anger away from those responsible. Until Meghalaya confronts both its infrastructural failures and the attitudes that excuse them, the city will remain hostile to those who walk, those who hurt, and those who simply wish to exist in public spaces.
(The writer is a Shillong-based counsellor, activist, and writer, known for his strong commitment to mental health awareness and social justice)
