The shift of the Meghalaya Assembly, Secretariat and other government offices to New Shillong cannot come soon enough.
A clear demonstration that Shillong is not made to be shared between ordinary citizens and VIPs was witnessed on Thursday with the North Eastern Council’s plenary session taking place here.
These NEC sessions are a particular pain in terms of logistics because all eight Governors from the North East, their Chief Ministers, senior civil servants, Union ministers, military officers and others attend.
India as a whole has a huge problem with VIP culture but Shillong shows how much worse it can be in a cramped hill town. Roads were blocked off, diversions put in place and traffic even brought to a total halt to allow these honoured few to traverse our roads unhindered. The ride would have been a smoother one that most commuters in Shillong are accustomed to because the government did a hurried patch-up job on our many potholed roads yesterday in honour of the visiting dignitaries.
The powers that be did not appear to take us ordinary folk into consideration. Otherwise they could have scheduled this meeting on a weekend or even declared today a public holiday. Heaven knows the state government was able to close schools for a Durand Cup football match a couple of years ago just to reduce traffic. And why the session had to be held in the heart of Shillong instead of at a rural retreat far from the madding crowd needs to be explained.
VIP culture is inherently unfair and deplorable. If this sort of thing was a one-off moment that might make it more tolerable but, in effect, the hoi polloi have to endure these insults to a more minor degree every single day.
All ministers, senior civil servants, cops or military officers get a police escort today and the common man has to self-shunt him/herself to the side of the road to let them pass. Government vehicles with their privileged ML 01 and ML 02 licence plate numbers are often used for non-official purposes, such as ferrying the higher-ups’ children from school. A case in point: a Highland Post reporter on his way to a wedding reception had to make way for a siren-using Director General of Police on the road one evening recently only to see her at the same wedding when he reached!
The public are fed up with this kind of behaviour that prioritises the privileged.
Yes, there are security considerations when it comes to VVIPs but this trampling on the rights of the general public should not be the default setting. However, it will be tough to get rid of. After all, what self-respecting VIP does not want to ride about on a gust of wind, with the peasants scattering before them? Let them have their convoys and their sirens. But please move them out of Shillong and to the NST.
