The April sun has finally fallen overhead in Shillong and the year passes on, the streams and the forests have risen to life again and the two things which are held dear and intimately linked with the Khasis and the Jaintias has come upon us – Easter and Shad Suk Mynsiem. I will not speak about them in this article but will keep my unshakeable peace confined to the subject which I aim to maintain. Sometimes the idea runs through my mind that this peaceful sort of living is an extremely dangerous life, because humanity is nothing short of a machine which is capable of exploding at any moment.
The intensities of these feelings were transformed into reality when I received a video of the VHP rally on Palm Sunday in Shillong which was totally unexpected. It is difficult to write a proper article on the entire rally as everything about it will be pure speculation on my part. I can only surmise that it is a spillover from the rally the VHP conducted in Dispur last Sunday. The administration was caught unawares, the people were perplexed – Hindus included – no one knew from where or when it commenced and where it was proceeding to.
Nobody knew what the occasion was and that being the case the intensity of the feelings of the people who witnessed the procession left them confused and confounded. It just didn’t seem right as the people of Shillong are accustomed to being informed in advance of such rallies or processions. The Puja Committees take out their procession on the occasion of “The Immersion of their Idols” with the full knowledge of the administration and the administration closes roads to the public along the route of the procession, this is also the case when the Catholics conduct their “Ecumenical Procession” as well.
Therefore the procession on the 2nd April by the VHP came as quite a shock to one and all. The elections being over and the people having just begun to settle down with the swearing in of the new government, this sudden procession with slogan shouting came as quite a surprise. This is a complicated and a distressing topic to write on as it is a purely religious one and if one really gets down to the nitty-gritty of it all it would certainly affect the sentiments of some sector of the society, and any conscientious person would desire to avoid such a situation, but questions must be asked.
Was the administration informed of the intended procession, was permission sought and was it granted, was the law and order machinery informed about the procession, and most of all was permission from the Headman of the locality obtained? Is there going to be any follow up on the matter by the administration? And ultimately since we are unable to get any answers to the above questions and if we are to eagerly wait for exhortations, explanations, reasons, etc what do we do in the meantime?
We in Shillong are all too familiar with the sudden chaos that can erupt from innocent and minor misunderstandings e.g. the incidents of 1979 and thereafter, and the people have settled down to a strengthening of the communities and an approval of the different customs that each community adopts without leaving anyone in the lurch as to what and how to go about doing the things they have to do; in brief we have come to understand to rely on each other to maintain peace and harmony in Shillong. But now with this sudden procession we were caught in want of an answer, because what happened was that the organisers of the procession paid no respect to the sentiments and the accepted norms of the people on such matters.
The people are feeling that they have been reawakened to the feeling that they have become insignificant, that nobody cares to grant them the respect they deserve as sons of the soil, that nobody is appreciative of the contributions they are making to the peace and harmony and tranquility of the society and above all that they are no longer respected but regarded as remote-remote-remote who don’t deserve to be considered as equals, but rather to be ignored and bullied.
Under such disparaging treatment and dispensation what can the people take from the facts stated, apart from the fact that this land that they belong to is so intimately close to them and that come what may they will never concede to it being taken away from them; it may not be Kolkata, it may not be Delhi or Mumbai but it is something quite different, at least much more like the people themselves – friendly and serene.
To find a land that resembles this one, one would have to go to god-knows-where to find anything closely similar to these hills and streams and the gods who, we believe, reside in them and whose blessings we invoke to give growth to the vegetation that provides the people with everything they could ever ask for. There is no wonder then that they want to keep this land – this place – for themselves. And they believe that everyone should feel that same feeling for the land they belong to and that people should not leave their lands to go and occupy another; hence the feeling of resentment when the procession on Sunday caught them by surprise.
And now, these matters settled, I shall proceed to say what I wanted to say because I cannot withhold the same. Everyone is desperate to know what was the intention of the organisers of the procession? Are they intending to vanquish our way of life and our belief in the culture and customs of our forefathers under which we were brought up in these hills? Are they intending to disrupt the harmony that we have established with those that share the land with us but who have different gods and goddesses that they turn to?
There are those that turn to Durga for their spiritual and moral well being; there are those that turn to Sikhism, to Buddhism, to Shiv, to Islam and Christianity and above all the traditional worshippers who turn to God the Creator and the Dispenser of what should be and where it should be. If what the processionists were intending was to bring their god into the lives of the people then this was hardly the best way to do it because what they have created is a feeling of resentment among the people.
This religious intolerance that has developed in India in the last ten years could cost us dear, have we not had enough religious bashing in the world and even in our own country that we would want it to be instituted here as well? The horrible omnipotence of religion above other social indices has driven many societies apart and now there are those that cannot be rejoined together because they have become so estranged and in the process happiness and security have been sacrificed so much so that people can no longer relate with others because they believe they belong to a different world – to a different god. These differences have certainly cost many societies dear, and ruined both their mental and physical well being and put many peoples’ lives in danger and disorder and recovering from what has turned out may take decades to reinvent and recreate.
The organisers of the procession would have had to be naïve and coarse to believe that they could impress the people here with their show of strength in colours in numbers and in slogans because whenever anyone has come here with a religious celebration that they follow they have done so in peace and in a grave tranquility which in a way appeals to our finer instincts and our general constructions so much so that we have of our own accord joined in the festivities and the merriment regardless of religion. This is particularly so with regard to the Ramakrishna Missionaries who have established their HQs at Sohra.
We must not forget that any religion basically deceives the people into thinking that there is a higher moral value, a moral improvement that is its monopoly. But throughout the deception of the so-called “moral improvement” that it brings, it seeks to change the way of living and thinking of the people. It awakens in people things they never believed existed before like spirit, soul, heart and an afterlife and in so doing tries to convert them into something to suit its cause even its innate ways, but so far all this has only had a superficial effect and there is no reason to believe that that will change because the people have not become something else from what they already were. Their innate morality remains with them and no matter how much a religion may instruct them on morality they basically remain true to who they are born as.
Take for instance the simple question asked to a Khasi (includes Jaintia) “Are you Khasi or Christian first?” The invariable answer would be, “I am Khasi.” The people have an instinctive knowledge that they cannot become what they are not. They are Khasis first and foremost regardless of whether they adopt Islam, Christianity, Hinduism or anything else. That they cease to perform certain actions, as a Khasi, is a mere consequence of fate that can be interpreted in a number of ways.
Just because the people do not do the things they used to do does not mean they no longer know how to do them – actually not doing them only raises the intensity with which they can be done when the situation demands. Take a look at Hinduism which has a plethora of gods, no one despises the other on the choice of a god. This is so predominant that even members of the same family turn to different gods depending on the nature of their situation or need.
This being so, the natural question one is bound to ask is, why is there this pernicious and shortsighted mode of thought if others worship another god? Why is there this religious intolerance? The truth is that whereas the purpose of religion is essentially towards a moral end, religion is being used as a means to a political end, and that is as counter – productive as it can get in Meghalaya.
