What freedom are we celebrating?

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3 days ago

One of the greatest freedoms that a human can have is to be able to speak truth to power. In a democracy, the voter, no matter their economic status, should be able to lambast non-performing ministers, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats who deprive them of their share of rations, healthcare, nutrition amongst others.
India is in its 78th year of independence, but look at the human development indices and one sees a large chunk of the population below the poverty line.
This is especially true of the tribal states of India's North East where when we started off we all had a piece of land to call our own. There were community and clan lands that were distributed to individuals who started a family. The community helped in building a hut, timber was cut from community forests and there were no labour charges so expenses were manageable.
The British, with their superior intelligence, found it rather tedious to have to bargain for land with the Khasi tribal communities and institutions. They preferred to negotiate with individuals and that's how the Khasi chieftains (Syiems), who were the head of the clan, were given some sort of a royalty status. There was no such concept of royalty among the Khasis of Meghalaya. Gradually, land was commodified and the British negotiated with the Syiems instead of the community. That was the beginning of the commodification and privatisation of land in Meghalaya and other tribal states.
When something is turned into a commodity, it can be bought and sold at random. In the last socio-economic caste census of 2011, Meghalaya had 76% rural inhabitants who were landless. Today there may be more.
It is not as if these lands have been alienated to non-tribals, who, in any case, cannot buy land in Meghalaya as per the Meghalaya Land Transfer Act 1971, other than in the 100 sq km radius of what is called the European Ward of Shillong. Land can be alienated for building educational, health institutions and other institutions 'if they are in tribal interest.' But a look at the ground realities today shows that land has been rapidly gobbled up by a tribal elite, especially those in politics and business.
Attempts had been made in the past by one of Meghalaya's visionary chief ministers to bring in a cadastral survey that would take stock of who owned how much land. There was stiff resistance to this proposal and the reasons are not far to seek. Even then a tribal elite had emerged that had an insatiable greed for land. They didn't want that to become public knowledge.
Today, Meghalaya is among the worst states in terms of human development indices, educational outcomes and has poor nutritional levels. The latest Performance Grading Index, released by the Centre in June, shows Meghalaya at the bottom of the heap. Discussions on this continue but with no political will to change the status quo.
It is not as if the status of education in other states is any better. It is just that Meghalaya has 14,582 schools while Tripura, with a larger population, has only 4,929. Many of these schools in Meghalaya are non-performing: 206 schools have no students and 2,269 schools have less than 10 students.
In what are called deficit schools, where teachers' salaries are paid by the government, 18 schools have zero enrolment and 1,141 have single-digit enrolment. It is a pitiable status of education in the 21st century. Rationalising these institutions by closing down the non-performing ones would have political repercussions hence no one wants to touch this problem with a barge pole. It takes strong political will to take far-reaching decisions, but that's a tall order.
Education, which is the ladder to enlightenment and empowers citizens to question the powers that be, is simply not available to large sections of the population. School drop-out rates are on an upswing and teenage girls, whose parents cannot afford to keep them in school, become stay-at-home workers devoid of ambition and then get sexually involved with another teenaged boy or man. The result is pregnancy and a teenaged mother unable to care for herself but having to mother a child. The preponderance of teenage mothers in Meghalaya and their being abandoned to become single mothers is the prime reason for the state's high poverty level. And this is a matrilineal society, which is romanticised as a haven for women. But the hidden nuances of patriarchy are alive and kicking here.
In such a situation, how can we expect people to question and seek accountability from the elected representatives? Poverty makes people listless and believe they are powerless as they can only think about where their next meal will come from. Elections are a windfall as politicians bribe them with money for votes. Even something as little as Rs 500 is good enough to buy at least 20 kg of rice.
Democracy requires enlightened voters who make informed choices, not choices influenced by freebies. Hence, even those who find their names excluded from the electoral rolls are not likely to speak up. They will just stay home on election day and not even mourn their fates.
The hullabaloo created by the Congress over the special intensive revision of electoral rolls by the Election Commission has received scant attention in Meghalaya. Voting decides our citizenship status but means little for people living in abject poverty.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its plethora of schemes may have reached the states of the North East but their implementation leaves much to be desired. In fact, the claims by Jyotiraditya Scindia, minister of the Development of North Eastern Region Ministry, that Rs 5 lakh crore was invested from 2014-2024 to transform the North East, is largely all talk. Where that money was invested and what visible changes that investment has wrought are questions that are not asked.
One question that begs an answer is why the Centre does not monitor schemes and why road projects in the North East are never completed within deadlines thereby leading to time and cost overruns and revision of rates. The quality of such roads and highways also leaves much to be desired.
At the end of the day, what freedom do we really enjoy when half-baked schemes are dumped on a region that requires a different and more nuanced approach to development? The Development of North Eastern Region ministry is hardly visible through its outreach and there is no common development vision for the region. Each state is a law unto itself.
The very fact that Manipur, which went into a vicious cycle of violence since May 2023, has not seen the face of the prime minister who instead travels abroad to lesser known destinations to ostensibly preach peace is the basest of ironies.
Manipur remains in a state of uncertainty with several thousands living in relief camps but the country and its prime minister have all but forgotten them. What would freedom mean for people struggling to live life in a relief camp for over two years? Does anyone care? Do even fellow Indians care? Yet, the 'har ghar tiranga', echo is mindlessly drummed into the heads of unquestioning citizens. Truly, freedom has become a meaningless echo.
On that note, happy Independence Day, and may we rise from the ashes to question those entrusted with public funds on how much is actually going towards human development.