Meghalaya: Council election results have a bigger impact than some imagine

The Meghalaya Autonomous District Council (ADC) elections have just concluded and the results, to be honest, are a little surprising. I expected the VPP might do well in the Jaintia Hills Autonomous District Council (JHADC) where they would form the Executive Committee.

In Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), I expected them to win some seats, but the clean sweep they performed by winning 17 seats surprised me.

As the foremost Jaidbynriew party, their victory in JHADC would have reinforced the consolidation of a pan-Khasi identity, which was slightly fractured by the controversy around the state anthem.

I think whether we are Pnar, War, Maram, Bhoi, Lyngngam, or Khynriam, we are all Khasi and I prefer this over Hynniewtrep, which signifies the seven groups that came down from heaven to populate the earth. However, regardless of our preferred terminology, we should not compromise our unity as a people. VPP’s victory in JHADC could have been that unifying factor.

But in terms of the other aspects of jaidbynirew politics, the false victimhood and the othering of non-Khasis blaming them for the problems our people created, I stand in complete disagreement with it. And I will continue to do so.

This election has been one of the status quo being shattered, at least in the KHADC. Before the election results, consensus predicted a fractured house with no single party gaining a majority. In JHADC, that came true with NPP falling short of 3 seats from securing an outright majority.

But in the KHADC, the VPP comfortably cleared that hurdle, paving the way for them to form the EC. It also brings to light the myriad number of factors that had a role to play in this election, which ranged from frustration with the status quo in one corner, but a near consolidation of the ruling party’s influence on the other. Come the 2028 general assembly elections, these factors will play a crucial role in deciding who rules the state. It is important to remember that considering the ADCs depend financially on the state government, winning the assembly election is the bigger prize.

In terms of the frustration in KHADC against the status quo, the rise of VPP reminds me of the rise of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi as an outcome of the Anti-Corruption movement started by Anna Hazare. This movement signalled the rise of Arvind Kejriwal, a former bureaucrat and winner of the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership. His newly formed party swept the Delhi elections and ruled it from 2012 to 2024, losing the election to BJP recently.

It was around the same time my activism was taking shape, which has influenced my choices since then.

Around the time that AAP was making waves in Delhi, I was doing my PhD at the university. I had defended my synopsis and was preparing for my fieldwork. It was around this time I met another research scholar who was staying in the same hostel. Our hostels were cheap but not well kept and needed urgent repair. He had tried to organise the students around the issue but had been unsuccessful.

After becoming convinced that the issue was of utmost concern for all, I offered my help in galvanising the students staying in the hostels around the campus. I roped in some more friends and went on a tour of all the hostels, undergraduate and post-graduate. During this tour, I saw scenes that left me shocked.

The boys’ hostels were in disrepair, which was plain to see, but since the girls’ hostel was out of bounds for outsiders, we didn’t know the condition of their infrastructure. The tour was the first opportunity for us to enter the hostels. When we went to the bathroom, the scene was horrifying. There was green slimy growth all over the wall.

We saw this in a few other hostels as well. Broken windows and condemned floors were common issues across all the hostels. We made a report of all the observations and compiled it into a letter to the University demanding necessary action. We also called for a half-day strike, locking down all the hostels and preventing students from attending classes.

The Vice-Chancellor, prompted by the protest, called an emergency meeting for all hostel students. There was an intense discussion with the administration, but we finally could agree on the timeline for the proposed actions. With that, we ended the protest.

We not only had an altercation with the university administration but with the official student body as well. Our group was not official and included members from the non-Khasi community in important positions. In a meeting with them, some members of the official student body got upset when one of our non-Khasi members raised his voice.

Later, when the meeting got over and I was passing through the canteen on my way to the main road, one of the office bearers threw a plastic bottle towards me filled with water. The bottle didn’t hit me and I looked back. He was standing with his girlfriend, looking at me with anger.

I realised that he was acting brave not because he could take me one to one, but because of the people behind him. So, I decided not to confront him since I knew he would not fight fair.

Then, after a few days, I met with the person who had initially asked me to organise the hostellers. He was our de facto leader and also took the lead in all our discussions. In that meeting, he told us that some teachers were acting against the students’ interests.

He revealed that some were targeting him personally. So, he suggested we should confront those teachers. Reluctantly, we agreed to accompany him since he was our leader.

A group of around half a dozen of us entered the room of one senior teacher. I thought we would sit down and talk it out peacefully. To my shock, our leader banged the table and started accusing the teacher of plotting against the interests of the students. In the commotion, something fell from the table on the ground. I bent down, picked it up, and put it on the table. The teacher, scared, turned to me and asked me to intervene, claiming that he knew me.

I had formed a research forum along with other PhD candidates in my department and we would often organise seminars calling scholars from all departments to share their work. As the general secretary, I used to participate in all such meetings.

So, he has known me since then. Although uncomfortable, I told him he should not have acted against the students. After threatening him, we all left the room and returned to our hostel.

The incident left me visibly disappointed. I realised we had been manipulated into unfairly threatening a senior teacher. Deeply concerned, I met with our leader and informed him I wanted to leave, citing the need to recommence my PhD fieldwork. It was then I was in for another shock. He accused me of trying to betray him and told me I was also working against the student’s interest. Disgusted, I left his room.

Later, when I informed another friend of the incident, he told me our leader was always paranoid and megalomaniacal. Long before the incident, we would call him the Khasi Kejriwal on account of AAP’s leader’s highly dictatorial and paranoid style of leadership. After that, I never met him again.

AAP came to power by accusing everyone of being corrupt and painting themselves as the saviour of Delhi. It has to be admitted that in the first couple of terms, there were positive changes. But from the third term onwards, there were reports of Arvind Kejriwal living lavishly and the revelation of the liquor scam which saw him arrested.
So, there was already pressure on him, which was made worse by his hostile attitude towards his own INDIA partners. Finally, the BJP defeated AAP in the recent Delhi Assembly elections, ending their reign. Kejriwal also tasted defeat. If the AAP government in Punjab falls or cannot win again, it could signal an end to a party which could have played a crucial role in national politics.

We can term the VPP’s victory in the KHADC as an AAP Delhi moment. However, the dynamics here are different because the NPP still has the edge as they control two district councils, JHADC and GHADC.

If the VPP does not perform or fulfil the expectations of the people in the KHADC, the story could very well change. I hope this will create healthy competition among the political parties to do good work so that they can then build their case for 2028. If not, things will change again. And that’s the beauty of democracy.

The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect in any way his affiliation to any organisation or institution.