By Anjuman Ara Begum,
Guwahati, 24 May 2015: Shillong-based NGOs, Civil Society Women Organisation (CSWO) and Thma U Rangli Juki (TUR) pressure groups have sought more deliberations on the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC) Village Administration Bill 2014, and urged inclusion of all stake holders in the discussion.
The CSWO in a press release issued on May 19, 2015 raised concerns that most of the traditional bodies don’t include women and in some cases women are not even allowed to sit in the Dorbar, the traditional panchayat of Khasi community and hence empowering the headmen of Dorbar will lead to more discrimination against women and human rights violation. The allegations are based on the fact that in many instances headmen are depriving villagers of their basic rights, like right to live, right to food, right to nutrition for children, and right to education etc for women and children and often favour the ruling political party and get away with their malpractices. Complaints against these village headmen regarding the implementation of the schemes are often holed up and don’t receive adequate attention. Women groups are being harassed and anyone close to them is also targeted, alleged CSWO.
For quite some time, efforts have been made by the Central Government to make the Autonomous District Councils in the Sixth Schedule areas more efficient as instruments of democratic decentralization. The Ministry of Panchayati Raj has initiated legal reforms in this regard since 2011. The current Bill is said to empower the grass-roots governance institution in the form of the ‘dorbar-shnong’ by providing constitutional status so that direct funding would be available to the people at the grass-roots in the rural areas.
The CSWO also expressed its objection and questioned the Government of Meghalaya for hurriedly bringing in an Ordinance titled ‘Meghalaya Local Administration (Empowerment of Traditional Institutions, Traditional Bodies, Headmen in Governance Delivery System) Ordinance 2015’ that will implement the Government schemes. According to CSWO, this is a total hogwash when the Government schemes are meant for all and headmen in many villages do not represent women.
CSWO experiences show that many women till date are not paid the wages for the MNREGs scheme and many families do not get the benefit of the ICDS and for fear they do not dare complain. Many single mothers do not have a Ration Card as they failed to get recommended by the headman. Headmen in certain villages are found to be recommending names of rich people to avail of the BPL benefits. Headmen are also found to be hiding information about new projects and schemes in connivance with the politicians to deprive many villagers who choose not to vote them.
Most of this corruption is mainly with knowledge of ruling politicians who post their officials in the Block office and in the Police stations, and Headmen are just a stooge where the main corruption is mostly by Government officials, alleged CSWO.
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The writer is a human rights activist and journalist based in Guwahati.
