For the urban middle-class of Shillong, Indigenous Terre Madre (ITM) was a chance to enjoy themselves, flirt with foreigners, a day to relax and unwind, all-in-all an event to savour (literally). For the rural poor, it meant some money coming their way, some photos taken of them and for the rural elites it meant that they could show up their ”traditional” knowledge and open up ‘their’ villages to outsiders.
Author: Babet Sten
Babet Sten is a researcher and occasional political commentator
Political Profiteering in Meghalaya
It is now out of the bag that NPP and quite possibly all regional parties within the state are unable to defeat the Congress except with outsider firepower i.e. Hindu Majoritarian Right Corporate Development Engine called BJP. Their inability is not only because of inept and incompetent leaderships but because they are unwilling to be game changers. By this I mean that these regional parties are as moribund in their love of hierarchy, money power and political capture as the INC. They are still trying to beat the Congress at its own game, a game which is already rigged from the start. They have no ideology worth mentioning (and no accountability to the people) so they continue this farce which has two big seasoned players within it as team captains – the national giants, BJP and INC.
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