Tura (Meghalaya), Sept 1: A true dedication to late PA Sangma would be to follow in his footsteps and his principles, to always keep the nation first, the people first. These were the words of Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma as he urged people to follow the footsteps of his father, probably the tallest and most well-known leader from the Northeast region to date.
Speaking at the 7th P A Sangma Memorial Lecture organized by NEHU, Tura Campus, and the P A Sangma Foundation at the District Auditorium, Tura to remember the Garo leader at his 76th Birth Anniversary, which was also attended by renowned journalist and Editor-in-Chief of The Print, Shekhar Gupta as a special speaker, Sangma recalled his father’s irreplaceable principles and values which he shared with the people present.
“Late PA Sangmaji has been a mentor and a true leader who has really taught us and guided us (his children) to always ensure that whatever we do in life, especially in politics, that it must be with keeping the people first and ensuring that every decision we take is driven by what is good for the people of our state, and of this country,” he reminisced.
He emphasized that PA Sangma was a man who was far beyond what met the eye, and what people read about him and what he did. He talked about the ethics, values and principles taught to them by the late leader, who was also the former Speaker of Lok Sabha, and that these will live on beyond his and their lifetime.
“We look at the foundation stones, we look at this auditorium built by him in 1988, and we remember, yes, Mr. PA Sangma built this. These are just infrastructure or certain parts of what he built. But it is the different values, the different kind of principles, the different kind of thoughts that he had shared with us which will continue to live on, go on even beyond his lifetime and beyond our lifetime also, these ideas that he brought in, I think those are the real contributions that he has made to our people,” he said.
Urging people especially the young ones to learn about and emulate the life of PA Sangma through is teachings and values, he stressed, “A true dedication to him, a great memory for him, and the way to remember him the most would be to follow in his footsteps, footsteps of loving his people, in his footsteps of maintaining his principles, and the footsteps of always remembering that you should keep the nation first, the people first. I think these are irreplaceable principles and values.”
Renowned and veteran journalist, Shekhar Gupta, remarked that PA Sangma had left too early and that a lot of left to be done for the tribal population of India. He also recalled his time in the Northeast as a young correspondent of a national newspaper in early 1980s and lamented that he travelled to many parts of the region but hardly travelled inside Meghalaya and not once to Garo Hills despite being stationed in Shillong.
He highlighted that fact that India’s 8 percent population is tribal, representing around 10-11 crore people, which means India has the largest tribal community in the world. Yet there was not a single tribal leader who is presently seen as a pan-India or national leader representing the voice of this population, which is scattered around the country. This is the void left by left PA Sangma, as he had risen to such a stature and was still growing, being seen as a tribal leader who represented all tribals of India.
“There are many tribes; there are tribes in the Northeast, there are larger tribal population in East central India i.e., Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and then there are tribal population in other parts of the country. We have never really had national tribal leader. Because usually, tribal leaders end up being leaders of their own tribe, they don’t become leaders of tribal communities speaking for the tribal cause, tribal point of view, across the country. There have been very few like that and Purno Sangma had risen to that stature, and he was rising in that stature. I thought, given the fact that he was very young, finally India has a pan national tribal leader,” he said.
He further observed that East central India in particular, where there is naxalism, they have tribal leaders there, but a national level leader is still lacking and that is the gap that Purno Sangma left behind.
“He would have been a very active, very powerful, mainstream pan-national politician because nobody, none of us saw him as a leader from the Northeast or as a leader of one tribe, leader of the Garos of the Northeast,” he said, even as he expressed that his passing away was a loss not just to the tribal community but also to India.
Also highlighting the importance of tribal population to the nation, he said tribals are needs to keep India’s cohesion, and someone must talk about them, to educate the rest of India about them and their ways of life.
“You need tribal leaders to keep India’s cohesion… Its 11-12 crores tribal and somebody can speak for them, then sensibilities about tribal, tribal life can come out, which otherwise we tend to not know; because we think ignorance is bliss,” he stressed.
