Guwahati: With Assembly polls in Meghalaya due next year, members of some civil society organizations of the state, has floated a new political platform called ‘KAM Meghalaya’.
The objective of the platform is to have a collective and participatory space for citizens’ engagement towards a more equitable, inclusive and just Meghalaya, a statement issued by the forum said.
Around 90 members of civil society groups, unions and individuals gathered in Shillong on June 17 to discuss issues plaguing the state and decided to float the platform.
The new political outfit wants to challenge the sense of hopeless cynicism present in the current political climate in Meghalaya that has sidelined the values of participatory democracy, accountability and honesty.
Angela Rangad, one of the founding members of KAM said, “We must not be forced to choose a lesser evil. We cannot compromise on values of ethics, civility and honesty that we try to instill in our own children.”
Challenging and resisting authoritarianism and fundamentalism that infringe on individual and collective rights and that erode the common good is central to the platform’s aim of democratic renewals and just futures, it said.
With an aim to gather civil society’s voices to intervene in the upcoming state elections, as candidates and voters, KAM proposes the need to identify shared values that are committed to changes that are democratic, pro-people and inclusive, the statement added.
Unity and a commitment to a principled politics of integrity will be needed to challenge the arrangement of power in the state and tilt it towards the people.
Kyrsoibor Pyrtuh, one of the organizers said, “Many of us have always insisted on a deliberative democracy that believes that no movement for change can exist without engagement with ideas and concerns which arise out of common citizens. But ideas in themselves are not some dry intellectual exercise but have to be rooted in actual struggles and movements to challenge power.”