A voice in the dark: Agnes Kharshiing remains undeterred as she awaits a response to her latest RTI application with the Urban Affairs department about land acquired for an upcoming medical college in Shillong.
New Delhi: I didn’t know of Madalyn Murray O’ Hair until a feature film on her life, The Most Hated Woman in America dropped on Netflix. She was irreverent; she had a mind of her own, questioned the practice of blindly following social norms and took on those in power. In her case, it was the American government imposing the Lord’s prayer in public school classrooms. For America’s democracy, this was a huge win, as it was for O’ Hair. But for the dominant Christian electorate of 1960s America, she was an anarchist.
When I meet 59-year-old Right to Information (RTI) activist, Agnes Kharshiing in Shillong, she reminds me of O’ Hair. Kharshiing, who was still bound to her bedroom, had survived a blunt force trauma 7-9 cm deep on the scalp by a mob a year ago when she had been investigating the illegal transportation of coal in Meghalaya. The attack pitched the spotlight firmly on the danger posed by the coal mafia in the state to those who dared to speak up against them. But far from deterring her, the near-death experience only emboldened Kharshiing. She had been investigating the illegal mining of coal in the state, known for its coal reserve of about 640 million tonnes, for five years, after the National Green Tribunal took cognisance of the many complaints filed against the industry and ordered the sealing of the mines in 2014. In July this year, the Supreme Court of India passed an order that allowed mining to resume in Meghalaya, in compliance with central mining laws.
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