Namaste Friends,
This is the first chapter of a three-part series about my travel through the conscious landscapes of Meghalaya, where the spirit of the forest-world still galvanizes in response to those who seek urgent answers to our contrived world. In this series, I am constantly spindling through the invisible threads that connect Khasi ecotheology, ecopolitical worldview, matrilineal indigenous philosophies, and the wild, ecstatic beauty and truth that I stumbled upon while visiting those terrains. This narrative is intentionally juxtaposed alongside the modern prisms of post-colonial and post-capitalistic ideologies. In this series, I am going to talk about Meghalaya on the premise of the ecological, spiritual, social, historical — all complexities sifted through my deeply personal lens.
“No way was clear, no light unbroken, in the forest. Into wind, water, sunlight, starlight, there always entered leaf and branch, bole and root, the shadowy, the complex.”
- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word for World is Forest
I.
The historical and cultural wounds that the Khasis have survived in the past are manifold. Their representation has been ignored in the collective history of India. The Khasi traditional wisdom was hijacked by the colonial advent of Christianity. And while the Khasi chiefs remain to this day, the first rebels who fiercely revolted against colonial occupation1, the stories of their prowess and courage remain massively overshadowed by the rest of mainland’s freedom struggle history. I, who have known and loved people from this region, find myself in a unique position to offer my voice to their story while actively fighting the fear and prejudice that my part of the country carries toward these beautiful people. The ruptured capillaries of trust among us are a reflection of the postcolonial internalization of cultural wounds inflicted by our former colonizers.
The phantoms of their mistrust in indigenous wisdom still haunt our cultural pulse, as their language still shapes our world. The split and tumult are reflective of how colonialism limited nuanced understanding and prevented inter-regional ideologies from harmoniously prevailing among the people of a multicultural region. These patterns are still relevant in most former colonies of the world. They are vividly apparent in the communal unrest that led to the bloodiest partition in the history of this subcontinent. It is sad to observe what such colonial inception of communal and territorial mistrust has done to Palestine and Israel.
So I offer this series of essays as a prayer, a humble attempt to understand, and an eventual surrender to the mystical and intricate wisdom of Khasi ecotheology and worldview. This series is dedicated to my Shillong friends, who have warmly invited me into their worlds and shared with me a thousand fleeting joys and a big portion of their Khasi hearts.
It would be unfair to say that I knew Shillong for the first time when I visited it for the first time. Because sometimes places secretly assume a pair of legs and a thrumming heart and go looking for another home in another part of the world. Places are people en masse of all the footsteps their ancestors once tread. They are all the paths winding down history’s alleyways—further, longer, and darker. All their collective myths and traditions are wrapped into this one single individual we call a person. And then you find them—the people, and they take you to the places within them. So yes, I knew Shillong to some extent before I arrived there, in the form of friends who belonged to the Khasi-Garo community and acquaintances I had the fortune to know.
We could have flew to Shillong directly from Kolkata, but I insisted, due to some veiled ‘superstition’, as my husband likes to call it, that we fly to Guwahati2 instead and then take a cab through its picturesque wetlands into the rolling hills of Shillong. I lament the fast-turning hands of the clock and its refusal to slow down as we zoomed past the gorgeous wetlands.
The day was heavy with dark clouds gathering on the brink of bursting into showers. This is Assam, here when it rains, it pours. This land knows water like its second nature. As we crossed the Borsola Beel3, it stared right back at me. It’s stagnant green shrouded in floating hyacinths, looked almost provoked to climb through the edges of the highway and flow right under our car. It had such character that I was enraptured by its life. Sprawling fishing villages were raised around the beel as it ran through the plains and connected to one of the Brahmaputra’s tributaries. Little waterfront cottages ran across its length. The other side of the plains opened up to acres of farmland where river-fed vegetation, mainly paddy, grew abundantly. Life simbiotically proliferated in these magnificent wetlands—fishes kept the wetland free of waterborne insects, while their waste fed the ecosystem of hydrophytes. While drifting through these beautiful floodplains, I caught glimpses of storks and humans with their respective entrapments, waiting patiently for their next meal to find them.
One of the wonders of observing, even as a passerby, a new ecosystem is that the newfound sense of wonder can awaken a meaningful insight. The ingenious ways in which nature engineers itself within a particular ecosystem, and the human need to establish undulated order in response to nature’s relentless chaos, are a privilege to behold. It is one of the prime motivations for me to travel.
The Guwahati–Shillong highway is a story in itself. It is one of the most ecologically diverse transition corridors of the world. The highway cuts through the floodplains of Assam on the left and the rising escarpments of Meghalaya on the right. It lies on an ecotone (transition zone), almost like a liminal space between two worlds. This transitional horizon is a habitat for migratory birds like hornbills and waterfowls. The highway intersecting forests on both sides acts as a crossing corridor for macaques, hoolock gibbons, and Asian elephants. It is here that the two sects of agrarian communities unite. On the Assam side, wetland and fishing cultivation are the root of life, while on the Meghalaya side, Khasi and Jaintia tribes can be found practicing shifting cultivation, broom grass cultivation, and maintaining sacred groves. At the threshold of this ancient world, I found myself for the first time, gaping and awestruck as my existence intersected with it all.
II.
Meghalaya is one of the most beloved of the Seven Sisters States that make up the proud North-Eastern frontier of India. The name Meghalaya finds its roots in Sanskrit, drawn from megha, meaning “cloud,” and ālaya, meaning “abode.” Together, they evoke the image of a land cradled in mist and sky. Meghalaya, the Abode of Clouds.
Meghalaya is a biogeographic wonderland that forms a unique transitional landscape, where the Indian subcontinent meets the Indo-Malayan and Indo-Chinese realms, and where the Himalayan ranges brush against the edge of Peninsular India. From lush tropical rainforests in the foothills to alpine meadows and cold deserts, the biodiversity here is staggeringly rich. Meghalaya is also part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot, one of just four such hotspots in India and among 34 globally recognized for their ecological significance. With its remarkable species diversity and high levels of endemism, the state stands as a crucial sanctuary for conservation efforts and ecological reverence.
It is also home to Mawsynram, a village nestled in the East Khasi Hills, which holds the distinction of being the wettest place on Earth. This highland hamlet receives an astonishing average of nearly 11,900 millimetres (466.9 inches) of rainfall each year, earning it a place of awe on the global climate map.
The name of Meghalaya’s capital city, Shillong, is derived from Lei Shyllong—a revered deity believed to dwell on the Shillong Peak. Within Khasi cosmology4, Lei Shyllong is seen as a divine protector, watching over the land and its people, shielding them from natural disasters and outside harm. The Shillong Peak, considered the deity’s sacred abode, holds deep spiritual significance. Rituals and offerings are made there to honor Lei Shyllong, seeking his favor for the safety and prosperity of the community. This veneration reflects the Khasi people’s profound spiritual bond with their environment, where hills, forests, and peaks are seen as sacred entities imbued with life and presence.
This worldview reflects in both Khasi ecotheology and Meghalaya’s nature-centric politics. Meghalaya is one of the very few states in India with 70% of its land area under thick tropical forest cover. These forested lands are conserved by the indigenous people as they belong to their ancestry as sanctified lands and residences of Gods. There exist more than a hundred sacred groves in Meghalaya.
The creation myth of the Khasi heritage is similar to any other indigenous creation myth that tackles the lingering suspicion of the supernatural while grappling with nature’s beauty and horror. It is the same timeless commune between the interpersonal and the cosmic, the daily and the spiritual. The Khasi are one of the few last surviving matriarchies in the world. And like most matriarchies in the world, Khasi culture heavily relies on the wisdom of oral traditions. For the Khasis, spoken words invoke magic into history, lores, myths, legends, parables, and songs.
The creation myth goes as follows:
“In the beginning, there was the Word. The Word became energy. Energy became being. Time walked across the silence of an empty earth; Ramew, still and bare. Over eons, soil hardened into stone—Basa. From this sacred binary, earth and stone, life stirred.
The lifeless earth, aching for kinship, pleaded with the divine: Ka Meihukum, the Mother Decree, and U Thawkur, the Creator. Their union birthed sound, vibration that quickened the void. From this meeting of Ramew and Basa, five elemental children emerged: the sun (Ka Sngi), moon (U Bnai), air (Ka Lyer), water (Ka Um), and fire (Ka Ding). This great unfolding and the Pur (spread) and Bthei (burst), it formed the Pyrthei, the living world.
In time, the earth clothed herself in green. Plants grew, died, and decayed. From the rot, creatures crawled—worms, insects, and evolving beings, marking the sacred dance of life. All existence sprang from the generative force of duality—male and female, light and dark, matter and spirit.
To regulate this growing complexity, Mother Earth birthed two guardians: Pyrthat (Thunder), ruler of the skies, and Jumai (Earthquake), keeper of the depths. Together with the first five, they became the seven forces of life: five to nourish, two to balance.
Yet chaos lingered. So the divine called forth the Khadhynriew Trep Khadhynriew Skum—Sixteen Huts. From them, seven celestial human families descended through the golden bridge, Jingkieng Ksiar, and arrived at Sohpetbneng, the navel of heaven, to steward life on earth.
Thus began the sacred pact: a world held in balance, where every being was given a gift to survive, a song to sing in harmony with land, sky, and spirit.”
’U Khasi U im bad ka mariang bad ka mariang ka im ha u’
“A Khasi lives with nature and nature lives with him”
H. Onderson Mawrie, prominent Khasi writer and defender of Khasi worldview, from his book Ka Pyrkhat U Khasi (On the Khasi Mind)
III.
As apparent from the creation myth, Khasi theology is an amalgamation of both polytheistic and animistic worldviews that reveres natural forces as rulers of life and destiny. “The Khasis view nature as something sacred and sublime which has an intrinsic value of its own, and it is also considered the most sanctified creation of God, hence everything that lives on it is also regarded as possessing an inherent value,” explains Khasi philosophy research scholar Banyllashisha Kharbuli. Since the inception of their ecocentric spiritual life, the Khasis have never seen nature as a docile bounty of resources.
For the Khasi people, nature is not an object apart from them but a living presence, the most sacred expression of the divine and the channel through which the divine speaks to humanity. Their worldview rests on this oneness, where God, human beings, and the natural world cannot be separated.
“Mei Ramew,” or Mother Earth, is their affectionate way of referring to nature as a characterized entity. She is seen as both a nurturer and a guide. This reverence shapes their stories, values, and ethics, where every human action is measured against the laws of nature. To the Khasis, nature is not only a giver of life but also a moral witness, with the power to bless harmony or discipline transgression.
The Khasis have been forest-dwellers since time immemorial. The umbilical bond with nature runs strong and deep in the Khasi way of life, where forests are the cradle that protects human sustenance. Humans are then but stewards and guardians of this eternal gift for their future generations. The Khasis do not recognise the Western idea of human supremacy over nature as an ethical worldview.
In folklore, trees like U Diengiei, the giant tree, carry lessons of morality and spirit. Sacred Groves (Law Kyntang) are revered as the dwelling places of deities and ancestral spirits, safeguarded through ritual care and the guidance of priests (Lyngdoh).
The forest also sustains material culture. It provides bamboo and wood for crafting musical instruments, natural dyes for weaving, and resources for traditional weapons such as bows and arrows. In every stage of life, the forest is present: a bamboo splinter to cut the cord at birth, gourds of liquor exchanged at marriage, bamboo mats and biers at death.
Beyond culture and ritual, the forest feeds and heals. Tubers, fruits, mushrooms, and wild edibles, often named with the prefix Ja, are part of everyday sustenance. At the same time, generations have preserved deep knowledge of medicinal plants and herbs, making the forest both a kitchen and an apothecary.
IV.
The interlaced way of life pervades into a unique land revenue system that encourages communal sharing of land as the most efficient way of coexistence. Land in Khasi is called Ri. Hence, Ri Raid refers to land held collectively by a community and managed under its authority. Every member of the community has the right to occupy and use this land without paying revenue, whether the community consists of a single village or a cluster of villages. No individual has full ownership, nor can the land be inherited or transferred as private property. Whatever the land is used for, whether infrastructure or cultivation, the rights to use it are equally distributed among the members of the community.
The Khasi story is important because it interjects us on our path to ‘technological greatness’ and poses a unique question as we look into the face of a post-capitalistic world built on the pillars of extractivism and greed: Will it ever be enough? As we hurtle toward the greatest mass extinction since the Eocene and irreversible climate change, we need to answer back to the Khasi and innumerable other indigenous ways of life, whether we want to or not.
Having said that, Meghalaya has now, for several years, been under the tight grip of the eradication of traditional values and the political confluence of real estate and hospitality giants seeking to privatize their Mei Ramew for commercialized infrastructure. Needless to say, the fight Khasis are putting up to preserve their Ri Raid and Law Kyntang comes at an immense cost. At this crossing point of planetary-spiritual crisis, perhaps we should look at the Khasis, the last surviving vanguards of nature’s agency, to learn the courage to take a stance against the prevalent systems and dominant narratives of our times.
https://highlandpost.com/the-truth-about-the-first-indian-war-of-independence/
State capital of Assam
Borsola Beel is a prominent wetland located in the heart of Guwahati, spanning around 25 acres. It forms an integral part of the Bharalu river system that flows through the city.
https://www.folklore.earth/culture/khasi/
Thank you for this first installment of an important and fascinating story, Swarnali. You have done such a wonderful job of setting the scene, describing the environment and the land, and the culture and worldview of its people. I can feel the emphasis on the bond, the relationship between the Khasi and the earth/waters/sky that are part of their world. And I feel the encroachment of colonization, and all the ways it has attempted to steal this sovereignty. I look forward to the next installment.
Thank you. It’s heartening to know there are matriarchal cultures still in existence, one’s deeply entangled with and reciprocating earth’s generosity. I look forward to learning more in your next installment.