Minister's tell-all story about Meghalaya's militancy in novel

Shillong, May 5 (UNI) Former Meghalaya Home Minister Robert Garnet Lyngdoh turned a storyteller, writing a fictionalised account of the growth of militancy in the state in a novel titled ''Who the Caps Fits''.

The book was released today at the Roots festival by acclaimed novelist from Asom, Mamoni Raisom Goswami, who has been in the forefront to break a peace initiative with the proscribed ULFA.

Mr Lyngdoh, who today took the post of Minister in-charge Higher and Technical Education, was the Home Minister when the two local militant groups - the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council and A'chik National Volunteers Council were at their peak.

The story deals in thinly veiled reference to the Khasi outfit, which is called Meghalaya People's Liberation Army in his novel.

The protagonist is a tribal Khasi aercanut planter and trader from South Khasi Hill of Meghalaya whose only desire is for his son Khrawbor to follow in his footsteps. But Khrawbor is destined to become a ''revolutionary'', fighting for redemption and survival of his land and its people frustrated with governmental corruption and inaction.

Mr Lyngdoh hoped the book would make the people aware about what was going around them.

Commenting on Mr Lyngdoh's first novel, former Chief Election Commissioner James Michael Lyngdoh said, ''The story is tightly woven, and convincing because it has evidently been written by someone familiar with the problem and the system.'' ''If India is taken as a whole, militancy is not much about disenchantment with misgovernance, as with the overcrowding of democracy with geriatrics, leaving space for the young,'' Mr Lyngdoh commented in the former Meghalaya's Home Minister novel.

UNI