Destination to the Asia’s cleanest village, the Mawlynnong is not about my journey as a normal routine traveler but I was trying to explore out the relationship between human & environment as a paradigm shift from a Remote Rural Habitation to an advance eco-tourism heaven of the continent by evolving a dynamic rural entrepreneurship mindset to extract the key natural resources as a livelihood ingredient & the prevailing ecosystem & its biodiversity as an economic wheel to prosperity.

1. Mawlynnong Asia’s Cleanest Village; A model
Rural Eco-Tourism
Kumar Deepak
(Environmentalist)
environ.deepak@gmail.com

2. Destination to the Asia’s cleanest village, the Mawlynnong is
not about my journey as a normal routine traveler but I was
trying to explore out the relationship between human &
environment as a paradigm shift from a Remote Rural Habitation
to an advance eco-tourism heaven of the continent by evolving a
dynamic rural entrepreneurship mindset to extract the key
natural resources as a livelihood ingredient & the prevailing
ecosystem & its biodiversity as an economic wheel to prosperity.
It was around 10 a.m. when I departed from Shilong. I was
said to reach within 2-3 hrs, covering a distance of around
100kms from the State Capital of Meghalaya. The demographic
transition of this State is occupied by three exclusively
dominant tribes, the Garo, Khasi & Jayantia. Mawlynnong is
situated in close proximity to the Bangladesh over the East
Khasi range, dominated by Khasi tribes.

4. While travelling, I easily reached at a conclusion that the
economic prosperity of the State of Meghalaya is at most a
gender driven. Women are the core economic driver in their
matriarchal society. It’s been an exceptionally amazing view of
India where three-fourth regions are raising a loud voice
against the masculine dominance within the society. When gender
specific atrocities of heinous degree like rape, domestic
violence, sexual assault at public places, dowry death, female
foeticides etc. have widely been becoming carcinoma in the
majority of the Nation, this tribal matriarchal society is
establishing a new socio-economic paradigm where one traces out
a successful women entrepreneurship at all level of economic
building.

6. I was heading on the roadways to Shilong - Mawlynnnong. Forest
cover over the Khasi mountain range is not only a scenery
satisfaction for the tourists world-wide, but a paradise for
those living in a congested & contaminated urban environment
lacking a natural carbon sink system. Mountain valleys are
covered with the moist deciduous forests with a rich
biodiversity. The way to the cleanest village was, though
imaging in my mind but I was focusing over the rich tribal
adherence in understanding the core idea of the economics of
forest ecosystem & its biodiversity in the wake of rising
natural resources conflict. I agree with the Government’s new
legislation towards restricting the purchase of tribal lands to
the other hands strictly. The new legislation strictly defines
that the tribes shall sell the lands to the specific tribes
only. This legislation is helpful in mitigating the natural
resources conflict. However there is going on a mass scale
mining in this particular mountain ranges that has drastically
been depleting the great forest reserves of this habitation.

7. The concept of ‘cleanliness’ was visible in the rich natural
environment. There were lots of queries going on spontaneously
in my thought process.
 What made this rural habitation is one of the world classes
‘Eco-Tourism’ destination?
 Why is this village of Mawlynnong, the cleanest village in
India & the Asian continent?
 What is the ‘cleanliness’ is all about?
 Why could we not develop such a rural eco-tourism
destination in other parts of India?
 Is that scenery & rich natural ecosystem an attraction for
travelers?
 How a resource deficit rural habitation is becoming a world
class eco-tourism destination?

8. Being an eco-tourism destination the role of local
inhabitants are significantly comprehensive. I entered in
Riwai village, a neighbor village to the Mawlynnong. The
‘Living Root Bridge’ is known as ‘Jingkieng Jri’ in Khasi
language. The ‘Living Root Bridge’ is nothing but an
extension of root system of Bunyan trees forming a natural
living bridge system over the Riwai falls. This ‘Living
Roots Bridge’ has been managed by local Panchayat bodies of
the Riwai Village. The village develops into an eco-tourism
spot & this ‘Living Root Bridge’ is the centre of
attraction for all tourists… The Khasi-Garo-Jayantia chain
is known for oranges production in India.

10. Finally I reached to Mawlynnong at an around 12.45 pm. I
was feeling my dream came true as what I imagined. I was
feeling hungry so entered into a restaurant. It was
beautifully crafted with the bamboo-wooden material. Rice
is the main food ingredient. Non-veg are the major
traditional food component. Being a remote rural tribal
habitation, food is a little bit expansive. Nevertheless I
was satisfied of being a traveler of the India’s sole
global rural eco-tourism destination.

12. The village is an absolute centre of attraction. Each house is
built of naturally extracted bamboo & wooden material. The house
is beautifully designed with naturally grown scenery of flowers
& plants spaces as a garden space surrounding by a territorial
bamboo made boundary. There is a separate sanitation & washroom.
They have a separate guest accommodation as they know of the
fact that their economy is by & large dependent over the
revenues generated from tourism. Each of the homes provides
separate accommodation with fooding & lodging both to the
tourists those desires to stay there for some days.

14. Every house has separate solar plate installation to
generate clean energy. The alternative energy resource
generation has made this village a self-reliant for their
gross energy consumption. The Solar Energy generation
Programme is being run in the association of Donton Solar
House East Khasi Hills which is sponsored by Power System
Operation Corporation Ltd in collaboration with The Energy
Research Institute, TERI. This clean energy development
reduces the load over the conventional electricity supply.
There are somewhere found some wind-mills to integrate its
self-reliance towards accessing clean energy. Every home
has separate structure for rain-water harvesting. Water
conservation is being adopted by all the villagers. WAH
KHURI Integrated Water Development Programme project is
running successfully in the Mawlynnong.

16. Network of Concrete roads are connecting the streets of the
village. There are solar street lamps alongside the roads.
Every house has a bamboo-made dustbin at its exit point.
Use of plastics has strictly been avoided from the day-to-
day habit. Over the period of time, the village was
developed as a sustainable Eco-Tourism destination. The
villagers themselves have enhanced their capabilities to
utilize the potential values as a key to the rural
development. Being a 100% literate village, they adopted an
eco-friendly sustainable simple habit to generate a global
attraction to the travelers. They designed this village as
such that tourists could analyze the significance of a
healthy ecosystem in our life. They install natural
attractions as a viewing site. One of them is the wonderful
Sky View over a bamboo made uphill bridge system around a
high alpine tree from where one can view the Bangladesh
through the green hilly cover. The villagers formed some
beautiful tree houses those are too the centre of
attraction for the tourists. The villagers focus over
developing a sustainable eco-tourism. Therefore they
explored out naturally built sites for the purpose of
inducing sustainability in tourism. The parameters of
cleanliness of the village is its gross act of harnessing
clean energy, restoring, harvesting & conserving water, no
use of plastics, use of bamboo made dust bin, eco-friendly
homes, eco-friendly discipline & behaviour to conserve &
protect the forest ecosystem etc.

18. Being a matriarchal social structure, it’s the best model to
study how women are contributing significantly to develop a
world-class sustainable tourism destination. The role of women
is a part of the current model of green economics. Women role in
the process of rural development has still been in serious
dilemma in major part of India. The cleanest Village of
Mawlynnong is a model for those remote tribal rural habitations
where scarcity of resources has assisted a political baseline
for vote bank engineering, lead to Naxal violence in many parts
of the country. This village has limited production of food due
to deficit productive land holdings. Therefore, the villagers
emphasized over an applied literacy as a value addition to the
rural development. They established this village for the
traveler’s attraction & later on developing into an eco-tourism
destination. The Mawlynnong Panchayat Body demands 50 INR/
Tourist for the management of the village. They have built
restaurant, stalls & other occupations as per traveler’s needs.
Meghalaya Tourism has been managing this destination.

20. The Government of the Meghalaya has significantly been
providing a better road connectivity to reach at the eco-
tourism destination in an easy way. Now the villagers are
importing rice & vegetables from Shilong & nearby areas.
Mawlynnong is a model of modern day’s rural development
through tribal tourism entrepreneurship. If we adopt such
model in other part of rural, remote rural & tribal rural
habitations, we won’t only move forward to attain an
economic prosperity but we would adopt such a sustainable
model to preserve & sustain our ecosystem & its resources
in a long run of development to counter the adversity of
Global Climate Change as well. If we work on installing
clean energy development in our rural settlement, we could
pass the surplus energy to our National grid. Rural
Development is the corridor of our development dividends……