Modi's campaign speech in Assam displayed ignorance about ground realities

Politicians from mainland India, bogged down by their own mainstream and patronising narrative of what development or nationalism ought to mean, hardly ever get the ground situation right as far as the Northeast is concerned. All the more so with Assam, an anthropoligist’s dream-come-true and a demagogue’s proverbial nightmare.

This was amply evident from the cavalier way in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off the election campaign for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Kokrajhar on Tuesday. What he said at the rally spoke a lot about his lack of understanding of the ethnic equations in the state, and what he didn’t say in turn screamed considerably about the shape of things to come. And add to this the backdrop by the strikes that greeted him, and the bandhs that followed.

Modi dished out his over-played development card and held the Congress responsible for the lack of any. But if Kokrajhar, which has seen innumerable ethnic clashes both between Bodos and Santhals on the one hand and Bodos and Bangladeshi Muslims on the other, was chosen as the launchpad for obvious political reasons, then he certainly played the wrong card.

First, Modi avoided speaking about the Rs1,000 crore package that the Bodo People’s Front (BPF) claims has been assured to the Bodo Territorial Area District (BTAD), which is spread over the contiguous districts of Kokrajhar, Baksa, Udalguri and Chirang. The BJP has been trying to ride piggyback on the BPF, which played kingmaker after the 2011 Assembly polls by throwing its 12-member lot with the Congress. The BPF has since severed ties with the Congress, and is looking at doing an encore with the BJP this time. But by dissing the BPF publicly, Modi didn’t do a favour to the fledgling alliance which can tilt the balance in the 126-member Legislative Assembly.

Then again, even if one were to assume that Modi was there only to address the concerns of Bodos, by not speaking about reconciliation and rehabilitation, he ignored the same Bodos whose votes he had come to solicit. He turned a blind eye to the fact that Bodo villagers too have to flee their homes and put up in camps during and after riots. If Modi couldn’t speak even for Bodos, little wonder he ignored others in the bargain, Bangladeshi Muslims and Santhals for instance.

He sidestepped the Bodo statehood issue as well, possibly at the instance of the BPF. True, Bodoland may not be administratively practical or politically feasible, but that doesn’t mean that the demand has faded away. Even as Modi was in Sikkim ahead of the Assam leg of his tour, three Bodo organisations raised the statehood call all over again. The All-Bodo Students Union (ABSU), the National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Progressive (NDFB-P) (the insurgent group that favours talks), and the Peoples Joint Action Committee for Bodoland Movement (PJACBM) reminded Modi of the promise made by the BJP in its 2014 poll manifesto.

The ABSU, which spearheaded the Bodoland agitation with the Bodo Peoples Action Committee (BPAC) in the 1980s and 1990s, is a pale shadow of itself, and has ceded considerable political ground to the BPF. The BPF was formed by members of the militant Bodoland Liberation Tiger Force (BLTF) which came overground with the February 2003 memorandum of settlement, and is uncomfortable with the ABSU raising the statehood bogey time and again. The statehood issue does not have much currency among the Bodos any more, but it rankles. It does so as none of the issues have gone away. The militant offshoots are way too splintered and residual selves of their past to be able to have any impact on popular discourse. But still, militancy needs to be addressed. In fact, the BPF had wanted Modi to speak about militancy as well; but he didn’t.

To compound the situation, Modi announced the decision to grant Scheduled Tribes status to Karbis living in the plains of the state and the Bodos in the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao. This has already incensed the Koch-Rajbongshis, who have been demanding ST status for ages. As it is, the Koch-Rajbongshi United Forum, O-Bodo Suraksha Samiti and Biswajit Ray faction of the All Koch Rajbongsi Students Union (AKRSU) had called a public strike on the day of Modi’s visit. This followed a highway bandh called by the Karbi Students Association (KSA) and others in protest against the move to accord Sixth Schedule status to Bodos in Karbi Anglong. 

The most gross act of omission was that of Modi not uttering a single word about the Bangladeshi issue. He had time and again in the run up to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections whipped up hysteria and hatred, but has since been silent. All the more so since the accord with Bangladesh on the issue of enclaves. The tension in the Bodo-majority areas is still palpable, and distrust still festers. Agreed, the Bangladeshi issue is not endemic only to the Bodo areas, but by not talking reconciliation, leave alone rehabilitation of one and all, Modi has ignored what lies central to the Northeast: peace. And we haven’t yet started talking about the other regions of the state.

What Modi possibly didn’t realise while talking development three times over and squarely blaming former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and state Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi for their abject neglect of the state, is that people not only in Assam but in the entire region know it well that the Northeast has been neglected by mainland India and its demagogues for over sixty years. Modi didn’t allege or assert anything new, and nor did he say why his own party, which had ruled Delhi for more than one full term, had meted out the same stepmotherly treatment to the Northeast.

All this is, however, not to insist that the BJP is on its way to repeat its Bihar debacle. In fact, it could well wrest Assam from the Congress reeling under the predictable effects of anti-incumbency, and leave an impotent Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) by the wayside. In the end, the balance might be tilted by the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) which is powerful enough to decide the electoral fate in over 30 constituencies.

But wait — the game’s barely afoot.

The author is a Bangalore-based journalist and researcher