Ethnic fissures deepen as BJP tries to make a UP out of Northeast
“Why should I vote for the BJP?” asks Neena Moni Saikia of Ulubari, Guwahati. The 29-year-old voted for the BJP in the 2014 election. But not this time, she says.
She reasons that in the last election, Narendra Modi promised that all Bangladeshis in Assam would have to pack their bags. “But five years later, the BJP has made the ‘foreigners issue’ in Assam a matter of goru-gahori (cow and pig). The dirty politics of hate playing out in the state of late is very disturbing,” she says, referring to the recent mob attack on a Muslim man in Biswanath district.
On April 7, a group of around 25-30 Assamese youths attacked Shaukat Ali for allegedly selling beef and forced him to eat pork. In a video still doing the rounds on social media, the victim is seen kneeling down, begging to be released. The agitated mob is heard asking why he sold beef and whether he is a Bangladeshi, and if his name is on the National Register of Citizens (NRC).
According to Neena, the disturbing video is a testimony to the BJP’s ‘project polarisation’ in the Northeast. “The BJP’s only agenda was Congress hatao (remove). Now that it has been done, it wants to make an Uttar Pradesh out of Northeast. If people don’t understand their real intentions even now, then no one can save us,” she tells The Federal.
Youth like her got swept away by the ‘Modi wave’ and BJP’s promises of flushing out illegal immigrants — a decades-old, highly emotional subject for the ethnic Assamese. “But the real reason was people’s disillusionment with the Congress government, which ruled for three consecutive terms. What many of us didn’t understand was that having a bad government doesn’t mean you seek refuge in a communal party and ignore its agenda like the Citizenship Amendment Bill.”
Citizen bill
It’s not Neena alone who feels the BJP doesn’t understand the real problems of the Northeast or its ethnic complexities. “Prime Minister Modi and Amit Shah say that the Citizenship Bill will not affect the ethnic tribes of the region. But if we allow (Hindu, Buddhist) minorities from other countries to settle here, who will protect our identity? They have already flooded our villages,” says 23-year-old Rini from Mizoram. Rini is a student of Delhi University.
Back in the Northeast, her home state has been grappling with the issue of outsiders like Bru and Chakma refugees for a while now. The common perception in Mizoram is that these refugees are not original inhabitants of Mizoram and are migrants from Assam, Tripura or Bangladesh. During the late 1990s, thousands of Brus fled to neighbouring Tripura following major ethnic violence. Many in Mizoram now believe that the BJP is trying to push Brus into Mizoram through the ‘backdoor.’ “The BJP has been pursuing the Brus by taking them under the larger Hindu fold even though the Brus were traditionally nature-worshippers.”
It is because of such existing fears many in the Northeast feel the citizenship bill will pose a direct threat to the indigenous population, their identity and culture, besides changing the region’s demography.
While the bill seeks to grant nationality to non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan after six years of residence in India, it lapsed in the Rajya Sabha in the wake of widespread protests by political parties and ethnic groups across the region.
However, the BJP — which is aiming to win 21 of the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the region — has of late been confusing the voters with contradictory statements on the bill. In the ongoing Lok Sabha elections, while the national leadership has promised to bring back the bill once it returns to power, BJP leaders in the region claim that the bill won’t be implemented in the Northeast.
“Union minister Kiren Rijiju (who is from Arunachal Pradesh) has promised that Citizenship Amendment Bill will not be implemented in the Northeast. Similarly, Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh has stated that his government strongly opposes the bill. So have most other regional leaders in the Northeast. However, the stand of the national leadership is different. Who do we believe?” wonders R Richard, an Itanagar-based businessman.
The BJP’s contradictory stand shows that it doesn’t understand the ethnic composition and complexities of the Northeast, says Manipur-based journalist David Mayum. “The BJP’s proposed CAB doesn’t talk about those Manipuris who were driven out to Myanmar decades ago and are settled in the neighbouring country. Why just Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan?” Mayum asks.
A reason behind the saffron party’s lack of understanding and respect for the sentiments of the ethnic population, he says, is their prejudiced outlook. “Most national parties as well as Indians in general have failed to understand the people of the region and our concerns. You can’t lump all people from the Northeast together into one identity. Each state and its tribes have their own distinct identity, which they want to protect at all costs. A khasi (Meghalaya) or naga (Nagaland) or mizo (Mizoram) or a kuki (Manipur) identifies with their clan and tribe first, and then as a Northeasterner or an Indian.”
Just like the people of Assam fear the possibility of sharing their land and resources with non-Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh, if granted citizenship, others from the region fear the same, he adds.
Opportunistic alliances
If the Hindu-Muslim divide has visibly increased in Assam, the rift between the indigenous groups within the region also seems to have widened. “Everyone is an insider and an outsider. An Assamese is an outsider in Itanagar. So is a naga in Guwahati or in any other state. The brutal mob lynching of two Assamese youths in Karbi Anglong (in Assam) triggered a violent response from many caste Assamese calling for ‘revenge’ against Karbis (an ethnic tribe),” says a political observer from Assam who didn’t wish to be identified.
But the fault, he says, also lies with the regional parties and their lack of clarity on the issue. “The national leadership of the BJP always maintained its stand about passing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, despite the people in Assam, Manipur and Tripura electing BJP governments. Now they (the people) are angry and oppose the citizenship bill. Regional parties like Meghalaya’s National People’s Party vociferously opposed the citizenship bill but haven’t broken away from the alliance. The Asom Gana Parishad showed some spine and withdrew, only to join them again,” he adds.
Many like him in the region now believe that even if the BJP losses seats because of the anti-citizenship bill sentiments, things will eventually go in the saffron party’s favour because of such opportunistic alliances.
