As poll season approaches, BJP turns gaze to ethnic faultlines in East

“The dream of the Gorkhas is my dream too” is what Narendra Modi had claimed at an election rally in the hills of North Bengal ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Such ethnicity-based identity politics is central to BJP’s poll strategy as it moves further east of India where Hindutva-centric religious identity has limited electoral appeal.

As the party switches into another election mode, the BJP-led government at the Centre has turned its gaze again to dormant ethnic faultlines in the region.

The stage has been set for “decisive” peace talks with the almost-defunct Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), which has been demanding a separate state carved out of West Bengal and Assam.

Also read: ₹50K/surrender, ₹2L/rifle: Bengal lures KLO militants with rehab offer

The Union Home Ministry has also constituted a committee to look into the demand for the creation of “Frontier Nagaland” state pushed by the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO). The BJP is hoping that backing such demands would give it electoral dividends just as its support to Gorkhaland and other such ethnic-identity causes had in the past.

The support to the Gorkhaland cause has helped BJP win the Darjeeling Lok Sabha seats since 2009. Similarly, to end the 25-year rule of the CPI(M)-led Left Front government in Tripura, the BJP in 2018 allied with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), which has been spearheading the demand for a separate “Twipraland.”

Fresh ethnicity-driven dreams

Neither the Twipraland nor the Gorkhaland dream has yet been fulfilled. But that has not prevented the BJP from fuelling fresh ethnic-identity-driven dreams.

The KLO’s self-styled chief Jeevan Singha last week claimed that the Centre has decided to arrive at a solution to the long-standing demand for a separate state of Kamatapur based on the “historic treaty signed on 28th August 1949 between the then Government of India and Independent Kamatapur” kingdom.

He and other leaders of the organization will soon reach India to hold talks with the Centre, Singha said. The KLO chief, who was believed to be holed up in Myanmar, further claimed in the press statement that the process of bilateral discussions between his organization and the Centre have reached a “final stage.”

Over the past two days, rumors were doing the rounds in Assam and Bengal that Singha has already entered India from Myanmar. He is believed to have been taken to New Delhi for talks after surrendering before Indian security forces in Mon district of Nagaland.

Also read: Bengal on alert as dormant KLO regroups after making peace overtures

There is, however, no official confirmation yet about the development. But sources close to the KLO, as well as Indian intelligence sources, confirm that the stage has been set for talks with the outfit over its demand for a separate Kamatapur state.

The KLO has stirred back to life after a long hibernation ever since Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma reciprocated to the outfit’s peace overtures in December 2021. Within six months of Sarma’s overture, the KLO started regrouping, constituting its central committee after a six-day long general body meeting held from June 15 to June 20 last year.

The proposed Kamatapur includes six districts of West Bengal and four districts of Assam. The West Bengal districts are Cooch Behar, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, North and South Dinajpur, and Malda. In Assam, it is eyeing Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon, Dhubri, and Goalpara.

Incidentally, the West Bengal government has been kept out of the peace process with the KLO.

Overlapping boundaries

The areas of the proposed Kamatapur overlap with the boundaries of Gorkhaland and Bodoland territorial councils.

The ENPO’s demand for Frontier Nagaland state is again in conflict with the NSCN (IM)’s idea of greater Nagalim comprising all the Naga-inhabited areas.

“The BJP government at the Centre is well aware of the complexities of these conflicting ethnic aspirations. But it plays along with these demands ahead of elections to whip up sentiments for political benefits,” said Siliguri-based senior journalist Probir Pramanik, who has a vast experience of covering both Gorkhaland and Kamatapur movements.

Also read: Why RSS is keen on dividing Bengal even as BJP drops the demand

“The whole idea is to revive the Kamatapur demand and then keep the issue hanging. The BJP has been promising Gorkhaland since 2009 and, to its credit, it has been successfully selling the dream elections after elections,” he added.

The Bengal BJP, however, has opposed any move to tinker with the geographic boundary of the state in public. Party spokesperson Samik Bhattachariya said his party is against the division of Bengal.

Not many are, however, willing to buy the BJP’s contention.

BJP’s support to “divisive forces”

“Several BJP MPs and MLAs who have won elections from the region, such as John Barla, Nishith Pramanik, and Jayant Roy, have backed our demand,” the KLO chief was heard saying in one of the videos he released last year.

Union minister and BJP MP from Alipurduar, John Barla, BJP MLA from Kurseong, Bishnu Prasad Sharma, and others have publicly raised the demand for a separate state or union territories comprising North Bengal districts.

North Bengal Development Minister Udayan Guha said even in the past, the BJP has backed the “divisive forces” in Bengal, and it has been doing the same again ahead of elections.

Guha is of the view that the BJP’s move would be counterproductive for it, as people in the rest of Bengal would not approve of the party’s “hobnobbing” with divisive forces.

Also read: Division of state: BJP’s old promise comes to haunt Nagaland

A BJP leader from North Bengal, however, pointed out that the party never had to suffer politically in the rest of Bengal for its support to Gorkhaland.

“Bringing any separatist group to a negotiating table does not necessarily mean conceding to its demand. There is no harm in talking,” added the BJP leader, who refused to be named.

There can only be one conclusion to such an assertion. The Kamatapur pot will only be kept boiling. The BJP will not mind as long as it fetches votes.