Dr. V. Bijukumar
The Congress Party’s worst ever existential crisis in Indian politics is not only visible in the mainland India but also the peripheral region of the Northeast India. In fact, the grand old party’s such crisis is attributed by both internal and external factors. Internally, almost all state units in Northeast India, the Congress is afflicted with the growing dissident activities and the demand for leadership change where the party in power. Externally, the BJP’s strategy of Congress Mukt Bharat(Congress Free India) creates more odd situations for the party which the central leadership finds it difficult to counter. The current existential crisis of the Congress in the north-eastern state is perhaps the strong anti-incumbency wave against the Congress regimes where its Chief Ministers are in power for the two or three consecutive terms, denying the same opportunity to other leaders of the party. In fact, one of the reasons for the huge electoral adversity of the Congress in the recently concluded Assam Assembly election was the strong anti-incumbency of the three consecutive term of the Chief Minister, Tarun Gogoi. In Manipur, too, Okram Ibobi Singh continues to power for the three consecutive terms while its Mizoram counterpart Lal Thanhawla enjoys political power for the two consecutive terms. Though, in many occasions, the state level Congress leaders expressed their anguish over these ‘consecutive chief ministers’, the Congress central leadership took a lackadaisical attitude to the demand leading to aggravation of resentment against these chief ministers.
Secondly, most of the Congress state units in northeast India, like the mainland India, are riddle with factional feud and open fight against leadership which shatters the prospects of the party at the state levels. The High Command, in many cases, either failed to solve the organizational problems or adopted a wait and watch policy leading to its disarray. Thirdly, the emergence of family politics, putting the kith and kin of the leaders both in the electoral fray and party organizational positions often brings adverse impact on the fortunes of the party at the state level in the long run, though it can reap short-term benefits. Such an argument is strengthened by the fact that former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi even promoted his son Gaurav Gogoi, the sitting Loksabha MP from Assam as his political heir. In fact, Himanta Biswa Sarma, the once trusted aid of Tarun Gogi and the current BJP Minister in the Sarbananda Sonowal government, disillusioned with the Congress due to the realization that his political ambition to become the Chief Minister of the state was dashed by the Congress as Gogoi is promoting his son Gaurav Gogoi. In Meghalaya, Dikkanchi D. Shira, the wife of the Congress Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, a sitting MLA in the current Assembly, was fielded as the Congress candidate in the Tura Lok Sabha by-election of May 2016 against the National Peoples’ Party (NPP) candidate, Conard Sangma, the younger son of the late Purno Sangma. In fact, the current spurt of factional politics led by D D Lapang, the MPCC president and the former Chief Minister and Vincent Pala, the LokSabha MP from Shillong constituency and the growing demand for leadership change in the state in the aftermath of the electoral defeat of the Congress can be seen as the adverse impact of family politics promoted by the Congress in the state.
Fourthly, after having lost political power at the Centre, the Congress party also lost its command over the Chief Ministers and leadership at the state levels. The interesting observation is that these small states always heavily depend on the central government for financial allocation for developmental projects in their states. The ruling party at the centre utilizes this opportunity for hobnobbing with opposition state governments by alluring with impressive financial allocations and special packages thereby bringing them under their disposal. One can cite many empirical evidences that the BJP government at the centre used its good offices to allure the Congress Chief Ministers by offering perks. In most cases, the factional feuds and the dissident party activities the ruling Congress confront in the north-eastern states have the covert support of the BJP government at the centre.
Finally, the changing nature of ethnic composition of the state has an impact on the losing support base of the Congress party in north-eastern states. Often the Congress failed to sustain its umbrella image – attracting and accommodating diverse ethnic groups and social forces – due to the communal polarization and social engineering of the BJP. For instance, the BJP’s aggressive campaign against illegal migration of Bangladeshi Muslims and the communal divide created by the BJP between the Bodos and the Muslim minority community in the Bodo areas and its electoral alliance with the Bodo People’s Front (BPF), the communal mobilization of Bengali Hindus in Barak valley and the upper caste Assamese Hindus in Brahmaputra valley on the hysteria of illegal migration gave much electoral dividends to the BJP and the rout of the Congress in the recently concluded Assembly election. In the Congress ruled Manipur, the stage set for the communal polarization by the BJP before the Assembly election stated to be held in early 2017. The BJP is fishing the troubled waters in the ongoing tussle between the Hill and Valley. The BJP is alluring the Hindus who constitute 41.39% of the total state population without antagonizing the interest of the Nagas, the dominant Hill tribe and other smaller tribal communities such as Kukis, Mizos, etc. The Sangh Parivar who engage in ghar wapsi (homecoming) often raise the issue of reduction in Hindu population in the state. According to it, there is a declining population growth of the Hindus as compared to other religious communities in the state. It claimed that in just three decades, the Hindus have declined from 70% to 41.39% of the population. An article in the 4 January, 2015 issue of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s mouthpiece,Organiser, has offered another statistics in support of this argument. It says, “There was a 5.2 per cent decadal (1991-2001) growth in Hindu population of Manipur. However, at the same time, Christians grew by 36.6 per cent and Muslims by 43.1 per cent.” In a resolution adopted in RSS’Akhil Bhariya Karyakari Mandal in Ranchi in October, 2015 claimed that in Manipur, the share of the “religions of Bharatiya origin” was over 80 per cent in 1951, but came down to 50 per cent in 2011”. The reason for dwindling Hindu population is the high fertility of Christians compared to the Hindus and conversion to Christianity as claimed by the Sangh Parivar organisations.
To conclude, though, the BJP’s mass base is not so impressive to come into power on its own and provide an alternative government to the many present Congress dispensations, the party’s shrewd strategy to overthrow the Congress governments in the region is the larger political strategy of Congress Mukt Bharat. While the BJP adopts a multi-prolonged strategy according to the social and political chemistry in various Congress ruled north-eastern states, the Congress is often become less defensive to the onslaught of the BJP’s mobilization. The BJP clinching on a strategy of concrete analysis of concrete situation in these states – either creating communal polarization, raising emotional issues, orchestrating defection and factional feuds, or highlighting the bogey of ‘development’(wherever it fails to mobilize on the basis of above issues) – the Congress party is at the receiving end due to its own inner contradictions and complexities. No doubt, the crisis of the Congress in north-eastern states like that of the mainland India is disturbing as it has a larger implication for the protection of the ethnic plurality and cultural diversity, social harmony, national security of the north-eastern states of India.
(The author is a former teacher at NEHU, Shillong and currently associate professor of Comparative Politics at JNU, New Delhi).