BY Kishor Kumar Kalita
Though many have argued with different connotations and auguries, but finally the term ‘Change or Parvartan’ made the remarkable pathway for an incredible election victory for BJP and its allies. Except that the vision document promulgated by the Bhatratiya Janata Party and the allies did not assert any specific policy or programmes as a promise in their election rally. Therefore, it may be presumed that the political diction campaigned metaphorically for regime change had a deeper impact on the electorate that eventually threw away the enduring Congress rule from the state. Moreover, apart from mesmerizing the common electorate with an euphonic word, this election has proved the efficacious role of some non-traditional element,i.e. the role of both media and social media and also established some contemporaneous hypothesis that were spread across through different formal and non-formal instruments.
The Myth of Change: The eradication of Congress rule from the state can be analyzed as a result of a desperate wish of the common people to be emancipated from non-governance and misrule that have been in practice for the last couple of years. The tradition of unabated corruption prevailing in every sphere of governance, hegemony of a particular group of people in overall state politics and above all irresponsible attitude shown by the minister and bureaucrats in last three consecutive terms made the Congress rule bitter for the masses. This has developed a countervailing opposition towards the Congress government and eventually people wanted the total removal of such malpractices by replacing the government with a new one under which they can respire openly. In such a context, the term ‘change’ embodies nothing but a window, through which people could exert for air and thereby save themselves from drowning in doom. Presumably, the common electorate hardly considers the quality and transparency of the new government before casting their vote for a regime change. The 29.5% electorate that exercised their franchise for regime change just wanted a pragmatic government which instead of looking for their own benefit would give attention to public welfare.
Religious Polarization: Two undisputed common apprehensions, the first one is the rapid demographic change occurring in the state due to the unabated infiltration from neighboring Bangladesh, particularly the Muslims and other one is the gradual increase of the numbers of Muslim dominated seats in the state politics, have been in the public discourse for a long time. It is the topic of discussion and debate by different actors to raise the issue of minorization of the indigenous people of the state. The result of the last Assembly election has literally disapproved the last apprehension of the local indigenous people of becoming minority both in the context of language and ethnicity. This has been totally subdued by the visible aggression of Hindutva campaign which gives little space to sub-nationalism and issues of ethnic identity.
It would be worthwhile to mention about the State Language Movement in 1960, immediately after which the indigenous people of the state expressed their integrated stand against the Bengali aggression and strongly mobilized the demand of expulsion of all illegal Bangladeshi infiltrator irrespective of their religion. The assurance of conferring citizenship right to the Bengali Hindu infiltrators by the BJP just before the last election has diluted the above- mentioned stand and virtually marginalized the issue.
If the Congress party does not represent the indigenous people of the state irrespective of their language, religion or ethnicity concern and similarly if the AIUDF is considered as a political front that gives space only to the Muslim minority, then the counted 34.2% Muslim population of the state (according to the 2011 census) can hold religious domination only in 40 seats (this time the Congress and the AIUDF party has succeeded in 26 and 13 sits respectively). In contrast to this equation the non-Muslim population of the state, which includes Bengali speaking Hindu refugees, Assamese speaking Hindus, Bihari, Marwari, Sikh, Christian, Bodo, Rabha, Adivasi Tea community etc still can affirm at least 86 seats in their favor. This makes it clear that the threat to the non-Muslims in respect of retaining political dominance over in the electorate politics is nothing but a created myth that was intentionally mobilized by different spin doctors to arouse the sentiments of non-Muslim voters.
However, the Muslim vote was not consolidated and strategically no clear attempt was made to do the same. The result has established the fact that if there had been a pre-designed policy to consolidate Muslim vote against the BJP led alliance, then the alliance would have lost a number of seats due to such consolidation. But the idea was not in practice. Rather, a good number of Muslims stood for BJP in many constituencies and thus proved the said consternation as a fabricated one.
Though both the AGP and BPF have captured important stakes in the present government, the compromise they have made with the BJP may invite wretched consequences in near future. The AGP came to power riding on a wave of Assamese sub-nationalism that was remarkably inclusionary; its appeal was not only to the Assamese speaking population- among whom their support appears to be near-total-but to many segments of Assam’s diverse population. But unfortunately this regional party has gradually lost its inclusionary character and within a period of thirty years of its formation reduced to a party of an exclusive nature. Instead of creating more spaces in the regional politics, the party made electoral alliance with the BJP in 2001 Assembly election and thereby provided the saffron party insidious access to the affairs of state. The AGP could not escape from the harm emanating from this alliance which eventually displaced the party from the position of a big brother to a non-existent little brother. On the other hand the strategy adopted by the BPF, always to get engaged with an alliance that has the maximum possibility of government formation may topple its own existence in the BTAD.Seemingly, the Bharatiya Janata party, which holds a strong notion of greater nationhood and centralized political structure, would try their best to degenerate the influence of the regional political entities and eventually recede the spirit of regionalism. How the regional parties of the state at this juncture would maintain their strength and existence, is a matter of great concern.
(The author is a practicing advocate in Gauhati High Court)