Patricia Mukhim
The debate in the Meghalaya Assembly on the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act saw young legislators prove their debating skills. That there is unanimity in opposing the CAA goes without saying. The whole country is up in arms against this Act and we should be too. It is one of the most deviously crafted Amendments to the original Act and seeks to make Indian citizens of all Hindus, Sikhs, Christians Buddhists and Parsis who are persecuted in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh and have been here up to December 31, 2014. In simple terms, this is the BJP’s vote bank politics! North East India has been the destination of choice for illegal migrants from Bangladesh and before that, East Pakistan. Hindus might have come in both because of persecution and economic reasons. Muslim migrants might have come purely for economic reasons and because of the pressure of land. They came and settled in Assam largely for cultivation and survival. Over the decades, lakhs of illegal migrants have accumulated in Assam, so much so that the indigenous Assamese now fear they might become a minority in their land. Tripura is the red flag for all states of the North East. How the demographic imbalance has occurred in Tripura is a text book case of how dangerous the relentless illegal migration from Bangladesh is.
That said, it’s ironic that a movement which was started to protest the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) passed last week should end up as a demand for the Inner Line Permit (ILP), a long term demand of pressure groups in Meghalaya. These pressure groups have not thought it prudent to have state-wide consultations with a wide range of stakeholders on the pros and cons of the ILP. They never have. Pressure groups have always assumed they know best what is good for all of us. And they have always, but always got away with that because this society has the propensity to ride piggy-back on the pressure groups. Few if any dare to challenge these groups to an open debate on any issue. No wonder Meghalaya continues to flounder and its economy is now on slow-mo. I have always wondered which think tank the pressure groups of Meghalaya rely on to put forth their demands before the Government. I would like to see them making a reasoned argument on the exigencies that demand promulgation of an antediluvian colonial instrument of 1873 enacted mainly to keep the tribal marauders out of the British tea plantations in Upper Assam.
The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulations, 1873 was intended to protect British interests in tea, oil and elephant trade by keeping out prospective British or Indians from the mainland from entering into these “Protected Areas” to engage in commercial ventures. It was an attempt to protect the commercial interests of the Queen of England. In fact, one of the many reasons for the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) Act is also because hordes of tribal marauders from the surrounding areas of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh would ransack the tea gardens and even kidnap their women. In 1871 Mary Winchester a six year old girl who lived with her father the manager of a British tea plantation in Cachar, Assam was kidnapped by Mizo tribal warriors who cut her father on the head and shot him down from behind. The warriors snatched her away from the clutches of her dying father, and left him to die. Many people were killed in the clash; some were taken as hostages, including Mary Winchester. It is believed that all the hostages were killed on the journey to the erstwhile Lushai Hills. The British government retaliated against this humiliating incident and launched a military campaign -the Lushai Expedition on October 8, 1871. The British army crushed the Mizo villages one by one. A section of the army reached Sailàm village where Mary was kept with a Chieftain’s family on 21 January 1872. After a siege of the village and some gunshots the British were able to rescue Mary Winchester, but not after destroying the granaries and crops of the Mizo people.
Such incidents actually pushed the British to come up with the BEFR Act or the Inner Line Permit to prevent pillaging by the tribes and their entering British territories, especially the tea gardens. After Independence the Act remained but things were reversed to keep Indian travelers out of the border states of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. The question to ask is: Up to what point protectionism and for how long? It’s the same question that the BJP-led NDA Government asked when it abrogated Article 370 in Kashmir. It’s the same way that it will look at all those protective mechanisms because it is under pressure from its dedicated voters to concede that no part of India is sacrosanct and should be given special treatment, such that fellow Indians are not allowed free movement there. No one expected the Kashmir expedition of the Modi-Shah duo. It was sudden and it by-passed all norms of parliamentary procedures. Yet it happened. CAB has become CAA. Tomorrow the National Register of Citizens (NRC) will come and we will be left protesting because of the sheer majority that the Modi Government commands. Hopefully the countrywide protests will halt the duo in their tracks but there’s no knowing what will come next.
Coming back to 2019 Meghalaya, let’s analyse the situation dispassionately. Since 1972 when Meghalaya became a state our politics has been defined by fear. It’s the vote-catching strategy used by ingenious politicians. The BJP is using the fear of Muslims to gain Hindu votes. In Meghalaya, politicians have always used fear of the outsider as a vote catching rod. In Meghalaya we are also affected by the ‘diploma divide’ a stark split along educational lines. Democracy requires that voters make informed choices. Large section of voters in Meghalaya vote for other reasons and their choices are hardly informed. Most often voters are dictated by fear of this, that or the other. Across the world, politicians rise by stoking fear. So do aspiring politicians who lead the crowd until they enter the charmed circle of the 60 elected “representatives.” So fear is let loose and this fear pervades our society and sets the emotional tone for our politics. Fear invariably runs ahead of facts and inflames the imagination. The facts and statistics tell us the truth – the non-tribal population in Meghalaya is declining every decade. In 1981 it was 19.42; in 1991 it came down to 14.47 and in 2011 it is at 13.77. The reasons are not far to seek. Most non-tribals have left the state for jobs because there are no openings here. So is the fear real or perceived? Who is stoking the fear? Let’s do the math.
Martha Nussbaum writes in her book, the Monarchy of Fear that the fearful person does not see particular individuals, just hateful shades who arouse disgust and can be blamed. Fear induces herd behaviour. Fear revives ideology all caught in the binaries of oppressor and oppressed. At the moment, Meghalaya does not have those leaders that will confront fear with hope and optimism. This happens because politicians treat each election as a matter of metaphysical survival a sort of clash of existential identities. Fear has to be constantly cultivated.
It’s no surprise therefore that we now have a situation where our elected representatives are pushed to a corner to pass a Resolution to demand the ILP which they know is clearly a populist move, aimed at appeasing the crowd outside the Assembly. The crowd has got the politicians where they want them. And this time the fear that has mobilized the crowd is the CAA. If the Assembly had not passed the Resolution the crowd would have run riot and law and order would have been compromised.
What this present situation informs us is that it is no longer the elected representatives who are making informed decisions on behalf of those they represent. Actually representation would mean that all the 60 MLAs should go back to their constituents and get their vote on whether or not Meghalaya needs the ILP. This is an instrument that could change their lives forever. Just look at the unemployment ratio of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh to understand what a hindrance the ILP is to the growth of economic opportunities in the state. Instead all 60 MLAs voted out of fear of public sentiments. Is this going to be Meghalaya’s eternal destiny? There are no easy answers.