New whine in old battles

In Assam, the more things change the more they remain the same. In 1671 Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb invaded Assam. The legendary general Lachit Barphukon repulsed the attack in the battle of Seraighat. Metaphorically speaking, that battle has been fought many times over ever since. The current round is rooted in the 1970s following a huge influx of immigrants from Bangladesh before and after Liberation. 

The 1970s’ “anti-foreigner” sentiment gave rise to a movement, spearheaded by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) leading to an Accord with the Centre in 1985. AASU formed a political party, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). This was followed by several elections and the AGP even ran two governments in 1985 and 1996 but the issue hasn’t disappeared. A number of AASU leaders found their way into other parties. The BJP’s current chief ministerial candidate Sarbananda Sonowal is one of them. His junior in the student movement, Himanta Biswa Sarma, moved to the Congress and has now joined Sonowal in the BJP. And so has what’s left of the AGP as a junior electoral partner of the BJP in the current Assembly election. 

The “anti-foreigner” movement in Assam is multi-dimensional. Bengalis and the Bengali language were the focus in the 1960s and 1970s. Bangladeshi immigrants became the target in the 1980s. This has inevitably taken on anti-Muslim overtones since the overwhelming majority of Bangladeshi migrants are Muslims. The issue of Hindu migrants from there has been debated with some tending to regard them as refugees persecuted for their faith in that country. 

While the native Assamese feel swamped by Bengalis, Bangladeshis, Muslims and what have you, others have felt threatened by the Assamese themselves. The Khasis, Garos and some Hill tribes successfully pushed for Meghalaya and Mizoram. Both were carved out of Assam in 1972. Then the Bodos launched their demand for a separate Bodoland. A Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) was created, run by a Council with limited powers. There is a demand for Scheduled Tribe(ST) status for Tai Ahoms, Koch Rajbongshis, Moran, Motok, Sootea and 36 tea tribes. Meanwhile Assamese speakers account for less than 50 per cent of the population. 

The forthcoming assembly election is likely to perpetuate identity politics as they have ever since polls were first held. The two main rivals, the ruling Congress and a resurgent BJP, are tying up alliances with various ethnic groups. 

A significant change in Assam’s age-old identity politics is the All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) floated in 2005 by the perfume king, Maulana Badruddin Ajmal. It won 3 Lok Sabha seats in 2014 despite the Modi wave. With 18 seats it is the second largest party in the outgoing Assembly. Muslims who constitute 34.22% of Assam’s population and hold the majority in 9 of the state’s 32 districts are its core base. Ajmal has asked his followers to support the Congress wherever the AIUDF isn’t fielding candidates. He could well end up playing the kingmaker of a Congress government if neither of the two blocs gets a majority. Some calculations suggest that the AIUDF may well get as many as 30 seats.

The AIUDF’s rise has deprived the Congress of much of its traditional Muslim vote base. It’s in a dilemma since openly seeking an alliance with Ajmal could polarize Hindu votes to the advantage of the BJP. The best it can look forward to is the Muslims voting Congress wherever the AIUDF isn’t contesting. Meanwhile, the Congress best exemplifies the fact that nothing much changes in Assam. Its Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi seems to be an ageless constant factor bidding fair to win a record-breaking 4th term. Gogoi, who turns 80 next month, hasn’t too much to recommend for himself but he hasn’t done anything spectacularly wrong. He runs the risk of anti-incumbency, the result of 15 years of Congress rule: the failure to tackle perennial issues like illegal immigration, corruption and the status of various tribes. However, Gogoi has steered the state through a modest rate of growth and focused on infrastructure building. Ultimately Gogoi could pull it off if because he is a known figure among a lot of squabbling unknown entities. 

Squabbles have beset the BJP that won 7 of Assam’s 14 seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, leading in 69 of the 126 assembly segments. In 2014 the party announced “Mission 84” to win a two-thirds majority in the next state assembly elections. It stands 5th with just 5 seats in the outgoing Assembly. But the fact that it won 340 of 746 wards in last year’s local elections added to its confidence. However, most of its top leadership has come from the AGP and Congress and cannot be depended upon. The defection of Himanta Biswas Sarma and some MLAs from the Congress to the BJP initially created a buzz. But it died down as a result of infighting between the party’s “old timers” and “newcomers”. The BJP and AGP teamed up to avoid a split in the Opposition. Both are now bogged down by internal revolts over the tie-up. Constituency-level workers and leaders have ransacked offices of both parties in different districts, one group in each party has also announced its resolve to quit and form new parties. The Congress has seen a number of leaders from both parties joining it in the past few days. 

Hopes of “Mission 84” have vanished with the party conceding 43-44 seats to its new found allies: 24 to the AGP, 16 to the Bodo People’s Front and 3-4 to smaller ethnic parties leaving it with less than 84 seats to contest.

There’s further confusion with the BJP saying it will now contest 90 seats! This will include “friendly fights” with either one or both of its main allies. With the Modi magic on the skids, party leaders are now relying on local factors, primarily anti-incumbency, to see them through to a simple majority of “Mission 64.” 

Gogoi’s anti-incumbency in Dispur may well be offset by that of Modi in Delhi. The Centre is responsible for tackling “foreigners” and, according to Gogoi, it has failed miserably in doing so. Reminding voters repeatedly of Modi’s famous speech in April 2014 in which he had said the infiltrators would have to pack up and leave after he became PM, Gogoi has pointed out that the central government has failed to even complete the fencing of the international border. 

BJP’s Sarbananda Sonowal says General Borphukan and his deputy Ismail Siddique aka “Bagh Hazarika” successfully protected all native Assamese, Hindus and Muslims alike in Seraighat. He claims his party is doing the same 345 years later, against Bangladeshi infiltrators. Accusing the central government of not having done enough to protect the Assamese from illegal immigrants, Tarun Gogoi claims to be battling “Hindi-speaking” invaders from Delhi where the Mughals were once based! 

The writer is a senior journalist and chairman, APCA