Congress-AIUDF alliance helped BJP appropriate greater ethno-nationalistic space in Assam despite CAA

With the saffron party all set to retain power in Assam, the party's state chief Ranjeet Kumar Dass on Sunday said the BJP-led alliance is committed to developing all the communities of the state with the blessings of the people. (Representative image)

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led alliance’s victory in the Assam assembly elections has set a bit of a record. This is for the first time that a non-Congress party or alliance has returned to power for a second successive term.

For years, the BJP was seen as a ‘Hindi-speaking North Indian party’ in Assam and in the rest of the Northeast. In many respects, 2016 appeared to be a defining year for the state’s politics that enabled the BJP to surmount this image barrier and romp to a comfortable victory with its alliance partners.

Three-and-a-half years into its term, the Sarbananda Sonowal-led BJP government confronted its first real identity test. The government faced the brunt of the massive opposition against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) with thousands of people joining the protests, raising concerns ranging from cultural estrangement to economic deprivation, bringing the state to a standstill for weeks.

The opposition to the CAA stemmed from the fear that the legislation will result in a flood of Bengali-speaking immigrants who will legitimately settle down in Assam, altering the existing cultural ecosystem, blurring indigenous identities.

There was, and still is, a fear that the Assamese speaking people will be reduced to a statistically weak minority in their own state. This could trigger a rapid cultural erosion in a state that takes immense pride in its progressive literature, music and cinema movement.

The BJP, as a ‘Hindi speaking North Indian party’, was seen as the villain of the piece. Sonowal and his leadership team faced flak for toeing the line along with the central leadership on the CAA, despite being ‘sons of the soil’ themselves.

Ideally, this near indisputable opposition to the CAA among the Assamese speaking people spanning across the length and breadth of the Brahmaputra Valley, should have snowballed into a major political issue.

It is not animosity for other communities that was behind the resistance. There continues to remain a growing fear, in Assam and the rest of the Northeast, about being reduced to a minority in their homeland, outnumbered by a swarming influx of immigrants from Bangladesh.

This ethno-nationalistic sensitivity continues to run very deep. The anti-CAA protests that erupted in the state in December 2019 appeared as a binding element to rally opposition against the BJP. It came barely 14 months before elections were due and should have been strong enough to oust the party out of power for a severe breach of trust against its own people.

On May 2, the opposite happened. The BJP and its allies — the Asom Gana Parishad and the UPPL — sailed to a comfortable victory.

The reason could lie as much in the Opposition’s, mainly the Congress’, alliance strategies, as with the BJP’s own approach to this election.

In September, nearly seven months before the elections were to be held, the Congress announced an alliance with the Badaruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF).

In retrospect, this may have turned out to be a costly strategic error. A large number of the Assamese speaking people perceive the AIUDF to be a party that is largely representative of the Bengali Muslims in Assam.

The Congress had promised to repeal the CAA if voted to power, something that did not appear compatible given the perception about the AIUDF. ‘How can you ally with Ajmal who is seen to espouse the cause of the mass of alleged illegal migrants and still promise to protect the interests of the ethnic Assamese?’ This was one undercurrent of refrain that persistently popped up in the run up to the polls.

The opposition to the CAA in Assam is a manifestation of the ethno-nationalistic identity and culture in the state. The protests gave birth to new political parties — the Assam Jatiya Parishad (AJP) led by former All Assam Students Union (AASU) leader Lurinjyoti Gogoi and the Raizor Dal (RD) led by transparency and human rights activist Akhil Gogoi — seeking to represent the ‘jatiyotabadi’ Assamese cause and aspirations.

In the final analysis, the BJP-led alliance successfully managed to appropriate this ‘jatiyotabadi’ political space more than the Congress, the AJP or the RD. Will the BJP be finally able to shed is ‘Hindi-speaking North Indian party’ image? The answer to this will depend on how well the AJP and the RD are able to politically mobilise themselves in the next five years within a complex matrix of ethnic identities.