North-East saffronised

Two decades back, Chalo Paltai (let us overturn) should have been the staple slogan of one of the socialist-leftist formations challenging an entrenched Goliath. It is a sign of how far politics has travelled that an election battle cry carrying the symbolism of upturning the old order has helped the BJP pull the rug from under the feet of the Left in Tripura. Ever since Mamata Banerjee successfully worsted the CPM in West Bengal, the Left has been with its back to the wall. Its inability to jettison a tired and unimaginative leadership has now knocked over Tripura, its second and last remaining bastion. Kerala has always been iffy and the CPM’s dominance there is not assured; Kerala’s time of reckoning could come in the 2019 general election.

What makes the North-East different is the BJP’s emergence as the party of choice not just in Hindu-majority regions — Assam, Manipur, Arunachal and, now, Tripura — but parts of Christian-dominated areas as well, thought to have been traditionally out of its pale. This performance shatters a seven decade-old trend of choices devolving between the power brokers of the grand old party (Congress) and local outfits messaging anti-establishment and regionalist sentiments. The formula for the BJP’s success is endearingly simple: old RSS warhorses snare leaders from local parties to pose as liberators of an old order captured by jaded patronage networks. 

The absence of past baggage has helped BJP inveigle the voters of the North-East with its siren call of all-out and corruption-free development embellished with a seasoning of Hindutva; a pattern first experimented successfully in the “virgin” states of the north: Haryana, J&K, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. The Modi government is already facing the law of diminishing returns in its erstwhile strongholds of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. Its governance record in other states is also under close scrutiny as jumlas have been inadequate in meeting the aspiration for regular employment and farm prosperity. They will be even less of a help in North-East which is even more problematic due to the complexity of overlapping regional identities.