Centre’s ambitions vs regional identities in NE

The BJP, which earlier never gave itself a chance in the North-East except in Assam, is now in the frontline of dictating alliances, coaxing community allegiances and moulding politics. Meghalaya and Nagaland illustrate the ‘nationalist’-regional debate and, ironically, their interdependence in politics and governance. The BJP is pivotal to Tripura’s polls because five years ago, it unseated the Left Front.

ADVANTAGE: The BJP was helped by decades-long work put in by its ideological parent, the RSS. PTI

Radhika Ramaseshan

Senior Journalist

FOR long, most states in India’s North-East were treated as the Centre’s liegemen, yoked to Delhi’s regional ambitions, active interventions, propensity to regard the regional parties as playthings in its hands and subject to selective munificence (that’s what the Centre claimed when grants were disbursed).

Assam, Tripura and Sikkim were exceptions by virtue of their demographic composition that allowed the linguistic and ethnically dominant communities the luxury of integrating themselves with the “mainstream”, which usually limited the Centre’s interference, unless stiff regional challenges cropped up like the All-Assam Students’ Union’s protracted movement, and giving fairly durable governments, doubtless patronised by Delhi.

Elections in the North-East invariably see the Centre’s assertiveness compete with regional identities, a feature in most other states too, barring those where the Congress and the BJP are pitted against each other.

How do the regional actors, who have not necessarily been created by the Centre but arose organically, reconcile their aspirations to rule their areas with Delhi’s pro-activism? Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura, which vote in February, will see an interesting interplay of the twin strands.

While reflecting on the state-of-play of the Congress and the BJP, the Congress, a regional catalyst with unhappy outcomes in the past, is reduced to a peripheral player in the three states while the BJP, which earlier never gave itself a chance in the North-East except in Assam, is now in the frontline of dictating alliances, coaxing community allegiances and moulding politics.

The BJP was helped considerably by the decades-long work put in by its ideological parent, the RSS, for whom the overwhelming presence of tribes, the insurgency eruptions and the sustained work put in by Christian missionaries in most of the states were impetuses to fashion not just a counter-narrative but also work hard in the area of education, over which the Church held sway.

Meghalaya and Nagaland classically illustrate the ‘nationalist’-regional debate and, ironically, their interdependence in politics and governance. The last polls in Meghalaya yielded an inconclusive verdict, with the Congress, which was in power for two terms under Mukul Sangma, emerging as the single largest party. The Governor gave enough time to the National People’s Party (NPP), the second largest, to put in place a coalition which included the BJP and three other state entities and Independents to get the 31 seats (in a House of 60) and form a government with the NPP’s Conrad Sangma as the CM.

The BJP debuted in Meghalaya, a Christian-majority state, with two seats. Relations between the BJP and the NPP deteriorated. Despite the pressure exerted by its state leaders, the national BJP continued to support the Conrad Sangma dispensation, keeping in mind the post-poll scenario in 2023 and the prospect of its continuance in possibly another coalition order.

The NPP is fighting the elections solo as are the other parties. The NPP has distanced itself from the BJP’s Hindutva baggage while the other players want the NPP alone to face the anti-incumbency music.

In Nagaland, again Christian-majority, with a history of insurgency that has to date found no resolution through the long-drawn Naga peace process, the BJP has partnered with its ally, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) that led the incumbent government under Neiphiu Rio. In the 2018 polls, with the NDPP on its side, the BJP drew in winnable candidates from other parties and made a splash with 11 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly.

However, Rio ensured that in the impending polls, the NDPP will contest the bulk of the seats (40) and leave 20 to the BJP which looked at Nagaland as another sunrise state despite the demographic disadvantage.

As mainstreamed as Assam in the North-East’s context, the BJP is pivotal to Tripura’s polls because five years ago, it unseated the Left Front after a 25-year rule with a simple majority. The spectacular debut was facilitated by sustained organisational work at the grass roots, weaning away potential victors from the Congress and the Trinamool Congress Party (which had aspired to uproot the Left), wooing the tribes through the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), which became a partner in the coalition government, and promising to implement the 7th Pay Commission that fetched the en bloc backing of the government employees.

The BJP hoped to retain its ascendancy in Agartala, but it is up against certain circumstances and tests. The biggest imponderable is the launch of the tribal entity, the Tipra Motha by Pradyot Debbarma, a former state Congress chief and scion of the former Tripura royal family. Five years ago, somewhat impetuously, the BJP tied up with the IPFT on the plank that it would entertain IPFT veteran leader NC Debbarma’s demand for a Greater Tipraland comprising the swath of the land currently under the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council and 36 other villages.

Obviously, nothing moved on this front. The Tipra Motha sought to fill the vacuum by not just clamouring for a Greater Tipraland but also kindling fears among the tribes that they were becoming less relevant electorally with the inflow of Bengal refugees during the Partition and the creation of Bangladesh.

The BJP reached out to the Tipra Motha while clarifying that the Centre would not accede to its demand for a tribal state. The talks fell through. The BJP quickly prevented its associate, the IPFT, from joining hands with the Tipra Motha which it was tempted to.

The Congress and the Left Front have teamed up. Given the bitter history of their feuds in the years when the CPI(M) lorded over Tripura, observers do not see the collaboration working on the ground.

Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland collectively bring only five seats to the Lok Sabha. However, from the viewpoint of making the BJP’s ‘Congress-mukt Bharat’ (Congress-free India) war cry a reality, their significance cannot be underestimated.