The Hindu : Ethnic minorities hold key to the outcome

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 29, 2004

National

National - Elections 2004

Ethnic minorities hold key to the outcome

While a triangular contest may favour the Congress, its position is not that secure. With the BJP poaching on its traditional social base, the party has to maintain its hold on the minorties in order to do well, writes Yogendra Yadav.

If there is one State in eastern India where the BJP hopes to improve substantially on its tally, it is Assam. In other States, either the BJP and its allies have already hit a point of saturation as in Orissa and Bihar, or they have no hope of any improvement, as in West Bengal. In Assam, the BJP has a lot of room for improvement, for it secured only two seats out of 14 in the last Lok Sabha elections, compared to 10 for the Congress, now the ruling party in the State. The party does have a realistic chance to do so this time. At least this is what the BJP national leadership believes. That is why, like Karnataka in the South, the BJP is devoting a lot of attention, energy and resources to this State.

However, this is not going to be easy. Assam is one of the few States in India where the Congress has improved upon its position in the 1990s. The party's votes and political reputation had sunk following the Asasm agitation in the early 1980s and the blood-stained elections in 1983, which the Congress won by default. The Assam accord of 1985 brought the AGP to power and it looked like the days of Congress dominance were over. But unlike the TDP, which built upon its electoral breakthrough in Andhra Pradesh around the same time, the AGP failed to do so. The Congress got another opportunity and grabbed it. The party came back to power in the State in 1991 and dominated the Lok Sabha elections as well. The AGP was given another chance in the simultaneous elections to Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha in 1996, but squandered it within a couple of years. The AGP regime was identified with corruption and a lack of political maturity. The Congress scored comprehensive victories in the Lok Sabha elections of 1998 and 1999, winning 10 out of 14 seats on both occasions, and converted its advantage into a clear majority in the Vidhan Sabha in the Assembly elections held in 2001.

All this while the BJP was quietly creeping up the ladder, occupying much of the political space vacated by the AGP. Assam was one of the States where the BJP acquired a toe-hold in the 1991 elections following the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. It captured two seats, both in the Barak valley, in the Lok Sabha elections, though its share of votes was less than 10 per cent.

In subsequent Lok Sabha elections, the BJP has improved upon its vote share and managed to expand its regional base.

In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP nearly touched the 30 per cent mark and felt it was ready to take the final steps toward challenging the Congress. The party had two options: it could try to challenge the Congress on its own, or forge an alliance with the AGP to have a more broad-based support.

The first strategy was tried with disastrous consequences in the Assembly elections of 2001. The BJP tied up with the AGP despite open and loud protests by its own State unit. The local leaders and supporters of both the parties did not accept the alliance and failed to vote for one another. Hence the alliance, which on paper looked like it was capable of defeating the Congress, only ended up reducing the Congress victory margin. Sensing the mood of the party workers, the BJP leadership did not press the case for an alliance in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

The AGP was not very keen either. Prafulla Mahanta's long innings as leader of the AGP came to an end recently when he lost the party's presidentship to Brindaban Goswami. The new leader is keen to rebuild the party's own strength. He has managed to bring back Bhrigu Phukan, Mahanta's rival from the beginning, who had come back to the party twice earlier only to face humiliation at Mahanta's hands. This ensures that it will be a triangular contest in the State, like in the previous Lok Sabha elections.

Given the ethnic geography of Assam, a triangular contest of this kind suits the Congress. Assam has witnessed political fragmentation along ethnic lines in the last two decades. Earlier, the Congress was the party that represented Asomiya nationalism and combined an overwhelming support from the dominant Hindu Asomiya community with backing from other minority groups to perpetuate its rule. The Assam movement changed it all. The Congress support among the dominant Asomiya Hindus was eroded substantially and it was forced to become a party that drew much of its votes from the various ethnic minorities in the State: the Bengali Hindu immigrants, the non-Assamese tea garden workers and the Asomiya and the Bengali Muslims. Together with the various tribal groups in the State, these minorities constitute an electoral majority. Yet it is a precarious position for the Congress.

The AGP too has had an uncertain existence, for its influence among the Asomiyas, mainly Hindus, is too small to ensure it a stable majority. Besides, the AGP's inability to do anything about the `foreigners' (the immigrants), even when in power, has deprived it of its unique selling point. It needs a political alliance with groups like the United Minorities Front or the various tribal parties to be viable in the electoral competition.

The BJP has been poaching on the traditional social base of the AGP by converting Asomiya nationalism into Hindu nationalism and by combining Asomiya Hindu votes with the votes of Hindu Bengali immigrants, in sharp opposition to the Muslims who constitute about 28 per cent of the State's population. That is why the BJP's early rise took place in the Barak valley with its large proportion of immigrant Muslims. Gradually, the BJP has moved into lower and upper Assam as well and challenged the AGP in its own heartland. A division of the Asomiya upper caste Hindu votes would suit the Congress, as it would prevent the BJP from taking a decisive lead among this group.

The Congress may equal the BJP among the Hindu OBCs and take a decisive lead among the Scheduled Castes and some of the Scheduled Tribes who do not have their own parties.

The last mentioned fact is a source of anxiety for the Congress. The two major Adivasi groups of the State, the Karbis and the Bodos, dominate one parliamentary constituency each, the Karbi Anglong Autonomous District and Kokrajhar. Both the groups have found political expression outside the main political parties. The Karbis have tended to favour the Marxist-Leninist Autonomous State Demand Committee (ASDC) that later merged with the CPI (M-L) and won that seat in the last four elections. The ASDC has split since the last elections and the group opposed to the CPI (M-L) is stronger in that seat.

The Kokrajhar seat has gone to an Independent candidate supported by the All Bodo Students Union, in constant struggle with the Hindi-speaking immigrant Santhal Adivasis in that region. Their MP has supported the NDA at the Centre and is expected to return to Parliament from this seat.

Barring these two seats, the arithmetic of the remaining 12 seats in the State is quite simple. If the Congress retains its position in the last Lok Sabha or the last Vidhan Sabha elections, it would retain its 10 seats. A loss of 3 per cent votes or more would tell seriously on the Congress' tally.

A loss of 6 per cent would mean that the BJP would succeed in coming to the same level as the Congress. It will take at least an 8 per cent loss of votes to the Congress and corresponding gains for its opponents for the BJP to realise its ambition of emerging the frontrunner in the State. That may be a tall order, if the AGP manages to regain some of its political energy this time. If, on the other hand, the BJP succeeds in marginalising the AGP and emerging as an equal of the Congress, it may be the beginning of a long-term realignment in State politics.