Outlook – July 06, 2019

by Abdul Gani in Guwahati

I

N 2017, a book titled The Last Battle

of Saraighat: The Story of the BJP’s

Rise in the North-East had sparked

controversy in Assam for terming

Assamese sub-nationalism as “anti -

Indian” and a “subversive idea”. The

book was authored by two political

act ivists who were actively associated

with the BJP’s successful campaign in

the 2016 assembly elections. For a

large number of people of the state,

sub-nationalism—jatiyotabad—is the

indelible, undeniable marker of Ass-

amese identity. And the book, by Rajat

Sethi and Shubhrastha, was seen as an

attempt to further the RSS’s idea of

subsuming regional identities into an

all-encompassing Indian nati onalism.

Two years later, and after yet another

spectacular show in the Lok Sabha elec­

tions, the BJP would have reasons to

bel ieve that Assam has embraced nati­

onalism over sub­nationalism. And the

biggest sign of this would be the decima­

tion of the flag­bearer of Assamese regi­

onalism, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP),

Regionalism fades to background as an aggressive

BJP pushes Asom Gana Parishad to the periphery

Brahmaputra

Changes Course

which is facing its biggest existential crisis

in the face of the saffron surge. Statistics

give a clear picture: the BJP won nine

seats out of 14 in Assam and Congress

took three. The BJP also secured 36.

per cent of the vote share while the

Congress got 35.44. The AGP, an ally of

the BJP, failed to win even a single seat. Its

vote share was a meagre 8.23 per cent.

Why this makes for such fascinating

reading is the fact that Assam—in fact,

the entire Northeast—was bristling

with anger by the end of 2018 and the

beginning of this year, after the BJP­led

government at the Centre moved the

controversial Citizenship Amendment

Bill (CAB) that aimed to ease the pro­

cess of getting Indian citizenship for

non­Muslim people from Bangladesh,

Pakistan and Afghanistan. For decades

now, Assamese speakers have lived

under the fear of being overrun by

undocumented migrants, especially

from Bangladesh, whose numbers vary

dep ending on which side of the political

spectrum is speaking. The influx of

IDENTITY POLITICS

12 OUTLOOK 8 July 2019