Govt bulldozing CAB due to flawed understanding of Northeast

With a flawed take on the identity issue in the Northeast, the government is underlining the primacy of religious identity and the propagation of a narrative that India will be the sanctuary for all persecuted non-Muslims from this part of Asia, somewhat akin to the idea of a Hindu ‘Rashtra’. On the other hand, identity in the Northeast has never been about religion. It is largely a linguistic, a cultural or an ethnic construct, writes Senior Journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi:In the morning of October 16, people in Nagaland’s commercial capital Dimapur woke up to the rude thundering of low-flying Indian Air Force (IAF) Sukhoi fighter jets. Thick in the middle of the ongoing Naga talks between the Naga underground leadership and New Delhi, the times were tense and it did not take long before a rumour started doing the rounds. That, IAF air bombings in Nagaland may be in the offing.

The fact that the IAF jets were part of a massive war exercise called ‘Himgiri’ near the Arunachal Pradesh-China border did not find many takers among the locals. A Naga friend speculated: “Maybe we will be the targets soon”.

In any other part of mainland India, such a tale would be dubbed tall and would draw the heartiest of guffaws. Not in Nagaland. Nearby, Mizoram’s capital Aizawl already has the unenviable fame of being the only place in India where our own IAF jets bombed civilians in March 1966.

Such is the level of misunderstanding and mistrust between New Delhi and many peoples of Northeast India that even a coexistence of about 72 years has not been able to dispel. Undoubtedly, a big bad dark chasm exists.

That gulf leads to a lack of understanding. Then to misunderstanding, which in turn leads to mistrust. And mistrust leads to a flawed understanding. And it is precisely that flawed understanding that has led to a decision like the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).

With a flawed take on the identity issue in the Northeast, the government is underlining the primacy of religious identity and the propagation of a narrative that India will be the sanctuary for all persecuted non-Muslims from this part of Asia, somewhat akin to the idea of a Hindu ‘Rashtra’.

On the other hand, identity in the Northeast has never been about religion. It is largely a linguistic, a cultural or an ethnic construct. These constructs are not exclusive of each other, it may exist either singly or in different permutations and combinations. Loss of identity is the biggest problem that the Northeast is facing and the much-touted economic insecurity is just a part of it. And that is where the BJP and its Sangh affiliates are reading it wrong.

The Hindu-Muslim divide, seemingly so significant in north India, seems to have coloured the imagination of the policymakers who have assumed that by giving concession to the Hindus they will be able to extract the support in the Hindu-majority areas of Assam, Manipur and Tripura, where unfortunately demographic pressures have become critical.

In other words, the government, confident that the widespread protests would fade away if turned a blind eye, is only justifying the prevailing narrative among Northeasterners that New Delhi doesn’t understand them and that, besides being separated by geography and economy, there is also a division along historical and cultural lines, a difference in belief systems.

And that is perhaps why the government is relentlessly pursuing an idea of India being a sanctuary for all persecuted non-Muslims from the Muslim majority nations of Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. This is in the face of vociferous popular protests across most areas of the Northeast region. That is what is promised by the CAB.

The government’s flawed understanding of the Northeast may also paint the widespread protests taking place in the region now as mere posturing. But in an extremely senstive region surrounded by foreign countries and tied to the mainland by a 22-km-wide land corridor, where mass agitations, separatist movements and mistrust are endemic, it is too risky a stand. CAB has only served to open old wounds among communities and groups.

What is quite confounding is at a time when Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and PM Narendra Modi is to meet in Guwahati in a few days from now, a pacified and prosperous Northeast would have been a mandatory condition in the backdrop of the government’s “Act East Policy” push. The developments in the Northeast now would most definitely pose a serious complication to that effort. As well to the government’s effort at nation-building.

On the other side, the pain and agony of the Northeasterners is something that only they can understand. For decades, the legacy vis-à-vis New Delhi has been one of being misunderstood. The latest developments only underline that fact that the chasm perhaps has never been bridged.

In the fifties, when the first Assam CM Gopinath Bordoloi complained to PM Jawarharlal Nehru that Assam couldn’t alone bear the burden of the mass exodus from Bangladesh, Nehru threatened to stop all central aid to Assam. In 1951, someone in Assam had the wisdom to foresee that the exodus will lead to problems later on. That is why Assam is the only state in the country to have a 1951 national population register.

And when the unabated immigration became very visible, the Assam agitation started in 1979. And in a culmination of sorts, the Assam Accord was inked in 1985. After 34 years, the accord provisions await implementation. Interestingly, the Assam Agitation was initially construed as an anti-Indian agitation.

Very recently, the Lower Subansiri hydroelectricity project has been quietly started in Arunachal Pradesh. This was after the local people downstream had vociferously protested for years, saying the huge dam would affect their environment, ecosystem, and livelihood.

Governmental aid was absent when the Mizos were facing famine in the late 60s. This neglect to the woes of the Mizos is what led to the formation of a band of guerrilla fighters who decided they were much better on their own. Just last year, it was a former Mizoram CM, who, anguished over the Centre’s decision to push through the CAB, carried a placard saying “Hello China”, a message that only the naïve would take at face value.

After having fought the Indian state for decades, a section of Nagas are negotiating with the government. And the talks have continued for 22 years without end, except assurances and promises. Similar examples abound.

You can cajole and woo the Seven Sisters of the Northeast, you cannot force them into submission. Therein lies the story of anguish that New Delhi doesn’t seem to understand. Mistakes were committed in the past, they are still being made.

In India, every region has its own complexities. The government should have known how and where identities get formed. Like others before them, the present BJP-led government’s understanding of Northeast India is also flawed.

EPILOGUE: November 30, 2019. In the Hornbill festival held in Nagaland’s Kisema, Sukhoi jets again boomed overhead. The day before, the Nagaland state government had asked people not to panic as they did on October 16 when Sukhoi fighters had flown overhead. After all, people have to get used to the sound.

Read: Citizenship (Amendment) Bill to be tabled in RS today at 2 pm