What BJP’s NE win means

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

Making a dramatic sweep, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party seized power in Tripura, one of the three small states in the predominantly tribal northeastern region which went to the polls last month. In the other two, Nagaland and Meghalaya, it is poised to share power under the leadership of regional parties.

It was a big leap forward for the party. In the outgoing Tripura and Meghalaya assemblies it was unrepresented. In Nagaland, it had a lone legislator. Its 2013 vote share was only 1.54 per cent in Tripura, 1.75 per cent in Nagaland and 1.27 per cent in Meghalaya. It soared to about 43 per cent in Tripura, 14.4 per cent in Nagaland and 9.6 per cent in Meghalaya.

The differing social and religious composition of the northeastern states marks them out from the rest of the country. Tripura has a Hindu majority but tribal communities constitute 30 per cent of its population. Thanks to early missionary activity among the tribes, 87.93 per cent of Nagaland’s population and 74.59 per cent of Meghalaya’s are Christian.

Mindful of the local sentiments, BJP campaigners affirmed the people’s right to eat beef. They also offered the minority community subsidy to undertake pilgrimage to Herusalem.

In a campaign speech Modi recalled his government had rescued Christian nurses from India who were trapped in a Middle East conflict zone. 

The BJP’s victory in Tripura, where it had an alliance with the Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), put to an end a quarter century of uninterrupted Left rule. The only state where the Left now has a stake in power is Kerala in the south. A front headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and another headed by the Congress have been alternating in power in the state since 1980. 

The Naga People’s Front, which had been in power in Nagaland continuously since 2003, barring a short spell of President’s rule, was an ally of the BJP in the National Democratic Alliance. Sensing that the NPF was losing ground, the BJP dumped it on the eve of the election and aligned itself with the National Democratic Progressive Party, a newly formed regional outfit.

The NPF lost its majority, but with 27 seats in the new house it is still the largest party. The NDPP bagged 17 seats and the BJP 11, leaving the combine also short of the half-way mark. The outgoiung NPF Chief Minister TR Zeliang is making a bid to stay on but the BJP is sticking with the NDPP and it has sraked a claim to form the government. 

In Meghalaya, which has been under Congress rule since 2008, the BJP was not able to make much headway. It won only two seats there.

Although the Congress lost ground, with 21 seats in the 60-member house, it remains the largest single party. The National People’s Party is close behind with 19 sears. Smaller parties and Independents hold the remaining 17 sears.

The situation in the state is similar to that in Goa and Manipur after last year’s assembly elections. The Congress was the largest party but it was beaten in the race for power by the BJP which quickly mobilised enough outside support and chalked up a majority. 

Regional parties aspiring for power in sensitive border states find it prudent to go with the party ruling at the Centre. The BJP, therefore, experienced little difficulty in bringing Nagaland and Meghalaya under its belt. 

Since it is not very familiar with the political landscape of the northeastern region, the BJP took the gyudance of serving and retired Intelligence officers to deal with the regional party leaders.

In view of the special characteristics of the northeastern states, it will be risky to make any prophecy about how the outcome of these elections will impact the assembly elections in the southern state of Karnataka and the Hindi states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which go to the polls later this year, or the Lok Sabha elections due next year.

The BJP made a heavy investment in these small states for two reasons. It deemed it necessary to win or at least make inroads into the northeastern region, which had been inaccessible to it so far, to reinforce its credentials as a national party. The sparsely populated region has 25 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. Any gains the party can make here will go some way to offset the losses it expects in the heartland states. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, March 6, 2018

A colonial legacy that must go

BRP Bhaskar
Gulf Today

The Indian government is under increasing pressure from within the country and outside to curb the gross human rights violations resulting from prolonged use of the armed forces to deal with internal disorder.

Deployment of army personnel to deal with uprisings is a colonial practice. The British rulers were fighting rebellious elements in the northeastern region, as also the northwestern region which now forms part of Pakistan, till their very last days in the subcontinent.

Since insurgency in the northeast continued to be a problem, the government re-enacted in 1958 the colonial-era Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and brought it into force in the northeast. Following a spurt in terrorist activity, the law was extended to parts of Jammu and Kashmir in 1990.

AFSPA allows military personnel deployed in areas, which the government has declared as “disturbed”, to fire upon and even kill anyone acting in contravention of law and search any premises and arrest without a warrant anyone who has committed or is suspected to have committed certain offences. It grants security personnel immunity against legal action.

Although the law prescribes a six-month time-limit for an order declaring an area as “disturbed” the government has circumvented the restriction by repeatedly re-promulgating orders. Thus the draconian measure has been in force continuously for well over half a century in the northeastern states and more than two decades in Kashmir.

As a result, the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution remain abridged in these areas. The bulk of the people of the northeast are tribesmen with distinct cultures of their own. J and K is a state with a Muslim majority. These demographic factors give the story of denial of democratic rights an additional dimension.

In the affected areas there have been continuous anti-AFSPA protests, the most poignant of which is the 11-year-old fast by Manipur poetess Irom Sharmila whom the authorities are keeping alive through forced nasal feeding. Since public opinion in the mainline states is muted, the government has found it easy to ignore the local protests.

The large number of cases of missing persons reported from areas where AFSPA is in force and the unearthing of an unmarked mass grave in Kashmir have fuelled civil rights groups’ demands for repeal of the law.

Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has demanded that AFSPA be withdrawn in view of the decline in militant activity in the state. In its report to the Central government, the team of interlocutors headed by journalist Dileep Padgaonkar has drawn attention to the recommendations of various bodies, including the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission, to repeal AFSPA or at least amend it to bring it in line with the criminal law. It wants the army to remain in the barracks and policing functions to be transferred from the paramilitary units to the state force under a phased programme.

Last week Home Minister P Chidambaram flew to Kashmir to persuade the Chief Minister to accept a modified version of AFSPA. This appears to be part of an attempt to soften public opinion in view of the adverse observations made by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, at the end of his recent visit to India.

Heyns, who had met government representatives as well as rights activists in different parts of the country during the 12-day visit , described AFSPA as a symbol of excessive state power which “clearly violates international law” and asked that it be scrapped. This recommendation is sure to figure in the report he submits to the UN Human Rights Council.

It is not the Central government alone that wants to keep the AFSPA alive in some form. The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is in power in several states, is an even more ardent advocate of its ruthless application than the Congress, which heads the ruling coalition at the Centre. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) favours its withdrawal from Kashmir, but wants it to continue in Tripura, where it is in power.

Sudhir Vomnatkere, a retired major-general who had headed the Army’s human rights cell, in a recent interview to a website threw light on a little known aspect of AFSPA. When an area is declared as “disturbed”, there is political darkness under which “corruption of various kinds – political, economic, financial, money, women, drugs, smuggling etc” can go on, he said.  Clearly, AFSPA must go – in the interests of democracy. -- Gulf Today, Sharjah, April 16, 2012.