A fine recipe for neglect

A bit odd to strike this note in the middle of such an exciting election, you might say. That, precisely, seems to be the attitude of the “star” campaigners and their parties. Not one has even let out a murmur at the shocking fact that an entire election is being swept’ by one party inone whole state without a vote being cast.

In what, we are promised, is a post-insurgency decade, and in a year when the most prominent buccaneers in North Block have allegedly been close to “sewing up” a final peace accord with the Naga rebels, the state will witness a sham of an election. Would our star campaigners have countenanced such abdication of state authority if the boycott call had been given in Kashmir or Punjab?

But why just Nagaland? Assam has been slipping into the old mess, perhaps more irretrievably this time, with the Centre, particularly the faction-ridden Home Ministry, more keen to play the Congress party’s politics in the state than to fight ULFA. Voting percentages in some constituencies have fallen as low as 12 per cent. Tripura and Manipur have seen fresh killings. A small footnote here: the northeast in the past six months has consumed the lives of more soldiers than Kashmir. But do you really care? Neither do Messrs Vajpayee, Advani, Basu or Inder Gujral, that greatestinternational symbol of Punjabiat since Daler Mehndi? Sonia, to be fair, makes it quite clear that her concerns and preoccupations are entirely different.

India’s most sensitive region has slipped into a mess reminiscent of the early Eighties and yet it is not an issue for any party, any leader in this self-serving election campaign which has degenerated into a cheap argument over a half-dead scandal, a dead man’s dealings and competitive nostalgia. The parties that still talk of strengthening Third World solidarity or equipping the defence forces with nuclear weapons, or solving the Kashmir problem by either abrogating or strengthening Article 370 do not even mention the challenge in the northeast. So much for their claim to national leadership and understanding of national interest.

But why bother about the northeast when all it contributes to the Lok Sabha is 24 seats, less than a fourth of Uttar Pradesh? Of course, we will soon have a good Home Minister, a North Block that functions as India’spremier political ministry instead of the most politicised one, and the region will be taken care of. So just be patient.

During the Nagaland Assembly election of 1982 — a contest so genuine that the church and tribal leaders were all outraged by the extravaganza and bribery — I witnessed a meeting of church elders in Kohima. The only item on the agenda was the degeneration of a tribal and a Christian society through large amounts of money being spent in the election. The conclusion, at the end of a day filled with emotional speech-making, was startling.

The elders acknowledged it was incorrect for Nagas and Christians to be corrupt or ostentatious on the strength of other people’s money. But after all they were only using the money the Indians, who had occupied their land, poured into their state. Also, ultimately the Marwari traders took it back to India. So where was the problem? This is how the people of the northeast reciprocate mainland callousness. Today, in a situation of much greateralienation, I dread what you would hear at yet another meeting of church elders.

From the late Dr Rajendra Prasad who attempted to make the demographic balance in Assam more manageable by settling his fellow Biharis there to the Hindutva-walas trying to “civilize” it through the Ramakrishna Missions and an Indira Gandhi hoping to subdue the tribals through the Army while at the same time charming them by dressing in their costumes, the failure of our political leadership to understand the region has been spectacular. There is neither an understanding of the alienation nor of the specific tribal or Christian sensitivities.

The Congress has been more cynical — and, frankly, more courageous — than the rest. That is why it has swept’ these Nagaland elections in such a manner. But what about the other parties? The third force didn’t believe that the tribals and the OBCs existed in this region. The BJP was not shy of striking alliances with the Akalis, Jayalalitha and even Lakshmi Parvathi. Why couldn’t itfind a single ally in the tribal northeast? Or at least make a token expression of its nationalism by putting up one symbolic candidate in Nagaland? Why are its leaders not going red in the face screaming about the breakdown of the state machinery in the region? Why is a Murli Manohar Joshi not headed for Kohima to unfurl the tricolour?

It all boils down to the motley 24-member northeastern contingent in the Lok Sabha. And since your problem here is not with the Muslims you can’t, unlike Kashmir, use it as an issue to excite national or nationalistic passions. Or at least that is what you think. The people of the northeast are smart and understand that as well.

In spite of the crisis years of 1979 to 1983, the 15 years between 1975 and 1990 generally saw improvement in the northeast. The Assamese leaders, a strong Naga underground faction and the Mizos signed peace accords and joined the national mainstream. So did much of the foreign trained leadership of the Manipuri and Tripuri underground. Soreassuring did the situation look that, from 1991 onwards, even the Army felt confident enough to move most of its counter-insurgency units to Kashmir.

It is tempting today to blame the deterioration on the fact that the Army is busy elsewhere. The truth is, the last three general elections, lacking a national agenda or national leaders with the intellect to see the northeast as worth more than just 24 MPs, have contributed to this. This campaign is worse than even the previous three and has firmly put the clock back for the region. If the Home Ministry gives an honest assessment to the new government, the picture would look far worse than it did in 1980, the bleakest point in the northeast in the past two decades.