In December 2019, when a motion towards the contentious Citizenship Modification Act erupted in Assam, Dipanka Kumar Nath was at its forefront.
Nath was then the president of the All Assam College students’ Union or AASU, an organisation with a historical past of main the “anti-foreigners” Assam agitation within the Nineteen Eighties.
In Assam, the regulation, which opens the door to Indian citizenship for non-Muslims from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, triggered outdated fears of being overrun by undocumented migrants – an anxiousness that has pushed the state’s politics because the Seventies.
The AASU, which is dedicated to the concept of Assamese nationalism and perceives the “inflow” of individuals from Bangladesh – whether or not Hindu or Muslim – as an existential risk to the state, took to the streets. The protests introduced all the state, particularly the state capital Guwahati, to a standstill. The regulation was put in chilly storage after widespread protests throughout the nation.
Over 4 years down the road, statements by Bharatiya Janata Get together leaders from West Bengal, promising that the regulation will likely be applied quickly, have once more stoked fears and protests in Assam.
However this time, Nath will not be mobilising crowds towards the regulation. Final month, the chief joined the BJP, the social gathering whose authorities on the Centre pushed by means of the regulation.
The political U-turn has led to sharp reactions within the state, with AASU leaders pillorying Nath as a traitor to the reason for Assamese subnationalism. “He has not solely betrayed AASU but in addition the lakhs of people that took to the streets following his enchantment in the course of the anti-CAA motion,” Utpal Sarma, the present president of AASU and as soon as a detailed aide of Nath, instructed Scroll.
Lurinjyoti Gogoi, former AASU basic secretary, who additionally spearheaded the protests towards the citizenship regulation, mentioned Nath’s U-turn “was an insult to Assamese jatiyotabad (nationalism).”
Observers of the state’s politics, nevertheless, level out that Nath’s change is another signal that Assamese nationalism, which privileged a linguistic ethnic identification over faith, has been tamed by the Hindutva politics of the Bharatiya Janata Get together.
Demise of another?
Nath, who’s in his fifties, headed AASU, the most important college students’ physique within the North East for eight years between 2015 and 2022.
He was a member of the central committee, the outfit’s highest decision-making physique, for 30 years.
In 2019-’20, together with Lurinjyoti Gogoi, he powered the road protests towards the citizenship regulation.
Within the months following the anti-CAA protests, Nath additionally emerged as an advocate for a regional different in Assam, one that will converse for the pursuits of the ethnic Assamese. “He was among the many first AASU leaders who proposed the formation of a regional social gathering,” Gogoi instructed Scroll.
For some years now, a big part of middle-class Assamese have grown disenchanted with the Congress, which is seen as a celebration that favoured Muslim migrants previously. The Asom Gana Parishad, the social gathering which emerged out of the Assam Motion, was in alliance with the BJP in the course of the protests towards CAA.
In September 2020, efforts of the 2 largest and most influential pupil outfits within the state, the AASU and the Asom Jatiyotabadi Chhatra Parishad, led to the formation of 1 such different – the Asam Jatia Parishad.
Gogoi stop AASU to change into the president of Asam Jatia Parishad in December 2020. However although Nath stop AASU in 2022, he didn’t be a part of the Parishad.
“Nath has betrayed us for his personal political profession,” Gogoi mentioned.
Jatiyotabad meets Hindutva
In his defence, Nath has mentioned that he was satisfied about becoming a member of the BJP as a result of the Himanta Biswa Sarma has succeeded in “fixing many points”, which have been on the AASU agenda within the final three a long time.
As an illustration, he was appreciative of final 12 months’s delimitation train, which the Sarma authorities has mentioned will allow “indigenous” communities to win a minimum of 94 of 126 meeting seats and which, critics say, will cut back Muslim illustration within the state.
He additionally counted the Assam authorities’s success in clearing land belonging to the satras – neo-Vaishnavite monasteries of the state – from alleged Muslim encroachers and the eviction of Bengali-origin Muslim households from Darrang district, during which two folks have been shot useless, as causes.
“This social gathering is working in the direction of defending the jaati (neighborhood),” Nath mentioned at a becoming a member of ceremony on the state BJP headquarters in Guwahati.
The BJP state management too underlined that the goals of Assamese nationalists and the saffron social gathering have been now the identical.
Bhabesh Kalita, who heads the BJP’s state unit, identified the ideological similarity between BJP and AASU as each participated within the Assam Motion in 1983 for the deportation of “unlawful immigrants”.
“Our chief and Lok Sabha MP Atal Bihari Vajpayee actively participated towards the anti-foreigners agitation in 1983,” he mentioned, referring to the senior BJP chief’s go to to the state throughout these turbulent years. “AASU speaks in regards to the safety of jaati (neighborhood) and maati (land). This isn’t solely the slogan of BJP however we’re additionally implementing it.”
The CAA fallout
The convergence between the BJP and leaders of Assamese nationalism, political observers say, has lengthy been coming.
“[The idea that] Assamese nationalism acts as an oppositional power to the Hindu nationalist juggernaut is now outdated historical past,” political scientist Sanjib Baruah instructed Scroll. “The anti-CAA agitation was most likely its final gasp.”
Many leaders of AASU and Asom Gana Parishad joined the social gathering a very long time in the past and others are in events which can be in alliance with the BJP.
“The political opposition with roots within the Assam motion has almost collapsed,” Baruah mentioned.
Within the 2021 meeting elections, the BJP was in a position to efficiently counter the anger towards the CAA, by banking on improvement schemes and projecting itself as a “protector” of the Assamese neighborhood.
Baruah argued that changing Sarbananda Sonowal with Himanta Biswa Sarma because the chief minister was key to managing the opposition to the citizenship regulation.
“They needed somebody more practical than Sonowal,” mentioned Baruah. “Having constructed his profession as an uncompromising warrior in the reason for khilonjia or indigenous pursuits, Sonowal was too tied to the legacy of the Assam Motion to do an about-turn on the difficulty.”
Underneath Himanta Biswa Sarma, nevertheless, the BJP has deflected consideration away from the Citizenship Act by finishing up a programme of hardline Hindutva, which has efficiently pandered to each “jatiyotabadi” and Hindutva supporters of the society.
From a peace settlement with the United Liberation Entrance of Asom, an rebel group that fought for an unbiased Assamese state, to the evictions of Muslims, which frequently added to the notion of the neighborhood as “unlawful” migrants, to a proposed uniform civil code, the BJP authorities has projected itself as a protector of indigenous Assamese pursuits.
“The Himanta authorities has given many issues to maintain Assamese nationalists occupied and blissful so as to undermine Assamese nationalism,” mentioned a political observer, who requested to not be recognized.
A brand new entrance?
A day after Nath’s shift to the BJP, Union Minister of State for Transport and BJP MP from West Bengal’s Santanu Thakur reiterated that the Citizenship Modification Act can be applied within the nation inside every week – from which he later backtracked.
Nonetheless, a piece of civil society teams of Assam led by the anti-CAA discussion board, Coordination Committee Towards Citizenship Modification Act, organised a sit-in demonstration in Guwahati demanding the repeal of CAA on February 3.
Deben Tamuly, the committee’s chief coordinator, mentioned, “Folks will oppose the CAA and it nonetheless holds significance in Assam’s politics.”
Activist-turned MLA Akhil Gogoi of Raijor Dal, one of many events shaped after the CAA stir, additionally protested on the Assam Meeting premises.
“The BJP authorities had promised to free us from foreigners’ points,” Gogoi mentioned. “As a substitute, over 15-20 lakh Hindu Bangaladeshi folks will get Indian citizenship in Assam if CAA is applied. As a substitute of fixing foreigners’ points, they’re imposing extra foreigners on us.”
Sarma, the AASU president, mentioned that the organisation is dedicated in its opposition to the citizenship regulation as there isn’t a place for unlawful immigration in Assam.
“The regional sentiment is at all times there within the minds of Assamese folks,” the AASU chief mentioned. “It simply must be triggered because the CAA did in 2019.”
Not everyone seems to be satisfied that the ethnic Assamese will take to the streets this time round, too.
“Subnationalism or Assamese nationalism consciousness is getting diluted,” mentioned Chandan Kumar Sharma, who teaches sociology at Tezpur College. “However I don’t see its seamless merging with pan- Indian nationalism. As an illustration, the CAA nonetheless holds significance in Higher Assam. Whether or not that may translate into votes is hard to say.”