Brahmaputra Changes Course

Regionalism fades to background as an aggressive BJP pushes Asom Gana Parishad to the periphery.

- Abdul Gani in Guwahati

IN 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 activists 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 Assamese 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 nationalism.

Two years later, and after yet another spectacular show in the Lok Sabha elec­tions, the BJP would have reasons to believe that Assam has embraced nati­onalism over sub­nationalism. And the biggest sign of this would be the decima­tion of the flag­bearer of Assamese regionalism, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), 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 36.05 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.