Author: Editorial
Publication: Sentinel Assam
Date: December 8, 2004
URL: http://www.sentinelassam.com/sentinel_en/archives/dec0804/editorial.htm
The news that the Asom Gana Parishad
(AGP) has begun talks with the United Minority Front (UMF) for an electoral
tie-up during the State Assembly polls due in 2006 would rate as the most
bizarre pre-election alliance imaginable. At the same time it also serves
to underscore the fact that anything is possible in politics - especially
in Indian politics. Having said this, it is important to take a look at
how much of a bizarre alliance this tie-up would constitute if it comes
through. In fact the proposal itself hinges on the proverbial shortness
of public memory and the even greater shortness of the politician's memory
in India that leads to totally divergent political parties becoming willing
bedfellows.
It will be recalled that many of
the leaders of the present UMF were Congressmen to start with. Perhaps
the most important reason for their breaking away from the Congress to
set up the UMF was the Assam Accord and the additional grievance that it
should have been signed between a Congress government at the Centre one
the one hand and the AASU and the Gana Sangram Parishad on the other. What
did not help matters at all was that even the government in Assam at that
time was a Congress government. There was such a strong sense of betrayal
among the minority Congress leaders in Assam that many of them left the
Congress to set up the UMF. And let us not forget that the very signatories
of the Assam Accord became the leaders of the AGP that stormed its way
to power soon after. Naturally, there could have been no love lost between
the AGP and the UMF at that point of time. It is another matter that Mr
Prafulla Mahanta and his AGP Government soon reneged on his promises to
the people of Assam on the handling of the foreigners issue, and in subsequent
elections even went the way of the Congress in wooing the illegal Bangladeshi
voters. In fact, the AGP wiped out every trace of the fact that it was
a party born out of the Assam Movement or that its main plank had been
the detection, disfranchisement and the deportation of all foreign nationals
living illegally in Assam, by carefully avoiding all mention of 'foreigners'
and the issues relating to such foreigners from the party's subsequent
election manifestos. In fact, Mr Mahanta went a step farther in placating
illegal migrants by getting a deputy commissioner of Nagaon district to
issue more than 4,000 arms licences to 'the minorities'.
The UMF has now come full circle.
It is now a staunch supporter of the Assam Accord and swears by it. Senior
UMF leaders have declared that the very salvation and survival of the minorities
in the State is safeguarded by the same Assam Accord that they had so staunchly
opposed at one time. In fact, the UMF places the Assam Accord even above
the Constitution of India as a touchstone to the laws of the land, especially
the laws concerning immigration, citizenship, voting rights and so on.
There are a few facts of life that
the AGP must take note of very carefully before it pushes through a tie-up
with the UMF merely for electoral advantages. After all, there has to be
a difference between a national political party like the Congress and a
regional one. The first of these is that unlike the Congress it cannot
afford to put the party above the State and yet hope to survive in Assam.
It has to think of the State first of all, and worry about how to stop
the State and the region from being annexed by Bangladesh. Next, it has
to bear in mind that the word "minority" has acquired a different meaning
than what it has in the rest of the world or even in other parts of the
country. In Assam, the word "minority" does not mean just minority citizens
of India, but also illegal migrants from Bangladesh. Citizenship has ceased
to count. Religion alone matters. Anywhere else in the world one cannot
be a 'minority' without being a citizen first. The UMF has made the most
of this ambiguity, and will continue to do so. Otherwise, why should the
minorities of one district alone have felt such a pressing need for firearms
in a matter of months. And why should the UMF suddenly have the urge to
settle the rift on the IM(DT) Act issue now, when a possible tie-up with
the AGP is one the cards? The answer to this may lie in the number of political
parties that have broken away from the Congress at one time or the other
only to go back to the parent party later on. Unless the AGP treads very
warily at this juncture it may well end up picking a strange bedfellow
only to be wiped out as a regional political party.
