What makes Assam a melting pot

GUWAHATI: Although Assam has eight assembly seats reserved for SCs, and 16 for STs of its 126 seats, no delicate caste equations work here — Assam always has voted along ethnic lines. People of diverse ethnic and linguistic origins — Austroasiatic, Mongoloid, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan — make up the melting pot that is Assam; ethnic identities even more sharply etched during polls.

A strong sense of neglect and/or oppression among the various groups intensifi ed ethnic identities; the repercussions felt in election season, says Monirul Hussain, political scientist at Gauhati University. Are they adequately represented in candidate lists plays on the minds of leaders of ethnic groups, and political parties. The Assam Agitation that capped six years of anti-foreigner movement from 1979 to 1985, also impacted the way the state votes. It gave birth to powerful regional party Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). With the rise of AGP and regionalism, assertiveness of ethnic groups increased and they sought a greater stake in the state’s politics.

Each group wanted to see its candidates elected or have its own political outfi t. The subsequent signing of the Assam Accord also ended single-party domination in the state. Congress now no longer enjoys absolute sway among Muslims after the emergence of All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) in 2006. Muslims, too, are divided along ethnic lines, with Bengali-speaking Muslims extending support to AIUDF and Assamese Muslims preferring Congress. A fraction of the minority community has also gravitated towards BJP, which in turn is trying to make inroads among adivasis, once a Congress vote-bank.

“Political institutions created on ethnic lines, like the autonomous councils, also play a role in accentuating ethnic identities in elections,” said Arupjyoti Saikia, professor of history at IIT-Guwahati.

Elections in Assam have also shown a set of ethnic groups, their own differences notwithstanding, coming together to support a candidate who is pitted against one from a rival ethnic group. For example, in the 2014 parliamentary election, non-Bodo voters rallied behind former rebel and Independent candidate Naba Kumar Sarania, himself a non-Bodo, in the Kokrajhar Lok Sabha seat. Sarania defeated two Bodo leaders, UG Brahma who contested as an Independent, and Chandan Brahma who contested on a Bodoland People’s Front ticket, to become the fi rst non-Bodo MP of Kokrajhar.

“Sarania won with the support of non-Bodo groups. Kokrajhar is a Bodo bastion and an ST-reserved seat,” said Chandan Sarmah, professor of sociology at Tezpur University.