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| Looking at the future: Chief minister Tarun Gogoi near the Brahmaputra soon after the swearing-in ceremony in Guwahati on Sunday. Picture by UB photos |
In the Assam elections, although Tarun Gogoi?s own victory was assured, pollsters did not imagine that the Congress would return with 53 seats. A fractured opposition as usual provided a breather for the Congress.
Quite predictably, the party high command has nominated its old faithful, Tarun Gogoi, as chief minister. Now the challenge before Gogoi is to cobble up a coalition with the group that is most likely to provide a stable coalition without extracting more than its pound of flesh.
Coalition politics, however, has its malignancies and quirks. Parties winning fewer seats have more bargaining power because they are important to the political equations that underline parliamentary democracy. Parties with the single largest majority usually have to cave in to unreasonable demands from those who sell them the required number of MLAs.
This is exactly what the Hagrama Mohilary faction of the Bodoland People?s Progressive Front (BPPF) has done. The party has demanded two of the highest berths in the Cabinet ? that of the deputy chief minister and home minister. They also want two other MLAs to be accommodated as ministers of state with independent charge.
It seems like a trick of fate that a party representing a neglected part of Assam now has the bargaining chip to strike a deal for its people. But, whether that arrangement truly encompasses the aspirations of the Bodo peoples or will be yet another journey into self-aggrandisement remains to be seen.
Political games have always been played with the common man as the pawn. This one cannot be expected to be any different. What will take governance on a downhill slide is the inability of people in the government to look beyond the development of their territories (in this case Bodoland), without taking a holistic view of governance.
Akhtar Majeed in his book Federal India: Design for Good Governance postulates that political accommodation and understanding are integral to laying a foundation for governance in the midst of conflicting ideologies, disparate groups and seemingly irreconcilable positions. But he presupposes that the sustenance of a plural society is a self-equilibrating system, which does not allow one group, one party or one interest any enduring dominance.
But, if the Congress?s marriage with the BPPF lasts all of five years, we can safely assume that Bodo politics will dominate the proceedings even while the smaller ethnic groups, whose representation in the present house of 126 members is almost negligible, will feel further isolated. I am referring here to the Karbis and Dimasas, two ethnic groups that have begun to assert their identities and demands before the state.
If the material progress of a section of Assamese population living in and around Guwahati is the index of development in Assam, then Gogoi can claim to have made great strides in the last five years. But, the shopping malls and highrises are not the consequences of good governance. They are symbols of the unequal concentration of wealth and a growing opulence accruing from being benefactors of political favours. In Assam, the politics of insurgency and the much-touted ?illegal immigrant? issue have become the opium that politicians drug their people with to divert attention from their own failures.
Road infrastructure and civic amenities are the first visible signs of civilisation and progress. In the last five years, there has been no visible sign of development in Assam. Even the bypass linking Borjhar airport to Dispur is no credit to the Gogoi government. It was a project initiated by the Vajpayee Government at the Centre and executed by the National Highways Authority of India. The only road linking Meghalaya to Assam at Khanapara can no longer be called a road. It resembles an agglomeration of stones and boulders, slush and muck ? all nicely mixed up. On a dry day the dust could kill you. When it rains, your car tyres could skid so badly you could even land on your head.
Yet, Assam is having one conference after another on various topics of interest such as tourism, the Look East Policy and economic development. How on earth do we expect a tourist to rough it out on the disgraceful roads that are at present the hallmark of Assam? Tourists are not going to have an Assam-centric itinerary. And if the mandarins in Dispur believe they can have a captive visitor to Kaziranga, they have to do a reality check. Coming from an almost sterile environment why would anyone spend their dollars to inhale dust and get an attack of acute rhinitis?
The Tarun Gogoi government spent all of five years in office without taking cognisance of these crucial issues, which could have become the unique selling points (USP) of Assam. When Prafulla Mahanta was chief minister, he gave the Guwahati-Nagaon road a facelift before the 2001 Assembly elections. Tarun Gogoi was so sure of his victory, he did not even bother to refurbish the basic infrastructure in the growth centres of Assam.
So, how do we look at this same man heading the state for the next five years? If a single party government could not achieve some of the key goals for kick-starting all-round economic progress, it would be futile to expect a coalition government to do so. What has been missing in Assam is governance, pure and simple. The government spent too much time fighting allegations of human rights violations by the armed forces and several others that were inconsequential for the long run.
However, the poll verdict also portrays the state of politics in the state. Except for the Congress, no other party showed signs of cohesiveness. A fractured AGP was battling to save its own image. The AUDF is a party that seeks to appease a section of religious minority. By definition, the AUDF cannot and will not have a comprehensive agenda for development, other than fighting to reinstate those with dubious citizenship claims.
Such parties are unhealthy for a pluralistic country like ours. Post Godhra, the BJP has lost face. It is struggling to regain the peoples? confidence. The Congress, therefore, was the only alternative for most of Assam except in areas where politics has polarised into local issues.
For Assam, the next five years could witness more chaos and uncertainty. Development and governance will be shelved to accommodate more pressing needs such as the appeasement of ethnic groups and of course, the ?peace process?, which has begun to look more and more like a non-starter.
