Rahul Gandhi again misses the bus in Assam. His anti-CAA pitch too little, too late

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s vehement anti-CAA pitch in poll-bound Assam is a textbook case of too little, too late and too lacking. CAA was a powerful weapon with which the Congress could have cornered the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the state and eroded some of its newly created base.

The party, however, has frittered away the opportunity and time to launch a sustained campaign against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), despite getting a good five years to do so. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government had introduced the bill in the Lok Sabha on 19 July 2016. Rahul Gandhi and his party’s reaction to Modi government’s push for CAA should have been cohesive, sustained and loud in Assam — one state where the law has the potential to hurt BJP.

Instead, Congress’ criticism of the polarising and questionable legislation in Assam has been iffy, confused and almost reluctant. With election in Assam due anytime now, Rahul Gandhi, along with state leader Gaurav Gogoi, has latched on to the anti-CAA cause with the ‘Axom Basaon Ahok‘ (let’s save Assam) campaign. A much-needed intervention, except the Congress is unlikely to reap any dividends from it given how late in the day this has come, how unsure the party continues to look on the issue due to the difference in its approach in Brahmaputra and Barak Valleys, and most importantly, how the CAA issue does not seem to have really turned Assam’s voters against the BJP — proven in the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The party has opposed CAA in Brahmaputra valley while maintaining a safe silence in the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley.

Moreover, the decision to turn on the CAA heat on BJP just before the assembly election, makes the Congress look opportunistic and politically motivated, and not a party that actually cares about the Assamese people.

Assam needed saving all this while, except that Congress has woken up to it a few years too late.

Fertile ground to target BJP

Assam has had a long, troubled and violent history of the ethnic-non ethnic divide, with a shrill anti-bidexi (foreigner) sentiment. This emotion has been religion and region-agnostic, directed at any settler from outside who isn’t an indigenous Assamese. The friction has been on ethnic and linguistic lines, not communal, as much as the BJP may have wanted to tweak the fault line to suit its Hindu-Muslim narrative.

Assam has seen decades filled with resentment against ‘outsiders’ — from Bangladeshis to Bengali Hindus, Biharis, Marwaris, Punjabis and more.

In today’s era, insularity and aversion to people-influx has no place, and for a while, it seemed Assam was getting over its turbulent past. But just as some wounds were healing, the Supreme Court-monitored process of updating the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that began in 2015 reopened them, and the Modi government’s push for CAA added the proverbial salt. NRC was a long-standing demand by the indigenous Assamese to identify all outsiders. But what the CAA threatens to do is segregate the ‘outsiders’ into religious categories and give citizenship to essentially all non-Muslim immigrants.

Effectively, CAA renders Assam’s entire ethnic movement — that rode on the sentiment of the non-Assamese settling in the state and draining out its resources — redundant by allowing those of non-Muslim origin to legitemately become citizens.

It is, therefore, hardly an exaggeration to say that the BJP has played with fire in Assam by bringing in the new citizenship law. If there is one issue that could truly have dampened the BJP’s growth in the northeastern state, Narendra Modi’s popularity and Himanata Biswa Sarma’s political-electoral grip notwithstanding, it was the CAA.

Despite such a potent tool in hand, and having ruled Assam for most part of Independent India, the Congress, failed to stand up for the Assamese cause.

Congress’ missed chance

Congress has been a deeply entrenched party in the state, having a wide and tentacled organisational network. In its last stint in power, the party ruled Assam for three consecutive terms under stalwart Tarun Gogoi, before the BJP made surprisingly quick and extensive inroads.

Modi’s popularity and Himanta Biswa Sarma’s understanding of the state meant the BJP was able to cement its hold over Assam with ease. But CAA has remained a sticky subject, as was evident from the massive protests that broke out towards the end of 2019 following the passage of the bill.

BJP, however, has managed to duck the issue largely because of two reasons. The party has diverted people’s attention from an ethnicity issue to a communal one that suits its political narrative. And Assam doesn’t have an effective opposition to take up this sticky issue in an aggressive and sustained manner.

This is where the Congress comes in.

The other key party in Assam — Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) — is equally to blame, especially given its origins as a party to champion the cause of the indigenous Assamese. Its dithering stance on first breaking ties with the BJP over CAA and then going back to it has exposed its current hollow state.

Former MP from Silchar, Sushmita Dev lost the election in 2019 because of Congress’ divided stance on CAA — opposing it in Brahmaputra valley while maintaining a safe silence in the Bengali-dominated Barak Valley — and has since chosen not to speak against the law.

When I travelled across Assam in the run-up to the 2019 polls, I found voters willing to glide over the CAA issue and support BJP — a clear failure of the Opposition’s ineffectiveness.

Under Rahul Gandhi and Gaurav Gogoi, the Congress has taken up the issue with full gusto now. Except, it may end up merely serving the cause of adding more rhetoric to the campaign than making any substantive difference.

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