The events in remote Arunachal Pradesh are threatening to snowball into the year’s first major political confrontation. A conflict built around the classic theme of Centre-state relations, reminiscent of the ’80s-90s, also means an inevitable impact on Parliament when it reconvenes for the budget session in February-end. A constitutional bench of the Supreme Court will decide on the role of the governor and who should be in power, but with the President already giving his assent to governor’s rule, the crisis brought into national focus an ugly power struggle—a rebellion within the Congress, fuelled by an enthusiastic BJP—in a state that normally does not hit the headlines. While many in Arunachal will welcome some sort of an end to the political uncertainty, the touch of burlesque that accompanied it could not mask deeper, institutional questions. The events of the past few months have left people wondering at the role of the judiciary, the Union government and the central leaderships of both the BJP and the Congress.
Since last July, immediately after the assembly met, 21 Congress MLAs, including several ministers, had been camping in Delhi seeking the ouster of Chief Minister Nabam Tuki. They got a boost in November, when all 11 BJP members and two independents joined them. It may seem an odd marriage, but in Arunachal it’s not party ideology that matters but the national political climate and how the numbers relate to it. Looking at the state’s political history, it’s not uncommon to find that chief ministers tend to get extremely nervous if they do not find themselves in the same party as the one ruling at the Centre. So switching party loyalty is not uncommon. This time, the setting was bit different and rather tragic. Even when rebellion reached a peak in August, the AICC, instead of reading the writing on the wall, stayed in its somnolent cocoon. It only woke up when Governor J.P. Rajkhowa, a former member of the IAS but dubbed an RSS agent and seemingly acting as one, advanced the assembly session from January 14 to December 16, triggering the current mess.
By that time, the central BJP leadership had decided it wanted to be in on the action in Arunachal, even though it had just 11 members. For that ambition to come to fruit, the state Congress had to be destroyed—and what better way than that old trick, President’s rule. December was a chaotic month for the state with the BJP and Congress rebels ratcheting up the pressure, helped along by an over-enthusiastic governor, who anyways has extra power in this state, courtesy the controversial Article 371(h) of the Constitution. Rajkhowa empowered the deputy speaker, a member of the rebel Congress, to take charge of the session, based on a notice from BJP MLAs seeking the ouster of the Speaker for disqualifying two Congress rebels. Next, the assembly was locked up by the Speaker! This led to an assembly session being held at a community hall and a hotel, a first surely for Arunachal, if not for the nation. Effectively, the Speaker and CM were voted out of power and a new chief ministerial candidate was put forward by the rebel Congress and BJP. For days, Arunachal literally had two chief ministers, though the designated one was not administered the oath.
No one had anticipated what followed next, even in a state where slaughtering of animals, wild and domesticated, are an everyday affair. A mithun—and not a cow, as widely reported—was slaughtered, in the vicinity of Raj Bhavan, shocking not only the devout Hindu governor but also everyone else. As if this was not enough, a group of women supporters of the Tuki faction paraded themselves semi-naked. The highway and all roads leading to Raj Bhavan were blocked, as the police kept a safe distance fearing a backlash from hundreds of angry government supporters. This whole semi-farcical sequence of events unfolded a month ago but what had happened in the intervening night of Jan 25-26 that the Centre had to take such a drastic, hasty step?
The hostilities between Raj Bhavan and the Congress had eased a bit (if one ignores one ugly verbal duel between the governor and a delegation led by the CM, of which an edited version was supplied to the media by Raj Bhavan, and was played out over and over again by electronic media in Delhi). Citizens had been expecting the high court to end the turmoil with a conclusive verdict. No such luck. Instead, it gave two completely different decisions, which ultimately led the whole bundle of cases right up to the Supreme Court.
Ahead of the Supreme Court’s word, everything was a bit up in the air. The proud tribals of this state have never questioned what the Centre charted out for them, including keeping it underdeveloped for the longest period, but this time the BJP surely seems to have overstepped its limits because of its ambition and a witless Congress was caught unawares. In the end, it’s the people of the state who have lost out.
(Tongam Rina is associate editor, Arunachal Times)
Slide Show
The governor called it “cow slaughter”. But the animal was a mithun (Bos frontalis), a semi-wild bovid that’s central to the livestock practices of the Northeast, and a prototypical meat animal.
