Manipur and Nagaland elect INC to 3 seats in the Lok Sabha: Shocking Implications

Lok Sabha elections 2024 have been announced. The BJP has achieved a historical mandate of winning a third consecutive term under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Yet, this is the worst election performance by Mr Narendra Modi and is the first time in his life that he will be administering a coalition government.

While the BJP has made many inroads in Southern Bharat, the Northeast and is still trying to do the same in Punjab and Bengal, the party lost its ground in UP. 2019 was marked by a “Congress Mukt Northeast” and that stamp stayed. The BJP produced many popular leaders in the northeast such as Temjem Imna Along and Kiren Rijiju.

Modern History of the Northeast

The Northeast has always been mired in separatist movements. Being isolated from the rest of the country and sharing a border with several hostile countries such as Bangladesh, Burma and China, separatism has been big in this region. This has further been exacerbated by missionary activity in the Northeast, where the demographic change as well as the geographical separation and other cultural policies have kept the Northeast divided away from the mainstream narrative.

The average Bharatian knows very little about the Northeast, while the average Bharatian from the Northeast knows a lot about the mainland.

Many separatist groups have been working hand in hand with drug cartels, arms dealers and other people to continue ruling over the Northeast. The old and pre-colonial system of the bureaucracy has made this region lag behind and has involved government officials. The partition of Bharat that separated the Northeast with a Bengal in the middle, while left it open to influence from Southeast Asia and China (who too were traditional cultural partners of Bharat in the olden times).

The historical Congress party, tasked with the stitching of various princely states together into a single coherent nation, had to chart things out along the way. When the Japanese invaded Bharat through Myanmar, they entered through the Northeast. The Naga people they encountered were fierce. While SC Bose wanted to stitch an alliance with the Japanese and the Naga people, the Japanese misbehaved. As such, the Naga people chose to support the British over the Japanese, and repelled these invaders away from their punyabhumi.

Since Myanmar was already separated from Bharat, and the Burmese were known to be hostile towards the Northeast, especially to the kingdoms of Manipur and Kamrup, they had a natural disgust at joining the Burmese as a nation. However, with Bharat, it was only during the Mughal rule that Hindu kings became hostile towards the Northeast at the behest of rulers like Akbar and Aurangzeb. They further formed a more rigid caste system and started attacking the tribal religion by burning the Puya texts. While this is not as bad as those Burmese who invaded the Northeast of their own free will, this was enough historical ill-will to start a movement for an independent northeast.

Several factions had sprung up. The INC had dealt with them usually with a hard hand and refused to sit for negotiations with them. This had changed on some level under the BJP, after nearly 60 years.

Manipur and Nagaland after the 2014 Elections

Modi worked hard to integrate himself with the people of northeast. Many infrastructure projects, roads, and even potential sea routes were started.

Modi even gave very important ministerial positions to people from the Northeast. Not because they were from a region, but because they were competent. This gave the northeast an identifiable face in the Center and also was a move against the “Assamese” image of the northeast that many Mainlanders have.

Yet it was the crackdown on drugs like opium that started the war in Manipur. The war in Manipur between the Kukis and Meiteis has lasted for almost a year, with no end in sight. The government’s inaction, and neutrality, spoke volumes to the people of the Northeast.

Many deals between the regional jatis of the Nagas, Meitei and Kukis had been won over. The BJP had made an NDA ally out of all three tribes. Their inaction was a way for them to not single out any one of the three parties. Yet, in their hopes of uniting all the groups of the Northeast, they ended up uniting them together against the BJP, and rightfully so.

Conclusion

The INC has won in both Nagaland and Manipur, where both states have a conflict of state borders. While the INC definitely deserves the victory, the INC must also ensure that they walk the fine line of responsibly governing the state and ensuring that the Northeast’s cultural presence is felt across Bharat in the decades to come. While peace is easy to ensure in the short run, the INC must move away from its politics of divide and rule and continue the good works of the previous government. This is essential for continuing peace in the long term in the region and cross-state friendship between these fellow Indians.