On the eve of the New Year the tranquil strategic border state of Arunachal Pradesh witnessed yet another change in its political scenario. Chief Minister Pema Khandu, who had been ruling the state since September with 33 associate MLAs of the Peoples’ Party of Arunachal Pradesh, switched allegiance and joined the BJP.
Just a day or two earlier there was a report by the Comptroller and Auditor-General that the North Eastern Electric Power Corporation Limited had paid contractors who were allegedly closed to Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, Kiren Rijiju. Reacting to this, the minister had quipped that those who were making such baseless allegations would be taught a lesson.
Politicians of Arunachal Pradesh changing colours is nothing new, but what comes as a surprise is that there had been one too many last year. A Congressman all along, Khandu has been in power since September last year and playing musical chairs after changing side from the Congress to the largest regional Peoples’ Party of Arunachal Pradesh. And now he has shifted to the BJP. This time around, however ,the game was controlled by the powerful ruling party leaders at the Centre. What is new in the game is not just the purchasing power of the MLAs, but how political names and banners are created and contorted to fall in line with patrons from New Delhi. Politics of patronage work out by shifting allegiances from the regional to national parties and in the process, reassert one’s own family, kinship and group-identity over another.
This is politics of attrition and new alliances without any foundation of ideological and political commitments. This is an absolute and open-ended form of belonging as far as political colours are concerned, and it is so very fuzzy that party allegiances are subsumed within graft and power play. This is also strategic political positioning without marginalising the prospect of running another day as and when the political climate changes. One could visibly see here that the foundation of such a shift is very weak.
It is dangerous and rewarding at the same time. Dangerous because there is no manifesto or a commitment to which a party contests an election and rewarding to those closely associated with agents of such a move, in the short run.
Is this shift so simple? If not, how does one explain such phenomena that have been common place in the state for many years? One way to look at it is by understanding these shifts as a practice of “strategic marginality”. This notion appears in social science literature in order to explain the behaviour of “marginal”, “runaway” and “fugitive groups” who maintain a very ambivalent relation with the state. It is as if they are entirely not submissive to the state, nor they are against it as long as they get benefits. In a way, the “‘strategic marginality” is their ideology which aims at their way of conducting politics. It is one of a kind of shifting political subjectivity. It is their way of negotiating the local and the dominant centres of power. Arunachal is thus a place that is home to unique cultural forms, multiple articulations of centre-periphery, changing contours of identity among each group that are formed due to a complex arrangement of inter-ethnic, inter-cultural and inter-civilisation markers. The shifting location of political allegiance informs us that it is a special case, which has to be taken into account when one speaks of the nature of ethnic politics.
The rise of the Khandu family in the Tawang area and their huge wealth explains why the centrepoint of Arunachal politics these days is moving around Tawang. It is also the site of the proposed Nyamjang Chu dam to be built in the public-private model showing the prospect of huge investment and contract works. To generalise, across Arunachal Pradesh there are MoUs for 138 dams that is going to bring some crores of rupees worth of investment. Politics in Arunachal revolves around calculations of gained out of these investments. Added to this, the Khandu family’s promise for setting up of two autonomous councils — Mon and Patkai — to be led by groups like Monpas, Noctes and Wangchus acted as a booster for rise in family fortunes. Not only financial prospects for the super-rich Khandu family, but an expansion of their social support base in these very marginalised districts of Tawang, Anjaw, Tirap and Changlang, which together cover almost half of Arunachal Pradesh’s land area. It also means immense control over local natural and cultural resources that give leaders a pecuniary and social edge over others.
Local political elites like Khandus have been at the forefront in leveraging them to the highest echelons of power. When Khandu got a majority after Congress returned to power in 2016 following the Supreme Court verdict, it looked like Congress taking away the cake from the BJP’s plate. Kalikho Pul, who allegedly committed suicide on 9 August, was a defector and CM for a short time early last year and was ejected by Pema Khandu after the Supreme Court judgment. When Pul took over from Nabam Tuki by a massive defection from Congress to the Peoples’ Party of Arunachal Pradesh, there were reactions from the state’s dominant ethnic group of Nyishis against replacement of a powerful Nyishi chief minister by an obscure Pul who belonged to the Miju or Kaman Mishmi tribe. The Nyishi students’ body raised objections to holding of power by a smaller tribe, a large number of who still lives in Myanmar and China.
As far as Khandus are concerned, they belong to another small and powerful Monpa tribe whose members live in Bhutan, Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh. Nevertheless, Pema Khandu’s father Dorjee Khandu had been a chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh for two terms until his unfortunate death in a helicopter crash in April 2011. Apart from this chequered political lineage, what is also talked about is that almost 95 per cent of the total deposits in State Bank of India in Tawang is owned by the Khandu brothers, both of whom are MLAs.
Inter-ethnic relationship in Arunachal Pradesh often borders on power relations. The state’s most powerful Nyishis are still to come to terms with the rise of Monpa Buddhists and others. This also signifies a new set of power equations in this beleaguered play of politics in Arunachal Pradesh. The emerging ethnic equations in the state involve an alternative combination of Monpas, Adis, Apatanis and Mishmis as opposed to Nyshi political clout. The BJP’s entry into this politically unstable scenario of ethnic reconfigurations make it more polarising as there is a renewed competition for garnering a larger ethno-political space between ethnic and tribal communities.
One of the fall-outs of this kind of ethnic competition is that territories are divided in terms of ethnic identity and loyalty. Geographically, eastern Arunachal is inhabited by Apatanis, Khamtis, Idu Mishmis, Wangchus and Noctes et al are closer to Assam and yet not being able to overcome relative deprivation. Nyishis, being at the centre of the territory, seemingly got all the advantages of state funding and hence could control most of the governments from the late 1970s. Contrarily, western Arunachal is inhabited by Monpas, Sherdukpins, Akas, Buguns and Mishmis who now hold a counter-weight to central Arunachal communities. They are able to forge new equations with the eastern side as well.
As it is believed that ethnic equations too are power equations, the emerging ethnic gambit, too, is driven by a share of finances and governmental powers. In the new ministry of the BJP, there are representations from Khamti, Memba, Sherdupkun and Mishmis and of course, from his own tribe, Monpas. One of the biggest challenges is how this ministry will negotiate and share power with Nyishis and other eastern Arunachali tribes, on which its stability depends. Noctes and Wangchus, being part of the larger Naga tribes do demand their share of power, which also needs to be addressed.
The typical political patronage that is received in terms of bonanza from the Centre in return to loyalty and allegiance to the ruling party does not alone ensure stability of the new government. The recent visit of the RSS chief and a propagation of Hindutva ideology does not ensure emergence of a Hindu pan-ethnic identity beyond tribal and ethnic allegiances. For now, the BJP’s hold might initiate a process of unity on the basis of Hindutva, but indigenous religions of Arunachal and their multiple rituals keep ethnic identities intact and alive. The BJP’s pan-Indian politics cannot exactly negotiate the fine ethnic differences and their multiple expressions of specificity, thereby leaving open the game of realignment to political exigency.
What turns out is the Khandus’ strategic positioning of a Buddhistic identity above the tribal that breaks rigid ethnic boundaries and yet, it cannot overcome the dichotomy between local and national identities. Within this hiatus, the re-alignment of western and eastern Arunachali tribes opens up a new political chessboard, at whose bottom lies the traditionally powerful Nyishis. The game could now be played from outside the board and not just on the board.
(Suraj Gogoi is a researcher at National University of Singapore and Prasenjit Biswas is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at North Eastern Hill University, Shillong)