The Big Story: Shaky ground

It is deja vu for the Congress in Meghalaya where, as was the case in Manipur in 2017, the party won the most seats in the state, but will not end up forming the government. Instead, Meghalaya is set to be ruled by a grand coalition of practically everyone that is not the Congress. The National People’s Party, which won 19 seats – two fewer than the Congress – will end up leading the coalition, along with the United Democratic Party, the People’s Democratic Front, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Hill State People’s Democratic Party. NPP leader Conrad Sangma is set to be the new chief minister of the state.

This should come as a major blow to the Congress, which was rightly pilloried for its failure to act quickly enough in Manipur, with accusations that its top leadership was simply not nimble enough to see the threat from the BJP. This time, though top leaders like Kamal Nath and Ahmed Patel flew into Shillong in an attempt to stitch together an alliance, questions were raised about why the Congress President, Rahul Gandhi, was out of the country and missing in action. it is true that the Congress comes in at a massive disadvantage – most states in the North East are entirely dependent on the Centre for funds, giving the party in power in New Delhi a clear leg up – but the impression of not being pro-active enough sticks to the party, especially at a time when its vote share in the other two states, Nagaland and Tripura, has practically disappeared.

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Once the dust settles, however, it will be important to see what sort of government has come together in Meghalaya, a state where stable rule has often been elusive. The Bharatiya Janata Party’s presence in the coalition might bring it some stability, since the Centre has a natural interest in keeping things running smoothly. But there is very little common ground between the various constituents of the coalition: The NPP, which is the heavyweight, is a party seen to represent the Garo hills, one of the two major regions of the state. The UDP and the Hill State People’s Democratic Party are strident Khasi parties, from the other region within the state. The latter has even pledged to fight for a separate Khasi state.

And in the middle of all of this sits the BJP. The saffron party has been unable to do much in the state, where it still carries a strong anti-Christian tag. While its rise in Tripura was meteoric and it put in a respectable growth figure in Nagaland, in Meghalaya it picked up just 2 seats. Yet it will be seen as a key constituent of the coalition, because of its national clout. The BJP’s overall Hindutva image and chest-thumping nationalism will not fit well with the sub-nationalist impulses that the constituents of the coalition embody, and the government will struggle to deal with the contradictions between the BJP’s stances within the state and beyond.

This could potentially take the state back to the days of unstable coalitions, something that was halted when Mukul Sangma took over in 2010 and ushered in a relative continuity. Conrad Sangma, the incoming chief minister, will have his hands full simply dealing with the demands of various sections of his coalition. How will he handle the push and pull of the sub-nationalism, especially when the BJP will try and dominate proceedings? Amid all this politicking, Conrad Sangma will have to remember that the real task of ruling Meghalaya remains providing stable governance and giving its people the promise of a better future.

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Punditry

  1. “[Tripura’s] experience of the Partition trauma meant that there was always an innate resistance to Muslims settlers amongst the earlier Hindus migrants, though linguistically both are Bengalis. This subterranean passion was what the Left Front managed to harness all along. And this was what the BJP, with its own brand of nationalistic identity, also tapped into,” writes Pradip Phanjoubam in the Indian Express.
  2. “[Kamal] Haasan does enjoy one inherent advantage that could yet help him project a close tie to the needs of the Tamil person: his worldview appears to be in sync with those of the forbears of the Dravidian movement such as Periyar,” writes Narayan Lakshman in the Hindu.
  3. “Most regional parties in Northeast now prefer the BJP as their national partner, and not the Congress which has a tribal base, but managing the contradictions will be a a full-time task,” writes Subir Bhaumik in The Hindu.
  4. “There has been a lot of celebration that India is once again the fastest growing major economy, but the task of pushing the potential growth rate higher should not be lost sight of. It is also useful to remember that economic growth is around one percentage point lower than what should be possible in a strong global economy,” says a leader in Mint.
  5. “At a time when the Left needs to be far more inventive, creative, and imaginative to meet the changed political circumstances which threaten the fundamental pillars of Indian state and society, the CPI(M) leadership prefers to squander its time on arcane debates on “political-tactical line” that lend its leaders a veneer of theoretical sophistication at the cost of full-blooded and full-bodied mass politics,” writes Manini Chatterjee in the Telegraph.

Giggle

Don’t miss

Zahida Rehman Jatt writes about how the Brahma Kumaris rose from a small spiritual group in pre-Partition Sindh to a global organisation.

During the British rule, Hyderabad’s Hindu merchants, Bhaibands, had an international network of firms and were known as Sindworkies (one who works in goods from Sindh).

Many of these men joined the Sindwork firms that were working across the globe and would spend several years in foreign countries, leaving their womenfolk behind.

Lawrence Babb, in his article Indigenous Feminism in a Modern Hindu Sect, writes: “But if the world was wide for Sind Worki men, for their wives and daughters matters were very different. The world of women was the household, within which most of them were secluded.”

Perhaps it was the isolation and sense of being left behind, stranded in a house without men, that prompted women to explore avenues that would enable them to live more purposeful and spiritually meaningful lives.