Even by the morally vacuous standards of social media, a venomous video put up by the Assam BJP marks a new low. The controversial video – now deleted – showed Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma using an air rifle at ‘point blank’ range aiming at two men, one in a skull cap, the other bearded. While the video purportedly claimed to be targeting Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants and standing up for ethnic Assamese identity, the violent communal imagery could not have been more starkly spiteful. A chief minister of a state, a constitutionally elected leader, pointing his gun at Muslims, is the most egregious example of a brazen violation of constitutional responsibilities.
A crafty politician, Sarma has rather disingenuously claimed that he has no knowledge of any such video. But the deniability carries little weight. The video was put up by the Assam BJP on its official handle on X (formerly Twitter). It garnered more than a million views before it was taken down. The video wasn’t an aberration either. For months now, Sarma has led a sustained, toxic campaign against ‘Miyas’, a crude perjorative term used against Bengali-speaking Muslims in Assam. He has even called for an economic boycott of ‘Miyas’, be it shopkeepers, vegetable vendors or auto-rickshaw drivers. Far from being apologetic about his stance, Sarma has justified his utterances as ‘necessary’ to protect Assam’s cultural-civilisational ethos.
It is apparent that an unapologetic Sarma senses electoral benefit in his constant anti-Muslim slurs. At a time when the Congress campaign has focussed on allegations of big ticket corruption against the Chief Minister and his family, communal tropes are both weapons of mass distraction and of division. Anger and resentment against the ‘outsider’ has been part of Assam’s complex ethnic landscape for decades now; Sarma has positioned himself as a loudspeaker of popular grievances against a demographic re-ordering in the state. With some estimates pointing to a 38 per cent Muslim population in the state, it is easy to stir fears, real and imaginary, against demographic change and cultural dilution.
Which is where the incendiary video’s messaging becomes intensely problematic. What qualifies prima facie as hate speech outside Assam is pitched as a defence of the historical/linguistic/cultural/economic rights of the indigenous population within the state. Far from it provoking outrage, the video has been justified in Assam as reflecting the state’s lived political consciousness. If the 2002 Gujarat riots were linked to Gujarati asmita (self-respect) by then chief minister Narendra Modi, a similar playbook is being practised in Assam as part of distinct ethnic identity politics.
Not surprisingly, the BJP central leadership has maintained a cryptic silence on the offensive video. The ‘sabka saath, sabka vikas, sabka vishwas’ slogan is a brand-building exercise meant to soften global audiences; in poll-bound Assam, there is political dividend to be reaped in keeping the communal pot boiling. Which is why every time Prime Minister Modi or home minister Amit Shah visit Assam, they don’t forget to remind audiences about the dangers posed by ‘ghuspetiyas’ or ‘illegal infiltrators’. That international borders are meant to be policed by central forces is conveniently ignored.
Even the so-called ‘secular’ lobby has been virtually brow-beaten into submission by the triumphal march of majoritarian politics. While a few concerned citizens have filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court calling for stern action against those responsible for the video, there is a marked reluctance on part of the political class in general to confront the Sarma brand of communal politics for fear that it will further alienate Hindu voters. Where once Muslim minority appeasement was the charge levelled against parties like the Congress, now it is competition for majority Hindu voters that guides political decision-making. If an Asadduddin Owaisi has filed a police complaint against Sarma in Hyderabad it is because he doesn’t need the Hindu vote to win.
Which explains why Sarma can get away with hate speech with such impunity. A long-serving Congressman’s defection to become BJP’s saffron posterboy, the transition is a reflection of opportunistic shifts in contemporary Indian politics being disguised as personality clashes or ideological incompatibility. The Assam chief minister in 2015 had famously claimed that he had left the Congress because Rahul Gandhi had ‘humiliated’ him at a private meeting by preferring to feed biscuits to his puppy rather than addressing Assam’s concerns. Truth is, when Sarma’s ambitions could not be accommodated within the Congress, the BJP became a secure alternative. The fact that the BJP had previously charged Sarma with corruption was quietly forgotten: all the cases against him were dropped or slowed down once he switched sides in a classic ‘washing machine’ early prototype.
As a 57 year old ‘strongman’ politician, Sarma is now in the front row of BJP’s Gen-Next. This is a generation that is not chained by political correctness, moral rectitude or constitutional values as to some extent the BJP’s leaders of the Atal-Advani era were. This is a generation that is driven by an obsessive urge for political power above all else. Which is why Sarma as the party’s principal North-East face, practised election manager and trouble-shooter is seen as an invaluable asset. Right-thinking citizens will be appalled by Sarma’s anti-Muslim vocabulary but for the rank and file of the BJP, his ‘in your face’ dog-whistle politics fits in with a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ dream project. The mask is well and truly off.
Post-script: When Himanta Biswa Sarma announced his decision to leave the Congress, a senior Congress leader reportedly warned his party high command: ‘He is a leader for the future, we will miss someone like him.’ A decade on, the ‘face of the future’ is part of a darkened present.
(Rajdeep Sardesai is a senior
journalist and author)
