Mahanta Settles A Few Scores

The elephant is said to have a long memory. If proof were needed, look at Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta who has charged at the tea industry for its role in dismissing his earlier government in 1990. Incidentally, the elephant is also his partys symbol. And if you know anything about the chief minister, he is not finished with the tea industry; not until he has extracted the maximum political mileage.

Mahanta has been the beneficiary and also the victim of the flux that Assam is in. As president of the All Assam Students Union (AASU), he led an economically crippling agitation for six years in the eighties. The issue was the influx of foreign nationals into the state, but nearly two decades after those heady days, Mahanta has grown wise. He hardly talks about it now. If you were to bring it up, he would smile sheepishly, and beseech you to have tea.

 

He and his boys benefited from the apprehensions among the people about the threat to their land and culture. The apprehensions remain, waiting to be tapped again, but Mahanta would not be bothered. From college hostels, they have graduated to professional politicians. Indeed, in his second innings, Mahanta son of a schoolteacher has proved to be a fast learner.

Officials discern a distinct sign of maturity while others claim that he has been well and truly Saikia-ised: he appears to have internalised some of the tactics his predecessor Hiteswar Saikia was famous for. Mahanta too can be ruthless; that is how he has pushed his long-time buddy, Bhrigu Kumar Phukan, into the sidelines. Phukan is not fit to be the home minister, he told us at the height of their differences in his first innings in office. In private conversation, two points stand out: One, his strong anti-Congressism; and two, a sense of embarrassing middle-class glee that he has been able to make it in the cut and thrust of politics.

But today, much to the chagrin of the millions who participated in his agitational programmes, he is taciturn on the very issues they had taken to the streets for. And he is facing the heat from his own former constituents. The AASU makes periodic noises perhaps more out of habit than conviction about the non-implementation of the Assam accord, while the Bodos use his own agitational methods to demand a separate state.

The problem in Assam is that thanks to its distance from Delhi, and the continuation of the British policy of benign neglect except for extracting tea and oil its emotional integration with mainland India is not complete. Even for normal development activity to take place, people have had to take to the streets. It has been ingrained in their minds that unless you agitate, kill and burn bridges, the Centre will not take notice. In the process, a culture of agitation has spawned, which has further given birth to a thriving cottage industry of insurgency.

Mahanta is a child of this culture. His languid gait and portly sloth may be symbolic of Assams lahe, lahe (lethargic) attitude, but behind that lies a shrewd mind. He is at ease in Assamese, and cleverly exploits his inarticulateness in English or Hindi to confound his critics in Delhi.

Mahanta is aware of the deep-seated siege mentality among his people; the anger against the Centre and the conviction among the educated and the influential that India has little use for Assam except for its oil and tea. The 1962 Chinese invasion added to such perceptions, particularly Nehrus famous speech. When the Chinese were knocking on Tezpur, the heartland of the caste-Hindu Assamese, Nehrus words were perceived as a farewell to Assam and its people: My heart goes out to the people of Assam.

Mahanta knows that nothing is more appreciated in the state than hitting at the Centre. All symbols of the Indian state and even correspondents of Delhi newspapers become targets in such a climate.

The animosity was reinforced when the influential tea industry lobbied successfully to get Mahantas government dismissed in 1990, for failure to protect its employees. Today, Mahanta sits pretty politically: he has evidence of tea companies extending funds to militants out of fear (who did not know of it?), can tighten the screws on them legally and what is more, his party is a frontline constituent of the government at Delhi. So the possibility of his governments dismissal is remote.

But the tendency to blame the Centre for everything has gone to ridiculous extremes. On the all too apparent differences with Phukan, Mahanta once said with a straight face: The Centre is behind this, Delhi wants to create a split between us. On another occasion, during the Bodo ferment in 1989, he used a document of dubious authenticity to go to town with the charge: The Centre has deployed RAW to destabilise my government.

This time Mahanta has launched the tirade against the tea industry with two objectives: to avenge his 1990 dismissal, and to divert attention from incidents such as the killing of Sanjoy Ghose. His explanation for the all too apparent failure to tackle militancy in Assam is that the police is ill-equipped, and the state government is burdened with a huge bill for the deployment of central forces. But the friendly government at the Centre has now written off most of this multi-crore debt.

Mahanta is now faced with a new problem. Delhi is friendly and, therefore, the punching bag is no longer available. There is a distinct possibility that he himself will soon become the punching bag for his own constituents. But for the time being, there is the tea industry to bail him out. What will he do when the heat is turned on again? The answer is his famous non-committal remark: Saam, baru (Lets see). The sheepish smile is back, and so is another cup of tea.