The results of the general election for the 18th Lok Sabha are a pointer to undercurrents of mass unease over the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s centralised polity, micro-management, and its ideological tenet of uniformity in India’s peripheral border areas such as Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Manipur, Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya. These trends are important as some of the areas at India’s periphery have a disproportionate implication for Indian politics and the national security narrative as well as a spill-over impact on India’s relations with its neighbours.
The BJP claimed credit for the abrogation of Article 370 in electorally significant states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra while it asked the electorate to vote for the party so that it could claim Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. In the 2019 election, which gave the BJP a clear majority, the Pulwama terror attack, according to some surveys, led to a 15% rise in voting in the Hindi-speaking states. A similar spike had happened in the elections after the Kargil war in 1999. This time, there was no national security-related development. Within J&K, the BJP won only two seats in Hindu-majority Jammu whereas in the Muslim-majority Kashmir Valley, the National Conference won 2 seats while the independent candidate, Sheikh Abdul Rashid, alias ‘Engineer Rashid’, won from the Baramulla segment. Rashid, who had earlier been a J&K assembly legislator, was arrested by the National Investigation Agency in a terror-funding case after the abrogation of Article 370. In his absence, his campaign was carried out by his two sons.
Reversing Article 370 is de facto impossible after the apex court judgment on December 11, 2023. The election of Rashid, known for his provocative speeches, reflected undercurrents of dissatisfaction against the abrogation and his arrest. The people want a more determined and vocal opposition from the political ecosystem. In the Hindu-majority areas of J&K, there has been an erosion in the votes for the BJP. For instance, in the Hindu-majority Nowshera assembly segment along the Line of Control, which is the native place of the J&K BJP president, Ravinder Raina, the BJP trailed behind the National Conference. The BJP’s victory margin in the two seats it won in J&K, when compared to that of 2019, has fallen dramatically. It would have decidedly lost the old Jammu-Poonch Lok Sabha segment to INDIA had the controversial delimitation exercise not taken place.
Separated from J&K, the Ladakh parliamentary segment facing China-controlled Tibetan plateau and Pakistan-controlled Gilgit Baltistan voted for an independent candidate, Haji Hanifa Jan, from the Kargil district. The lesser-known fact is that the Ladakhi population is nearly 46.4% Muslim, 39.7% Buddhist and 12.1% Hindu. The election of Jan, who was until recently a NC leader, portrays the continuing trend of Leh-Kargil contestation but his election was also influenced by the demands for the application of a Northeast-centric Sixth Schedule for Ladakh.
In the border state of Punjab, with 13 seats, the BJP faced the wrath of the 2020 farmer agitation. At the same time, two candidates with seemingly radical views won in the state. Amritpal Singh, who is currently lodged in Assam’s Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act, won from the Khadoor Sahib constituency while Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, the son of Beant Singh, one of the two assassins of the former prime minister, Indira Gandhi, won from Faridkot. The vote for these two candidates indicates a brewing resentment among a section of Punjab’s electorate that also acquires a transnational character because of the large Punjabi diaspora.
In India’s Northeast, there are 25 Lok Sabha constituencies. In Nagaland, where there is one segment, there was an abstention from the polls in six districts as the Eastern Nagaland Peoples’ Organisation had given a call in this respect since it has demanded internal autonomy. In ethnic strife-ridden Manipur, with two Lok Sabha seats, there were reports of booth capturing. All the three seats went to the Congress. In Mizoram, there is unease brewing over the decision to fence the Indo-Myanmar border and do away with the Free Movement Regime. The fencing project is seen as a political initiative and is opposed by Chins, Mizos, Kukis, Zomis, Hmars and Kuki-Chins. The Zoram People’s Movement emerged as the victor. In Meghalaya, where the voting takes place on ethnic considerations between Khasi and Garo tribes, the Voice of the People Party, which has a strong regional character and opposed the governor’s budget session speech in Hindi, won and the Congress secured one seat.
In Assam, with 14 seats, the BJP won nine and retained its 2019 seat tally even though the 2024 elections were held in the shadow of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019. The fresh delimitation exercise done in August 2023 benefited the BJP. The Opposition had alleged that new seats had been created in a manner that limited the influence of the minority to a few seats. The Muslim population in the state, which mostly shunned the All India United Democratic Front in favour of the Congress this time, is around 10.7 million. As many as 4.2 million indigenous Assamese Muslims, such as Goria, Moria, Deshi, Jolha, Mimol, Pingle and Kachari, live in Assam apart from Bengali-speaking Muslims. Along with other Assamese communities, they have been part of the agitations for state autonomy and safeguarding ethnic rights. Jorhat, which comprises 90 tea gardens and has a strong regional pride owing to it being the last capital of the Ahoms and the centre of Assamese culture, voted for the Congress candidate, Gaurav Gogoi.
Given its inheritance of colonial structures, India’s federal government has a perennial problem with the periphery; the engagement is top-down in nature. This problem has been exacerbated in the last 10 years in an increasingly centralised polity. Each one of these units of the periphery requires a granular understanding, but a common thread has emerged. The top-down approach to governance, with an aim to subsume the periphery in a narrow civilisational imagination, thereby ignoring its cultural, societal and historical distinctness, has made the affairs worse. With the return of regional parties to both the ruling coalition as well as the Opposition, a more cohesive and participatory relationship between the periphery and the heartland is to be expected.
Luv Puri has worked on peace and security issues for two decades, including at the UNHQ