Identity politics vs people’s well-being

Sudip Chakraborty, SNS, :Demand for Gorkhaland has been resurrected. The government bungalow at Takdha in Darjeeling was set ablaze by an irate mob on 2 August. The barbaric act was committed by the foot soldiers of the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) and was followed by the statement of the chief minister, where she unequivocally rebuffed moves to bifurcate Bengal. The Bengal government is firm in its stand and wants to abide by the tripartite agreement that gave birth to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) a year ago. The Morcha, on the other hand, has backtracked and abandoned the GTA. The marriage was short-lived. They are now demanding the full cake, not half or even three-fourth of it.

Telangana is the trigger for this U-turn among the Morcha Leaders. The Congress nod to Telangana is driven more by prospects of electoral gain than any real concern for the well-being of people of the region. The timing of the nod is a good enough indication of its intention – the general election next year was not going to be a smooth sail for the party, and they needed to create a solid vote-bank if there is to be a UPA-III at the centre.

The Telangana nod has set off serial eruptions of volcanoes of divisive agitations in many regions of India. Apart from the hills of Bengal, violent agitations are underway demanding Bodoland and Karbi Anglong in Assam. Demands for Greater Coochbehar and Kamtapur have also been resurrected. The Vidarbha region of Maharashtra is an old candidate for statehood.

The list includes Mithila Pradesh, Bundelkhand, Harit Pradesh, Purbanchal, and many other. 

Once the 29th state is actually created, there will be further chaos. Burning, self-immolations, strikes, disruption and chaos would befall on all the above regions. The worst sufferers would be people living on the margins. 

The demand for a separate state has to be viewed in the light of people’s well-being. Do new states carved out of the mother state improve the quality of lives of people who were led to weave the dream-net of heaven by self-seeking politicians? They invoke the issue of neglect and find the cause for their precarious plight in the subjugation by the imperial mother-state.

They advocate that secession is the panacea. The popular sentiment is roused by skillful cultivation of identity politics. Nepali-speaking people of Darjeeling claim they are Gorkhas.

They are different from Bengalis by way of history, language, culture, literature, ethnicity and habitation. They are agitating for self-determination, which would be realised only if statehood is conferred on the region. In all this, the real motive of the organisers of the agitations goes unnoticed.

All the demands for statehood are centred on assertions of identity. Politicians make use of sub-national identities to garner support for statehood demand. The likes of Bimal Gurung and K Chandrashekhar Rao tactfully hide their political ambition under the wrap of identity politics. 

But do new states invariably improve the lives of people?  They do not. Let us take one indicator for measuring people’s well-being – the Human Development Index (HDI).  Among states in India, HDI was the highest in Kerala in 2011, at 0.62. Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand were the worst-performing states, with scores of 0.44 and 0.45 respectively. Both these states were born in 2000.

According to the 61st consumer expenditure survey, the poverty rate in Jharkhand is higher than that in Bihar. One of the leading faces behind the agitation for Jharkhand has been accused of siphoning off Rs 2,900 crore in his capacity as the new state’s chief minister.

Has the new state lessened the destitution of the aam admi? The committee headed by Late Suresh Tendulkar, constituted by the Planning Commission, lays bare the fact that the poverty rate in India has declined by 8 per cent in the 2004-2010 period.  Poverty in Chhattisgarh during the same period, has, however, gone up. 

New states are failed players. They can hold back, even harm, the well-being of people instead of improving the situation. Balkanisation of India along lines of identity would jeopardise the federal structure of our democratic system, which the brains behind the Constitution so cherished. Smaller states in north-east India are dependent on the Central government for all types of support. Dependence on the Centre for running the government of constituent states undermines federalism and turns the Centre in to a mammoth powerhouse. Development deficits can be bridged by devolution, decentralisation and participatory democracy, not by creating new states based on sub-national identities. 

The writer is Associate Professor, Ananda Chandra College, Jalpaiguri And former Fulbright Visiting Professor, University of Minnesota.
(Source & Courtesy: http://www.thestatesman.net/news/10113-identity-politics-vs-people-s-well-being.html)