The Stress of Sankalps
I had refrained from reading newspapers. I didn’t see the need to read half a page for a news I’d be getting for 60 words(thanks to inshorts). But when my mom threatened to burn my phone, I was compelled to pick up the daily read. The first page caught my eye-
Almost any native of Assam would blindly agree to the flood issue of the mighty Brahmaputra. While we take immense pride in calling it our holy Ganga, we are equally ill fated for enduring the disastrous floods every monsoon. While 151 people were killed in 2017, the government figure in 2018 was 49. Thousands of houses destroyed, cattle washed away in seconds. With hardly any media coverage and the center making promises of providing funds throughout the year, it always vents down to an ‘accounting error’ during the monsoons and we make do with the share from State Disaster Response Fund.
According to an article from Scroll.in, a senior state official stated in spite of allocation of Rs. 2350 crore for flood effected areas of the north-east, it hasn’t received any special funds from the Center since 2014, due to an accounting error, the details of which, he failed to mention.
It is ridiculous to see this agenda come up before every elections, with the same promises para-phrased. But if we don’t find the agenda foolish enough yet, wait till you have a look at the guidelines which suggests ‘dredging’ as a possible solution. While the Environment Agency clearly stated that dredging can in fact, worsen the floods as it would lead to increase in flow velocity and route floods downstream, the disastrous effect of the marine life is yet another concern. However, I am no environmental ecologist, and sincerely hope they would have planned on appointing one for the precautions. But the red signal is often seen as a green one in two conditions: either in the case of color-blindness, or the loss of vision to notice money under the table.
Amidst a lot of debates about center allotting funds for the floods,one of my mainland friends came up with an irrefutable conclusion- why would they even bother with a land from where minimum revenue is generated? Maybe that’s why they have added the sankalps of Atmanirbhar, most entrepreneurial state, fastest job creator and land rights in their list. While the Swami Vivekanda Assam Youth Employment Yojna(SVAYEM), launched in 7th February, 2017 and redesigned on 20th January, 2021, with an aim to provide an aid of rupees 50,000 to 2 lakh youths seems objectionable, yet promising, and the Assam Aatmanirbhar Yojana of making the state self sufficient in the food items like dairy, poultry piggery etc does shed a ray of hope, the promise of providing 1 lakh jobs in the government sector and 8 lakh jobs in the private sector before 31st March,2021 seems as vague as the autumn rains. Similar to the jubilant promise of leaving no Assamese man landless without a set deadline. And with the issues such as ‘accounting error’ each Monsoon, we might as well talk of a drought in autumn.
Since we are on the same page as land, it would be wise to talk about land protection as well. Yes, the BJP’s sankalp of protecting the Namghar and Satras. With our very own chief Minister Mr. Sarbananda Sonowal being a part of the sankari samaj, this sankalp has very good reasons to be fulfilled. A formation of a task force, with a fund of rupees 2.5 lakhs solely for the purpose of protecting the heritage of the state reminds me of “The Kaziranga Trail” by Arup Kumar Dutta. Centered around 3 village boys and a young elephant, it talks about corruption at the roots. Although the story dates back to 1978, it holds much more relevance today than ever. I could go on with the endless list of middlemen and corruption, but thought it better to chant this mantra instead: executive is to pass laws, legislature, implement them and judiciary, ensure it’s execution.
But when it comes to laws, the only law or rather, act we get reminded of is the Citizenship Amendment Act. The unspoken sankalp which failed to make it’s way to the list. Maybe it wasn’t important enough to be a part of them. Or maybe they tried their best to erase that dark phase in Assam history, written in black ink, spreading the message of ‘forget the past and embrace the future’. I find the latter more convincing specially when they had two sankalps talking about safeguarding the political rights of Assam and corrected NRC.
The National Register of Citizens(NRC), mandated by Supreme Court was initiated to protect genuine Indian citizens from the illegal immigrants. As of now, such a register was only in Assam, a step taken to tackle the illegal immigration of Bangladeshi and Burmese refugees in the country. Although the concept wasn’t new to the residents of Assam, it’s proper implementation was done after the BJP government came into power in the state. They were hailed and were regarded as the knights in shining Armour of the Assamese community. The NRC gave way to CAB, and consequently CAA. The Citizenship Amendment Act(CAA) was passed by the parliament on 11th December 2019 to give citizenship to the illegal migrants of Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Parsis and Jains. Or as some people unblinkingly say, everyone except the Muslims.
Apart from the Brahmaputra, the only other sankalp that had it’s fate fixed in the list was the one about women upliftment. As it has become a ‘must-mention’ point for any organisation working towards the nation building, BJP, with 11 of it’s 34 candidates having major criminal records in their affidavits listed it as their 2nd Sankalp. For a second I reconsidered my previous comment. Crimes against women are a sub-class of the vast class of crimes. But the TOI reports in 2016, which claimed that 11.5% of 3.38 lakh criminal cases in India are rapes alone, i.e. roughly 39 thousand, made me change my mind.
It is however, interesting to take a note of the ‘Orunodoi’ scheme launched for upliftment of the families of widowed and divorced women. The promises of Rs. 3000 and additional amounts for the basic amenities such a food, medicines to the beneficiaries indeed put up a paladin image of the party. But as the saying goes- easier to preach than practice, we can only hope similar ‘accounting error’ does not take place in this case. Upliftment of the deprived women are indeed the need of the hour, but upliftment of the party in the names of upliftment of the society would only bring ignominy to the party.
It would be wrong to talk only about the women when we have an entire society pariah-ed since eons. Good news to the boys, the ruling political party of the republic of India intends to provide free bicycles to all the students, 8th standard onward, as well as free education in all state government institutions. Finally Mama realized that support from both the genders are equally important to win the elections. An intriguing decision indeed, but let us remind ourselves yet again that planning and execution are two independent things.
The history of BJP rule in Assam has been a phase of severe turns and turmoils. While we experienced Kashmir-like situation in late December-2019, the Assam Public Service Commission results brought them laurels for a fair and just evaluation. The Congress, heavily accused of corruption in the past, with the demise of their veteran leader, Tarun Gogoi has only added woes to their worries. Meanwhile, the AIUDF leader Maulana Badruddin Ajmal has gripped to the CAA issue as eagles to their prey. The emergence of Akhil Gogoi, who has been in jail for more than a year over allegations of instigating violence during the anti-CAA protests in 2019–20 has only added fuel to the ongoing tension between the parties.
To watch such a battle of blood is one thing, to get involved in it is another. They say that politics is the dirtiest game. But as the hindi proverb says, to clear the mud, you need to get into the mud. This elections, let us step into the mud before it further pollutes our motherland. With a myriad of 13 political parties to vote for, let us not refrain from appearing at the election booth or opt for NOTA.
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