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Opposition leaders from the north, notable among them Akhilesh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh (U.P.) and Tejashwi Yadav of Bihar, posed with Dravidian leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on his 70th birthday on March 1 in Chennai. They called for the ouster of the BJP from power in Delhi. Following this, internet rumours began spreading about ‘attacks’ on Hindi speakers in the State. Tejashwi Yadav, now deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, is taking the lead in bringing together opposition parties.
The BJP’s plans for 2024 will be ruined if it loses grip over the two critical States of U.P. and Bihar. Akhilesh and Tejashwi, both Yadavs, are the staunchest critics of the BJP. In Bihar, the alliance between RJD led by Tejashwi and the JDU led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has the potential to shake up the BJP’s Hindutva agenda.
Just as fake news spread that Hindi speakers were attacked in Tamil Nadu – it was all fabricated, using videos of violent incidents or accidents as far away as Rajasthan, with no link to ethnicity – the BJP in Bihar began blaming Nitish Kumar and Tejshwi Yadav. Chief Ministers of T.N. and Bihar, Stalin and Nitish, respectively came out with clarifications that there was no basis for the rumour. T.N.’s ruling party that is unnerved by any possibility of imposition of Hindi in the State, ran a campaign in Hindi to reassure the migrant workers that they would be protected. Migrants from north India are an integral part of T.N.’s economy.
According to the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Associations of India (CREDAI), Tamil Nadu, the migrant community oversees 85% of the work in big projects and 70% in medium-scale ones. It also has a visible presence in manufacturing, textiles, construction, and hospitality. A Tamil Nadu Labour Department survey in 2015 estimated that the State had around 11.5 lakh migrant workers.
Indians are moving within the country and abroad in ever increasing numbers. This movement happens from places of higher fertility to places of lower fertility and higher economic opportunities. The 2011 census reported the number of internal migrants in India at 45.36 crore, making up 37% of the country’s population. This number included both inter-state migrants and migrants within each State.
District-wise migration data in the Economic Survey for 2016-17 showed that the highest influx of migrants within the country was in city-districts such as Gurugram, Delhi, and Mumbai; along with Gautam Budh Nagar (Uttar Pradesh); Indore and Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh); Bengaluru (Karnataka); and Thiruvallur, Chennai, Kancheepuram, Erode, and Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu). The highest outward movement of migrant workers was from Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Moradabad, Rampur, Kaushambi, Faizabad, and 33 other districts of Uttar Pradesh; Uttarkashi, Chamoli, Rudra Prayag, Tehri Garhwal, Pauri Garhwal, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Almora, and Champawat in Uttarakhand; Churu, Jhunjhunu, and Pali in Rajasthan; Darbhanga, Gopalganj, Siwan, Saran, Sheikhpura, Bhojpur, Buxar, and Jehanabad in Bihar; Dhanbad, Lohardaga, and Gumla in Jharkhand; and Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra.
“Relatively less developed states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have high net out-migration. Relatively more developed states take positive CMM (Cohort-based Migration Metric) values reflecting net immigration: Goa, Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka. The largest recipient was the Delhi region, which accounted for more than half of migration in 2015-16, while Uttar Pradesh and Bihar taken together account for half of total out-migrants. Maharashtra, Goa and Tamil Nadu had major net in-migration, while Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh had major net out-migration,” the Economic Survey said.
For the DMK and Dravidian politics, the recent flare-up was a reminder of the State’s linkages with the Hindi speaking regions that are essential for its economic progress. To sustain its economic growth trajectory, T.N. will have to be increasingly dependent on a work force from the north – primarily Hindi and Bengali speakers. While its opposition to the BJP’s Hindi agenda has historical reasons, the risk of Dravidian politics going out of hand is very real in the present situation.
For the BJP though, it appears the south-vs-north divide could turn out to be a key plank for its 2024 strategy. Opposition to the BJP is emerging from the peripheral regions of India – T.N., Kerala, Telangana, and West Bengal for instance, where its stakes are limited. The BJP uses its Kashmir policy as a demonstration of its strength before Hindi voters who support it disproportionately, compared to the national average. The BJP does not want to win seats in T.N., Jammu and Kashmir, or Kerala; there are places that appear as volatile frontiers in the party’s telling before Hindi voters. Portraying its opponents in the Hindi heartland – Tejashwi and Nitish in this case, as companions of southern insurgents is a salivating thought, but an extremely dangerous one.
The fake news about attacks on Hindi speakers also coincided with the real news of central agencies such as the CBI and ED, getting active in cases against the Yadav family. This is yet more proof of how all these are part of a unified coordinated strategy. Internal migration is reshaping the political and ethnic character of all regions of India. If parties incite tensions for electoral gains, rather than nurture the possibility of integration that this new wave of mixing of people brings along, it could be dangerous. That’s the Big Picture.
Federalism Tract
A Hindutva film catalogue ahead of 2024
RSS affiliated organisation Bharatiya Chitra Sadhna (BCS) is spearheading the agenda of molding the storytelling in popular culture, particularly cinema, in line with the Hindutva narrative. BCS is inspired by Sanskar Bharti, which was a unit of RSS formed to promote Indian art, culture, and fine arts. The objective of this organisation was to counter the influence of the left-leaning Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) in the 1950s and after.
In recent times BJP leadership has come out in support of films such as Samrat Prithviraj, which was offered tax exemptions by two BJP-ruled States: Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Similarly, The Kashmir Files was made tax-free in six BJP-ruled States, and government staff was given holidays and free tickets to watch the film.
Some films in the pipeline depict the biographies of Hindutva icons and history. Ranjeet Sharma is the producer of the film Main Deendayal Hoon, based on the life of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, an ideologue of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. A biopic on Hindutva ideologue V.D. Savarkar is SwatantryaVeer Savarkar, with actor Randeep Hooda in the main role, is in production. Main Atal Hoon that stars Pankaj Tripathi as BJP stalwart and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, will be released in theatres in December 2023. Dr. Hedgewar, a biopic on RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar, is scheduled to hit theatres in October 2023. Bhagwa Dhwaj is another big-budget period drama tracing the roots of the RSS, written by director S.S. Rajamouli’s father and screenwriter V. Vijayendra Prasad.
These films are no more conceptualised on lines of full-blown propaganda movies like PM Narendra Modi released in 2019. Now Hindutva-oriented directors and filmmakers are looking for more subtle movie themes that cannot be directly identifiable as propaganda. They are somewhat creative in their content, like the one produced by director Rajkumar Santoshi Gandhi Godse–Ek Yudh, based on an imaginary conversation between Gandhi and Godse.
Film historians Ajay Brahmatmaj is of the opinion that now the BJP and the RSS want to use the “soft power of cinema” to their advantage by creating narratives around their icons before the 2024 polls.
Nagas get women lawmakers, minister
In the recently concluded State assembly elections in Nagaland, Salhoutuonuo Kruse has created history by becoming the State’s first MLA along with Hekani Jakhalu, both of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), Nagaland’s regional party. This is the first time Nagaland has elected a woman lawmaker.
Tribal fears in Triupra
There has been a steady decline in the tribal population in Tripura for more than a century now, and the new tribal party in the State reflects their insecurity. In 1901 Tripura’s population was 1.73 lakh, with tribals making up nearly 52.89% of the whole. By 1941, the total population rose to 5.13 lakh with a 50.09% tribal majority. But by 1981, the tribal population dipped to 28.44% of a total population of 2.05 million because of several socio-political developments.
The Tipraha Indigenous Progressive Regional Alliance (TIPRA) Motha, a regional party floated by former royalty Pradyot Bikram Manikya Debbarma after he left the Congress, made an impressive debut in the recent State election, by winning 13 seats in the 60-strong assembly. The influx of Bengali-speakers since the 1970s in Tripura has led to the marginalisation of the tribals in cultural fields, education, and politics. This has led to resentment and insecurity among the community, paving the way for the emergence of TIPRA Motha. Today, Bengalis constitute 70% of the population in Tripura, outnumbering the tribals in the state. The Bengali community is historically divided between Left and Congress supporters. The left parties, especially the CPI(M) have deep influence among the working population and intellectuals, while the Congress party is mainly concentrated in the urban areas.
