The BJP has received a magnificent and reaffirmed endorsement as a consequence of the election results from the three minor northeastern states, which together have a combined population of just under one crore and five Lok Sabha seats. We pose a slightly different query, though. Is it possible to analyse these data in a way that is comparatively apolitical given that elections are all about politics and partisanship?
“When the results from the northeast region were released, there wasn’t much discussion in Delhi and other regions of the country. The topic of conversation was the violence that occurred during the elections, or all insurgencies, as he put it.
He continued with his customary speechmaking flourish, “The northeast is neither far from Delhi nor from the heart (dil, in Hindi),” highlighting how drastically things had changed lately. You might find great worth in this if you put your political beliefs or voting preferences aside.
There is hardly any insurgency in the northeast now, which includes the former seven Sisters and Sikkim, which was later joined. There is, undoubtedly, the occasional, tiny ambush or battle. In any state of the Hindi heartland, you’ll find more of these encounters between armed cops and criminals than in the entire northeast. Armed robbery is not a separatist uprising.
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the sole rebel force, has maintained peace for ten years while engaging in protracted but ongoing discussions. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) has been repealed in many areas of the region.
Indeed, the procedure did not start after the Modi administration took office in 2014. Since the previous NDA administration, it had been ongoing. Manik Sarkar, the then-CPI(M) chief minister of Tripura, and L.K. Advani’s Union home ministry worked together to abolish AFSPA from each of the state’s 70 police stations one at a time, sort of accidentally, until there were no disturbed regions left.
After this, things moved slowly before picking up during the Modi era. That benefited when relations with Bangladesh improved. Since over ten years ago, Dhaka has been more than willing to turn over any Indian extremists discovered there.
