The Assembly elections to be held in Mizoram today have garnered much attention. Perhaps the fact that they will soon be followed by Assembly elections in four other states and the general elections next year has given more attention to the campaigns in Mizoram as they provide an opportunity to gauge the political mood of the country. Whether Mizoram, along with the rest of the Northeast, will fall under the sway of the BJP is also something that is being keenly watched.
While the BJP is not likely to perform well in the election, whether it will be able to determine the course of the politics in the state after the elections is the point over which the three main contenders — the incumbent Mizo National Front (MNF), the INC and the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) — are positioning themselves. The recent turn of events in Manipur have made the people wary of the BJP — something that was, perhaps, not the case earlier. Thus, the MNF, although it was part of the North-East Democratic Alliance, is busy trying to justify its earlier associations with the BJP. The fact that these elections are three-cornered has made it a campaign like no other (although the AAP has also fielded candidates, it is not expected to make much headway). Informal opinion polls suggest that people are tired of the earlier two-party contests and the alternating of power every two terms. The ZPM offers an alternative with more academics than any other party as candidates, not yet tarnished or tested by corruption. The question, of course, in people’s minds is whether it will bow down to the BJP, given that Mizoram, like most states in the Northeast, is dependent on the Centre for funding.
In the context of national politics, the Northeast, despite having played the politics of difference at multiple levels for several decades, seems to be succumbing to the party that is most assimilationist in its agenda. Whether Mizoram will oppose this agenda is being keenly watched. Politics in Mizoram has generally tended to be inward looking in the sense that national politics did not seem to have an impact on people’s political decisions. Internal issues of development or its lack — the perception of the pervasiveness of corruption, and whether a particular party was seen as contributing to the moral decline of people by reaping the windfall that the sale of alcohol could bring — were determining factors.
While the manifestoes this time, too, focus on development and offer many sops, the parties are also aware of the regional ethnic politics and dynamics that guide people’s decision-making and have, therefore, positioned themselves to respond to the mood of the people. The recent refugee crisis brought about by the 2021 military coup in Myanmar as well as the conflict in Manipur has forced people to engage more directly with new ethnic re-configurations. The fluidity of ethnic identities and the instrumentalisation of ethnicity has been mentioned by scholars who worked on these issues, especially in the context of Africa. The Northeast provides similar interesting case studies. To my mind, the politics of naming or the salience of ethnonyms and the resultant changing ethnic dynamics is something to look out for in the case of the Mizos and the neighbouring kindred tribes in the coming days.
The elections have also highlighted the religious temperament of the people. With Mizoram being predominantly Christian, the church has been involved in elections to the extent of being the collective conscience of the people — by trying to influence them to vote for candidates of integrity, setting parameters for electioneering and sometimes by trying to set the agenda of the parties, especially in terms of supporting prohibition of alcohol. However, outside of the institutional church, elections also garner a particular kind of religious or spiritual frenzy with self-proclaimed seers and prophets who herald doom and destruction while predicting electoral outcomes.
This election has also brought out more than its fair share of such prophets. Charismatic leaders who believe in millenarian ideals of the establishment of God’s kingdom, a conflation of a spiritual and a political kingdom, have also marked this election. Although the hard grind of materialistic politics predominantly drives most of the election concerns, there is no doubt that a door has been opened with a prominent lay evangelist, a woman, T Lalhmachhuani (Mimi), entering the electoral fray as an independent candidate.
In the context of ethnic politics, this election has also brought about the question of “purity” of “blood/race”. In the last assembly elections held in 2018, the “Bru question” — whether Brus who had settled in Tripura were to be kept away from the electoral rolls of Mizoram — was a key concern. This time, under the leadership of the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP, a students’ union), the issue of whether women who are married to non-Mizos could stand for elections was brought out. Despite the relatively high participation of women in all kinds of activities in the state, politics has been an arena where women have largely been kept out of. In fact, since the first state Assembly elections in 1987, there have been only four women legislators. In recent times, more women have joined in, whether for local municipal councils or for the assembly. But the church, the Young Mizo Association and the village councils are still male dominated. Some sections, such as the MZP, have carried out protests to boycott women who are married to outsiders while pressurising parties not to field such candidates. Such calls have brought out questions of ethnic/racial purity, which has never really been a problem in terms of praxis, although the discourse is not new. Such moves by the MZP have made people dig out the backgrounds of various prominent people and their supposed lack of “purity”. Even Laldenga, the MNF leader, has been deemed to be not so “pure” after all. Better sense will hopefully prevail once the elections are over.
The writer is professor of history at the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, New Delhi
