Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma (L) and Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi.
Credit: PTI, X/@GauravGogoiAsm
As Assam heads to a crucial election next year, the passing of the state's cultural icon Zubeen Garg has heated the political atmosphere. Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Assam unit president Gaurav Gogoi speaks to DH’s Amrita Madhukalya about the state’s issues. Edited excerpts:
The Congress has appointed you the president of the state unit in Assam, and it looks like a tough task, especially since it has been away from power for a decade. How tough do you think it will be?
I’m grateful for this opportunity; heading a party ahead of elections is a new responsibility. As I travel across the state, I sense a growing frustration and resentment against the current regime. You mentioned the death of the political leadership. In fact, the way the current leadership has responded to the entire crisis is extremely disappointing. With a few months left, we have to ramp up the organisation and go with an alternative vision to the people of Assam. But I am confident that we will be forming the government in the 2026 assembly elections.
The passing of Zubeen has seen an unprecedented outpouring of grief. How do you see that panning politically?
Zubeen was a fearless man; he always had the courage to speak his mind. In the past, he had supported the Congress, and he has supported the BJP, too. If he did not like something, he was quick to point it out. He had also criticised some of the decisions of prime minister Modi. In his passing, people are remembering this aspect of his personality, and it is important going into these elections. Because this government under chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma practices the politics of fear and intimidation. Anybody who has an independent voice and criticises this government is immediately threatened by the chief minister. Whether it is a public intellectual, a woman, a journalist, or an Opposition leader, the CM himself threatens with police action and arrests. So, in his passing, Zubeen has passed on the spirit of fearlessness and courage to the people of Assam, who are now speaking out against the CM’s poor leadership on a level that has not happened before. Many prominent people are openly speaking out against him and the way his family has been amassing wealth and property. I think that is going to shift the politics of fear and intimidation and people will vote in huge numbers for an alternative new Congress-led government.
The chief minister, who was a key aide of your father, has trained his guns on you and he has made personal attacks, alleging that you and your wife have links with Pakistan. How do you react to it?
I do not care much about personal attacks; they are factless, baseless and ridiculous. The people can see through them. What I’m more concerned with is that the people who voted this government to power are scared to speak against it. Instead of listening to their criticisms and acting on them, the CM sends them to jail. If someone writes a Facebook poem, if a journalist exposes a case of corruption, or if an activist writes something, they are sent to jail. My bigger concern is that I do not want people of Assam to live in a state of fear and insecurity. Tomorrow if we come to power and do something wrong, I want people, especially young people, to speak up, and journalists to ask questions. We have the magnanimity and humility to accept that we will make mistakes. This is a democracy not a dictatorship.
What would you say are the main issues for the upcoming elections?
Assam always had politicians that had a vision for the state; politicians whose personal interests were not important or how much wealth their wife or children have. Today, it is upside down. Right now, anywhere you go in India, people say, ‘Your chief minister has said horrible and absurd things’. They don’t know the potential of Assam; that’s what we want to achieve. In the future, when there’s a Congress-led government, we want Assam to be known, not for its divisive politics, or senseless remarks of politicians, but for our progress, education, sports, infrastructure, entrepreneurship, and promotion of culture.
Music in Assam, as Zubeen’s death has shown us, is a powerful cultural tool in Assam. It has the power to be a volatile political tool, too. A few days ago, some propaganda music came out where you’re likened to an illegal immigrant. How do you, and the Congress, respond to that?
The people of Assam are wise enough. Earlier when these things were new, people used to be carried away. But now they can see through these false and baseless things. People are discovering Zubeen after his death and the meaning of his songs – his drive for Assamese culture, and what he meant by Bor Assam (Greater Assam). He had lived in various parts of the state, had sung in various Indian languages. He said he loved all religions and was a humanitarian at heart. In a way, he represented the best of Assamese culture.
Outside of the state, people are discovering what it means to be Assamese through Zubeen, and not by these propaganda, fake attacks or WhatsApp messages that the BJP is sending. People can see through BJP’s propaganda. What is more important is what is the new alternative Assam that Congress will deliver when it comes to power. Our priority is how to create employment, improve education, solve the problems of climate change, allay the anxieties related to illegal immigration and address the concerns of the different tribes and ethnicities. That is what the people of Assam want to hear.
The politics of the outsider in Assam has always taken centrestage. And the BJP is working on a narrative that you support the illegal immigrant. How do you tackle that charge?
The people are asking what did the BJP do in the past 10 years. You have a double engine government, the Central government protects the borders, you have friendly relations with neighboring countries. Apart from Assam, all neighbouring states are ruled by either BJP or a BJP ally. So after 10 years, what have you done? If the problem still exists today, it exists on their watch. They have to give an account for what they have done. They only believe in rhetoric, not in real solutions.
A lot of protests have erupted in Upper Assam, the region from where you have been elected, with six tribes asking for inclusion within the Sixth Schedule. Where does the Congress stand on it?
This is a demand that we have supported in the past. Whether it is through the resolutions passed in the assembly when we were in power, or our studies on the backwardness of these ethnic communities, reports that we had sent to the Central government, and conversations during our tenure with the Registrar General of India. In 2016, during campaigns, PM Modi promised that within six months these sub-communities will get ST status. Former CM Sarbananda Sonowal, someone from the ST community himself, said that his government is one that would be about jaati (community) and about identity. And so, people gave them the chance. Ten years have now passed, nothing has changed. What we have seen instead is that Assam has slid further in the ranks on health and education. On the other hand, the CM has become one of the richest people in the country. People are now saying that these promises will not get fulfilled in BJP’s time. In their version of India, they do not believe in empowering tribal communities; they believe in dominating them from Delhi or Dispur.
The government in Assam is saying that they will now make public a report which was submitted after the Nellie Massacre, an incident that took place four decades ago. Why do you think this is happening? And what ramifications will it have for the Congress party?
The way this government is acting especially at a time when the state is still grieving over the death of Zubeen… He has died in mysterious circumstances and even after a month, the truth has not come out. The government themselves put allegations of murder and conspiracy to murder on people very close to Zubeen. The people want to see the reality, but it seems this government does not want to put out the facts; they don't want Zubeen to be remembered. They’re trying various issues to divert the attention.
Will you contest the upcoming elections? And if yes, where do you think you're contesting from?
That's for my party’s leadership to decide – what role they see for me in the upcoming assembly elections. My priority is to get a Congress-led government in the state.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has supported the idea of a caste census. With the politics over demography that we see in Assam, what is your party’s stand on it?
Congress has always respected the concerns of the people of Assam. And so, former prime ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi used to meet agitating student leaders from the state and eventually signed the Assam Accord. Today, Manipur has been burning, and PM Modi refuses to meet anyone from the state. In the past, Rahul Gandhi has opposed CAA, something that nullified the Assam Accord and led to massive protests in the state. The NRC was initiated in Assam by the then Congress government when Manmohan Singh was the PM, and we took approvals from the RGI. But whether it is the Assam Accord, NRC, or any committee set up, all of these are just promises on paper. “Jaati, maati, bheti” (community, land and homeland), “poriborton” (change) – nothing has materialised. What has happened is that a particular political gang, which was active in Congress time, is now making hay.