BJP turns to 'Matri Shakti' for next year's Nagaland, Tripura polls

Nagaland is highly literate with English its official language, but its politics reeks of male chauvinism

Elections come and go, but the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) gets into the next round of poll mode rather swiftly. With the previous round of Assembly polls to five states concluded, the BJP is preparing for the elections to the Northeastern states of Nagaland and Tripura, slated a year hence in February-March 2023.

Male stranglehold on Naga politics

In Nagaland, the BJP has nominated a woman leader, S Phangnon Konyak, as the party candidate for the state's lone Rajya Sabha. Fielding its state women's wing chief for the Rajya Sabha polls may not seem much of a surprise in the rest of India. But it is a pathbreaking move in Nagaland, where patriarchy and male chauvinism rule politics.

Nagaland has never elected a woman to its state legislature. Women do contest elections occasionally but are not considered winnable candidates. The only instance of Nagaland sending a woman to Parliament was in the 1970s. Rano Shaiza was elected as Nagaland MP to the Lok Sabha as a United Democratic Party candidate, defeating the sitting Congress chief minister Hokishe Sema in the post Emergency anti-Congress wave in 1977.

One should note that Nagaland has a high literacy rate, and English is its official language. However, the Nagaland Assembly holds the dubious distinction of opposing the women's reservation bill, which had sought to reserve 33 per cent of state legislatures and parliamentary seats for women. In 1997, during the tenure of the S C Jamir government in Nagaland, the then parliamentary affairs minister, Zhove Lohe, moved a resolution, which the Assembly passed unanimously.

The opposition Nagaland People's Council (NPC), the earlier avatar of the Naga People's Front, led by the flamboyant Vamuzo, were part of the move. The Naga Students' Federation (NSF), an influential pressure group, too had written to the parliamentary select committee chairperson Geeta Mukherjee, saying the bill went against Naga tradition. Even the women's reservation in urban local bodies has been vehemently opposed.

The Nagaland BJP, in their recommendation paper submitted to the central leadership, has said last week that the special committee of party leaders, including state ministers, has made recommendations while trying to respect Nagaland's sub-regional dynamics. The four names it recommended were from the development-starved Mon-Tuensang region and included two from Konyak tribes in Mon district and two others from Tuensang district.

Phangnon, the BJP's state women's wing chief, is a Konyak. In December, the Narendra Modi government and Indian army had come under attack for the killing of innocent Konyak mine workers mistaken as Naga insurgents at Oting, which is a hub of the Konyak tribe.

Now, Phangnon's election to the Rajya Sabha should be a smooth affair as three political parties - the BJP, the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) of Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio and the NPF, are part of the ruling combine in the state.

Other parties - the Congress, National People's Party (NPP) of Conrad Sangma and Janata Dal (United), which performed creditably in the recently concluded Manipur Assembly polls - do not have any MLAs to influence in whatever way the outcome of the Rajya Sabha polls. There is every possibility of a no contest.

Projecting 'matri shakti', women's power, has been Prime Minister Modi's political mission in the Northeast. In the run-up to the Manipur polls, the BJP had appointed the first woman president of the state unit in A Sharda Devi. In the ultimate analysis, the appointment worked in the party's favour.

BJP's 'Matri shakti' in Tripura

In Tripura, the BJP has projected state lawmaker Pratima Bhaumik, Union minister of state for social justice and empowerment in the Modi government. Last year, she became the first Tripura resident and only the second woman from the Northeast to be a Union Minister.

Bhaumik was also involved in the Manipur polls as one of the co-in charges. She could likely be given a more prominent role in her state Tripura. In the past, she had contested unsuccessfully against the Marxist leader, former chief minister Manik Sarkar in 2018 and 1998.

It is unclear what her future role could be, but the fact that she hails from a "humble background" would suit the BJP's political agenda in Tripura. The BJP came to power in the state, for long a Marxist bastion,

in 2018 but is faced with massive anti-incumbency. A section of party leaders has mooted a 'bigger role' for Bhaumik, a possibility the BJP's central leadership is reportedly mulling.

The case of Mizoram

In terms of women's participation in electoral politics, besides Nagaland, another Christian-majority state in the Northeast, Mizoram, offers a study in contrast.

In Mizoram, the social opposition to women getting the upper hand is vocal. In 2011, the Congress-ruled Mizoram government, under veteran leader Lal Thanhawla, had opposed the food security bill of the Manmohan Singh government, which had sought to make women the head of the family in ration cards.

Addressing a workshop of Mizoram legislators in 2009, the first female speaker of the Lok Sabha, Meira Kumar, had underlined that it was high time for the state to have women MLAs. Mizoram had its first female state legislator in 1984 when it was still a Union Territory. K Thansiami was elected on a Mizoram People's Conference ticket. But not much progress has been made since then.

Mizoram's only woman minister has been Lalhlimpui, who was elected to the Assembly in 1987. She served as a minister under chief minister Laldenga, a former insurgent/rebel leader. Since Lalhlimpui, there was a 27-year drought. It was only in 2014 when C Lalawmpuii won the Hrangturzo assembly by-election as a Congress candidate.

The state of Meghalaya also would go to the polls early next year. Meghalaya is a Christian-dominated state and home to Khasis, Jaintias and Garos, all tribes that follow a 'matrilineal' system in inheritance law and marriages. Men use the surname of their mothers and wife and often go to their mother-in-law's home after marriage. Yet the state's political scenario has remained a male bastion.

In 2018, of the 372 candidates who contested the Assembly polls, only 32 were women. Seven had fought on a Congress ticket, and two were BJP nominees. "Many states in the Northeast are yet to see more women enter politics," says Ampareen Lyngdoh, who had won 2018 polls on the Congress ticket.

(Nirendra Dev is a New Delhi-based journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.