How politics and paranoia led to the North East 'exodus'

It is hard to comprehend how, in an age of advanced communication facilities, rumours of attacks on (or threats to) people from the north-eastern states in some of India’s biggest cities could have triggered such widespread panic as to set off such a large-scale migration. More than 36 hours after the rumours began to circulate, waves of panic-stricken people are still clambering onto trains headed for what they perceive as the safety of their “home”. Even if the scale of the “exodus” appears to have diminished from the first day, it continues to spread in geographical terms to newer cities.  Although Bangalore,  Pune and Hyderabad were among the cities that witnessed the largest number of people fleeing, reports from Chennai indicate that a similar scramble was under way on Thursday in the towns of Coimbatore and Madurai in Tamil Nadu. Curiously, there have been virtually no instances of violent attacks - except for one incident in Mysore. To that extent, the stampede that we’re witnessing today is a colossal overreaction to rumours and fears of planned attacks. But there’s a reason why rumours gain such monstrous traction even in this day and age of 24x7 hypermedia and vastly enhanced communication facilities that have put mobile phones in virtually every urban Indian’s hand. Apart from the obvious reason - that the profusion of these communication devices has amplified the echo chamber effect of rumours - lie a couple of uncomfortable truths. [caption id=“attachment_420616” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  All this politicking has provided a fertile ground for rumours to shamefully breed and hold sway, which even the earnest appeals for calm from our leaders have failed to discredit. AP[/caption] The first is that the entire rumour-mongering exercise, and the planting of the seeds of discord, is manifestly part of a grander political project, the precise nature of which it is not easy to fathom just yet. The riots in Assam of recent weeks have provided plenty of scope for political mobilisation by parties across the spectrum. For the Congress, whose failure to pre-empt the riots despite early warning signals and whose reluctance to even contemplate illegal Bangladeshi migration as one potential source of conflict in the north-east has invited much criticism, the panic attacks elsewhere in India offer a way of changing the narrative from its own failings. But, in equal measure, radical Muslim leaders like Asaduddin Owaisi are fishing in the troubled waters of the Brahmaputra and using it as a bait for a large political project of feeding victimhood among Muslims. Owaisi warned in Parliament of a “third wave of radicalisation” of Muslims; almost as if on cue, we’ve seen  events  in recent days that validate that threat. We saw it in Mumbai last week, and we see it in the alleged threats to people from the north-eastern states in Bangalore, Pune and elsewhere to leave before Ramzan or face attacks. The BJP too has muddied the waters with its monomaniacal focus on illegal immigration as the only source of conflict in Assam, a political stand that ignores some of the complexities that underlie ethnic insecurities in Assam. All this politicking has provided a fertile ground for rumours to shamefully breed and hold sway, which even the earnest appeals for calm from our leaders have failed to discredit. This points, in a larger sense, to a crisis of credibility of our leaders. Past instances of a colossal failure of the state to provide the most fundamental responsibility of security has meant that in politically surcharged times such as these, people don’t trust governments - at both the central and state levels - to protect them. When madness holds sway - be it 1984 or 2002 - it’s each man for himself, while the political spitfest will rage for years over the corpses of innocent victims. Just last week, when a radical Muslim group ran riot in Mumbai, political parties criticised the police failure to pre-empt the violence. But, as this columnist points out, this isn’t exactly the first time that Mumbai has witnessed mob violence. The MNS and the Shiv Sena too have in the past held Mumbai to ransom - and targeted “outsiders” (be they south Indians or Biharis) for attack - and have gotten away with it. So, there’s plenty of blame to go around for the insecurities that ordinary people, particularly “outsiders” in any state, face. Which may account for why the people from north-eastern states who had moved to cities and towns  across India in search of gainful employment have, in this instance, come to rely on their own judgement based on their instincts - and are voting with their feet. It is a manifestation of their fear that even if the rumours of planned attacks on them come true, petty politics will triumph over good sense. It’s a tragic commentary on India’s slow evolution as a modern nation-state: 66 years ago, it was born amidst enormous bloodshed - and the largest forced exodus in human history. To this day, we live in dread of more bloodshed, and are witnessing another large-scale exodus.