Victory For Composite Regionalism And Bodo Nationalism: The Message From BTR

The hubbub after the Bihar election verdict of 2025 has elicited awe and misgiving in equal measure. The popular anticipation by the broad Opposition and its supporters that India had finally “cut BJP/Modi down to size” in the recent Lok Sabha election has received a cruel jolt. No amount of political sloganeering based on the material condition of the people—let alone arguments about democratic backsliding—appears to have had any significant impact on the electorate. The atmosphere in the Opposition camp and among citizens worried about competitive democracy and federalism has grown acrid. Analysts may, however, look at an election in the Northeast Indian state of Assam, which delivered a strikingly different outcome. This result is important from two perspectives, both of which have been central to the BJP’s upsurge in Assam: the truncation of ethno-linguistic identity politics and the strengthening of religious polarisation.

My opinion on the Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) victory in Bodoland draws from casual conversations with residents in BTR, both Bodos and non-Bodos, over the last year. These constitute ordinary people—farmers, working professionals, students, and so on—rather than civil society activists or political workers. The widely held expectation that the BJP would become a bigger political force in this BTC election was not misplaced. Hagrama Mohilary, the BPF supremo, had himself stated so on multiple occasions. He dismissed the then incumbent United People’s Party Liberal’s (UPPL) prospects,claiming that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will come second in the contest.  It could also be the BPF’s strategy at not unduly antagonizing the ruling party at the centre and state. After all, the BPF formed a post-poll alliance with the BJP in the Bodoland Territorial Council after securing the majority seats. Nonetheless, the result appears to be an affirmation of the anxieties of both the Bodos and non-Bodos regarding a dominant, if not hegemonic, national party like the BJP. This is true however for quite different reasons. 

For the non-Bodos, components of the previously ruling UPPL government (with BJP as an ally)—despite their well-meaning discourse about peace, harmony, and bringing the 26 communities of BTR together—had a recent chequered past. Their history as tough insurgents and/or ethno-nationalists, in the period following the second Bodo accord of 2003, had colored the perception of the prevailing peace. This image had lingered in the minds of many who had witnessed violence and unrest, or the fear of the same, in the not-too-distant past.

Hagrama’s pragmatic outreach, on the other hand, was a study in contrast. (a) His increased public visibility among non-Bodo people, evidenced by images of him freely mingling with them culturally, (b) his uncompromising stand on regionalism (in contrast to the UPPL’s relatively docile image), and (c) his ability to keep national parties like the INC and BJP at bay from Bodoland both electorally and organizationally at the grassroots (as demonstrated during his earlier tenures)—all of these factors greatly enthused and broadened his social base. Perhaps most critically, for the religious and ethnic minorities such as Muslims and Adivasis,the Assam state government’s recent high-voltage championing of evictions was viewed as nothing short of an existential hazard to their life and livelihood in the region.Hagrama had unequivocally stated in his media interviews that if elected, he will not allow evictions in Bodoland, but rather settle the issue of land pattas for all in perpetuity. Lastly, Hagrama’s no-nonsense and straightforward persona, as well as his wry humour, also endear him to people across communities.

Coming to the Bodos, it is revealing that the post-2020 BTC rule was viewed as an erosion of the Bodos’hard-won autonomy since 2003. As one Bodo working professional recounted “It seems as if the state government had realized that it unwittingly gave away too much power to the BTC in the 2003 accord, and thus now it is trying to take some of it back”.  This was heard from a number of Bodo persons, and despite the difficulty in establishing hard factual accuracy (which I was unable to verify), it was significant in terms of popular perception. These views also echoed with the common allegation that the UPPL had ceded control over 16 odd departments to the state BJP government, a charge that was also mentioned in the BPF manifesto. As a result, it was interpreted as surrendering Bodo nationalism and autonomy to a national party such as the BJP. Furthermore, this perception with Hagrama and BPF’s previous leadership, a period characterized as fiercely protecting Bodoland’s autonomy. Hagrama had the ability to assure his support to the party in power at the state and centre, whether INC or BJP, without allowing them to enter and set up camps on his home turf. Moreover, the UPPL was accused of committing corruption and graft in its last years—especially in recruitment to jobs.

Hence, the comprehensiveness of the BPF’s performance is vital to take notice of. From that perspective, this is currently a victory for both composite regionalism and Bodo nationalism. The “first-class citizens” and “second-class citizens” rhetoric of the BJP failed to capture the votes of a sizeable chunk of the non-Bodos.For the time being, it may also indicate a political fatigue with the long-held binary of Boro-Obororajniti, which had been particular to the BTC’s skewed political architecture, when economic conditions for the common person have stagnated or worsened with little regard for their ethnicity or identity.

(Mridugunjan Deka is a research student at Gauhati University.)

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