Map 1.1 Location of Assam
1.8 Review of Literature
In the following discussion an attempt has been made to trace the trend of literatures on factional politics. The literature consulted in this research are categorized as international study on factionalism, study on Indian factionalism and study on party system, political process and electoral trend in Assam.
1.8.1 International study on factionalism
Study on factional politics became a suitable source of information on political culture; articulation of people’s demands and leadership in the developed countries in 20th century. David Hume, Sartori, V O Key and others studied factionalism to discover intra-party political dynamics in Europe and United States of America.
Behavioural revolution in mid 20th century provided new impetus to this field of study. During the cold war, western scholars at number of well-known universities were encouraged to study factionalism in developing countries. In this way this branch of political study spread all over the world.
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Factional political behavior in democratic set up is considered as normal. It is present in all political parties. Sometimes it adds strength and sometimes it degenerats the party. Study on factional politics first started in western countries. A brief idea about factional politics in different European nations is presented in
‘Factional politics and democratization’ edited by Richard Gillespie et el. (2004). It contains case studies on factional politics in Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Turkey. Therefore, it is huge source of data on variance of factionalism in different political scenario.
The Chinese Communist Party, the only political party allowed to operate in China has also paid the price of factional politics. ‘Factionalism in Chinese Communist Politics’ (2006) by Jing Huang, Andrew J Nathan (1973) in ‘The China quarterly’
penned ‘A factionalism model for CCP politics’, another source of Chinese factional politics.
‘Rethinking Factionalism: Typologies, Intra-Party Dynamics and Three Faces of Factionalism’ a research article by Francoise Boucek in Party Politics (2009) a Sage Journal, is an insightful study on theoretical dimension of factional politics. This is based on a comparative case study of Christian Democratic Party in Italy (DC) and Japan’s Liberal Democrats (LDP). The author summarizes key studies of factionalism in political science and concludes that there are three faces of factionalism-cooperative, competitive and degenerative. Boucek’s model of factional theory is useful for research on factional rivalry in a declining regional political force like the Asom Gana Parishad.
‘The landscape of Factional politics and its future in Iran’ by Hossein S. Seifzadeh (2003) in ‘Middle East Journal’ offers schematic overview of factional politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran. There is factional division in Iranian society on the issue of Islamic Republic, between its supporters and opponents. Factional grouping can be divided into reformists, pragmatists and fundamentalists. The author has concluded that factional politics in Iran is a residual legacy of modernization and ideological debate of the Cold War era.
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Behavioral political scientists in the United States, quite obviously, made an academic inroad into the factionalism in the Southern States. ‘A theory of southern factionalism’ by Earl Black (1983) in ‘The Journal of Politics’ is based upon seminal work of V O Key. Students of factional systems have typically followed Key’s lead in identifying three verities of interparty competition. Like bi-factionalism, unifactionalism and multi-factionalism are Key’s theoretical construct. These ideas are also utilized in this study to build up independent factional model for the AGP.
1.8.2 Study on factionalism in India
In India, studies on factionalism have proliferated since the late 1950s. The western scholars in an attempt to study Indian political system, concentrated on the dynamics of caste, religion and language. Salig Harrison in 1956 studied caste based factional politics in Andhra Pradesh. Harrison’s study reveals that social cleavage between the two peasant castes, Reddis and Kamas transformed into political cleavage in Andhra Pradesh18. His work highlighted the inbuilt destabilizing factors in factionalism. This approach became a guiding approach to study of factional politics afterwards. A H Hanson (1968) also assesses impact of caste and effects of class formation in Indian democracy and electoral politics.
Hanson’s study maintains liberal democratic approach in line with that of Myron Weiner, Morris Jones, Paul Brass and F E Bailey.
Impact of caste-community formation in factional politics in India is fully documented in a few states. For example, American political scientist Paul R Brass (1966) studied factional politics in the Congress party in Uttar Prades though he mainly emphasized on historical roots of factionalism. According to Brass, “the devolution of power from center to the state and the change of a mass movement to an effective political party have resulted in incessant factional struggle in Uttar Pradesh.”19 Factional conflict during the freedom struggle revolved around issues like traditionalism vs modernism, secularism vs revivalism or personality cult. The
18 Selig Harrison, India: The Most dangerous Decades, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960)
19 Paul R Brass, Factional Politics in an Indian State, The Congress Party in Uttar Pradesh, (Bombay:
Oxford University Press,1966)
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leaders during this period were traditional and virtuous politicians. They strictly followed the party ideology and the senior ones acted as arbiter politicians. In spite of serious factional struggle the Congress party could survive because of these arbiter politicians. However, the new generation of Congressman understood the traditional Indian society in which contemporary politics must operate.20 They were able to maintain cohesion despite factional struggle because of their ability to distribute patronage. “Patronage” according to Brass, is the cement of organization.”21 His study on factionalism, based on a extensive field study of four districts in the Uttar Pradesh, has also put special emphasis on caste and religious factors.
G. Radhakrishna Kurup (2004) has also studied factionalism in the Congress party in Kerela. His research is also based on extensive field study. The researcher considers variables of gender along with caste and religion while locating bases of Congress factionalism in Kerala. Unlike the Paul Brass study in UP Congress, this work is purely quantitative research and so presents a unique analysis of normative political behavior.
Praksah Chandra (1983) studied factional struggle of the ruling parties (National Conference Party and the Congress Party) of Jammu and Kashmir. National Conference is a regional party. He has tried to explore the cross-religious and cross- regional aspects of factional conflict in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Factional politics performs both integrative and disintegrative functions. He defines factional politics as illegitimate, typically impermanent and informal groups within the political party which carry a great amount of de-facto authority and influence in the decision making process. Every party’s ideal is to avoid faction as much as possible, but they still exist.22 A faction germinates at the behast of a potential leader who, in search of the avenues for influencing the process of the authoritative allocation of values (for society), mobilizes the support of various like-minded
20 ibid, P. 35
21 ibid, P. 231
22 Prakash Chandra, Factional Politics in Jammu and Kashmir (New Delhi: PhD dissertation submitted to SSS, JNU, 1983)
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persons of a party or an organization. The gratification of the objectives and interests of these followers in this process becomes its primary aim. Such type of factional behavior can be defined in terms of patron-client or interest group relationship.23 Prakash Chandra’s study added a new dimension; that is the regional dimension to the study of factionalism in India.
Bhupinder Singh’s (2006) case study on Siromani Akali Dal (SAD) of Punjab is a vivid description of factional politics in the regional political party. He studies factional strife in the Akali Dal since its inception in 1920. Factionalism has affected its political performance and overall politics of Punjab. Paul Wallace and Surendra Chopra’s (1981) edited volume ‘Political dynamics of Punjab’, is intuitive study on political dynamics of Punjab which has some kind of similarity with the state of Assam. Therefore, this book helps to conceptualize and understand factionalism in Assam from comparative perspective. However there is basic difference between the Akali Dal and the AGP in terms of ideology and programme of action. Another work by I Singaram (1996) on party organization and leader-supporter relations in the DMK in Tamilnadu also help us to analyse factional politics in Assam in a comparative perspective.
Mary C Carras (1972) argues that in order to analyse the dynamics of factional alignment it is desirable to distinguish between two levels of actor and two levels of awareness. At one level, there are the political leaders and protagonists in the factional struggle. At the other level, there are the supporters or followers of political leaders. These two kind of political actors have different kind of motivations for political office. For the leaders the ambition for office may be an end in itself, that is, perceived as something whose possession is in itself gratifying, wielding power, either to meet personal end or broad end relative to one’s caste, community etc. But in the case of the supporters, the office for the leader is an instrument to achieve personal or perhaps community or village goals. Its value is chiefly instrumental rather than intrinsic. It is interesting to note that factional groupings in a political party are less distinct in policy orientation or ambition. It
23 ibid. P 21
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suggests that personal feuds act as motivating factor in factional conflict. This study helps us to understand the dynamics of factional behavior at village level in Maharastra. Village level factionalism is an important aspect mostly neglected by Indian academia. Padma Mishra & K S Padhy (2000) try to fill up this gap. Their study looks into profile of village level factional leaders and their role in election process at local level. Its field works on interplay of factional politics in cultural organization, educational institution, co-operative society, caste organization and sex affiliation create new idea on factionalism in rural India.
There are a number of works on the theoretical aspects of factional politics. P N Rastogi (1975), studied factionalism as a type of social conflict. His analysis of conflict situation in Indian National Congress puts light upon Indian type of factional conflict. He identified thirteen dimensions to analyze a faction situation like number of factions, proportion of group membership, stability of membership over a given time, relative magnitude of change in membership, beginning of dissension, nature of dissension over a given period, issues of discord, nature of interests and values involved, intensity of conflict, scope of conflict, social bond among faction members, status of conflict resolution elements, location of conflict resolution elements etc. The emergence of factionalism is related to the relatively serious changes occurring in the environment of the group. These changes may be social, cultural, economic and political. Factions meet important social needs of the individuals that remain unmet under the available institutional mechanisms of the social structure. These theoretical analyses are applied to find out the root causes of factionalism and nature of factional alignment in the AGP.
Myron Weiner (1955), V.O. Key (1949), Duverger (1964) and Zariski (1960) studied factionalism from liberal democratic viewpoint. These studies are conducted on national political parties. These studies mostly establish the dysfunctional aspects of factionalism in the developing societies leading to biasness towards the study of factionalism. This is clearly highlighted by Francoise Boucek’s (2009) who classifies factionalism into three modes- Coopeartive, competitive and degenaerative. His study also takes into account factioanalism in parliamentary and non-
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parlaimentary spheres. Yet, these studies are shy of considering factional politics in the regional political parties. Regional political parties specially in the developing countries are becoming more vibrant and assertive in power and influence. In this era of para-diplomacy and coalition politics regional parties represent the peripheral yet crucial ideas. Therefore, it is an injustice to look into the internal politics of regional parties from a perlance of national political party.
1.8.3 Study on party system, political process and electoral trend in Assam
Most of the studies on political process in Assam are concerned with the cause and effects of ethnic tension, identity issues or insurgency. Unlike the mainland India, caste is not considered as viable political dynamic in this state though Assam has many caste groups and sub-caste groups. There are ample researches on regionalism-nationalism dychotomy. Electoral trend and election study is also not a neglected field of study in Assam. Specially, Center for Study of Develping Societies (CSDS) has been contributing and generating a lot of data on Parliamentray and Assembly elections in Assam. Being a multi-lingual and multi- ethnic state, Assam should have attracted the attention of Indian and foreign scholars for study of factionalism too. There are some passing references on factionalism in Assam in sthe cholarly artices and books. But till date no study with a primary focus on factional politics has been conducted here. Research works on factionalism and political behavior will open new vista of knowledge about democratization in multi-ethnic peripheral state of Assam.
Election politics and trends in Assam received more attention of the scholars since the 1980s when the Assam movement was going on and eventually the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) ccupied the seat of power in Assam. The critical debate over the nature of the movement and the role of Assamese middle class opened a new vista in political writing in Assam. Amalendu Guha, Hiren Gohain, Sanjib Baruah were some of the prominent scholars who contributed to this famous debate on Assamese nationalism in the Economic and political weekly. Amalendu Guha’s seminal title “Little Nationalism Turned chauvinist: Assam’s Anti-Foreigner Upsurge, 1979-80” is specially important to locate the historical root of Assamese TH-1788_09614110
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nationalism which the AGP claims to represent. Monirul Hussain’s (1993) critical study on the Assam movement illuminates upon the class dimension of Assam Movement. This movement provided the background of the AGP. His research on the course and consequences of the Assam movement on political and culture life of Assam is fascinating but the study falls short of an account of the social factions operating within the movement. The researcher has traced the political development of Assam since the colonial period leading to the Assam Movement and gave a Marxist interpretation of Assamese middle class politics. But the various stakeholders to the the movement are not classified properly. Whether these stakeholders got adequate representation in the AGP which was formed afterwards is a subject of study.
The rise of the AGP as regional political party in to power in Assam after the Assam movement got attention of Samir Kumar Das (1997). In his study, the scholar tries to answer the questions like; how does a regional party, formed after a mass movement without proper organizational apparatus, face the intricacy of power politics and how does the claim to represent the Assamese nationalism stand in composite state like Assam having multiple sun-national identities? This is a pioneer study on the ideology, support base and objectives, leadership and organizational structure of the AGP. He also gives subtle reference to the genesis of factional conflict in AGP during the first tenure of governance. Sandhya Goswami (2012) while illuminating upon issues and dynamics of electoral politics in Assam since 1985, traces the history of electoral performance of the AGP in comparision to other political parties. This study based on data collected from post-poll survey of Assam Assembly and Parliamentary election held in Assam is proved useful.
Haren Kalita (2011) traces the historical background of Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) and electoral base and performances of the party. The author researched on election campaigning of the AGP and socio-economic background of AGP leaders basically to find out that there is lack of party solidarity, internal democracy in the party. He draws a conclusion that poor performance of the AGP in elections since 2001 is attributed to the fact that regionalism in Assam is fractured and divided into several hostile camps and the ideology of regionalism has declined. The author TH-1788_09614110
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seemed to have neglected the factional politics operating in the party for some queer reasons. Hirannya Kumar Bhattacharyya (2015) on the other hand categorically pointed out this aspect in the AGP as the primary menace in the party. His work, written in autobiographical style, is important source of data on factional rivalry and shortcomings of party organization of the AGP. Bhattacharyya was mainly concerned about unabated demographic aggression from Bangladesh.
His writing are shares his personal and firsthand experience as senior IPS officer posted as DIGP Border during Assam Movement. He saw from close quarter politics in Assam during those troubled days. Some of his observations are convincing but can’t be cross verified. Nani Gopal Mahanta (2013) unfurled a new vista of undersatding in the ULFA-AGP relations. The United Liberation Fron of Assam (ULFA) is the extremist faction of Assamese nationalism. The Assam movement incorporated both the extremist and moderate ideologies. After the Assam Accord, these two ideological factions of the movement got separated; the moderates formed the AGP and trooded the parliamentary path and the extremists took revolutionary path. ULFA’s close allies in civil society of Assam may have caused panic for AGP government. Secret killing of ULFA relatives and counter killing by ULFA during second term of AGP government and AGP bonhomie with the rebels during its first tenure are some issues that destabilized the regional party. The work is a complete narrative of events covering issues like identity politics, change in demographic pattern, impact of insurgency upon human development, big dam issue, Asom bondh culture etc.
Apart from this, there are a number of articles and books on electoral politics in Assam. Abu Nasar Saied Ahmed (2006) reviews the post 2004 Lok Sabha election scenario in Assam. The scholar did extensive content analysis on election process and voting behavior in Assam. It is essential reading to understand political environment and political culture of Assamese society till 2006. Social issues, such as, population growth, autonomy, ethnic issues and their impact upon electoral politics are aptly dealt with proper data in this volume. The chapters on nomination process, election campaigning of different political parties in Assam are insightful. Role of media in Assam election has been very important since Assam TH-1788_09614110
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Movement. Interplay of media and public opinion upon the political process is given due attention in the book. Yet the book is not specific to the internal political dynamics of the political parties in Assam.
Sanjib Baruah (2007, 2011) deals with the history of sub-nationalism in Northeast India. Some of his research questions are; how the autonomy movements and insurgency in Assam have threatened the legitimacy of the AGP regime, what is the history of social conflict in Assam and what are the tensions between pan- Indianism and Assamese sub nationalist etc. India’s formally federal but actually centralized government structure is causing divisive sentiment in the peripheral states making the society unstable and prone to conflict. Baruah argues that the system of the institutionalized authoritarian tactics of the state, since the days of company upon society and politics of the region has been endemic and durable which have alienated people from their forests, land and resources.
In all these aforesaid books the cardinal point of the present research, that is the factional rivalry or conflict among the top leaders of the AGP, has not been discussed and analyzed. That is why the present study on this issue of factionalism in a regional party stands on academically rationale basis. The very fact that none of the available books on regionalism in Assam have taken up the intra-party conflict within the AGP; makes the present research academically relevant. Further, by undertaking this study, an attempt has been made to philosophies the future of the only regional party in the state which twice came to power and eventually started declining.