The protracted debate over the lack of development and connectivity among the states of the North East region (NER) of India has once again taken centre stage. This deliberation emerges amidst three fast unfolding intra- and inter-regional scenarios. First, in India’s Act East Policy, this region is going to be the bridgehead that connects India with other South East Asian countries. Second, the Chinese One Belt One Road (OBOR) Initiative will trigger huge connectivity in both South and South East Asia, in which the NER will play a critical part. And third, regional ventures like Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN), Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar (BCIM) and Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) cannot flourish if the NER remains development-deprived and poorly connected.

The NER consists of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. While it constitutes 7.9 percent of India’s total geographical area and 3.76 percent of the national population, the NER contributes only 2.8 percent to the net state domestic product. A peculiarity of this region is that it shares over 98 percent of its border with neighbours like Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Nepal, and less than 2 percent with the rest of India.

Given both historical and renewed development interventions, devolutions and special provisions extended by various national governments, one would have expected the NER to be a ‘growth pole’. The NER began as a single political entity known as Assam in 1947, which was one of the fastest growing regions in pre-independence India. The ‘take off’ should have happened at least two decades ago, making NER the flag bearer of India’s Act East project.

Interweaving issues

However, the current development drama is a result of a number of reasons. They vary from the colonial past to abrupt physical disconnection in the post-partition period. Protracted insurgency and violence has led to mis-governance and instability. A lack of vision among local leaders and an over-dependence on central government funds have also taken a toll. An additional hurdle is presented by the failure of national policy makers to visit the region and build confidence among the masses. Rent seeking on resources such as local coal, oil, gas, forests, water, etc has been institutionalised, thus turning the resource ‘richness’ into a resource ‘curse’.

Prior to 1947, there was visible tension between the dominant wisdom that the states of Assam, Manipur and Tripura should join the national mainstream and the regional belief that cultures and geographies in the NER were the actual ‘centre’ and not the ‘periphery’. This national psyche was confounded by policy decisions related to national security that were implemented by ministries and agencies. This acutely and somewhat deliberately interwove even the simplest development issues with sensitive security parameters. However, a recent report by the National Institution for Transforming India (Niti Ayog) mentioned that more than 50 percent of the people in Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim and West Bengal do not feel secure living in border areas.

Hegemonic discourse

Five core debilitating issues figure into this. First, the NER was portrayed as a conglomerate of conflict, violence, insurgency and instability—a region of rugged terrains and low self-sustaining capacity. The national discourse about the NER was thus made hegemonic and was effectively used to supress the heterogeneity in the NER. This dominant discourse dissuaded potential development partners, the private sector and non-state actors from any kind of involvement. The national and regional decision making process was also influenced. National media further exacerbated the situation by selectively highlighting security centric issues. Today this distorted discourse has become the most formidable stumbling block in opening up the NER for larger interactions and broader developments roles.

Secondly, the building of critical educational, professional, development and political institutions was sidelined. The nation lost a major opportunity to connect local communities with the rest of India. Capacity building and empowerment programmes among the youths in the region to galvanise them to participate in the national development and integration process did not happen for decades. Additionally, those who consider the region from a perspective of ‘national security’ are hugely disconnected with the ways in which natural resources and indigenous intellectual heritage could be harnessed and traditional local institutions mobilised.

For instance, there was no mention of critical indicators of various NER states in national surveys. All the states were loosely lumped together as ‘North East States’. Even the crucial poverty ratio of the entire NER was extrapolated and determined on the basis of Assam’s ratio in all the national documents. Chief ministers of some of these states vociferously mentioned these inaccuracies in the annual plan discussion meetings at India’s Planning Commission and National Development Council.

Money has been poured into the region, but no investment has been made on social capital formation and reconnection of the region with the vast newly industrialising countries in the East and huge markets within India and South Asia. The feeling of powerlessness among the NER populace is increasingly manifesting itself as other regions and states in the country have started to assert more effective postures and participation in the nation-building process.

Mountains and emperor

Third, communities have become inward looking, with identity politics acquiring more diabolical dimensions and with the emergence of newer forms of protests and resistance. ‘We vs Them’ is a theme that has steadily mesmerised dominant players in the ‘centre’ and satiated political leaderships in the ‘periphery’. Despite the creation of several states in the NER, the confidence among the central governance team in the ability and reach of the locals to manage the political economy of the NER remains relatively low. The centre-state relations have been characterised by centralisation, appeasement, patronisation and short shrifts rather than by long-term thinking, transformational interventions and a level playing field. Naturally, dependence on the centre has further increased.

Fourthly, the borders which historically witnessed large scale interactions have gradually become a ‘no-go zone’. The belief that borders foster stability as symbols of opportunity and interdependence has been steadily eroded. The orthodox military underpinning of ‘predatory borders’ and border states as incubators of insurgency and terrorism has overwhelmed the psyche of national policy makers. More critically, the idea of borders as facilitators of trade, investment, migration and tourism and other exchanges have been blurred, diluted and finally demolished. On the other hand, the Border Gate Economic Zones in nearby Vietnam that extends to China, Laos and Cambodia where the trade turnover reached $12.46 billion in 2014 and huge exchanges between Muse (105) Mile between Myanmar and Ruili (China) prove that beyond a particular point, trade is a commercial activity and not always a national security issue. 

And finally, the political leadership in most of the NER states have lost the larger—national and global—vision. Democratic institutions started losing their manoeuvrability. While the rest of the nation celebrated the second generation reforms, the NER still hovered around the first generation reforms. The dilemma local institutions and actors face while deciding what comes first between development dynamics and security compulsions has further deepened. Despite a conscious and substantive redeployment of resources and agencies by the Narendra Modi-led government, a Chinese proverb “the mountains are high and the emperor is far away” continues to epitomise this marginalisation mindset vis-à-vis the NER.

Lama, a former member of the National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India, is presently a high end expert in the Institute of South Asian Studies, Sichuan University, China