The north-east potential

For one thing, the region, with the exception of Arunachal Pradesh which has largely remained free from conflict, is limping back from decades of insurgencies, rebellion and slow development


by Sudeep Chakravarti

 
There was a gathering on Thursday at a Mumbai-based foreign policy institute to discuss north-east India being at the heart of regional integration. A mix of policy folk and corporate practitioners made up the numbers. For me, it again underscored growing interest in the North-East, for several years pitched as the next big thing in India’s ties with South-East Asia—the missing link in the Look East policy. But, with several insurgencies winding down over the past two years in Assam, Tripura, Meghalaya and Manipur; thaw in bilateral relations on account of the Sheikh Hasina-led government in Bangladesh; and recent elections in Myanmar with accompanying glimmers of democracy and development, theory appears to be inching closer to practice.


India’s highway authority has renumbered several arteries in the North-East to make them part of a more systematic national highway grid, and integrate sections with the work-in-progress Asian highway system. Asian Highways One and Two propose to link South-East Asia to Central Asia and Europe via north-eastern India. (A section calls for linking two parts of India that the bulk of Bangladesh geographically chokes—offering only the slim “chicken neck” in West Bengal to link “Mainland India” to its eastern territories. This will require seamless road access through Bangladesh, with which India shares its longest international border, in excess of 4,000km that runs along West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram—this state is now also touted as a key hub for trade and diplomatic ingress into Myanmar.)
And then, there’s the hydropower gold rush in the region (about 40,000 megawatts worth in various stages of planning and implementation in Arunachal Pradesh alone), prospects of oil in Nagaland, and chrome in the restive Naga-controlled regions in Manipur—this state itself billed as a hydrocarbon pool. Elsewhere, in Meghalaya, for instance, there is limestone and coal. There’s Rs. 70,000 crore worth of central government fund allocation for development in this region during the 11th Plan. There have been calls to focus a large part of these funds to develop industry, freight and trade corridors in the North-East, along the lines of the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor.
So, is the hotbed of rebellion—largely driven by government mismanagement—a place often dismissed by mainland Indians as an oversized tribal emporium, now a handsome opportunity?
I would put it on wait-and-watch.
For one thing, the region, with the exception of Arunachal Pradesh which has largely remained free from conflict, is limping back from decades of insurgencies, rebellion and slow development. The government of India is still seen as absolute, often-disliked monarch; in a best-case scenario it will be an entity of convenience.
Assam, the state with the most robust economy of the region—and fresh from elections last year held in an atmosphere of relative peace—is still not free of insurgency or ethnic discontent. Nagaland—corrupt, fed by central government funds—cannot be truly peaceful till Naga rebel factions, for one, quit their renewed, violent infighting; for another, their ceasefire agreements with government of India translate to real peace—not merely absence of conflict—with final settlement. (Naga-majority areas in Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh technically remain outside ceasefire.)
In Manipur, even though the leader of a key rebel outfit, United National Liberation Front, is in jail, insurgencies thrive. The state’s heavy-handedness in dealing with public protest and aspiration breeds discontent, as do extreme corruption, and extreme dislocation that is often caused by blockading of key highway by competing ethnic groups or rebel outfits.
Mineral and human resource-rich Meghalaya has proved unsuccessful in integrating insurgents into the mainstream; and scandalous with zoning laws for projects, leading to widespread resentment. Tripura is working to integrate former rebels into the mainstream, but its deeply rural economy remains a handicap. Arunachal Pradesh, the Mecca of hydropower, has imported the worst practices from mainland India in land allocation for projects, and misuse of the doctrine of eminent domain. A recent case: In mid-April, the government violently dispersed protesters who had gathered to dissent against the private sector-led 2,700MW Lower Siang Hydro Electric Project. Worse will follow.
This largely remains a region where those who make big bucks feed off the still-durable economy of conflict, not the economy of peace. As ever, there is a wide gap between suggestion and implementation, reality and fantasy: Imagine, how much more growth there could be if attitudes were to be fixed along with the roads, conflict healed, repressive measures lifted by government and corruption lessened.
But it’s good to dream.
Sudeep Chakravarti writes on issues of conflict in South Asia. He is the author ofRed Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and the just-published Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land. This column, which focuses on conflict situations that directly affect business, runs on Fridays.

Source:LIVEMINT

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