Sorrow of the seven sisters
The seven states in the North East, despite largesse from the Centre, have remained backward when compared to the rest of India. Insurgency and ethnic violence has wrecked the economic and social fabric of this region. Sanjoy Hazarika, an expert on North East affairs, looks at the possibilities that could be explored to improve the lot of the region.
For decades, administrators in New Delhi have blamed the British for seemingly haphazardly drawing the border lines especially for Eastern India at the time of Partition. As a result of this cartographic exercise, India’s North East has longer borders with Tibet, Myanmar and Bangladesh than it does with the rest of the country.
Its staggering diversity, just in ethnic terms, is enough to give any civil servant a lifetime of nightmares: an effort to meet the grievance of one community will turn into a fresh problem for another group!
Yet, in that reality lies a greater truth: that the complex ethnic and cultural diversity of the region has greater affinity to South East Asia than it does to other parts of India. This fact may not be liked by other Indians. But it can’t be wished away.
Ninety eight per cent of the borders of the North East are with other countries. A bare two per cent borders on India. It is rich in natural resources, especially forests, rivers, coal, gas and oil. Its lowlands are extremely fertile; the hills abound in citrus and semi-tropical fruits.
At independence, undivided Assam was among the top six states of the country in terms of income. These days, it is virtually at the bottom along with the other six states of North East, Bihar and Orissa.
Why has this happened?
It is not as if New Delhi has not lavished generosity on its eastern borders. In his book, Economy of the North East, Gulshan Sachdeva says the Centre dispatched funds equivalent to Rs 60,000 crore between 1990-91 to 1998-99. A part of this money came back officially as repayment on loan and interest payments, bringing the figure down to 51,000 crore rupees. This was nearly double the assistance that Orissa, a state with a similar population size as the entire North East, received in the same period.
A person resident in the North East received (theoretically, at least) per capita central assistance several times even that of an individual living Jammu and Kashmir. In poor Bihar, people received Rs 876 per capita assistance; in Himachal Pradesh, they got Rs 5,291; a person in Arunachal Pradesh got more than Rs 36,000; and his counterpart in Mizoram a hefty Rs 32,567. The all India average is Rs. 1,080.
Despite all this largesse, bestowed almost unthinkingly by the Central Government in an effort to buy friends and influence people, a majority of people in the region remain poor. Infrastructure, whether it is roads or electricity, is in a shambles and there has been little new investment in business ventures or industrial centres.
So, where does all this money go? A substantial part returns to New Delhi by ‘‘unofficial means’’ and routes, enabling politicians and others who benefit to purchase real estate in the national capital and elsewhere in its neighbourhood. It also helps them to buy influence in political parties as well as the Government.Some of the money is pocketed in the states by local politicians and bureaucrats; some of it even goes to militant and extortionist groups as protection money from the former group. Businessmen and industry add their mite to this ‘‘militant’’ kitty. The failure has not just been in terms of macro planning.
We know the Big Picture. But we have little idea of the details which lie inside that large framework: the little stories about little people which tell us about how individuals and communities live and whether they are better off today than they were yesterday.
A major reason for the lack of development of the North East has been the Look West policy: of seeking funds and sustenance from New Delhi instead of turning to its natural neighbours. Indeed, because of a lopsided approach to development, the estimated volume of illegal trade between three North Eastern states (Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura) with Myanmar and Bangladesh isn’t less than Rs 3,000 crores.
What goes across from the North East include drugs and pharmaceuticals, milk powder, tea, mechanical goods, cycles and stainless steel utensils. Goods coming in include precious stones, live pigs, synthetic fabrics, walking shoes, teak and electronic goods. These come by road, over mountain trails and by boat. Smuggling has existed along these routes for centuries: a smuggler knows the needs, weaknesses and market orientations of communities better than any politician or bureaucrat. The legitimisation of these trades could open up a reservoir of energy and legal funds to governments and communities. There need to be good reasons for such trades to ‘‘‘go legit’’.
Border trade, tourism, communications, cultural and academic exchanges as well and cooperative economic endeavours were discussed thread bare in a dialogue, the second of its kind (the first was held at Kunming, Yunnan Province, in 1999) recently. Concerns were also voiced about the problems of cheap goods from South East Asia and China flooding Indian markets. It was pointed out that aggressive marketing of cheap man-made fabrics would devastate local economies based on traditional handicrafts and looms without providing an alternative to the workers. These are some of the problems that cooperative ventures will spawn.
How do we protect the small people whose stories make up the Big Picture? Working out answers will not be easy. We could start with a check list, for example, of what will be acceptable to governments and communities in the North East. This will, in turn, mean discussions with and listening to representatives of local communities at all levels as policies are framed. This is where the issue of local governance and accountability comes up.
Policies put into place without such consultations will only create more difficulties. Regional cooperation, if it is to work, must build on a base of consulting community leaders at the field level. This is where local governance and international relations mesh and merge.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd
Sorrow of the seven sisters
