NORTH-EASTERN REGION VISION 2020: Whose Vision Is It Anyway?

It was just on the heels of the debates as to whether the DoNER (Development of North-Eastern Region) ministry should be abolished, that the ministry survived this scare and then came up with ‘NER Vision 2020’ document. This vision 2020 was finalised at the two-day plenary session of the NEC (North-Eastern Council) in Agartala on 13^th May 2008 and then ceremoniously released by Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on the 2^nd of July 2008.

The following lines will give a basic idea about the contents of the Vision 2020 document. The “North-Eastern Region Vision 2020” or The ‘Aam Aadmi’ (common man) document as ‘they’ say, ‘promises’ to ‘bridge’ the yawning gap between NER and the rest of India. The document estimates that in the next 12 years, investments worth Rs 13 lakh Crores is required to help NER catch up with the rest of the country. The NER Vision 2020 adopts a multi-pronged strategy to ensure ‘inclusive development in the region.’ It also stresses on rural development by focusing on improving agricultural productivity and creation of non-farm avenues and generate employment. It focuses on augmenting infrastructure, including rail, road, inland water and air transportation to facilitate a two-way movement of people and goods within the region and outside. The document emphasises that the ‘Look East Policy’ should focus on the region and plan a way out that the South-East Asia begins from the North-East, and through opening up of trade routes in the region could lead to accelerated growth and expansion of economic opportunities. The North East has been blessed with natural and human resources that can greatly contribute to the overall development of this region. It also stresses on the importance of promoting agro-processing industries, modernisation and investment in manufacturing units based on the resources available in the region, harnessing the large hydroelectric power generation potential and also to focus on developing tourism. The document envisages an ambitious strategy for the region to ‘eradicate’ poverty and rope in investors.

Dr. Manmohan Singh in his speech during the ceremonial release said, “Infrastructure deficiency is a major concern in the region. We will link all the state capitals in the region by rail network and Rs 31,000 Crores will be invested on roads during the Eleventh plan.” The Government is also committed to improve road facilities in the Eleventh Plan, he added. Describing the North-Eastern region as the land of rising sun for India, Dr. Singh said time has come for the sun to shine brightly on it. Vision document defines the path to that bright future.” The Vision Document also lays stress on promoting education in the region, he added. Focusing on the farm sector in the North East, Dr. Singh said, a second ‘Green Revolution’ specific to the region was needed. An important component of Vision 2020 is to achieve a high level of human development, particularly education and health. The Vision statement said that, at independence, the North East Region was among the most prosperous regions of India. Sixty years on, the region as a whole and the states that comprise it are lagging behind in the most important parameters of growth.

This ‘developmental’ plan is said to have taken three years of ‘consultation,’ by the ministry of DoNER and NEC, done in collaboration with various private organizations like the New Delhi-based National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP) and various handpicked ‘experts’ in all amounting to 35,000 respondents as they claim to be. But at the end of the day the real voice of the intellectuals is silenced. As a witness to this ceremony, there was not even a tinge of a climate of transparency and at the end we were fed to ‘sugar coated’ words and blunt promises as if by 2020 all of the North-Eastern people will be wearing ten-gallon hats riding off into the sunset.

Now, the makers of the vision 2020 has beautifully highlighted the poor infrastructure and lack of adequate development in the region purely on ‘economic’ perspective and does not even make an attempt to address the burning political agendas that has so long trapped the region. This will invite the corporate sectors to come up with Special Development Zones (SDZs). This scheme sanctions the landowner to be paid rent and allowances for the land being used by the private sectors while the rich natural resources will be exploited by the corporate bodies and also the people faced with the danger of being alienated from their own land. And worst of all, if the proposal of Land Acquisition Bill becomes a reality, then the people of this region will start ‘begging’ in our own land.

It was the DoNER Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar’s statement that really provoked me when he said that the growth rate of economy of India will reach “double figures” if only the rate of growth of the North-East Region increases. It obviously seemed to me as if the Indian state is not growing because of the North-East. The region’s ‘lack’ being seemingly polarized and subtly represented as a ‘stumbling block’ in the nations-state emergence as an economic powerhouse. Such representation tends to remind us of the once altruistic British “white man’s burden” which in today’s context can be aptly translated as the Brown man’s burden!

While ‘experts’ have framed innumerous ‘visions’ in the past, and even as they continue to unabashedly indulge themselves now, it provokes me to wonder and question myself as to why ‘others’ have always defined what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, what is ‘good’ and “bad”, what is “development” and “underdevelopment,” and to top it all, how we should live! Why should the ‘other’ take away our ‘vision’ and define a vision for us in their own terms.

Finally, I believe up to a certain degree in good faith that even if the region gets covered with ‘flyovers’ during this prescribed period, the people of this region will still continue to live ‘under the flyovers’ while they satisfy their larger interests through the ‘flyovers.’ So I wind up with a sincere question for the people of the region…Vision 2020: Whose Vision Is It Anyway?

By Asangba Tzudir