Frontier Areas of the North East Merit Focused Attention
(Published in Geopolitics January 2018)
Major General Mrinal Suman
In the movie ‘Chak
de India’, in a highly telling scene, the team manager is shown reproving a
probable from the North East that only Indian girls were eligible for
selection. With obvious hurt, she retorts that she too is an Indian.
Apparently, the manager had been misled by her mongoloid features. A few years back, a Naga girl studying in a Delhi college went
to the Railway Station to book a seat on student concession. The booking clerk
curtly told her that only Indian students were eligible for the said concession.
She felt humiliated – to be treated as an alien in one’s own country is the
worst affront. Sadly, it is a trauma that the citizens from the North East often face.
Due to the remoteness of the North East,
there is considerable lack of appreciation of India’s cultural and ethnic
diversity amongst most countrymen. Because of their distinct features, North
Eastern Indians are often mistaken by many to be foreigners from the East Asian
countries. It will be incorrect to apportion the whole blame to the team
manager or the booking clerk. The failure is of the nation as a whole. Even
after seven decades of Independence, India has not been able to integrate its
frontier areas physically and emotionally. Indian leadership has let the people
of the North East down.
India is guilty of deliberate neglect of
the development of the North East under misplaced security concerns. The backwardness
of these areas becomes more pronounced in view of enormous infra-structural development achieved on the
other side of the Indo-China border.
As a result, there is an acute sense of neglect and alienation among the local
population. During the Dalai Lama’s last visit to Tawang, the weather became
inclement and he had to travel by road. As
the road was in an appalling state, it
took him hours of bumpy travel to reach Tawang, thereby exposing the pitiable
state of surface communications.
Although Arunachal
Pradesh is India ’s largest frontier state in the North East
with international border with Bhutan ,
China and Myanmar, average
road density is mere 25.74 km per every 100 square km of area against the
national average of 142.68 km. This is despite the fact that roads are the sole
means of communication in the mountainous terrain. There are four district headquarters which do not have
all-weather roads. Worse, 34 administrative centres and 2453 villages
are yet to be connected by road. Railways have a token presence and the state does not have an
airport for its capital. It has one of the poorest health conditions in the
country, with life expectancy of 54.05 years being the lowest among the major states.
Frontier Areas
It is not possible to define frontier areas
in absolute terms. However, during the early period of settlements and
colonization, the
term indicated a region at the edge of a settled area. Over
a period of time, frontier areas have broadly come to be accepted as borderland
or areas close to inter-country boundary. It is an expedient way of differentiating
between the heartland-hinterland and the areas on the fringe. Heartland refers
to a region that is the economic centre of a country while hinterland is the
region that provides the resources for the heartland. Thus, a frontier area is
generally a region that is well away from the heartland-hinterland of a country
and hence far removed from the mainstream of a nation.
Frontier areas also suffer
from comparative geographic isolation due to long distance from the population centers.
Some areas may even remain cut-off for prolonged periods due to seasonal
reasons. Due to the
lack of adequate infrastructure and
industry, such
areas are generally identified with lesser development and the economy is usually based on a few specific resources or
activities. Further, they are normally inhabited by tribal and ethnic minorities, resulting
in a cultural divide.
Neglect of outlying areas has been a part of
Indian psyche for ages. Rulers cared little for the distant areas. They took to
battle only when the invaders reached the doorsteps of their capitals. Every
battle of Panipat was fought when Delhi got threatened. Otherwise, the rulers
at Delhi
Unfortunately, such an attitude pervades
even today. Every issue closer to Delhi gets immediate attention whereas the
problems of areas far removed from the heartland continue to suffer neglect. Being
sparsely populated, frontier areas send very few representatives to the parliament.
As they count for little in determining majority, they carry little political clout.
No main stream party considers it worth the effort to traverse undeveloped areas
for the sake of a handful of parliamentary seats. Regional parties with highly localised
agenda proliferate to occupy the vacant political space and the central
leadership remains ignorant of the issues faced by these people.
Worse, most of the bureaucrats who rise to
occupy top posts at the centre are those who manage their careers well by
staying closer to Delhi. Without any tenure in the remote areas, they lack
firsthand knowledge of the ground conditions. As a result, their involvement
remains limited to the allotment of funds to the state governments for
development projects. Thereafter, it is left to the state governments to expend
them without any oversight. Local leaders exploit centre’s abdication of
responsibility and lackadaisical attitude to misappropriate funds. A few
families prosper and there is little visible improvement in infrastructure. Common
man feels disillusioned as his life continues to be a struggle for survival as hitherto
fore.
For socio-economic development of an area, extensive
surface communications is a prerequisite. Due to rugged, inaccessible and
inhospitable terrain, extension of rail and road network poses a huge challenge.
To expedite road construction in the remote areas, Border Roads Organisation
(BRO) was raised on 07 May 1960. It was assigned the challenging task of road
construction in unexplored areas where no other agency dared to venture. Through
sheer dedication, commitment and drive, BRO has amply proved its mettle.
However, over a
period of time, certain distortions in the role definition of BRO crept in.
Instead of confining itself to its primary task of constructing and maintaining
surface communications in frontier areas, it was asked to undertake tasks in
the hinterland as well. This ill-advised role expansion made BRO lose its
focus. As a result, its work in the
frontier areas suffered. Numerous roads are
lying incomplete and a large number of critical bridges have got mired in
design infirmities. Bureaucratic impediments posed by non-issuance of timely
environmental clearances and non-acquisition of land by the civil authorities have
added to the woes of BRO.
The
Way Forward
China has been laying claims on large
tracts of Arunachal Pradesh. For decades, the Indian leadership feared that road
connectivity up to the international border would help an aggressor to develop
a line of communication for his advance into the plains of India. Therefore, a deliberate
decision was taken to keep the border areas devoid of road network. However, Indo-Chinese
War of 1962 demolished the delusion of impregnability of the Himalayas. Thus,
India achieved nothing except depriving the area of fruits of development.
Further, fearing ingress of elements
inimical to national interests, the government decided to keep the border areas
out of bounds to visitors. ‘Inner Line Permit’ scheme has effectively
kept these areas isolated. By
closing border areas to visitors, India
It is a well understood fact that hilly areas do not lend
themselves to rapid infrastructural development, especially with respect to the
construction of airfields, railways and highways. However, such areas possess
immense potential in many other aspects. It is for the government to exploit them.
Here are three suggestions.
One, tourism is considered to be one of the
most potent catalysts for economic development. Nature has bestowed India
Two, due to availability of ample land, sparse
population, congenial climate and unique terrain, frontier areas are ideally
suited for academic activities. Although Guwahati has an Indian Institute of
Technology and Shillong has an Indian Institute of Management, much more can be
done. The central government should formulate a long-term plan to develop the
seven states of the East as the academic hub of the country. A large number of institutions
of excellence should be established in the state capitals. Private educational
trusts should also be encouraged through land allotments and subsidies in the
initial stages. Such an initiative will cost little but offer huge returns. Arrival
of students from the hinterland will give a boost to the local economy and promote
better understanding with the local population.
Three, it is generally estimated that the frontier
areas possess close to 100,000 MW of hydropower potential. When fully exploited,
it can provide effective stimulus for local industrial activity. Considerable
revenue can be earned by supplying surplus power to the neighboring states. Similarly,
the areas have huge confirmed mineral deposits of crude oil, natural gas, coal,
iron, limestone, dolomite, graphite, granite and many precious and
semi-precious stones. However, their exploitation depends on the development of
surface communication network.
For the success of India’s ambitious ‘Act
East Policy’, Northeast India has to be developed. It is the gateway to the
countries of Southeast Asia through Myanmar. It also shares borders with China
and Bangladesh. As trade and economic
development are inter-dependent, cross-border trade with neighboring
countries would help generate profitable activities, especially as the area
suffers disadvantages of a long transport lead from the heartland and
consequent heavy transport costs.
Finally, every country strives to assimilate its frontier areas into the heartland through expeditious
economic progress and deeper integration, thereby expanding the hinterland to the borders. Isolation and deprivation of
vast frontier areas do not augur well for national unity and well-being. More
importantly, India’s security interests would be best
served by assimilating the frontier areas into the mainstream through extensive
infrastructural development and
emotional integration.*****
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