Changing The Northeast Narrative

In the national narrative largely fashioned by a small coterie of a permanent Delhi media elites, North East nearly finds no representation except for convenient and cursory invoking of Irom Sharmila, that too intended to establish that our citizenry is absolutely oblivious to her heroic struggle and that its only the great media worthies residing in Delhi who have their minds engaged on her fast. It’s no coincidence that forked tongued doyens of Delhi media build a crescendo over Irom Sharmila when their political masters face the brunt of  popular protest movement. Remember when that Hazare and Ramdev took Delhi by storm, we were repeatedly asked why Irom Sharmila’ fast never attracted the kind of mind share that anti-corruption movements achieved. Anyway we should not be too hard on news barbies and boy toys of Delhi media. Many of them would be challenged to locate correctly seven states of North-east in India map leave alone any nuanced understanding of their distinctive socio-economic-cultural composition.

On the other hand narrative that emerges from north east is largely based on standard grievance template based on utter neglect by mainstream India. While we generally don’t encourage victimhood narrative, north-east grievance narrative is legitimate. After Independence, development of far flung areas that were naturally disadvantaged due to their geographic location and for a cash-strapped country it was the least of priority. A single party dominated autocratic democracy without any opposition didn’t help either. The government of the day chose to go with the socialist model, and the only way economic growth or development could touch an area was through governmental intervention.

For whatever reasons not much investment reached the Notheast states. One explanation for that is the states that had powerful lobbies on account of the number of seats they occupied in parliament were able to corner the lion’s share of available government investments leaving smaller states with the little that was left. Everything else followed suit. Few new education institutes or any new infrastructure came up after independence, most of the infrastructure we see even today belongs to the pre independence era. The isolation was completed by the state owned media. The only news that came out of the region were of disasters and that too in true socialist spirit was restrained. Few people knew outside Mizoram when it faced massive famine and food scarcity.

Insurgency in the region began in Nagaland which may have fuelled due to religious identity reason as many Nagas, though not all, did not identify themselves with India. However many contend that insurgency in other states began as a result of the neglect by the state. The famine and food scarcity in Mizoram led to armed uprising, made worse by indiscriminate use of force, even fighter aircrafts were used to bomb capital Aizawl that led to massive collateral damage and civilian casualties. Similar feeling of alienation resulted in a bloody insurgency in Assam along with agitation by the people that culminated in the signing of Assam accord, the insurgency still persists. That four out of seven Northeast states have had insurgency speaks volumes about the sense of detachment and the flawed policies of the state.

Many people shifted to other cities for better education and employment prospects where they were not exactly welcomed. Many locals saw them as outsiders competing with them for limited resources and jobs. Although the conflict between locals and outsiders was not entirely unexpected, some handled it better than the others but it also led to reinforcement of the sense of alienation in some of them.

The human tragedy, armed uprising, agitations and insurgency finally managed to attract Center’s attention towards the region and concerted efforts were made to undo the damage caused by earlier policies. The counter insurgency operations by the Armed forces was able to quell insurgency and restore democracy in most areas .Efforts were also made to develop the economy of the region through investments in infrastructure and a few industries too came up like a refinery in Assam, doubling of Railway track, IIT and few other institutions etc. But despite that the sense of alienation stays, the general perception is that nothing gets done unless there is a massive hue and cry, coupled with the prejudices suffered by those who ventured out to other states for education, employment etc has only reinforced the earlier held beliefs.

How did things come to this pass? Why does it take a human tragedy of such proportion just to get noticed? While it might sound a over-simplistic formulation Nehruvian socialist policies are the reason for the stunted economic growth of Northeast region. If the government didn’t have funds to invest in the region at least it can create conducive conditions for private investments to come. If suitable incentives are given to private investments, there is no reason why it won’t come. The SEZ route can be been explored.. If the economy is liberalized adequately and necessary reforms carried out to an archaic system, there is no way industry would overlook the region. The narrative must change from looking up to Center for intervention to how sustainable economic growth can be achieved under own steam.

(Picture courtesy sinlung.com)
You can also read the article in Centre Right India

Repeated Terror Attacks & What Can Be Done

The latest terror attack in Mumbai has reignited the debate on what needs to be done to deal with repeated terror attacks? Most preliminary information available in the public domain points towards Pak sponsored terrorism be it by the state or non state actors whatever the case may be. To sum them up:

a)  The attack was carried out in Mumbai signifies that the country was the target and it’s not the local/state specific issues that are involved here.

b)  Security arrangements in Mumbai increased a lot after 26/11, so carrying this out was more difficult than the previous one, means that it’s done by thorough professionals, another point to be noted is that all the mistakes that were committed during 26/11 like tell tale signs of communication with the handlers have been rectified this time.

c)  The scale of attack is smaller than 26/11, that is because they wanted this attack to succeed so it was confined to what was possible by a small group, and perhaps they wanted the impact to be big enough to serve their purpose but not so big that India is forced to suspend the dialogue like it did after 26/11.

Coming to the objective behind the attack, there could be many, primary among them the forthcoming visit of US Sec. of state Hillary Clinton’s visit and dictating the agenda of that meet. The agenda of that meet doesn’t appear to be economic, that may be an additional issue that gets discussed but US interest in the region right now is it’s withdrawal from Af Pak region and bring a closure to it’s war against terrorism, many analysts consider this withdrawal as overdue. Another objective could be to divert attention from the mess Pakistan finds itself in right now and perhaps also to remind the jehadis their raison d'etre.

What can be done?

That our police is woefully ill prepared to handle such situation has amply been demonstrated in numerous terror attacks. After 26/11 some, even all of the shortcomings may have been identified, but apparently huge gaps still exists and with the kind of bureaucracy and political compulsions there are, that is asking for too much.
It would make a huge difference if they focus on the actions taken post attack. The culprits of ’93 terror attacks have gone scot free, investigations into dozens of other such incidents have reached nowhere, some we have no clue about at all and even the convicts have remained unpunished. All these facts have lowered the “deterrence bar” for the terrorists and an invitation to try out their designs. Needless to say the deterrence needs to be restored, the perpetrators have to feel the heat, investigations have to be pursued relentlessly till it’s logical conclusion. Diplomatic pressure has to be sustained. If we don’t place a high value on our own lives they will certainly not.


(Picture courtesy BDINN.com)

Salwa Judum Verdict: Options Available to States

India has its share of insurgencies in a fairly large area in different regions and for different reasons. The north eastern states, Punjab and J&K had their share of insurgencies and lately Maoist insurgency has spread to a fairly large area encompassing at least 4 states and is threatening to spread to other states as well. The people who were directly affected by these insurgencies are the ones who have paid the heaviest price often with their lives for no fault of theirs. I am not even mentioning the potential ones that are not on the national radar yet, the ones I am referring to are the ones that were more than a match for the police as well as the regular para-military forces available with the states and threatened to undermine all democratic institutions in those states until Armed forces were called in.

There are many in favour of the use of Armed forces in insurgencies that have gone beyond the control of para-military forces and also there are many who opine that Armed forces must not be used against insurgencies under any circumstances for whatever reasons, the merits and demerits of the arguments related to use of Army in insurgencies is beyond the scope of the topic, in any case it is for the Central govt to decide if and when they want to call the Army.

The state govts meanwhile have limited options of requesting the Centre for adequate para-military forces to counter insurgencies and at times when all the options available to states fail to protect lives, often they resort to unconventional ad-hoc measures to minimise the loss of lives in most cases by empowering the people by arming some of them, mostly volunteers, so that the people are not helpless and at least some lives can be saved. Such measures have been taken by almost all states that were affected by insurgencies like NE states, Punjab, J&K as well as those affected by Maoist insurgencies. Salwa Judum was one such measure adopted by Chhattisgarh as all other options available to it like Central para-military forces were failing.

Never was the constitutionality of such measures adopted by the states affected by insurgencies ever questioned until now and the Supreme Court in it’s wisdom have pronounced constituting and arming these SPOs as unconstitutional. Now the message that is conveyed is that the govt with all the legal experts at it’s disposal can also be unsure about the legality of the actions it takes and there can be a huge gap between the executive and the judiciary on what they perceive as permitted in the constitution.

Arming of SPOs, VDCs etc. were never considered to be a solution to insurgency, they were meant to enhance the security of the people living in insurgency affected areas and supplemented the state forces and Army. The SC has clearly said that it is the govts sole responsibility to protect it’s citizens and that the responsibility cannot be delegated to the people in any circumstance, which entails that the govt only have the option of deploying Armed forces and para-military forces during insurgencies. Despite the presence of Army and PMFs in J&K it was felt necessary to supplement them with SPOs and VDCs, now that option is not available to the govt or the people affected.

(Picture Courtesy Outlook)