Metaphor of development: Politics of discovery as recovery in North East India

Dr Kshetri Rajiv *

To begin the exploration in this piece I quote W. Sachs's word, The idea of development stands like a ruin in the intellectual landscape. Delusion and disappointment, failures and crime have been the steady companions of development and they tell a common story: it did not work. Moreover, the historical conditions which catapulted the idea into prominence have vanished; development has become outdated.

Dilemmas of development have been now contested with a radical reaction from varieties of perspectives- 'anti-development, 'beyond-development' and 'post-development'. Thus, the rejection of development becomes the centrality of this perspective. In spite of dealing too much of discussion on shifting paradigms of development, this article engages with the nature of politics while converting the potential into a development agenda.

The contribution of natural resources to economic growth varies in different economies and political settings in which its potentiality is maintained; but in no case one can ignore these resources. As the prevailing technological advancement offers new alternatives for the use of these natural resources in satisfying human wants, there is, consequently, an increasing demand for them.

Obviously, the economic irreversibility depends on technology, wants and social institutions, all of which are in constant change. Therefore, the extent to which available natural resources may be economically exploited has to be determined, and a rational choice between several present and future uses of these resources has to be made.

In order to exploit and to manage exploited resources, it is important to assess the cultural differences between peoples which construct understanding about what constitute both 'resource' and 'power'. As a result, many cultural as well as ecological consequences of resource management decisions simply become invisible because of the way that the cultural construction of knowledge constructs one's understanding of resources themselves.

At the same time, exploitation of natural resources requires other forms of resources. The lack of this 'other' form of resources compelled to surrender a large portion of its share in order to receive at least 'some'. In the process of bargaining for more sharing, a kind politics evolved to hold the power to control the share. Politics becomes deeper in societies having a multitude of conflicting claims over such resources.

In fact, resources do not exist outside the complex of relationships to societies, technologies, cultures, economies and environments in some pre-ordained form, waiting to be discovered. To that extent, they are created by these relationships. But, the way they are discovered is critical to the situation and treatment to the situation.

In this rapidly changing world of resource geopolitics, having the best current technique is only a small part the story. In the process of managing resources, ostensibly for the betterment of humanity, resource managers, it seems, quite literally, turn the world upside down. Thus, the means for survival are no longer under the control of human communities, but subject to the vagaries of the market place.

Today, conflicts over resources have become an important and influential element of political, social and economic process throughout the world. Conflicts may occur at all stages of the development of the projects including at the time of closure, when local settlements are under threat of becoming what some term as 'ghost town'.

India's Northeast region is recently discovered as a national powerhouse of economic zone because of available large stock of natural resources, especially water and biodiversity, as well as it strategic geopolitical location. The gifts of water and biodiversity, already there for ages, offer tremendous potential that requires vision, will, and careful planning if they are to be converted into bountiful, renewable resources for sustainable development.

This tremendous opportunity also brings great challenges as small-but-segmented political entities and infant economies lack the ability to harness what are essentially cross-boundary and trans-boundary market opportunities or to harvest economies of scale.

With this, the Government of India has found an area of interest with existing water potential of the region as well as its strategic location of being a connecting route towards the South-East Asian countries. As a part of India's look East Policy, the Northeast region has been considered a focal point for mapping the sub-continent. While doing this, the backwardness of the region itself may be conceived as an important constraint to the process, for which a path of development is immediately required.

As a result, Government of India has pumped in money without thinking about the needs and priorities, institutions and development managers. Arguably, there has always been no cohesive and scientific attempt to build institutions that could provide continuance, consistency, effectiveness and sustainability to development actions.

Let me go back to some of the terminology that the region has been framed or defined. The region is being associated with various categories of terms such as- frontier areas, backward track, isolation, alienation, hot-spot of insurgent movement, geopolitically strategic location, corridor of east and south east Asia, etc. and a economic powerhouse of the country- a recent discovery. A revisit to the chronology of these terminologies shows a clear indication of the kind of politics interplayed for arriving at the present connotation of the term.

This discovery could be designed as recovery of the long-term neglect of the region or a form of economic and diplomatic source. But, one can see, this form of neglect in the past as an agenda of Central government's project to explore the region's potentiality for the nation as whole. In the process, there is an underlying politics, which could be reflected through following some points.

• The roots of socio-economic and political problems have been completely politicized through the contested claims of different ethnic cleavages thereby fragmenting the society in various forms of public choice. This has paved an easy way for the state machineries to control the mode of resource exploitation without much dialogue about the issue in hand.
• Attacking underdevelopment of present by neglecting the region for decades could be framed as a strategy to impose the logic of modernity in a region where a large number of 'anthropic' communities lives in a fragile manner at present. This imposition has trapped the people in between the forces of modernity and elements of tradition at stake.
• The presence of extra-ordinary laws as well as the installation of large number of armed forces has mellowed down the intricate relation between people and planners. If we take Amartya Sen's thesis- Development as Freedom, then there arises question on whether it is possible for a true meaning of freedom at the presence of these extra-ordinary laws.
• The quantum of investment on academic intellectual consultation for standardization of the policy has been used as a means for the public dialogue but without much concern for adopting the ideas evolved through the process. At same time, dialogue becomes a negotiating ground for the resolution to the conflicting ideas. In the process, both over estimation of opportunity and under estimation of negation impact has been used by the both the parties involved as only key strategy for incorporation of more ideas in favour. One should be aware, any dialogue is an invitation from the policy makers to avail response of the concerned people to the 'already' framed policy. Therefore, such response sometimes lost its meanings.
• Collapse of institution in shaping the overall policy for the region have resulted a major factor of causal problem in sensitizing a particular issue at the core.
• Segregation of every society has been as a technique for subverting or minimizing the spirit of resistance. Similarly, prolonging conflict becomes a constructive tool for the planners to achieve the objective.
• A critical survey of available literature of the past indicates a bankruptcy of the same, which reflects the politics. This has limited the sources to make a critique of the process at present.
• Aggressiveness of the policy could be demonstrated through the time-frame that these policies were evolved in the past and the present approaches.
• All these factors have the potential to interpret these resources as curse rather than potential.