Look (Act) East Policy and Northeast India: Reimagining the Space Through Institutional,Physical and Social Connectivity

Abstract

The underdevelopment of Northeast India is quite often explained in terms of economic isolation primarily on account of its geographical peripherality. To address this challenge, a new imagination, through the Look (Act) East Policy has been proposed. This approach, makes India’s Northeast the centre of a unified economic, physical and social space through its integration with the trans-border neighbouring regions. In this article, an attempt has been made to examine the logic of developing an ‘extended Northeast’ and how it has been sought to be realized. The article argues that the actualization of this proposed integrated space is ridden with serious difficulties and the internal fragmentation of Northeast India and the exceptional rules and administrative arrangement that are in place in the region along with the geopolitical compulsion of India may act as significant barriers in this regard. And most importantly there are apprehensions that the proposed integrated space may lead to the appropriation of resources of the Northeast by the corporate houses without benefiting the people of the region.

Keywords

Look (Act) East Policy Northeast India global trade cross-border region trans national space subregionalism

Introduction

The relative underdevelopment of the seven adjacent states of India—Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura—compared to other parts of the country, is often sought to be explained in terms of its geographic and economic insularity and the border status of the region. These seven states taken together is linked to the rest of India only by a thin strip of 21 kms and the rest of it is entirely hemmed in by international land borders of China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan. These states, along with that of the state of Sikkim are referred to as the Northeast region of India or as the Northeast.

The enactment of India’s Look (Act) East Policy primarily underscored the imperatives for forging closer economic and subsequently security ties between India and its immediate and extended neighbourhood in response to the emerging geo-economic and geo-strategic realities in the post-Cold War era. India’s Look (Act) East Policy has been laced with considerations for the development of the national economy, which has evolved to have significance for India’s strategic countenance as well. Within the larger rubric of the Look (Act) East Policy, there emerged a ‘Northeast India’ component wherein it was emphasized that economic cooperation of the Northeast with the neighbouring countries could engender the development of the former. Post-1947, when India became independent from the colonial yoke, the Northeast of India remained rather tenuously integrated with the national economy due to decades of appropriation of economic surplus and as a consequence of political cartographic changes. In independent India, several pathways for the development of this region were undertaken, among which was a model of development for the Northeast under the Look (Act) East Policy that emphasized on the transnational economic integration of the region. The future of the Northeast was thus perceived to rest in its political integration with India and intensified economic cooperation with Southeast Asia (Ramesh, 2005).

Therefore, under the Look (Act) East Policy a new imagination of Northeast India was proposed—‘not as a periphery of India but as the centre of a thriving and integrated economic space linking two dynamic regions with a network of highways, railways, pipelines and transmission lines crisscrossing the regions’ (Sikri, 2004). Such an idea of an ‘Extended Northeast’ (S. K. Das, 2010) underscores the possibility of converting the Northeast and the neighbouring regions of South and Southeast Asia into a single economic, geographical and cultural space. The idea was fore grounded in the notion that the Northeast and the neighbouring cross-border regions, given their geographical, historical and cultural proximity and under the present transnational logic of development can be economically, physically and socially integrated.

Under the Look (Act) East Policy, which has become a major prong of India’s overall multifaceted outreach to the countries in its near and extended neighbourhood, some measures are underway which aim to realize this reimagined space covering Northeast India and the neighbouring regions of Southeast Asia. However, thus far these measures have remained confined mainly to the development of different modes of connectivity and linkages-institutional, physical and people-to-people contacts. It is expected that these linkages, once fully developed, would facilitate the integration of Northeast India with its neighbouring regions and thereby generate development and usher prosperity for the entire region through which these linkages will traverse on completion. The idea of developing Northeast India through cross-border interactions has been received with a lot of interest and enthusiasm both by the policymakers and the people at large who see it as a bellwether of change for the region. Most of the prevalent literature on Look (Act) Policy seems to share this optimism and have argued in favour of the cross-border integration model, in anticipation of significant pay-offs for Northeast India.

The progress towards the realization of this proposed integrated space, however, has been conspicuous in its tardiness with regard to the fulfilment of the proposed ambitions. This is evident from the marginal growth of trade between the Northeast of India and Southeast Asia. Subregional groupings have also remained largely inactive and the completion of most of the physical connectivity projects has been delayed. Significantly, despite integration of the Northeast of India with Southeast Asia being a stated objective of the Look (Act) East Policy, India does not seem to be moving decisively in that direction.

It is in this context that the present article tries to explain the need and logic of reimagining the Northeast; the manner in which it has been sought to be realized; identify the factors that may act as barriers in this respect and underscore some of the apprehensions that are being raised with regard to the possible fallout of such integration on the resources and economy of the region.

Northeast: The Making of a Periphery

Even after 75 years of independence, Northeast India still conjures up an image of an economically backward, geographically remote and politically sensitive region. This was, however, not a permanent fact of the region. It was once the centre of an extended economic, geographical and social space—a bridge connecting land, people, culture and civilizations bearing trade links with the adjoining areas of Bhutan, China, Tibet, Myanmar and East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh) (Brahma, 2010, p. 18). The present peripherality of the region is a product of the historical process associated with colonial and post-colonial constructions (Baruah, 2003).

The process of peripheralization of the Northeast began during the colonial period when the British separated Burma from British India in 1935 (Srikanth, 2016). Moreover, the British turned the entire hill areas of this region into a frontier zone and separate arrangements were introduced to administer those areas. However, it was the partition of India that accompanied its independence that had the most serious impact towards making the Northeast a remote, landlocked and bounded territory.¹ As B. G. Verghese (2004, p. 2) puts it—‘If imperial politics distanced the Northeast from its trans-border neighbourhood further east, partition in 1947 all but physically separated the Northeast from the Indian heartland’. Further, the deteriorating security environment in the eastern border of India turned Northeast India into a regulated and sensitive border region (Baruah, 2003). The partition of the subcontinent and the subsequent geopolitics deprived the region of its flourishing trade with the plains of adjacent East Bengal, Tibet, Bhutan and Burma. This loss of connectivity and market access set the economy of the region back by at least a quarter century (Verghese, 2006, p. 30). Colonial and post-colonial geopolitics also disrupted the region as a sociocultural space by creating arbitrary boundaries² that divided many ethnic groups in this culturally contiguous region by pitting them as different nation states (Haokip, 2015b, p. 202).

The Logic of Transnational Market Economy and Development of the Northeast

Since independence the government of India has experimented with different economic and political measures in its approach towards Northeast India ranging from non-interference in the traditional culture and customs to securitization of the region, from granting political concession in terms of reorganization of the states and autonomous councils to pumping developmental funds to ensure speedy development of the region (Ramesh, 2005). However, these measures introduced within the nation-state framework, failed to bring about any tangible results. Therefore, in the 1990s, a new model of development was introduced under the Look (Act) Policy which sought to achieve economic progress of the Northeast through its integration with East and Southeast Asian countries. This model conformed to the restructuring of the Indian economy under globalization and was marked by a growing trend towards transnational regional economic groupings.

The rise of globalization created new possibilities for organizing economic activities beyond the existing national territorial framework. Globalization brought about changes in the nature and scale of economic production, which led to deterritorialization and reterritorialization through the easing of national barriers. Today economic productions are taking place at a scale that often defies the national logic and national boundaries have become even more permeable. In such a world, nation states are increasingly losing their relevance (Newman & Passi, 2002). Consequently, transnational regions are becoming attractive options for organizing economic activities. Ohmae (1993) has put forward his ideas of ‘region state’ to allude to natural economic zones, which may or may not fall within the geographical limits of a particular nation. The boundaries of region states are not imposed by political fiat but are determined by the invisible hand of the global market. The primary linkages of region states tend to be with the global economy and not with their host nations. Region states³ are not defined by their economies of scale in production but by reaching efficient economies of scale in their consumption, infrastructure and professional services.

Such transnational economic activities are being seen as a way of overcoming the post partition economic imprisonment of the Northeast (Baruah, 2003). This is driven by the belief that since ‘developing the peripheral regions within the bounds of capitalist nation state is difficult, more radical steps are indeed necessary to get out of the unchanging, stagnant, and traditional subsistence economies’ (Srikanth, 2016, p. 46). The Look (Act) East Policy, therefore, has proposed a transnational solution⁴ to the problems of the Northeast through the cross-border economic interactions. The expectation is that once such integration takes place it will expose the Northeast to a larger market and also boost trade and investment.

Reimagining Northeast as an Extended Space

The image of this ‘Extended Northeast’ region as proposed under the Look (Act) East Policy thus extends beyond its national boundaries and spreads across the neighbouring regions of Southeast Asia. In fact, as Northeast India’s historical, cultural, social and economic ties with Southeast Asia does not stop at their international boundaries, the idea of this transnational space involves the reproduction of a natural and historically shared economic, cultural and geographically contiguous space, through a cross-border region building process operating under the logic of a global market economy. Under the present Look (Act) East Policy, the proposed integration of Northeast India with the cross-border region of Southeast Asia has been visualized through the formation of three mutually intertwined spaces—economic, geographical and social.

Northeast India and the adjoining cross-border areas once constituted a natural economic zone with extensive trade routes. For instance, several trade routes from the Northeast to China via Burma, Bhutan and Tibet had existed during the pre-colonial period (Sharma, 2018, p. 28). The prosperity of the Northeast was to a significant extent linked to the region’s access to the market of neighbouring regions for its natural, handicrafts, silk and other textile products (Ray, 2005). The Northeast also figured on the southern trails of the Silk Road, which was in use till as late as the 19th century. The proposed reimagination of the Northeast is thus seen as a means to recover this lost economic space to the benefit of the entire region. The cross-border economic integration with the neighbouring regions will provide Northeast India with a wider market access and will be able to derive benefits from the transnational flow of trade and investment. The region itself, endowed with a rich reservoir of natural resources, wide array of agricultural products and a well-developed traditional skill for handloom and handicraft products, has the potential to participate in such transnational space to its advantage. Northeast’s proposed economic integration may also induce others to relocate their production units to the region because of its proximity to Southeast Asia. The transnational space that the Look (Act) Policy seeks to materialize will thus provide the region a huge market along with the benefit of specialization, economies of scale and comparative advantage.

The creation of an economic space covering the Northeast and cross-border neighbouring regions will also necessitate production of a new geographical space to facilitate transnational economic flows. Alluding to the geographical similarities between the Northeast and Southeast Asia, S. K. Das (2010) notes, ‘India’s Northeast forms the cusp where South Asia becomes less and less South Asia and more and more Southeast Asia and vice versa’. Production of such spatial specifics will involve creating physical connectivity in terms of reviving old routes and creating new ones. Some of the links of the Northeast, that were severed in the post-independence period, still exist but in a dilapidated condition.⁵ These existing links can be reinforced through the creation of new and better roads, railways and river networks to transport goods and commodities (Sharma, 2018). This will also enable India to embrace a continental approach to the Look (Act) East Policy and move out to Southeast Asia through its Northeast, thereby also transcending the latter’s landlocked character that has greatly impeded trade and movement.

This reimagined economic and geographical space can be further reinforced by creating a social space on the basis of the revival of shared historical and cultural ties between the people of the Northeast and the neighbouring regions of Southeast Asia. While Southeast Asia is often termed as India’s civilizational neighbour because of their cultural ties, it is the Northeast region of India in particular that has deep cultural links with these countries. Many of the communities living in Northeast India are of Southeast Asian origin. For instance, the Tai-Ahoms who ruled Assam for 600 years originally came from Myanmar and Northern Thailand and their cusp with Yunnan of China. Similarly, the Khasis of Meghalaya trace their origin to Vietnam. There are people in Arunachal Pradesh who are either of Tibetan or Thai-Burmese origin. Many communities in Assam and Tripura have come from East Pakistan or present-day Bangladesh (Ministry of development of North Eastern Region, 2008). Moreover, there were communities, once spread across the entire space, who find themselves divided in different states due to the colonial and post-colonial redrawing of boundaries. The partition of India, for example, divided the Garos, Khasis and Kuki-Chin groups between India, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Pau, 2018). These ethnic groups have more in common with the population living across the boundary than with their own nationals (Haokip, 2015b) and despite being citizens of different states, they are ‘united through a tight unique kinship lineage network of various spatial trajectories and social bonds, a commonly recognized lingua franca and variety of tangible ethnic features’ (Dean, 2005).

It is important to note here that India’s Look (Act) East Policy is also in sync with similar policies followed by the Southeast Asian countries, which aim to enhance economic and security cooperation among countries sharing contiguous land and maritime borders. The shift in policy orientation of Southeast Asia towards India is dictated by the growing economic clout of India and their compulsion to find a balancer against China. The Look West Policy of Thailand, for instance, can be cited as an example of such a policy direction which is in sync with India’s Look (Act) East Policy (Chachavalpongpun, 2011). Economic relations between India and Southeast Asia have witnessed significant growth in recent times due to such concerted efforts to enhance trade in the post-Cold War era. However, thus far, much of these economic engagements between them have taken place through sea routes bypassing Northeast India which, being landlocked has no sea outlet. If the Northeast were to benefit from such expanding economic ties, then the use of overland routes through the Northeast becomes necessary. India is keen on reaching out to Southeast Asia through continental routes for the development of the Northeast but such transnational overland routes have so far remained an unattractive option for Southeast Asian countries. However, if the Northeast can be developed into a market for products of these countries (the states of Northeast together constitute a reasonably large market of about 45 million people) and into a production hub then that may act as an inducement for Southeast Asian countries to develop economic ties with the Northeast through these overland networks. Another added incentive for Southeast Asian countries to use the land routes may be the possibility of deriving subsidiary benefits in the form of toll and transit fee. Thailand has already made some financial commitments for developing the India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral Highway (Chong, 2018). Other countries like Japan and Singapore have also expressed their willingness to invest in infrastructure development projects in Northeast India. For instance, the High Commissioner of Singapore Simon Wong, at the Act East Policy Meet held in Guwahati on 27 May 2022, said that the Singaporean government would assist the Assam government in building infrastructure projects and that Singapore would form a master plan for the development of Guwahati (The Sentinel, 2022). It is being argued that they are looking towards the Northeast in their bid to explore new economic avenues because of the problem of economic growth experienced across the globe particularly in the post-pandemic phase. Even though the Northeast due to various challenges does not apparently seem like a profitable investment space, yet there is always an incentive for other countries to explore new areas for economic expansion (Professor Joydeep Baruah, Department of Economics, Krishna Kanta Handique State Open University, Assam, personal communication, 3 June 2022). The issue of over-accumulation of capital may be another way of explaining such interest of Southeast Asian countries in the Northeast India. The Southeast Asian countries stuffed with surplus capital are in search of new economic space where they can fix their excess capital and Northeast India, which has been projected by the government of India as an investment destination under the Look (Act) East Policy, fits into this requirement. Another possible reason for the increased interest in the Northeast of India by such countries is to enter or be strategically positioned close to the western part of energy-rich Myanmar, so as to ensure that China does not dominate the whole of Myanmar and that other countries are able to access the energy resources which Myanmar has to offer (Professor D. K. Chakrabarty, Co-ordinator, UGC Centre for Studies on Bangladesh and Myanmar, Dibrugarh University, Assam, personal communication, 9 June 2022).

Realizing the Vision: Connectivity Projects

In order to realize the notion of an ‘extended Northeast’ encompassing the Northeast and neighbouring regions of Southeast Asia, certain measures have already been initiated under the Look (Act) East Policy. While actualization of this space would involve transnational region building or regional integration, so far these measures have remained confined primarily to the development of different regional connectivity initiatives and linkages-institutional, physical and people-to-people contacts. These regional connectivity projects, however, can be seen as the first major step towards regional integration (Yhome, 2015b, p. 1223).

India has been promoting and participating in many sub-regional groupings to develop institutional linkages to realize the economic integration of the Northeast with the neighbouring areas of South and Southeast Asia. Sub-regional initiatives are primarily economic concepts that involve the linking of adjacent areas of separate countries with varying endowments of factors of production, such as land, labour, capital and different sources of comparative advantage to form a sub-region of economic growth (Banerjee, 2013). In this regard, certain regional initiatives can be identified as relevant to the prospect of the emergence of a cross-border region bringing together the Northeast and adjacent transnational areas on its east, that is, the Ganga Mekong sub-region, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and the Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar-economic corridor group (BCIM-EC) (Chatterjee, 2007; Toppo, 2016). These sub-regional initiatives are aimed at creating a transnational common economic space covering the nearby areas of member states through cooperation on areas such as trade, investment, infrastructure, communication, tourism, agriculture, education and human resource development (Haokip, 2015a). Being located at the centre of the sub-region, Northeast India is expected to serve as the natural ground for staging economic cooperation and gain out of enhanced trade and investment within the sub-regional economic space (Wadhwa, 2014).

India under the Look (Act) East Policy has already agreed to be part of a number of transnational connectivity projects both at the bilateral and multilateral level that will connect the Northeast with the neighbouring states of South and Southeast Asia. Some of such important projects are as follows: India–Myanmar–Thailand trilateral Highway (IMTTH), Tiddim-Rih-Falam (TRF) Road, The Stilwell Road, Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) and Delhi-Hanoi Railway Link (DHRL). The Government of India is investing heavily in these connectivity projects. Once materialized, these may drastically enhance connectivity between Northeast India and the contiguous regions of the neighbouring countries and will allow the Northeast to overcome its landlocked status. The proposed connectivity projects have the potential not only for opening up trade opportunities for the Northeast but also possibilities of reviving ethnicities among territorially divided trans-border communities (Goswami & Gogoi, 2005; Nambiar, 2018; Ziipao, 2018).

The role of track III initiatives in the form of informal contacts between members of civil society and academia in cementing closer ties between countries has been widely acknowledged. People-to-people contacts can play a crucial role in integrating Northeast India with Southeast Asia given the deep historical and sociocultural ties between the two regions. Both the Union and State governments have insisted on the importance of people-to-people contacts to realize the proposed social space under the present Look (Act) East Policy. In order to facilitate the movement of people across the border of India and Myanmar, mechanism like Free Movement Regime (FMR) has been put in place that permits local inhabitants on either side of the border to enter up to 16 km. The FMR is designed to allow the local residence to cross international border and stay on the other side of the border for three days. Lot of people from bordering regions of Myanmar regularly visits the Northeast India for various purposes like medical and educational services. Relaxation of visa restriction on the part of India can help the people of Myanmar to avail these facilities in the Northeast India easily. The Government of India has recently talked about giving special visa for people of Myanmar to visit the Northeast India for medical services and such facilities should be extended for other purposes as well (Yhome, 2015a).

Some people-to-people contacts between the Northeast and the neighbouring regions have been concretized under the initiative such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-India Car Rally. One of these rallies which took place in 2012 covered a total distance of about 8,000 km before reaching Northeast India, spanning six nations—Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar (Nagaland Post, 2012). Similarly, passenger bus services between Dhaka and Agartala in 2003 and between Dhaka–Shillong–Guwahati in 2015 were introduced to facilitate people-to-people contacts. However, these bus services are yet to take off due to issues regarding vehicle permit, road security and fare schedule (Rana, 2018, p. 568).

To further the process of social integration, various departments and centres have been instituted in some of the institutions of higher learning located in Northeast India to generate awareness and knowledge about Southeast Asia. For example, The ASEAN Study Centre (North Eastern Hill University, in 2016), the Department of South East Asian Studies (Manipur University in 2019) and the Centre for South East Asian Studies (Gauhati University, in 2017) were established to increase engagements of the civil society and academic institutions of the Northeast with Southeast Asian nations as well as to generate people-to-people linkages. It is stated that regular meetings are already taking place between the Tai-Ahoms and Tai Diaspora congregation and there has been a proposal to open a fully funded Thai language course in Manipur University (Professor Rajen Laishram, Manipur University, Manipur, personal communication, 3 June 2022). These act as important nodes for facilitating student and teacher academic exchange between Southeast Asian countries and the Northeast. The government of Assam took a significant initiative by establishing the department of ‘Act East Policy Affairs’ in 2017 to promote civil society engagement in cementing cross-border ties.

The cultural exchanges between the states of Northeast and the neighbouring countries have also witnessed significant growth in the recent times. The Hornbill festival of Nagaland, Sangai Festival of Manipur, Cherry Blossom festival Meghalaya is attracting huge number of tourists from the neighbouring states. Moreover, the Northeast can be developed as a significant site for Buddhist pilgrimage to attract people of Southeast Asia.

Challenges to the Realization of an Integrated Space

Despite being one of the important goals of India’s Look (Act) East Policy, nothing much has happened on the ground with regard to the proposed integration of the Northeast with cross-border regions of Southeast Asia. This can be gauged from the persistent delay in completing the transnational connectivity projects, marginal share of the Northeast in India’s trade with its Eastern neighbours and insignificant volume of border trade between Northeast India and neighbouring states of Myanmar and Bangladesh (Chong, 2018; FICCI, 2014; ICRIER Report, 2019). The geographical and economic fragmentation of the Northeast, the special rules and administrative arrangement that are in place in many parts of Northeast India along with the geopolitical compulsions of India can be identified as some of the pertinent factors that may act as major barriers in this regard.

Geographical and Economic Fragmentation

The imagination of the Northeast as a part of larger economic, geographical and social space tends to assume that the Northeast is a single homogeneous unit. But in reality, the Northeast is a diverse and fragmented region that prevents it from emerging as a compact economic, geographical and social unit. States in the Northeast region are internally locked and they lock out their neighbours as well (Prabhakara, 2004). The lack of basic infrastructure between the states of the Northeast in terms of physical connectivity through roads, railways and air networks has kept the different states in the Northeast separated from each other. As a result of such transport bottlenecks,⁶ the internal economic integration of the Northeast has failed to take place. It is argued that industrialization in the Northeast region has not taken off not because of absence of integration with the outside markets but due to the lack of integration of the Northeast region itself (Barua, 2017, p. 415). As the places between and within the states of the Northeast remained disjointed in the absence of any means of communication, the size of the market in the Northeast has remained small. With no market for trade and exchange of goods, the villages of the Northeast practice self-sufficient economy under which they tend to produce everything without any specialization. This adversely impacts economies of scale, optimum use of resources and limits incentives to produce marketable surplus.

The geographical and economic fragmentation of the Northeast is further regimented by the inter-state liminal conflagrations between the Northeastern States of India. The fruition of the aims for the growth and development of the Northeast of India under the Act East Policy are dependent on several factors, one among them is the need for seamless connectivity among the states of the region, which includes collaboration among the states that comprise the Northeast and ensuring that the inter-state borders are not plagued by tension and discord (Murayama et al., 2022, p. 9). This, however, is not the case in the Northeast as inter-state borders are disputed among many of the constituent units. Competing claims to land and resources exist along the borders of Nagaland and Manipur and along the parts of the borders that Assam shares with Nagaland, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

These disputes are largely a product of differing interpretations by the respective states of the colonial as well as the post-colonial political cartographic exercises and agreements, that have, at times, simmered in the background and, at other times, exploded as violent conflicts between the state-units, most recently between Assam and Meghalaya (BBC News, 2021). Such liminal conflagrations create debilitating implications for the vulnerable population that live along such borders apart from affecting inter-state people and freight movement and generating political bitterness and strains between the governments of the concerned state-units (Murayama et al., 2022, p. 9).

The resolution of inter-state border disputes of the Northeast is crucial for the Act East Policy to thrive and deliver on the objectives that have been envisioned under the policy. The sparring sides need to decide on settlements that are considered fair and durable to both, especially as these borders lie close to international borders, which are crucial for the realization of the connectivity aspirations under the Act East Policy on which depends the growth and development envisaged for the otherwise landlocked Northeast region of India (Murayama et al., 2022, p. 10). Without tranquil inter-state borders, there cannot be any cooperation between the states, that is essential for the continuous movement of goods and services, people as well as to build further infrastructure (roads, railways, feeder routes, animal corridors) in the Northeast region—all of which are imperative for the actualization of the Northeast component of the Act East Policy; as the states are situated in such a way that they are hemmed by borders with other states, especially with the largest state of Assam, from which Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland were carved out (Murayama et al., 2022, p. 10). Reigning in or mitigating the conflicts to the greatest possible level, creating mutually inclusive stakes among the states with shared borders and ensuring that the inter-regional politics is not controlled and constrained by different interpretations of inter-state political borders, which do not factor in ecological and cultural realities, are indispensable to the realization of the aims for the development of the Northeast of India under the Act East Policy.

Special Rules and Administrative Arrangement

Since the days of colonial administration the Northeast has been treated as a ‘space of exception’⁷ that needs to be administered through separate rules and regulations. These special rules and administrative arrangement, designed to address the peculiar economic, political and cultural needs of the people of the Northeast, are in conflict with the efforts to integrate these economies with the dynamic of world economy (Sachdeva, 2000). The colonial administration under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulations Act of 1873, introduced the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system to demarcate frontier areas from non-frontier areas, and people from non-frontier areas were prohibited from entering into areas falling behind the inner line without permission from the administration (Barua, 2017). This system has permeated into the post-independence period and now is in effect in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur. Under the ILP system citizens from the rest of India can enter these states only with permission from the state administration and this permit can be used only for travel purpose and not for permanent settlement. Moreover, buying of property by outsiders is strictly prohibited in these states and government jobs will not be on offer to anyone who has settled in the state after a certain determined ‘cut-off date’ (Nair, 2016). There has been persistent demand for the introduction of ILP system in the states of Assam and Meghalaya as well as a measure of safeguard from the illegal influx of people from neighbouring countries.

Moreover, under the Government of India Act, 1919, all the tribal areas of erstwhile Assam were designated as ‘backward track’. The Government of India Act, 1935, further divided these areas into ‘excluded’ and ‘partially excluded’ with separate administrative arrangements directly controlled by the Governor. Post-independence, as a means to preserve the distinct culture and tradition of tribal people of these areas, the provision for autonomous district councils was introduced under the sixth schedule of Indian constitution. These councils are designed as protective discriminatory measures that seek to monopolize certain political and economic privileges exclusively in favour of the tribal people. At present 11 such autonomous districts are present in four states of Northeast India with important legislative, executive and financial powers. For instance, the autonomous district councils have powers to make laws with respect to the allotment, occupation, use or the setting apart of land other than any land which is designated as reserved forest.

Furthermore, the states of Nagaland and Mizoram under the article 371 A and G of the Indian constitution enjoy special powers with regard to their customary laws and procedures, administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to their customary laws and ownership and transfer of land and its resources. No act of Parliament in these respect shall apply to these states unless the state Legislative Assemblies so decide.

Additionally, in order to quell the Naga militancy, the Union Parliament of India passed the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in 1958 and subsequently it was extended to the whole of the Northeast. Under the AFSPA, the central government or governor of the state or administrator of a union territory can declare whole or part of the state or union territory as a disturbed area. This Act gives excessive power to the armed forces such as opening fire or arresting persons without a warrant to maintain public order in disturbed areas. At present AFSPA is effective in parts of Nagaland, Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh (The Hindu, 2022), which effectively presents a cautionary note to potential investors mulling any development activity in the region.

These special rules and administrative arrangement are at odds with the evolving political economy of Northeast India and the proposed model of development for the region under the Look (Act) East Policy that emphasizes its economic integration with the global market economy. For instance, in the territories under the sixth schedule status which is designed as protective discriminatory measure, schedule tribes enjoy the exclusive right to political representation and land ownership. Changes in the land ownership system, therefore, are necessary so that land can be made available for industry, plantation and horticulture. Moreover except Assam and Tripura, rest of the Northeast is labour scarce region and institution like Inner Line further restrict the labour movement in the region. Thus according to Sachdeva (1999), fundamental changes in the land labour policies of the region are necessary to attract private capital.

Geopolitical Compulsions

The existing geopolitical constraint of India is another important factor that limits the possibility of creating an integrated space comprising of the Northeast and the adjoining areas. India has a long-standing border dispute with China in this region over the territory of Arunachal Pradesh. China is viewed as an aggressive and expansionist power with territorial design and India fears that opening up the Northeast may facilitate Chinese military and economic intrusion. India is also hesitant to participate in some of the sub-regional groupings and physical connectivity projects like the BCIM-EC and the Stilwell Road. India is not enthusiastic about the BCIM because of the presence of China and instead prefers BIMSTEC and the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal). In fact, India is trying to elbow out China from the existing sub-regional groupings (Chacko & Davis, 2015). Similarly, India is apprehensive about opening the Stilwell Road as it could connect the region with China, which may be counterproductive for India in case of a security threat from China to India through the Northeast (Rajkumar, 2016).

The bordering areas of the Northeast adjacent to Myanmar and Bangladesh are host to numerous rebel camps of different militant outfits belonging to Northeast India and Myanmar. While rebel camps in Bangladesh and Bhutan have largely been dismantled, the bordering regions of Myanmar are estimated to have around 60 such rebel camps (Bhattacharya, 2018). Although many of the militant groups have signed ceasefire agreements with the government and some amount of truce is currently prevailing, the larger issue of insurgency remains unsettled both in Northeast India and in Myanmar. Further the bordering regions of Bangladesh and Myanmar are also sites of illegal trafficking of drugs and small arms. Sizable amounts of drugs and small arms move in both directions in these regions through the ‘military-militant-mafia nexus’ (Sohal, 2018, p. 564). Besides, illegal migration from Bangladesh and Myanmar has generated serious socio-political tensions in Northeast Indian states like Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram. There have been persistent demands to stop such illegal migration. Therefore, it is being apprehended that cross-border physical connectivity projects would not only facilitate the free movements of insurgent groups but also facilitate greater inflow of drugs, illegal migrants, infectious disease and small arms (Baruah, 2003). Moreover, there are real challenges of ensuring security of these roads in such insurgent infested regions. The proposed roads will pass through the Northeast and parts of Myanmar such as Rakhine, Kachin, Karen and Kaya states, all of which are ethnically volatile and conflict prone and marked by the presence of numerous militant groups. There are also ethnic organizations inhibiting these regions that often resort to road blockade as a means to stage protests or collect taxes (Srikanth, 2016).

Another important geopolitical consideration that may impede the integration of Northeast India with the economies of Southeast Asian countries is the prolonged political instability in the Myanmar. Myanmar is the gateway to Southeast Asia making it the most important land link to the Southeast Asian countries for the states of the Northeast India. However, the near-continuous political crisis in Myanmar has complicated India’s investments in the country. The political instability in Myanmar has also led to difficulties in its ties with the rest of the member states of the ASEAN bearing serious implications for India’s Look (Act) East Policy too. For instance, after the latest coup in Myanmar, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) was divided on the response to the coup, with Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore criticizing the coup and calling for the release of all those imprisoned by the junta, which was not supported by the other members of the ASEAN (Bland, 2021). If the grouping is plagued with internecine squabbles over their own members, then its ability to make good on its investment plans is called into question, which will hamper the realization of the objectives under the Look (Act) East Policy. The increase of the influx of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on the adjoining countries stands out as yet another contentious issue for the regional players (Mallick, 2020).

Local Specificities and Development Bottlenecks

The proposed economic integration of the Northeast with the cross-border regions also appears to be in conflict with some of the ground realities and doubts are being raised with regard to the possible impact of such integration on the economy and resources of the region. Given the lack of infrastructure, manufacturing industries and heavy dependence on agriculture, as of now the Northeast does not seem to be well equipped to participate in the transnational economic space to its advantage. If the Northeast were to benefit from such economic integration, it must develop an adequate production base and in the absence of it, integration of Northeast India with the Southeast Asian economy will either turn it into a market for selling of goods produced outside the region or convert it into a transport corridor for movements of goods between India and Southeast Asia with no or little auxiliary benefits for the region.

Further, in the Northeast, there exists a close proximity between ethnic communities and the resources of the region. Much of the land and resources are owned by the communities in common, and they are managed by traditional institutions under customary laws. The introduction of the Northeast region to the global market through its integration with Southeast Asian economies bears the risk of undermining this relationship (Chakraborty, 2018). Moreover, most of the borderland communities inhabiting the region consider trade as an informal and cooperative venture confined within and between the communities for both economic and non-economic reasons. But the kind of trade that is being sought to be promoted through this integration is transnational in nature with primarily economic motives. The Look (Act) East Policy that seeks to apply only economic logic in understanding and developing the region runs counter to these communities’ anthropological understanding of the space based on sociocultural imperatives (Chakraborty, 2018). Similarly, it has been argued that India’s conceptualization of the LEP allows no room for the unique local ways of doing trade. The kind of trade that is being envisioned under the LEP is of ‘high order’, which these ethnic communities are ill-equipped to handle (Goswami, 2009).

At the same time, apprehensions are being raised that such integration may facilitate the exploitation of the natural resources of the region. During the colonial period when the Northeast was first exposed to the forces of global capitalist economy, it led to the plundering of the resources of the region by the British. The attempt to integrate the Northeast economically and physically with Southeast Asia may lead to another phase of exploitation of the resources of the region through corporatization. Manipur in Northeast is already tying up with corporate bodies for exploitation of their natural resources (Yamnam, 2015). It has been argued that infrastructure and connectivity projects that are being pursued under the Look (Act) East Policy are designed to create space for private players and multinational companies for larger returns and appropriation of resources like hydrocarbons and hydroelectricity from the Northeast (Koijam & Yamnam, 2015). For instance, the transnational highways and railways that are being constructed to connect Northeast with Southeast Asia are not supplemented by developing feeder and rural roads. While rural roads are necessary to improve the conditions of the rural poor, sub-regional connectivity projects are more suited to help big industries. Such emphasis on transnational road building projects without a corresponding effort to develop local roads will privilege a certain section of the people at the cost of the large majority. S. Sharma illustrates the point by arguing that ‘the idea of building road link and extending trading activities to Southeast Asia through Northeast of India in the 19th century appears similar to the present initiative of Government of India under its Look (Act) Policy’ (cited in Ziipao, 2018, p. 484).

Conclusions

The Look (Act) East Policy emphasizes, among other objectives, the development of the Northeast by making it an integrated space with the adjacent regions in the neighbouring countries through greater physical, institutional and people-to-people contacts. However, for this to happen, interest of the Northeast region must be put at the centre of India’s Look (Act) East Policy. This would require India to give up its security centric approach in favour of a more accommodative approach to address the issue of ethnic militancy in Northeast India. At the same time, India should accommodate the concerns of the Northeast India while dealing with its eastern neighbours and try to develop a more cooperative relationship with them based on the recognition of their mutual economic interest rather than being defined by narrow security considerations. One way to develop such relationship would be to delegate to the states of the Northeast region greater power and assign them a leadership role to create greater integration in economic and sociocultural matters with the regions in the neighbouring countries. Such sub-national level diplomacy would empower the states to undertake certain cross-border communications and endeavours, which could boost people-to-people contacts in various fields including trade, education and cultural exchanges. Such delegations would promote greater coordination between constituent unit-level governments in this integrated space across the bordering regions which face common challenges and are therefore, better positioned than New Delhi or Naypyidaw or Beijing to collaboratively deliberate solutions to overcome such challenges. Additionally, India’s foreign policy objectives towards China and the countries in Southeast and South Asia, neighbouring the Northeast, should include greater emphasis on these countries to generate a common objective to pool their resources and coordinate their efforts for the formation and the promotion of such an integrated space. Finally, the Look (Act) East Policy which envisages a reimagined space for the Northeast must ensure the development of the people of the Northeast instead of enabling corporatization of the resources. This clearly mandates greater involvement of the people of the Northeast in the decision-making process related to this policy. One way to ensure this would be to incorporate the inputs of people of the Northeast in the policy formulation process. For this purpose, some kind of mechanism has to be put in place which would facilitate regular communication between the representatives of NGOs, civil society and academia and the policymaking bodies. Moreover, government policies should be in accordance with the actual needs of the local people and should provide enough scope and encouragement to people’s initiative which can supplement the existing effort of the government in this direction. Already there are developments that hint at growing local involvement, especially of local traders, in the region. For example, it is pointed out that in the border town Champhai of Mizoram local Mizo traders have formed an association called the Export Import Organization of Mizoram under which they bargain with the government/border trade authorities to ensure a larger say and stake for themselves in the projects and their outcomes (Professor Joydeep Baruah, Department of Economics, Krishna Kanta Handique State Open University, Assam, personal communication, 3 June 2022). Thus, any act or policy of reimagining the Northeast for its growth and development must be through and for the people of the Northeast.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

ORCID iD

Rubul Patgiri

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