Not government but civil societies becoming people's representatives

Rajiv Roy *

Map of NE India

The recently held International Conference "India's North Eastern States and Eastern Neighbors: Engaging for Connectivity, Culture and Prosperity by An Intelligent Third Space" organized by Divya Jeevan Foundation Asian Confluence and Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), a unit of Union Ministry of External Affairs at Shillong last December has some vital musings for this region particularly in terms of civil society institutions can play a pivotal role in overall development. Ambassador Ranjit Gupta, Special Representative, ICWA who participated in the conference emphasized on seven important steps that civil society institutions could and should initiate.

Before laying these points he pointed out some facts and figures about this region that may be alien to many. The Northeast has depended mainly on union government funding for development work. All states in this region are Special Category States whose development plans are centrally financed on the basis of 90% Grant and 10% Loan. Further, the Special Category States are allowed to use up to 20% of the Central Assistance for Non-plan expenditure. Despite the fact that the per-capita plan outlays of the NE States have, over a period of time, been considerably higher than the national average, these states still rank significantly below the national average in so far as the development of infrastructure is concerned. The total amount given so far on a per capita basis is the highest that the union government has sanctioned for any region of India, except for Kashmir.

For those who may not know this fact, in terms of geographical size, Northeast India constitute about 8% of the total Indian territory and is roughly 3/4th the size of the state of Maharashtra. Northeast India's population (all 8 states combined) is approximately 40 million (2011 census), which represents only 3.1% of the total Indian population (1,210 million).

Northeast India's population size is roughly equal to that of the state of Odisha. This data highlights (a) the utterly enormous amount of funds that have been granted to the northeastern states and (b) that small but full fledged states have been carved out for different ethnic groups which normatively should have helped rapid development but has instead mainly resulted in massive amounts of expenditure on the functioning, structure and size of state governments.

Informing about the widespread perception within the Northeast that they are neglected by the union government, the former ambassador said that however the facts delineated above exhibit clearly that the reality is the opposite as exhibited by this special institutional structure for the northeast and generous financial treatment by the union government to the Northeast.

"Nevertheless, the Northeastern region remains economically backward. In terms of per-capita State Domestic Product or other development indices, such as Power, Length of Roads or Hospital Beds, the Northeast ranks well below the national average. Though the literacy levels are higher than the national average, vocational training and entrepreneurial skills remain weak and unemployment is rather high. It seems only logical that all is clearly due to a very deep deficit of good and meaningful governance. Another contributory factor is that expenditure on running governments in northeastern states is disproportionately high compared to other states of India," asserted Gupta.

In this context, he stressed that something needs to be done urgently. "There is a tendency to blame the union government for all the problems of the Northeast whereas the reality is that most of the mess has been created by local governments and local people. There has been enough of victimhood," he said while highlighting the role of civil society in this regard. "It is time that civil society particularly of the Northeast region forces governments of northeastern states in particular and union government also to take responsibility to eradicate the menace of corruption, extortion, kidnapping, etc which have become flourishing businesses and avenues of employment. These practices are primarily responsible for the lack of development, economic backwardness, high unemployment, lack of security and overall poor governance. Public opinion has to be built up and the citizen awakened throughout the country," he said while adding that this work is going to be frustrating and will take a lot of dedication and success will come only with time. Taking a, dig at the politicians he said, "Politicians will not do anything meaningful themselves because they are the primary beneficiaries along with bureaucrats, contractors and leaders of insurgent groups and the people are being taken for a ride."

The former ambassador, firstly, accentuated creating excellent physical connectivity with neighboring countries such as Bangladesh and Myanmar in particular and even China would not be beneficial unless there is a dramatic improvement in the internal situation within the different northeastern states and there is seamless and efficient connectivity between them. Good physical connectivity with neighbors may create more problems because the region could be completely flooded by cheap low quality Chinese goods which will come in from Myanmar and Bangladesh also. Beyond the infrastructural aspects a great deal of improvement has to be brought about in procedures and facilities at borders to encourage easy hassle and corruption free people-to-people interaction between the north eastern states and their foreign neighbors.

In this regard, Gupta sees the inclusion of local people. "Only local people can pinpoint in detail what the present difficulties and impediments are on the ground and what measures could be instituted so that these difficulties in cross border interaction could be ameliorated if not eliminated. They see and experience all this in daily life unlike the bureaucrat or politician, both categories of whom are privileged and unaffected personally. Civil society institutions could prepare a detailed paper containing workable suggestions on these aspects for wide distribution through think tanks and media across the country to compel the government to ensure that action is taken on the ground. Good intentions and good policy are of little or no use otherwise," he said.

With reference to the role of people and civil society, he laid out the second step, wherein a detailed paper must be prepared by civil society institutions of the northeastern states collectively with the aid of civil servants who had served in this region to bring out the fact that this arrangement needs changes; local institutions need to be meaningfully empowered. Highlighting that civil society institutions are genuinely and increasingly becoming representative of people's interests rather than politicians, the former ambassador said, "Politicians over the decades have increasingly become far more interested in obtaining and sticking to power and in perks and privileges as MPs, MLAs and in the government rather than working for peoples interests; unfortunately the same goes increasingly for the majority of bureaucrats."

The next step involves preparing a comprehensive list of all civil society institutions in each of the northeastern states with areas of work, contact particulars, office bearers, areas of work, main sources of funding et al with a platform for interaction between them and an umbrella entity to be able to act in the name of all of them should also be created. This is followed by preparation of catalogues of best practices in different areas of activity such as good governance, promotion of economic development, reduction if not elimination of malpractices such as kidnapping, extortion etc. within each of the northeastern states, between two or more states, between a state and bordering foreign country. These should then be projected to those states which are laggards in these fields; these best practices should be highlighted through social media, internet, press conferences, seminars, letters to MPs and MLAs, e-mails to national media, both audio-visual and print, so that they project them too.

In the fifth step, the former ambassador suggests that a catalogue of success stories of excellent work done by civil society institutions and widely disseminated within the northeastern states to encourage emulation by institutions in other states. Gupta proposes catalogues of successful cross border melas, fairs, sports or cultural events, etc. and a list with full details of events will also be of much use. Publicity to all this will encourage other states to do the same thing and highlight to the governments, both at State and Central levels, what people can do and how, and why they need encouragement and support.

Finally, with reference to the deliberations in the conference he emphasized his seventh step on relating to land ownership / use hinder economic development possibilities which are normal in other states and countries. "Some tweaking of these may be necessary so that they do not remain impediments to development. The initiative for this will not be taken by the government as they would risk popular backlash but can only be done by civil society in the larger and more enlightened interests of the people. Once again the help of retired civil servants have served in the region will be invaluable in this exercise," he said. All this will help establish the credibility of civil society institutions not only in the minds of the people at large but in government circles too.

Divya Jeevan Foundation – Asian Confluence, a civil society institution at Shillong is trying to contribute towards implementation of a forward looking Look East Policy which have aptly upgraded as Act East Policy in tune with the present NDA government vision of India's emerging position in Asian and the World. (End)