Writings of Thingnam Kishan
-Introduction to Four Essays -
- Part 2 -

By: Alternative Perspectives *

In order to shorten the reading of the essay and to add to this the accuracy of the underpinning ideas about the link between global capitalism and LEP, the concluding part of the essay is fully quoted, though lengthy, and it will hopefully be a useful part for further reference and discussion on the matter.

Kishan writes:

[S]ubserving the interests of metropolitan capital, which has already made significant inroads in the Indian economy along with the interests of the indigenous capitalist coterie, the LEP is set serve varied politico-economic interests. As part of the invigorated march of global capital vis-a-vis a global economy integrating different zones into its vortex, Indian resistance to this grand design virtually finds no articulation or space in the aftermath of economic liberalization'.

It however remains crucial for India to extract as much leverage as possible within the framework of the LEP, which is an instrument to further the goals of metropolitan capital. A comprehensive reading of LEP will necessary (sic) comprise a holistic assessment of the varied interest ranging from the economies of metropolitan and local capital to the intricate political and strategic configurations.[9]

The question still remains whether to accept the LEP principles will actually be a headway to any substantive improvement in the local infrastructure or precisely in the manner in which the notion of development that is envisioned in the rhetoric of LEP is supposed to resolve the mounting apprehensions on both its feasibility and prospects.

This is the core of the argument in another essay, 'Legacy of a Peripheral Economy: Theorising the Emerging Contours of India's Look East Policy'.[10]

The essay attempts to provide a framework for assessing the process in which the region's economy, since the time of the British rule, have been moulded on a particular way that serves the interest of the metropolitan power and that still continues to the present.

A principal feature of underdevelopment, a notion which is the focus of the essay with reference to the region, as understood in the essay, is that 'internal market is underdeveloped while the external dependence is exaggerated.[11]

The logic of underdevelopment of the North East primarily underlines the fact that 'the productive forces of the North Eastern region suffered constrains imposed both by an external market and by an external capitalist class.'[12]

The structure of the economic relation between the external power or the core economy and the dependent economy have developed a condition where the dependence is preserved, strengthened and protected through the vary relation it survives.

This is what is generally termed as periphery which the region had become during the colonial rule and still continues to exist in relation to the larger metropolitan capitals of the Indian economy that historically replaced the former that is, the core economies of the West.

Periphery does not refer to economic meaning only; it is as much economic as social and political. The rise of new social class who controls the economic forces and the their nexus with external political as well capitalist class become a prominent feature of being the condition of peripheral society that survives through the mechanism of underdevelopment as described above.

The regions integration into the world capitalist system with the advent of British rule in conjunction with its peripheral economic framework, according to Kishan, serves as a prime factor for its underdevelopment. The situation may still worsen in the context of India's LEP politics.

Giving a detail account of the dynamics of the process of underdevelopment, the essay argues that opening up of the region merely in terms of physical connectivity with the outside world of the East, as envisaged in LEP, entails the risk of eroding the small and fragile household industries which at present contributes significantly to the economy of the region.

'Opening of the region's economy to the global capitalist market', Kishan writes, 'will tend to serve the interests of the global capitalist market where transnational corporations visualize even the most underdeveloped regions as potential markets for the consumer goods produced elsewhere.[13]

An excerpt from the essay, in order to give a clearer understanding of LEP's role in the region's further conglomeration of the effects of underdevelopment, will be fitting in this regard. Kishan writes:

The logic of trade as an engine of growth and development needs careful rethinking vis-a-vis the region's underdevelopment and its existence as a peripheral economy. Whether the North East can become a really substantial partner in the development prospect envisaged by LEP still remains to be answered. Analysts have raised concerns about the trade potentials of the region.

As Indian exports to Southeast Asia comprise of items not produced in the North East region, the logic of physical connectivity is seen solely in terms of providing a transit point. It has been argued that until and unless items produced in the North East find a central place in the export process, LEP merely entails a transit point in the region.

A crucial reminder at this juncture is the virtual absence of industrial or production units in the region that can constitute the bulk of the Indian export to Southeast Asia.... It will take a lot of factors into consideration to envisage the North East in evolving a framework that radically seeks to remove its subjugated heritage and re-orient itself on the path to integrated socio-political and economic development.[14]

In subsequent two essays history of underdevelopment with special reference to Manipur and North East is elaborately discussed with a view to examining the political and economic conditions of underdevelopment under which a dependent economy is maintained, a fitting example of LEP project of the present time.

to be continued....

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* "Writings of Thingnam Kishan: Introduction to four Essay" as Published in the Aternative Perspectives at J.N. Dance Academy, Imphal on March 22, 2009 . This article was webcasted on January 03rd 2010.