A Public Hearing on the Draft Vision NER 2020 will take place tomorrow in the State Capital Kohima with the objective of having an informed debate on the same. Whether the points emerging from the public hearing would be duly considered for inclusion in the final vision document, it is highly unlikely. At most any changes may remain cosmetic only. But to remind, whether it is the Vision 2020 or the Look East Policy (LEP) of the Central government, a policy document should be aimed at betterment of the people of the region. For instance, the LEP should not become a mere foreign policy initiative to facilitate free trade with the neighbouring countries. There is apprehension that the policy may involve using the northeast only as a corridor for facilitating free trade with India’s neighbours and without keeping in mind the interest of the people of the northeast. Hopefully the exercise of having a more specific Draft Vision NER 2020 will give attention first and foremost to the Northeast.
For any northeast specific policy to work, New Delhi’s ready money and schemes must find its way into ‘real development’. The rate at which funds flow to the targeted groups is abysmally low and what former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi rightly calculated holds true especially for the region. The fact of the matter is that corruption has dried up development funds. The Draft Vision NER 2020 has rightly mentioned the need to transform governance and ensuring a corruption-free administration. Greater importance must be given to this point if at all the development strategy being adopted is to work. Related to this, is developing the capacity of institutions to carry forward the programmes as mentioned in the draft. The overall objective should be to help secure a culture of democratization—of checks and balances, creating awareness on the Right to Information as a tool to empower the development process and to ensure that funds are properly utilized towards its stated objectives.
However there is one aspect—the peace quotient—that has been largely ignored in the Draft Vision NER 2020. While one may argue that this is because the document itself is more development oriented and therefore the insignificance, nevertheless in the context of the northeast region peace is too important an issue to be left outside the loop of policy formulation. For achieving qualitative transformation towards real peace and development, an out of the box thinking is required, which obviously the Draft Vision NER 2020 does not show. Clinging on to such cliché as development for peace may only provide escape routes while ignoring the root causes leading to conflict and thereby leaving the question of peace unresolved. More importantly, to drive the engine of development, permanent peace has to prevail to create the climate for investment and growth to take place. And for this, New Delhi should understand the underlying need for a peace policy, which is to address the grievances whether political or other aspects. Development in the North Eastern Region has lagged behind the rest of the country due to historical and ‘political’ reasons and this, the Draft Vision NER 2020 utterly fails to address.
