Introduction : –
North East has seen an unending cycle of violent conflicts dominated by insurgencies with demands ranging from outright sovereignty to greater political autonomy.
Roots of Insurgency :-
- The roots of insurgency in the North Eastern region are embedded in its geography, history and a host of socio-economic factors.
- Ninety-eight per cent of the borders of the region are international borders, pointing to the region’s tenuous geographical connectivity with the rest of India.
- ‘National’ conflicts: Involving concept of a distinct ‘homeland’ as a separate nation and pursuit of the realisation of that goal by its votaries.
- Ethnic conflicts: Involving assertion of numerically smaller and less dominant tribal groups against the political and cultural hold of the dominant tribal group. In Assam this also takes the form of tension between local and migrant communities.
- Sub-regional conflicts: Involving movements which ask for recognition of sub-regional aspirations and often come in direct conflict with the State Governments or even the autonomous Councils.
Feature of Conflicts: –
- The conflicts in the North East have some peculiar characteristics: they are asymmetrical; they are ambiguous, making it difficult to differentiate a friend from an enemy; they are fought in unconventional modes, deploying political and psychological means and methods;and the conflicts eventually tend to escalate into prolonged wars of attrition.
- Violence in the region is also caused by the failure of the State administration to provide security. This has led to the creation of alternative forces of ethnic militia for provision of security. From the perspective of its ethnic constituency, a private ethnic militia is considered a more reliable provider of security when it is threatened by another ethnic group that is armed with its own militia. This is usually the context in an ethnically polarised situation in which the State administration fails to provide security and the actions of the Army are seen as partisan.
Solution :-
(i) Capacity Building in Administration
(ii) Capacity Building in Police
(iii) Capacity Building in Local Governance Institutions
(iv) Capacity Building in Regional Institutions
(i)Capacity Building in Administration –
- Better opportunity, Incentive , regional training to administrative officials and technical official of the state
(ii)Capacity Building in Police –
- The North Eastern Police Academy (NEPA) needs major upgradation of infrastructure and staff to cater to a larger number of officers at the induction level. NEPA may also be developed for imparting training to civil police officers from other regions in dealing with insurgency. Financial and other incentives are necessary for attracting and retaining instructors in the Academy from the Central Police organisations and civil police particularly those with proven track record in counter-insurgency operations.
- Concrete steps are needed to introduce a scheme of deploying police personnel from the region to Central Police Organisations and to encourage deputation of police officers from outside the region to the North Eastern States.
(iii)Capacity Building in Local Governance Institutions –
- Sixth Schedule Councils , Village self-governance in the Tribal North East; Tribe Specific Councils in Assam; Hill district councils , Tribe specific councils and Other institutions of Local Governance needs to be strengthened.
- The multi ethnic and ethnic clash can be avoided by initiating confidence and mutual trust building measure . Harmony between different ethnic group is of paramount importance in this region.
(iv) Capacity Building in Regional Institutions :-
- Regional institutions like NEC and DoNER must design a 10 yr perspective plan .The region one of the most potent region for hydro power projects and DoNER being the ministry to look after this region, it is essential that alternative livelihood , proper land acquisition and equity sharing methods be devised.
- Cultural programmes can help in reducing ethnic clashes and active promotion of the same along with developing this region as Eco-tourism hot spot can bring ever lasting peace and prosperity to this region.The states are usually have high literacy rate , hence education as a conflict resolution tool can be used by the regional institutions.
- Better infrastructure and transport links can bridge the ethno-cultural fault lines over time and and development of the same lays with these institutions
P.S. – Please note that this a broad framework with suitable points picked from ARC. State specific issues , conflicts and resolution are there , however the principles of conflict resolutions and solutions are same across the region., thus tailoring the details was felt as necessity in order to utilize it properly in the examination, instead of being lost in the sea of data and information.The Particular insurgencies of the region will be dealt in a separate article.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.