2) Somewhere in the mid ‘60s, the ‘Security Paradigm’ came into greater prominence. Probably after the Chinese invasion of 1962, the North East began to be seen as a strategically significant region not only in a geographical sense but in a larger geopolitical sense of India’s role in East Asia and South East Asia. And the enormous problems that the Indian state then began to face in this region led to a new thinking. The idea was that we now needed to buttress our fortress, but in the Northeast which represents the bulwark of India in this part of the world, this was not possible unless we enhanced our security presence. So the Security Paradigm of thinking of the North East as a security frontier in a geostrategic sense - began to animate government thinking towards the region.

3) In the early 70s, we made a transition to the ‘Politics Paradigm’:  the region required political representation; the diverse tribal cultures and diverse sub-nationalities required participation in ‘mainstream’ democratic process. This was when new statesbegan to be formed on the idea that people have required a voice representation in ‘the democratic process - and that once they have voice and representation through the instrument of representative, pluralistic parliamentary democracy, many of the problems associated with this region would tend to get nullified or minimized.

4) As we moved from a culture paradigm to representative politics, in the ‘80s, we hit upon the new mantra, the fourth for the North East - the ‘Development Paradigm’: that if we build schools, bridges, internet centers, IITs and refineries, the people will be happy. Give them development and they will forget about problems. Thus the 1980s was the period marked by a substantial increase in public expenditure in this region. This was no coincidence; it reflected the view that if somehow institutions of development were created and money poured into this region, problems of politics, of society, of ethnic strife, and of integration would somehow get minimized if not completely eliminated. And that would be development. People would then be homo economicus, not looking at aspects like what tribe they belong to, and so on.

There has been no Prime Minister from the 1980s onwards, who has not announced a package for the North East. And if you look at all the  packagesannounced by successive Prime Ministers - although it’s a different issue that the Gujral package was nothing but the Deve Gowda package, the Vajpayee package was nothing but the Gujral package and, no doubt Manmohan Singh will announce a package which will be no different from the Vajpayee package - they were all based on an assumption that if somehow we were to increase public expenditure in this region, all would be well. For example, the finance minister recently announced that 10 % of all spending of every government department would be in the North East revealing a mindset that has governed recent policy thinking towards this region.

It is important to give this background of my own reading of the situation of how India has tended to treat the Nort East. First, the term ‘North East’ is particularly unfortunate because it tends to evoke images of a homogeneous, undifferentiated mass, which it certainly is not. In fact, the repeated use of the phrase ‘North East’ creates more problems then it actually solves.

We need to ask why, after 40 or 50 years of playing around with different paradigms - the culture, security, politics and the development paradigms - the region is still in a crisis? Why is it that after looking at different models of development over many decades, we still have problems of ethnic strife and political representation? We still have problems of under development and the problem of a growing and expanding security apparatus in this region: one armed personnel for every ten Northeasterner or thereabout. This is a troubling question for us to ask: Why is it that after so much of thinking and a great deal of flexibility in approach, we find ourselves in a crisis and why is it that we are debating the question we are today?

The second point I want to make relates to the approach that has governed development, the policy of the Government of India towards this region. While it has undergone many changes, it remains firmly embedded in the development paradigm, according to which we need to bring development into the region. We need to develop the natural resources of the region, increase public investment in physical and social infrastructure, and if we were to do this, many of the problems - for which we have such an all pervasive security apparatus here - would tend to fade away.

Let me give a few numbers that are interesting and telling and which often tend to get neglected in the debate, both in India as well as the North East. It’s my contention that public expenditure is the least of the problems as far as the North East is concerned. I would instead argue that public expenditure has become very much part of the problem that we face. What is the source, what is loosely associated with the leakages in this public expenditure? To summarise a long story, we are using corruption as a mode of cohesion and we are not able to completely recognise its dimensions. The Government of India contributes heavily towards the total expenditure of the eight states (the seven sisters and Sikkim). The total expenditure of these eight states is almost Rs. 30,000 crores a year for a population of roughly 32 million or thereabout (depending on which Census Commissioner you believe) - Rs. 10,000 per person per year is not a small sum.

Now, where is this money coming from? In Arunachal Pradesh  85% of this money comes from the Centre; in Assam 51% comes from the sub-regional is a ‘no no’ in the lexicon of ‘mainstream’ India.

We look upon India as a single entity cooperating with other countries. But clearly a time has come when it is in the interest of individual units of this entity to develop economic cooperation with neighboring countries in the interest of the larger entity. I would argue - and I have been arguing for a decade - for cooperation with Nepal and Bangladesh. It may not be in the interest of India to take the position of a downstream riparian in respect of Nepal and that of an upstream riparian in relation to Bangladesh. These are natural stances or natural positions that the Government of India would take. But that is not necessarily in the best interest of all the constituent units of this larger mass that we call India, as would be in the interest of UP.  And in fact we will not be able to solve the recurring, annual problem of floods in North Bihar and eastern UP without ecological cooperation with Nepal and without a larger framework of water and land cooperation with Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan.

Similarly, I think in the North East, while India may naturally be suspicious of constituent units eking out their economic fortunes in some other larger entity, not necessarily in mother India, it is in the interest of the constituent units to pursue this approach and convince the rest of India that actually this is not weakening links with India, but paradoxically strengthening them. This is a tricky and delicate balance that needs to be worked out. Maybe the time has now come for the constituent units of the Indian Union, whether it is UP or Bihar in relation to water sharing with Nepal or the states of the North East in relation to economic cooperation with the western provinces of China and other countries of South East Asia to think afresh.

It is incumbent upon the constituent units of the Indian Union to create the climate of opinion in their own societies to begin with. And then, to put pressure on the larger mass of the Indian state and the GOI to ensure that this type of an arrangement - a very close political linkage with the Indian Union but an intimate economic association with a different political entity -  is not going to undercut the viability of the Indian state but actually strengthen it. Because then, what one has is a region of the country whose economic aspirations will at least get fulfilled in a much more tangible manner than they are today.

On the one hand the North East itself has to look upon this whole standing on a two leg model so to speak, political integration with India and economic integration with the rest of Asia. It is also incumbent upon the GOI in all its various forms and manifestations to recognize that the demand from individual units, the demand from individual states for economic cooperation may be in the best interest of those states and would demand different types of responses than have been forthcoming from it.

We need to make a new beginning in this regard, and I think we already have the building blocks. After many years, we have a water sharing treaty - the Mahakali Treaty with Nepal; we have a water sharing agreement with Bangladesh; we have now five years of dialogue on the BCIM initiative. Slowly the thinking is gaining ground that while India’s interest may be different, one must safeguard the interest of the individual units of the Indian Union for whom economic cooperation with their neighbors may be in the best interest. This of course means that the political model of India itself begins to undergo a change.

But as India begins to make the transition from being a centralized democracy to a much more federal form of democracy, the politics of India has also to change from being a highly centralized form of political management in which there is a premium on  so called ‘nationalist parties’, while regional parties are what is called, in the language of finance, ‘deep discount bonds’. Recently, the Chief Election Commissioner said something that will warm the cockles of every Congressman and every BJP member. He said, ‘These regional parties are bad for governance’.

This is a dangerous mindset because if one starts with the assumption that regional parties are bad for governance, then much of what we have discussed - about redrawing the contours of economic and political cooperation between individual units of India - where India is a  mythical idea but Assam is reality, UP is a reality, Bihar is a reality - would require major changes not only in the constitution but the way our constitution operates, because our constitution, all said and done, is a unitary constitution  based on the primacy  of  the Union government. This would require changes in Centre-state relations, in the way national political parties function, and a completely different approach towards the way we have looked at regional parties.

The new government, in the Common Minimum Program, has announced a new (Sarkaria) commission. This is important because the last exercise in Centre-State relations was conducted 20 years ago. But in the last couple of decades, India has changed dramatically. The 73rd and 74th amendments on panchayats and nagar palikas were enacted and we have moved on economic reforms which have completely redrawn the pattern of relationship between the Centre and the states. One of the most significant promises that this government has made is to reexamine the issue of center, state, local government relations. Let us hope this exercise begins sooner rather than later so that soon we would be in a situation where there is genuine autonomy for states, genuine power sharing between Centre and states and states and local governments. India must move from being a centralized democracy to a much more federal government in which a strong Centre, strong states and local governments contribute and coexist harmoniously with each other.

Much of what we say of the North East in a new Asia would not be possible without the fundamental change in the Indian political model. Because so long as the political model remains unitary, centrist and statist, the room for maneuver, for renovation, for implementation of suggestions of the kinds that come up, will not be possible. In so far as the evolution of political culture itself is concerned, what is needed is a movement away from this centralized unitary form - to which all so called nationalist parties adhere - to a genuinely federal form of political power sharing in which local governments, state governments and the central government all have a place.

It is not that state governments are heroes and the central government a villain, because state governments that demand autonomy from the Centre are unwilling to transfer that autonomy to local self Centre are unwilling to transfer that autonomy to local self government institutions. And that being the philosophy of most of our state governments, when we talk of autonomy from the Centre for the states, it would be incomplete without autonomy for local self - governing institutions like panchayats and municipalities from states. The evolution to a genuinely three - tier political system, an evolution to a genuinely multi - layered political system in which national parties, regional parties, central government, state governments and local governments, all have their niche roles to play, is an essential pre - requisite for redrawing the pattern of relationship of constituent units of the Indian union - like the Northeast with the rest of Asia.

When we talk of a new Asia it is not as though there is a gold mine or an El Dorado waiting out there. Of course there are a large number of challenges and some serious problems that we will face. However, the sooner we come to grips with some of these problems the better it would be for us. I hope I am not being too undiplomatic in stating that one real problem that we are likely to face is Bangladesh. I mean how India structures its relationship with Bangladesh will be central to the economic future of the Northeast and here, I am afraid, the prospects don’t look too bright.

Recently, I suggested to a senior diplomat: “Why can’t we just pay two billion dollars to Bangladesh every year and build a toll bridge and have transit facilities across Bangladesh and build up an annual transit fee instead of going through this torturous process of debate and discussion on whether or not Bangladesh will allow us transit facilities.Why don’t we just pay them?”

If it were the Chinese, they would have done a deal with Bangladesh by now. We have a trade deficit with Bangladesh: our exports are worth 100 million dollars, our imports a billion dollars and we have a trade deficit of 900 million dollars. Why don’t we tell Bangladesh that we will pay three times the trade deficit that we have with them provided they give us transit facilities through Bangladesh? We must have the political courage to say that, “Look, enough is enough. We will go ahead. If it is not BCIM, if B is not willing, we will have CIM.”  Why wait for the B? I think the best can become the enemy of the good.

We need to understand that there are practical political problems towards realising the best and that if we can’t realise the best in the short run, we might as well look for a second best option in the hope that Bangladesh will come and be part of the solution in some years. I think Myanmar will also present a serious problem. If there is cross - border terrorism in relation to Jammu and Kashmir, it is happening in Nagaland and Manipur also. In relation to AIDS, it is a different form of cross - border terrorism. We can not turn a blind eye to the regional dimensions of this issue. We shouldn’t be squeamish about it but address these issues upfront and take necessary actions even as we realise the potential for cooperation.