Assam: 1979 to 2008 -- A long and slow way to progress, with disasters and destructions

Axom (Assam) is one of the states in the Northeast region of India.  It has adequate natural beauty and huge natural resources. World heritage destinations such as the Kaziranga wildlife sanctuary, the world’s largest river island Majuli and the renowned place of worship—the Kamakhya temple, beckon people to Assam.  The Mighty  Brahamaputra River passes through Assam.

Assam has unique traditions and cultures. It is the gateway to the Northeast, covering an area of 78,523 sq km. No other state has such diverse cultures and traditions with a diverse population of plain and hill tribes—Bodos, Ahoms, Miri, Mising, Koch, Kachari, Karbi, Longpi, Rava, Rajbonshi, Tiwa and Tea garden tribes. But no wonder what the tribe may be, there is  unity in diversity. The people mingle in spite of variations in their customs and cultures; there is no differentiation among Hindus, Muslims, non-tribes or tribals. Hindus and  Muslims together celebrated many religious festivals in Assam prior to the Assam Movement and do so even now to some extent.

In the year of 1977, one political contestant (Hiralal Patowary from Mangaldoi Lok Sabha Constituency) found and appealed to the Government of India that there were a few lakh of illegal migrants inhabiting in his constituency who have migrated from Bangladesh. From that evolved the Assam agitation led by All Assam Students Union and Assam Ganasangram Parishad. The movements in Assam for two decades changed the lives of the common people resulting in violence, terror strikes, sowing division, slowing down economic growth, resulting in army atrocities from which emerged various groups of terrorists and continued ethnic violence in the Northeast.

Today across the globe, people are aiming for Industrial growth, stable economy, revolution based on information technology, resource exploitation and accelerated development, but the Northeastern part of India is still under the dotted line. The Assam Movement and explosion of terrorism did not support the growth of the state and created a mindset among the people that Northeast is neglected by the Centre.

The people of Assam and Government of Assam should take immediate steps within a stipulated time to give attention to the following areas.

Rural Development: The government should create massive rural databases and should update each and every village database that is there. Here are some programs that can be pursued.

1) Enhancing the amount of cultivated land and incomes from land: What will be corrective measures to increase productivity?: Financial assistance, modern cultivation concepts, improved irrigation system and crop management.
2) Establishing unemployed educated youth engagement programs.
3) Setting up small scale industries such as bamboo product, cane product and  handloom units and ensuring that finished goods are marketed outside the country or other states through notified bodies.
4) Improving road conditions and power distribution
5) Initiating rural health schemes and conducting awareness programs through village health centers.
6) Improving rural educational systems and financial institutions (banks and insurance companies) to absorb rural youth under the rural employment programs.

Information Technology: The Honorable Chief Minister of Assam should declare an IT corridor in a suburb of Guwahati and invite major IT players like Infosys, Microsoft, Wipro, Cognigent Technology Solution to set up Information Technology centers to employ local youth from the Northeast. 10% of educated youth from Assam is employed in various IT organizations outside the state due to the poor opportunities within the state.

Industrial Growth: Assam is the state within the country that has only 6% industrial growth during last 15 years whereas states like Jharkhand and Uttaranchal scored 26% growth in the last three years; both these states were formed just a couple of years ago. There must be a policy to target big industrial houses like Tata, Ambani, Mittal, Birla, and Goenka so that they are encouraged to set up at least one unit in Assam and the government should provide basic infrastructure like power, roads, with government approved price of land, etc.

Let us hope that the Government in Assam will put its thoughts in positive direction and come up with constructive ideas and plans to ESTABLISH ASSAM AS A NEW DESTINATION: with rural development, growth in IT, industrial growth and tourism development.

Dwip Kinkor Goswami, Assam Association, Chennai