A learning revolution embracing primary, secondary and higher education has awoken the people of the geographically isolated North-east states to the need for sustainable industrial development sensitive to the abundant natural resources available in the region. Dilip Thakore reports
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ETHNICALLY AND CULTURALLY distinct from mainland and peninsular India but adding rich colour and high potential to the diversity of the subcontinent, the eight states of North-east India are on the threshold of an academic renaissance which offers the hope of this politically unstable and restive region strengthening its tenuous bonds with the Indian Union. A learning revolution embracing primary, secondary and tertiary education has awoken the people of the geographically isolated North-east states to the need for sustainable industrial development sensitive to the abundant natural resources available in the region.
To a significant extent, the politics and socio-economic development (and isolation) of the eight North-eastern states of Assam (pop. 31 million); Sikkim (600,000); Meghalaya (3 million); Tripura (3 million); Arunachal Pradesh (1 million); Nagaland (2 million); Manipur (3 million) and Mizoram (1 million) is shaped by history and geography. On the west, three of the states — Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam — share a common border with Bangladesh which itself shares a long (2,216 km) border with West Bengal, and four states — Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal — share a common border with Myanmar, with Arunachal also bordering Tibet (China).
With the politics, geography and topography of Bangladesh having subjected this densely populated nation to frequent cyclonic storms, and flooding by the Brahmaputra, Teesta and other rivers, there’s a continuous flow of displaced people from Bangladesh into the Indian states — particularly the sparsely populated North-east — which offer opportunities for arable farming. Although the Census of India 2001, records 84,826 people of Bangladeshi origin in the country, it’s widely acknowledged that the actual number of illegal migrants, including Hindu refugees from Bangladesh, exceeds this number by far, generating ethnic and sub-nationalist tension — and frequent riots and pogroms — in the region.
With private investment reluctant to flow into the seven sister states (Sikkim is generally regarded as sui generis) of the North-east because of the precarious law and order situation created by uncontrolled immigration from Bangladesh and sustained neglect by successive Central governments, there’s been a steady outward flow of citizens, especially youth, from this region to other parts of the country, particularly metros such as Delhi and Bangalore, where they are widely regarded as foreign. Although welcomed by entrepreneurs and businesses, particularly service industries, because of their superior English speaking skills — the outcome of the promotion of a large number of English-medium schools established in the North-east by pioneer (and proselyting) Christian missionaries during the past century — they are often targeted for racial and sexual abuse by lumpen elements which has had the effect of stoking resentment against mainland Indians in the seven sister states. But with few higher education institutions and employment options, the outflow of youth determined to assert their fundamental right to work and live anywhere within the country is increasing and strengthening the bond between mainland India and the seven sister states of North-east India.
It’s against this simultaneously disturbing and encouraging backdrop of greater interaction between the Centre and states of mainland India and the remote, almost cut-off states of the North-east that your editors made a whirlwind tour of this region to verify reports that an education renaissance, if not revolution, is beginning to sweep the hitherto neglected seven sister states. The general impression gathered by the EducationWorld team venturing for the first time into this region is that there’s vast industrial potential and human capital awaiting development in these states gifted with abundant natural resources and an aspirational and hard-working — especially youth — population.
The drawbacks of the region are inefficient public infrastructure, poor quality government schools and higher education institutions, and lack of industry and corporate enterprises offering employment opportunities. Contrary to popular perception, all the eight North-eastern states except Assam (73.18 percent) boast adult literacy figures above the national average of 74.4 percent with Mizoram (91.58) and Tripura (87.75) ranked second and third after Kerala (91.58) according to the Census of India 2011. The deficit is of higher education and in particular professional education (engineering, medicine, architecture, law, animation etc) institutions.
“The states of north-east India, gifted with abundant natural resources and eager-to-learn and hard-working youth, have huge development potential, particularly if care is taken to build upon and reinforce local structures and customs. Fortunately there’s growing awareness of this in Delhi. A Union ministry for development of the North-eastern region, which makes a generous provision in every five year plan period for the NER (North-east region), was constituted in 2001. Earlier in 1996, the Centre passed legislation to ensure 10 percent of the Plan budget (i.e. capital expenditure) of every Union ministry is earmarked for a non-lapsable pool of Central resources for state governments in the NER. Moreover, a special National Economic Council (NEC) has been constituted for supervising the socio-economic development of this region,” says Ashoke Dutta, appointed one of the two Central government members of NEC in 2013.
A HIGHLY QUALIFIED (IIM-Calcutta and Case Western University, USA) professional with wide corporate experience (Union Carbide, Shipping Corporation, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Ranbaxy) and institution building capability (founder-director of the Vinod Gupta School of Business Management of IIT-Kharagpur, and IIM-Shillong), Dutta believes there’s a consensus in Delhi to rapidly develop the North-eastern region. Proof of this is provided by the Central government’s investment of a massive sum aggregating Rs.421,349 crore for infrastructure and socio-economic projects in the region in the period 2002-14. 
Certainly, the number of universities and institutions of higher education established by the Central government is impressive, in proportion to the aggregate population of the North-eastern states (44 million). They include the Assam, Silchar, Guwahati, Tezpur universities (all in Assam); North Eastern Hill University; Nagaland University, Mizoram University, IIT-Guwahati and IIM-Shillong, among others. Nevertheless, there’s a conspicuous shortage of professional education (engineering, medical, hotel management, animation, jewellery & fashion design etc) colleges and institutes to train youth for employability in the eight states of the North-east. The consequence is a huge annual outflow of youth from the region to institutions of higher educationespecially professional education and vocational institutes — in mainland and particularly peninsular, India.
“Although the North-east states host some excellent schools started by Christian missionaries, there are hardly any higher and professional education options available to youth here. For instance, in the entire North-east region, only Assam and Manipur have medical colleges. The former also has engineering colleges and an IIT. Central Universities have been started but these quickly settle into a comfort zone and don’t encourage scientific enquiry. The plain truth is that successive governments in all seven sister states have cruelly neglected education and most rural areas lack secondary schools, let alone colleges. Moreover, with inadequate investment and lack of employment opportunities in the region, strident student unions and insurgencies have sprung up. Therefore although a rising number of private schools and colleges are being established, particularly in Assam and Meghalaya, much more needs to be done by governments, industry and the academic community to help the North-east states catch up with the rest of India. Above all, political will and vision to settle the peculiar problems confronting all the states in this region are required,” says Patricia Mukhim, editor of the English language Shillong Times and columnist of The Telegraph and The Statesman.
Readers will surely appreciate that it was very difficult — even impossible — for your editors constrained by exacting deadlines to tour the entire North-east and provide detailed information relating to the academic renaissance which is re-orienting the eight states of the region.
Nevertheless exhaustive interviews with a representative sample of academics and education entrepreneurs, including NGOs in Assam and Meghalaya — the two more socio-economically advanced states of the North-east — confirm that the seeds of an education revolution have begun to bud and flower in this region, with huge possibilities and the potential to make a great contribution to national development. Some evidence of the academic renaissance flowering in North-east India is provided in the pages following.
With Summiya Yasmeen