The release of the Draft Vision 2020, prepared under the auspices of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP), New Delhi, marks a watershed. For the first time, the Government of India (GoI) spells out a com-prehensive road map for the development of Northeast India. It also marks a paradigm shift as the Introduction to the Draft Document roundly attributes the underdevelopment of the Northeastern region to the “non-intervention” of the corporate bodies. Nor is the Document coy about expressing its faith in the ability of the corporate bodies to deliver development in the region by turning it into a business hub.

The tone and tenor of development projected above is one of a piece with the paradigm encapsulated under the rubric of globalization and the market. The key lies in enticing private capital – whether national corporate bodies or multinational companies or even foreign financial institutions – to invest in the region. Already, the Look East Policy had started flagging off the GoI’s overtures towards the global players to take interest in the region. These approaches in tandem marks not only the withdrawal of the state from its “assumed” welfare role, and is also an intimation of GoI’s earnest to serve as protectors of the global players vis-à-vis the people over any persisting differences as to how the resources of the region are to be extracted, developed and used. Development discourse has, however, been priorly pushed in the region in simultaneity with India’s security/counter-insurgency strategies.

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