India’s North-East – Developmental issues in a historical perspective

This volume India’s North-East: Developmental Issues in a Historical Perspective provides a comprehensive study of the economic and political history of the north-east region. The main objective of the exercise is to understand the major developmental constraints witnessed by this region over the years and suggest policy prescriptions for future growth strategies.

The analysis pertains to the entire north-eastern region, although the focal point is Assam for obvious reasons. First, from the viewpoint of geography, except Manipur and Tripura, all the other states of the north-east region were parts of undivided Assam for a fairly long time even after Independence. Second, there exists a rich corpus of historical research material for Assam but the same is not available for the other states. True, the region varies in terms of culture, ethnicity, geography and history of individual states but nonetheless the basic problems of underdevelopment are the same for all of them. The book attempts to contribute towards an in-depth understanding of the multi-faceted social, political, historical and economic problems that have beset the region over the years.

Any analysis of economic development devoid of a historical perspective often ends up in a misadventure. Reputed economic historians and trained modern economists and political scientists thus attempt to put forward their views on developmental problems and their solutions. In doing so the volume adopts a framework in which the region is cast not in isolation, but as a part of the Indian mainstream.