North-East India and Economic Development

North-East India is struggling with the problems of economic development. The entire North-East India is caught up in a low productivity and low income syndrome in all sectors of economic development.

The value system of the societies of the different ethnic and cultural groups of North-East India are mostly grounded in fatalism based on continuity, traditions, customs, and usage. The potentialities created by modern science and technology are either not really known, not readily available, or not systematically applied owing to the advice to preserve tradition and heritage.

The population is growing, markets are expanding, and consumerism has caught the imagination of the expanding middle class. There is an urgent need to identify the factors inhibiting the emergence of local entrepreneurship in different sectors among the ethnic groups of North-East India societies.

Is the quantum of capital made available since 1950 for industrialization adequate, or are non-economic factors like the traditional soft-life style and the attitude of the bulk of the indigenous people, their surrender to fatalism, responsible for this lack of economic development of North-East India?

The papers presented to the seminar analyze the issue from a social perspective based on field data of the contemporary divergent societies in North-East India. Sociological constraints to economic development are not insurmountable. Northeast India should learn from the successes and failures of industrial development, especially from developing countries.