By Amar Krishna Paul
India is the world’s most diverse nation, and the Northeast is the most diverse part of the country: Narendra Modi
Northeast is a sensitive region of India. It is very important to develop this region on the topmost priority basis. Strategically, the region has international borders with China (Sikkim), Myanmar (Manipur and Mizoram), Bhutan (Assam and Arunachal Pradesh), and Bangladesh (Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura).
The so-called ‘Chicken’s Neck’ at Siliguri is much discussed geopolitically. The reason is not far to seek. Two neighbouring nations are reportedly engaged in a ‘dream project’ to cut the Siliguri corridor with a view to delinking the Northeast from mainstream India.
But, our most dynamic Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been studying the simple-living people and their culture very closely in the Northeast since the early 2000’s. So, he knows well the aspirations and expectations of the local people of this far-flung region of the great country.
He is currently placing the region on a new high. He asks his ministers and bureaucrats to go to the people of NE. He is very keen to promote the connectivity and other infrastructure facilities in the region on war-footing.
The Prime Minister says, “It is my conviction to bring Northeast at par with the other developed regions of the country.”
He has, indeed, a strong desire to see a developed Northeast India (NEI). This has been verified many times during his frequent visits to different places in this region.
Addressing the public at Paljor Stadium in Gangtok, Sikkim on April 28, 2026 Modiji stated, “The Northeast, including Sikkim, is India’s ‘Ashtalakshmi’. The Government is resolved to Act East, Act Fast.”
For instance, he has instructed all the concerned ministries and officials to accomplish the project work of Centrally-Sponsored Schemes in NER. In order to keep a pace at par with the infrastructure development activities along the border by China, the Modi Government is very keen to work on war-footing in developing the transport and communication sector along the Sino-Indian border.
He had said in Imphal (Manipur) that NE youths would be inducted in the service of Delhi Police. This is a laudable step towards NE. He has visited Assam many times. Once he slept on the floor of a train to provide his reserved seat to an Assamese sister. This proves his ‘unmotivated and selfless’ service mentality. He is, indeed, a practical idealist.
Thus Modiji does rightly say that he is not the ‘Pradhaan Mantri’, he is the ‘Pradhaan sevak’ of India.
It is also learnt that Modiji had worked very hard in Assam using a bicycle to know the life-style and cultural heritage of Assam many years back. During the Lok Sabha election campaign in 2014, he had highly praised the role of mighty river Brahmaputra, offered obeisances to Mother Goddess Kamakhya, etc. In early 2014, he campaigned for Lok Sabha polls in different locations of Northeast India. They are as follows— Guwahati, Nagaon, Mangaldoi , Silchar, Agartala, Imphal, Tura and so on.
In 2001, he first came to Assam. He visited Keshav Dham, Paltanbazar, Guwahati.
Accompanied by the then State BJP leader Hare Krishna Bharali, Modiji visited many constituencies of Assam in 2006. They include – Rangapara (Sonitpur district), Tinsukia, etc. The purpose of the visit was not only political mapping, but also to study the traditional life-style of the people of Assam. This was informed by Gourisankar Chakraborty of Keshav Dham, Guwahati.
Notably, Gaurishankar Chakraborty, popularly known as ‘Gauri Da’ expired at Delhi’s M D City Hospital due to prolonged illness on March 24, 2021. He was 72 and a bachelor. He did his graduation from the prestigious Cotton College and MSc in Physics from Kurukshetra University and a degree in Law from Delhi University. His untimely demise came as a great loss for India as a whole.
It was in November 2014. A young student of Guwahati requested me to compile a life sketch on PM Modiji. Then I was sitting in a book stall at the Northeast Book Fair, Assam Engineering Institute, Guwahati. I and my better-half decided to visit Gatisheel Gujarat State to accomplish the task.
We met many associates of PM Modiji, family members and others in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. Importantly, the conversation with Smt Heerben Modi, PM’s mother, was very enlightening and memorable for us. We learnt many wise lessons from her during our personal discussion.
We visited her at her residence known as Vrindavan-II, at Raysan village near Gandhinagar.
When we entered her home, the wife of Pankaj Modi, PM’s younger brother, had welcomed us.
As a custom of Gujarati culture, she did bring two glasses of water for us.
We sat for a while in the parlor. She (the wife of Pankaj Modi) asked us to enter the bedroom of Modi’s mother.
We stepped in and offered our warm regards to her.
We introduced ourselves. We took a few photographs with her and sought blessings from her.
Seeing us she was very happy. We bowed before her and touched her highly auspicious feet. Spontaneously, she raised her hands on our heads and blessed us.
We felt as if we had come across a highly elevated soul and divine personality in our motherland…………….
In 2022, the PM said at Diphu, “…Today this resolve has been reinforced on this land of Karbi Anglong. The work of carrying out the agreement which was signed for the permanent peace and rapid development of Assam is going on at a brisk pace.”
Sociologically, NE is regarded as the cradle of many castes, communities, cultural ethos and faiths. Tucked away in a ‘strategic region’, linked with the national mainstream by a narrow corridor at Siliguri in West Bengal, those who once visited the region can never forget this paradise on the Earth. That is, it is considered as the greatest region among all the regions of our nation in terms of hospitality rendered to its visitors, tourists, et al. Both domestic and international tourists visit Sikkim, ‘the oasis of peace in India today’. One can, thus, find a unique combination of hospitality and service mentality amongst the local people in NEI. The region is gifted with a good number of natural resources. It possesses the world’s largest reserves of Sillimanite (a mineral used as refractory) in Sonapahar of East Khasi Hills district in Meghalaya. Of late, the record of rainfall at Mawsynram has exceeded that of Cherrapunjee. World’s biggest river island, Majuli, is located in Assam. The world’s oldest functioning oil refinery is Digboi refinery (Assam). Its preliminary survey was done by Oldham, the then superintendent, Geological Survey of India, in 1901. Oldham came to discover coal, but, fortunately found mineral oil here. Updating all matters on the region, a comprehensive attempt has been initiated by me to project the book in a systematic way.
President Droupadi Murmu once said, “The Northeast is blessed with precious natural beauty. The people there have amazing talent which is visible in dance, music, costumes, handicrafts and cuisine.”
In his world famous Chicago address Swami Vivekananda said, “The star arose in the East; it travelled steadily towards the West, sometimes dimmed and sometimes effulgent, till it made a circuit of the world, and now it is again rising on the very horizon of the East, the borders of the ‘Yarlung Tsangpo’ (a Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra river), a thousand fold more effulgent than it ever was before.”
Concludingly, there is no large-scale industry in NE States. NE is the storehouse of many medicinal plants and resources. The Centre may formulate and implement special schemes to set up large-scale industries here and solve the burning problem of separatists’ movement with rapid development and employment generation in NE.
(Amar Krishna Paul is the author of the book “Modiji: Beyond Politics”. Email: amarkrishnaghy@gmail.com)
