Manmohan Singh nurtured Northeast, made it strategic conduit for 'Look East' policy

This nondescript address in a quiet locality, not far from Assam's capital complex, personified the humility of a man, who had been its tenant from 1991 to 2019.

It was officially the permanent address of Manmohan Singh when he represented Assam in the Rajya Sabha.

Nest with no frills

The two-room apartment belied any sign of its tenant’s exalted status.

It had a pair of sofas, a tea table, a bed and a rack containing a few books, including the Guru Granth Sahib.

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A portrait of Guru Nanak and Singh's own photo clicked at a gurdwara in Maharashtra were the only décor items at the apartment when this writer had the opportunity to visit it in May 2007. Singh had gone to Guwahati at that time to file nomination for the Rajya Sabha. That was his first visit to his “home” in Assam after becoming prime minister in 2004. He had spent around 20 minutes there.

Second home in Assam

Singh had taken the house on rent at a monthly tariff of Rs 700 from former Assam chief minister Hiteswar Saikia’s widow, Hemoproba Saikia, before entering Parliament.

It was due to Saikia’s persuasion that Singh opted to contest the Rajya Sabha from Assam after PV Narasimha Rao made him the finance minister.

That was the beginning of his long association with Assam in particular and the Northeast in general.

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Contribution to Northeast

Much of the infrastructural developments that the Northeast has witnessed in the recent past is due to the legacy of that association.

Singh, as finance minister under Rao, played an important role in 1992 to initiate India’s ‘Look East’ policy to foster economic and strategic relationships with the Southeast Asian nations, keeping the north-eastern region in the matrix, as part of the wider economic liberalisation agenda.

The India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway and the Kaladan Multi Modal Transit Transport Project initiated under the policy prioritised infrastructure development and connectivity projects in the land-locked region.

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Putting Northeast on the map

The region’s major infrastructure projects such as the Trans-Arunachal Highway, the East-West Corridor, and the Bogibeel Bridge were accomplished in sync with the strong emphasis laid in the policy doctrine to enhance the region’s connectivity with neighbouring countries, particularly Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Bhutan.

In order to place the region in the national economic eminence so that it can play the “arrow-head” role in the country’s Look East Policy, now rechristened as Act East Policy, a 2020 vision document for the North East was prepared in 2008 by the UPA government headed by Singh.

NRC, a brainchild of Singh

Even the Narendra Modi-led NDA government has acknowledged that the vision document provided an “overarching framework for the development of the North Eastern Region to bring it at par with other developed regions.”

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Assam's controversial National Register of Citizens (NRC) published in 2018 is another of Singh’s projects appropriated by the current BJP regime.

It was the UPA government headed by Singh that gave the nod in 2005 to update the NRC for Assam to fulfil one of the unfulfilled clauses of the historic Assam Accord signed in 1985.