Why Always Violence Trigger Massive Economic Packages From Govt

By Shantanu Nandan Sharma & Masood Hussain

Former Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga was upset when insurgency-hit Northeast states were getting all the attention and money from New Delhi, leaving the peaceful pockets of the region imploring for the Centre’s largesse.

The man, who himself fought an armed struggle before joining politics and eventually becoming the chief minister, lobbied hard to convince the Central government that Mizoram should be granted a special bonus for maintaining peace.

The rationale behind the peace bonus is straight and simple: New Delhi has not spent a single penny in counter-insurgency operations in the state since 1986 when Mizo National Front guerrillas including Zoramthanga laid down arms. No wonder, both Mizoram and Sikkim eventually received some grants, which came to be known as peace bonus.

As the Centre is now planning yet another economic package for J&K after the recent spell of turbulence, and the Planning Commission is giving the finishing touch to a development package for Naxal-hit areas, Zoramthanga’s straight talk a decade ago is relevant even now.

Why should violence always trigger the announcement of massive economic packages by the Centre?

If unemployment is an issue in many a backward state including J&K, why did Centre wait for a home-grown violence to erupt before announcing the appointment of a high-powered panel to come out with a formula to address the state’s rising unemployment problem?

The panel headed by Dr C Rangarajan, chairman of Economic Advisory Council to PM includes India Inc veterans such as founder of Infosys Technologies NR Narayana Murthy and Tarun Das.

Ashwani Kumar, the Congress leader and former minister of state for industries, defends the Centre’s policy of announcing economic packages for conflict-ridden states arguing that such moves help in emotional integration of the people of those areas with the rest of the country.

“Discontentment of people in some states sometime leads to violent expression of despair.

Under these circumstances, any responsive government is duty bound to hold out hope for such less developed regions,” he says.

The doling out of big-ticket economic packages mainly in conflict-ridden areas of the country has become a standard formula for New Delhi’s carrot and stick policy. But the announcement of such packages is not always followed by their proper implementation.

In J&K, for example, Rs 10,000 crore package announced during Rajiv Gandhi’s time remained mostly in paper. HD Deve Gowda’s Rs 6,100 cr Northeast package announced in 1996 was later enhanced by his successor IK Gujral.

In 1998, Atal Bihari Vajpayee came out with a fresh Northeast package of Rs 10,217 cr, leaving many critics to argue that these packages were nothing more than the amalgamation of the ongoing projects in the region.

The doling out of packages for insurgency-infested areas has continued during the current decade too. Vajpayee’s two J&K packages in 2002 and 2003, followed by Manmohan Singh’s whopping Rs 24,000 cr package for Kashmir have reiterated the fact that such an initiative is nothing but a standard ploy to arrest discontentment and alienation of people living in backward and conflict-ridden areas.

“I am not surprised that the Centre is working out a development package for Naxal-hit areas.

The development activities must take place simultaneously with security interventions,” says Vishwa Ranjan, a senior police officer in the state of Chhattisgarh.

Yet, there has always been a concern of lack of implementation of big-ticket packages. Also, many of the task force reports like that of Shukla commission recommendations for Northeast, have gathered dust. C Rangarajan-headed task force on development of J&K, for instance, recommended projects worth Rs 8,302 cr in 2006. Later, he suggested a series of projects worth Rs 7,949 crore in April 2007.

Many in the valley have now questioned whether Rangarajan’s new job creation panel would deliver anything when many of his earlier suggestions have not been implemented as yet.

J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah has said in various forums that Kashmir is not an economic issue but a pure political one.

“The issue of Kashmir needs to be addressed politically,” he says. Here comes the question—what more could be conceded when a certain degree of political autonomy is already given.

But does that mean more resources be given to those areas which are trouble-torn?

Or will not it ultimately encourage peace loving people to resort to violence just to claim their dues.

The Centre needs to muster the art of tightrope walking while favoring the violent pockets of the country vis-à-vis those who have begun to claim peace bonus.