NEW DELHI - INSURGENCY and infrastructural bottlenecks have hampered the progress of India's north-east, described as the gateway to South-east Asia.
But analysts say that the region is changing with the insurgents losing their popular appeal.
India, taking a page from what China has done in Tibet, has been undertaking development projects, including road construction in far-flung frontiers.
Analysts say that if the trend is sustained, the region could hope to benefit soon from India's increasing engagement with South-east Asian nations.
An India-Asean car rally two years ago from Assam's capital Guwahati to Indonesia's Batam, traversing nine countries and 8,000km, had raised visions of highways and rail lines linking India's north-east with South-east Asia.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said while flagging off the car rally: 'Our north-eastern states are India's gateway to Asean. Our growing interaction with Asean is critical to fulfilling the promise of the 21st century being an Asian Century.
'We want our north-eastern states to be in the forefront of these interactions and to reap the benefits of enhanced peace and prosperity.'
But that has not happened, says Mr Sanjoy Hazarika, an expert on the region.
'The car rally was a one-off thing. There has to be a sustained effort to bring about trade and economic integration of the north-east with South-east Asia,' said Mr Hazarika, who is a director of the Centre of North East and Policy Research, a think-tank.
'We have had visits by experts from both sides to discuss follow-up measures but they remain to be translated into action,' he said.
Despite the problem of insurgency, brought into the spotlight within a few days of the New Year when 70 migrant workers were gunned down in Assam, the largest among the eight north-eastern states, the outlook for the region looks promising, analysts said. The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), which is campaigning for independence of Assam from India, like many other separatist outfits in the region, has been blamed for the carnage.
Mr Hazarika reflected the disillusionment of the people with the rebel groups when he said: 'The conflicts in the north-east, in terms of armed revolts, ethnic struggles or fights against the Indian state, no longer draw on the romanticism and idealism that sustained fighting groups and communities for decades.
'Dreams have degenerated into nightmares; the fighters have turned on each other and on the people in whose name they claim to speak. The entire network of cadres, recruits, informers and political leaders is based on extortion and extraction: extortion from business houses and petty traders, from professionals, contractors and politicians. Few are spared.'
The ULFA, Mr Hazarika says, is the clearest manifestation of this development.
Analysts said the growing number of people from the region migrating to other parts of India for educational and employment opportunities had also contributed to the erosion of the alienation they felt in the past and the separatist movements losing their popular appeal.
It was not surprising, therefore, that Prime Minister Singh, on a visit to Assam last Tuesday to meet the relatives of the victims of the bombings, questioned the ULFA's support base.
An official report had listed 24 active insurgent groups in the region and several dormant ones. The government has declared four states - Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh - as 'disturbed areas' and deployed troops to quell the groups.
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