Northeast India continues to be a fertile ground for producing brave hearts and talents almost on all fronts. This landlocked cluster of States has a saga of bravery and sporting talent. If it comes to patriotism, this region never lags behind. The likes of Veer Lachit Barphukan, Bagh Hazarika, Veer Tikendrajit Singh, Tirot Sing, Rani Gaidinliu, Kanaklata, Chandraprava Saikiani and many others deserve special mention when it comes to bravery and patriotism. Living up to the expectations of their seniors, a number of children from the north-eastern states have been able to make their marks on bravery. While 11-year-old Mizo girl Carolyn mustered the courage to rescue a girl child from the clutches of her kidnapper and reunited her with the family members in June 2019, 11-year-old Kamal Krishna Das of Assam did jump into the flooded Brahmaputra river thrice to save his mother, aunty and a stranger woman when the country boat they were travelling on capsized in September 2018. This year’s youngest National Bravery Award recipient eight-year-old Lourembam Yaikhomba Mangang of Manipur saved the life of a little boy who was drowning in the Imphal River in March 2019. The same is the feat by ten-year-old Meghalaya boy Everbloom K Nongrum who was elected for the ICCW National Child Award for saving two of his friends from drowning in two separate incidents in 2019. These are just a few acts of bravery from the children of the region that came to light with recognition. In sports, the likes of T Ao of Nagaland, Thoiba Singh and Mary Kom of Manipur, Bhogeswar Baruah and Manalisa Baruah Mehta of Assam and others will continue to glow brightly in the horizon of Indian sport history.
All these fond memories and realities help us paint a rosy picture of the Northeast and its people. If one keeps count of the failures of the civil society and the successive governments in the region like the flourishing business of drugs killing our little brave hearts in their buds; smuggling of animals and timber; children and human trafficking taking place from the region to elsewhere in the country and abroad; social evils like witch-hunting, bride burning and dowry in the society here; the gun culture robbing children of their childhood and right to education, so on and so forth; one can certainly paint a gloomy picture of the region and its people. If the people of the region have enough reasons to puff their chests up with pride, they also have reasons enough to feel shy for a number of evils that exist in their respective states. But then, the most serious among all these evils are the ones that are set to spell disaster for the future of the coming generations like the flourishing business of drugs, human trafficking, child abuse, the gun culture (on the wane) etc. If the social evils plaguing the region are not done away with right now, this generation will certainly leave behind a legacy of evils for the coming generations. This failure is not of the civil society in the region alone. Those at the helm of affairs in the state governments in the region also cannot disown the blame.
The reasons behind such evils are many. However, one of the most striking reasons among them is that despite being bountiful in natural resources the states in the region are not economically developed. They are not self-sustaining. The Brahmaputra is flowing through Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. With such a natural wealth Arunachal Pradesh should have been one of the biggest exporters of power in the county, but it is not really so. Even now the farmers in Assam have to rely on the rain god for their agricultural produces. When there is drought or scanty rainfall in the State, scarcity of food grains becomes a reality. The state has set the worst example before the rest of India and the globe that despite the available water resources it continues to go ahead without any irrigation system true to the term. Despite being a flood-affected state, only one per cent of the total cropped area in Assam is being insured against 27.2 per cent at the national level. Is there any brave heart among those at the helm of affairs in the State administration who can take us forward?