Developmentalism as Strategy: Interrogating Post-colonial Narratives on India’s North East, Rakhee Bhattacharya (Ed.), Sage Publications, 2019
Reviewed by Yenshembam Chetan Singh
The book is an anthology which consists of articles written by different authors which are critical examinations of the development modules undertaken in India’s northeastern periphery. It is a strategical collection of twelve chapters which are comprehensive field work studies carved out in a form to depict the socio-economic conditions of the northeast India and how developmentalism would improve the conditions in the post-colonial era. The book attempts to reconstruct the narrative that the north-east India have been reduced to periphery and neglected in the national development strategy. With contestations between the national and local elites over the control of the region, it has become highly vulnerable to different market forces in the course of globalization process. Its resources, development and marketability has become a bone of contention among various global, national and local players. While keeping these considerations, the book critically examines the post-colonial developmental trajectory of the Indian State in the region. Besides the socio-economic conditions of the region, its unique historical geography has led to systematic marginalization and underdevelopment. India’s economic nationalism within the North East has been largely acted upon the context of resource appropriation and national security, and producing new arrangements of knowledge, power and practices. Within this context, this book attempts to understand the exceptions to India’s dominant development policies in the region by adopting a methodological approach of interdisciplinarity.