While Sharjeel Imam talks about 'breaking' Assam from India, the Narenda Modi government has worked towards connecting the North East like never before

The following article was written for MyInd Makers. Pasting it here for reference

"We need to cut Assam from India. Only then will they listen to us. We need to cut Assam." 

Thus spoke yet another "peaceful protestor" at the Shaheen Bagh protests. The "peaceful protestors" perhaps forgot that this is Narendra Modi's government and "cutting India" is impossible. 

While I did comment on twitter that this is the Narendra Modi government and cutting off any part of India from India is impossible, this criminal comment also made me think how the Modi government has actually connected the North East, which was often “cut” from India, literally at times and figuratively many times, fully into the psyche of the Indian mainstream.

Integration and connectivity involve the massive construction of infrastructure that will aid travel through land, air and water. Did you know that the North East did not have a fully operational broad-gauge railway system, whilst the rest of the country did? The Narendra Modi government converted all meter gauge in the North East to Broad gauge, thereby integrating the railways of NE into the rest of India. Did you know that Meghalaya was not even on the railway map of India until the Narendra Modi government finished critical railway projects and connected Meghalaya via train? In addition to this, Shatabdi and Rajdhani expresses were introduced to the region.

When Narendra Modi announced that all the remaining ~18,000 villages in the country will get access to electricity, ~5000 of them were from the North East itself? We are all now familiar with how access to electricity in India is now a problem of the past, and how the North East has specifically gained from this daring initiative. Daring because the challenges involved in providing electricity to such a difficult terrain were overcome with exemplary commitment to improve lives of our citizens.

Many large and small infrastructure projects that were simply kept pending for decades. Did you know that many of the projects, involving 10s of 1000s of crores were actually completed by the Narendra Modi government? Bridges (infact both India’s longest road bridge and longest rail-road bridge were opened to public in the past 4 years), highways and other roads, and airports (For example, Sikkim got it’s first airport, Arunachal began commercial flight operations!) were completed on a war footing so as to ensure NE had same infrastructure as rest of India. Guwahati played host to many international sporting events in the past 4 years and progress is brisk in the construction of the National Sport University in Manipur.

Integration and Connectivity don’t just mean infrastructure. There is a key human angle to it too. One of the biggest impediments of the North East region was that militancy and separatist groups was flourishing for many decades in the North East.  Just two weeks back, the last militant group in Assam (the same state these criminals want to cut off from India) surrendered to the government and assured to cooperate with the peace of the region. Just last week, 30,000 refugees from the Bru-Raeng of Mizoram have been given a wonderful resettlement package into Tripura, thereby ending a 27-year-old problem for this persecuted tribe. News reports were agog with a surgical strike along the border of Myanmar to eliminate many terrorists creating problem in the North East states of India.

And then there are the small things. Re-classifying Bamboo from trees to grass. Why is this important to the region? Because Bamboo is grown abundantly here and is important to their economy. There are many restrictions on transportation of trees, so this reclassification boosts the economy of the region a lot. Hosting important central government conferences in the region brings in a fillip to the exposure these areas get. It has been a mandate that there have to be very regular visits by ministers of the Government of India and I don’t have to tell you how these visits will help fasten up the pace of development.

While so much progress is happening and people are reaffirming their faith in Modi, it is no wonder that these criminals get ideas such as cutting off Assam from India. These criminals have only one agenda – impede the progress of India. Even at the cost of human life. They are perhaps emboldened by all the adulation they receive on the English TV media and think “freedom of speech” will save them. Like I said at the beginning, this is the Modi Sarkar, these criminal ideas won’t work!