Safer roads can spur North-east’s march

There are so many issues to write about in the region that is popularly known as the North-east — and they are, for the most part, interesting. The rest of the country knows little about many of them, still caught by bold headlines, brassy anchors and ill-informed social media posts.

Let’s take a handful: there’s the unending tragedy in Manipur, now in its third year; the Naga talks go on without a resolution and a new faction has split from the dominant group and walked across to the highlands of Myanmar to join rebels there (of course, it does not make it any easier that the original three factions have fragmented into nine in the space of a few years). Assam is in the midst of campaigning for panchayat elections on the back of a successful investment summit where vast amounts of investment funds were promised.

Cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar has just completed a much-hyped visit to Meghalaya at the end of which his foundation and the Gates Foundation signed an agreement with the state government to improve health conditions for children.

Yet, if one has to pick one sector that has shown remarkable improvement in the region, it’s the highways and communications infrastructure. I can vouch for this, having travelled a lot these past decades over back-breaking roads where vehicles would lurch along, avoiding potholes, pick up speed occasionally before abruptly slowing down because of a new bad patch. There are still challenging sections such as the Dimapur-Kohima highway, where a four-lane highway is still in the works decades after it started because of the fragile nature of the hillsides out of which the roads are being carved.

These days, it is easy to drive from Guwahati to Bhutan or from Dibrugarh to Arunachal Pradesh or from Aizawl to the border town of Champhai near Myanmar. The landscapes are dazzling. The earlier wearying, agonising journeys have turned pleasurable. This is visible in the constant flow of tourists across the region as Indians travel extensively to explore a space unique for its natural beauty and a range of rich and vibrant cultures but that once was a no-go area thanks to insurgency and violence.

Guest houses to suit different budgets are springing up in towns large and small, as are local restaurants made famous by energetic YouTubers. The latter are eager to espouse these cuisines (and increase their following and income) to a generation in India that is ready to explore new tastes and spaces.

Interestingly, local communities are also catering to tourist tastes. Thus, in Sohra, better known as Cherrapunji, the place of legendary rainfall, roadside restaurants now serve Bengali, Gujarati and Assamese thalis, with a focus on vegetarian cuisine. This is very unlike the local fare, where the best and tastiest delicacies are traditional meats of various kinds, made in unique ways. Be that as it may, this is as much a part of business as anything else.

Better roads have shortened journeys, connected long-separated communities with each other and given depth to India’s Act East Policy. However, that policy does not seem to be going very far, at least by road, because neighbouring Myanmar is in the throes of a civil war and Bangladesh continues to be in a state of upheaval. In addition, Dhaka’s hostility to New Delhi after the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has not made matters easier.

But road safety remains an issue. The other day, I was driving with a cousin in her vehicle to the ancestral sleepy town of Nagaon in the plains of Assam for a family event. We had just passed the town of Jagiroad where the Tatas had announced an investment of Rs 27,000 crore for an international semiconductor plant. We spoke about that and the promise of growth.

Suddenly, we saw groups of people gathered along the highway. There’s been an accident, the driver said, as we slowed down. A woman in a yellow and green sari lay sprawled on the roadside at an impossible angle. She was not moving. A young woman was screaming out her mother’s name in agonised grief as people held her back. It is an image that will stay with me. A motorcyclist, possibly involved in the accident, sat on the other side of the road, shaking his head and holding his helmet. An ambulance stood nearby.

We fell silent and my mind went back nearly a decade back when on this very highway, I saw the crumpled figure of a man on the road. My car’s driver told the story: the man had got off the bus and was walking across the road when a motorbike with two men on it came screaming down the highway. The bike hit the man, who collapsed on the spot, careened off the road to the right and fell into a ditch with both riders.

The inflow of new infrastructure and money has also meant new vehicles, which zoom across highways at great speeds. The Assam Tribune has quoted the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as saying that more than 13,700 people were killed in road accidents in the state between 2018 and 2022.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma noted earlier this year, “Between December 24, 2024, and January 15, 2025, there were 163 fatalities, compared to 195 during the same period last year, marking a 16.41 per cent decrease. While this improvement is encouraging, the loss of 163 lives remains a grave concern. We must continue working together to prevent every… death and ensure safer roads.”

Distances may have shortened, speeds have increased, infrastructure has improved — but safer driving is more critical now, as are more highway patrols. They are essential as the region seeks to locate its place in a new Asian architecture.

Sanjoy Hazarika is an independent columnist.

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