India’s North-east is a veritable treasure trove of forests, rivers and minerals and, of course, the natural landscape and limestone caves, which foreigners admire. These states have no business to be poor and dependent on Central dole. Three states of the region, namely Nagaland, Meghalaya and Tripura, have just voted for change. But it’s a tough call to change the big picture. However, some incremental changes are visible.

While Meghalaya and Tripura have young chief ministers, Nagaland’s Neiphiu Rio is part of the old guard and knows what it’s like to be the chief political executive of a state. Meghalaya’s Conrad Sangma too had been the state’s finance minister in 2008-09, so he has slipped in seamlessly into the role of CM.

It is the Tripura chief minister, Biplab Kumar Deb with no experience of politics having come from a RSS background, who is the guy to watch out for. And while he tries to handle things with a bluster, like sacking officers at will, he will soon learn that governance means carrying his cabinet colleagues and officers along. A repeat of Arvind Kejriwal’s ultimate insult of the chief secretary might not go down well there.

Being from the newer generation, Conrad Sangma regularly talks to people through social media and gets feedback from the public. This is a welcome change from the days when the government was just an echo chamber in the secretariat; heard its own voice and believed that things were hunky-dory. The dictionary says an echo chamber is a place where certain ideas, beliefs or data points are reinforced through repetition of a closed system that does not allow for the free movement of alternative or competing ideas and concepts. The last thing we want is a government that feeds on an echo chamber.

That said, let’s talk about what’s keeping the North-east and its people at subsistence level and why today only a few are privileged in these predominantly tribal states. What are wrong systems we following and have been reinforcing for decades? In fact, if we care to look at statistics then we were better off when we started our respective journeys as part of Assam. At least we did not have landlessness then. There were not too many impoverished individuals living a hand-to-mouth existence and our social systems were still supportive because the market had not yet entered and turned everything — land, forests, water sources, and now even humans — into purchasable commodities.

What institutions have the region created over the decades? Are they serving the purpose they were meant for? Have they become mere offices of profit for MLAs who are not ministers? The state creates institutions mainly to provide inclusive governance.

At some juncture, these institutions might have been envisaged as means to reach out to people and deliver the public goods. But with time and with no attempt whatsoever to evaluate, assess and monitor these institutions, we have turned them into extractive, rent-seeking models. Now they are used only to serve a political purpose; not the public good. This is a self-defeating exercise and if not corrected will lead to the collapse of the very state that created these institutions.

In the book, Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, (a must read for political executives and policy makers), the authors define extractive institutions as, “those that empower and enrich the few at the expense of the many.” Nothing can be truer in the case of Meghalaya and Nagaland in particular and Manipur to an extent.

Successive governments have used the institutions created for public good as tools of appeasement. Sadly, some of the newbies who have just been elected are adorning the above state institutions with cabinet berths. It is unfortunate that the new kids on the block are fast learners when it come to (mis)using the spoils of office even before they have completed a month of their victory marches.

Will the governments in the three states with their promise of “change,” do a cost-benefit analysis of the institutions created? We expect the new chief ministers not to just toe the line of their predecessors but to have the courage of conviction to blaze new trails.

Get some independent agency to do an incisive study into the investments made into all institutions and the outcomes they have generated over decades.

Have the Planning Boards provided a growth path for the states? How many new employment avenues have been created? We can also use RTI to find out the investments into the institutions and the returns from them. You wonder why those in the Opposition in the past have not raised the above questions. Are they not in the public interest? This is a classic case of honour among thieves!

The reality is that the institutions have become standalone monoliths, which are neither inclusive nor have a vision to serve the people, especially those in the last rung of the economic ladder. Acemoglu and Robinson believe that economic institutions do not emerge by themselves but are outcomes of significant conflict between elites resisting economic growth and political change and those wishing to limit the economic and political power of existing elites.

The authors propose creation of inclusive institutions but such institutions only emerge during critical junctures. In our case one hopes the empty treasury that the new governments have inherited is critical enough to trigger change. Hence this is the time to break these monoliths that are well past their prime.

The continuation of such extractive institutions pulverises democracy because they create a class of self-seeking elite. In such regimes the rule of law is also compromised because pluralism is absent. Pluralism implies that the rule of law is applied equally to all; something that is not possible in tribal states where oligarchy is embedded.

Acemoglu and Robinson argue that participation in the political process can happen only when the rule of law is in force. And the rule of law means that money cannot play a role in determining election results. The Chief Election Commission is simply not equal to the task of taking on this depraved political system. In the three elections held on 27 February, people spent crores of rupees to defeat their opponents. So the institution of democracy was hugely compromised.

The rule of law opens the door for greater participation in the political process. But participation does not mean mere casting of votes once in five years. It is a process of engaging with governance well after voting is over.

But how many of us participate in governance? How many actually write letters to MLAs and ministers on crucial areas of development or its absence? How many MLAs go back to their constituents and have a public hearing to listen to the voices of those who have fallen between the cracks. And why don’t we have that practice? It’s because we have not created such institutions.

On the contrary, we have institutionalised the traditional village councils, which are undemocratic and MLAs only talk to these councils and believe they have done their duty. The poor are not represented in the councils/traditional institutions and have no voice there. How then can MLAs and governments capture the voices of the poor and the landless?

It is imperative for the present CMs to move from the beaten track and show us that they mean business. Those ministers who do not share a vision of greater economic resurgence that will take people along the growth trajectory but are there to promote their personal businesses ought to be shown the door.

For starters, all three governments should review the human development indicators in their respective states. While Tripura shows better HDI, the figures need to be revisited because the BJP has been calling out the Manik Sarkar government as failing in several areas of development.

They should focus on life expectancy which in Meghalaya, for instance, is as low as 57.03 years for males 58.09 years for females. The all-India age expectancy is 62.6 years and 64.2 years respectively.

People in all three states are anaemic; children suffer vitamin A deficiency and this affects their cognitive domain. Institutional delivery in all three states is lower than the national average of 78.9 per cent. This last statistic means that large sections of childbearing women have no access to healthcare institutions. Statistics are not just dry facts; they tell us about the condition of real people. Will governments please call for the National Family Health Survey-4 and look at the figures concerning their states, especially their maternal and infant mortality rates? Sadly the institutions we create don’t care about these figures. The members are there solely to enjoy the perks of office.

Two institutions created for the speedy development of the North-east, namely the North Eastern Council and the Ministry for the Development of North East need to be revisited urgently.

(The writer is Editor of the Shillong Times and can be contacted at patricia.mukhim@gmail.com)