Making Guwahati the City it Deserves to be

While the biggest city in the North East India, Guwahati for decades have lagged behind other metropolis of India, be it the well known cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, or the ones that have emerged as one in the last decade or two, such as Indore in Madhya Pradesh.

It is not to say that Guwahati should be aiming to be the next Mumbai but at least strive to be on par with cities that were not that big relatively recently.

For years Assam was seen as a dangerous place to be in, rarely the people in the capital of our nation’s politics ever visited this place, even if they did it was with great caution — that was the reality as recent as 7–8 years ago. As someone who have spent my entire life here in this city in the heart of Assam, I know how things were back then, and I am talking 2005–2015, a period of time I would even as a kid be able to understand what’s going on. Public holidays, more specifically the nation’s Republic Day and Independence Day were “celebrated” by staying home, as it was near forbidden for people to go out, form crowds, not because the state Govt. imposed curfews, but because people’s fear of finding themselves in situations they don’t want to be in.

However, things have changed a lot since, law and order in the state of Assam, and Guwahati in particular is by far the best it has been in decades. While not perfect, it’s nothing less than any other state you can think of, I would even say better than many big cities. Accountability is the key.

Talking about Developments

Law & Order, and the safety is one thing, it does appear we have achieved that pretty well, while not perfect, it’s better than ever before.

However, development of a city relies on more than just how well the administration manages law & order. Economic development as well as infrastructural ones are what’s going to make Guwahati a city that truly can be regarded as the biggest city of the North-East India and why just India, why not the entire East Asia, well, that would be an entirely ambition but shoot for the stars, because we will be competing with Tokyo if we want to be the best in the East Asia region — that’s kind of tough.

Nevertheless, it’s not about just comparing ourselves with other cities, but finding uniqueness in our own existence as city, as a state and as a region of such a culturally rich country — Assam is the only place that deflected Mughal’s invasion, not ones but 17 times! And that helped Assam protect its culture from being corrupted with Islamic influence, its culture and its architecture. Very little to no influence, be it language or the general culture in the common people. It had stayed the same for hundreds of years.

What that all means is Assam has a unique history and culture and it should be embraced by the people living here and making the city the city it deserves to be. I am not talking about building skyscrapers, not at all, that would be a bad idea given the seismic activities in the region altogether, but I am more inclined towards small steps in economical advancements that can benefit the state in the longer run and as Guwahati being the biggest city of Assam, it will have the role of being the center of everything.

Achieving recognition

No doubt Assam is now much more recognized in the national context than it was even 5 years back. National media rarely covered topics on Assam but times are changing.

More than that kind of recognition, we should look for global recognition, if we do that, recognition in the nation just follows.

I have been to Indore, one of the fastest developing cities, and I have seen the work culture of the young generation in that place. I became a self-taught web developer back in 2011–12, at that time internet was not as mass adopted as it is today — we can call that the early era of Internet in India, when it had just started gaining the traction, it would still take 4 years and smartphone boom for it to fully become part of people’s every day life.

At that time I had started learning coding on my own all online and the community of people I was mostly around consisted of people like me who wrote blogs, did YouTube videos, or worked as freelancers, and guess most of them were from the Western part of India. And even more than the big cities like Mumbai, these young minds were from smaller lesser known cities, and sorry for being too repetitive but I am going to give credit where it’s due, I had many many people in my contacts from the city of Indore, which at that time was not that big but yet the internet / technology culture was booming in that city where young folks were learning to code, doing business on a global level, bringing in foreign exchange, however, even I being from Guwahati I rarely found youngsters from my own city. I did, a handful, but not as many as I expected.

What all that means is — the young generation are the ones laying the foundation. Govt. schemes and intervention in encouraging development is good, but what the young generation does mean the most.

Talking of Indore, you will see a big ecosystem of technology based firms all across the map of Indore, as well as neighboring cities. Because that’s a culture that had been slowly and gradually becoming to be.

Making A Culture, for the young, by the young

Definitely technology is the trend right now. But it’s not important every city has to become the next Silicon Valley to be recognized. There are more opportunities in every field one can imagine, and yes technology is one of them, no grudge against it, but I just believe it’s too much overdone it’s just going to go lost in the crowd.

Keeping the young people in the state is important. Bright minds are going to go to other states in search of better opportunities, and they do, and it’s not helping the state.

Building better for these bright minds is of utmost importance. And by building for them I don’t mean building more roads, highways and bridges, of course these infrastructures are the backbone of a big city like Guwahati but other than transportation and tourism human, especially the young minds crave knowledge — not necessarily what you get in a 45 min lecture in your college, but the one that you get by yourself by finding what you like to learn.

Building better infrastructure, not for cars but for brains

The lack of public libraries, libraries that offers state of the art facilities, updated books, a place where like minded people can gather and discuss ideas is disturbing.

The city has too many restaurants and cafes, but so little of places like libraries. Places of interest that young people would love going to meet others and do great things.

Having a public library every 5 km radius should be the aim. I might sound old-school for emphasizing too much on libraries and books because we now have access to Google, Wikipedia, and what not, who needs libraries you may ask — but libraries are not just places for books to sit, but also a place for minds to come together and do things.

A place like Guwahati, and not just Guwahati but many other smaller cities in Assam has abundance of young minds willing to take steps forward in terms of innovation only because they don’t have the means they lag behind. However that has changed significantly since Internet became mainstream in India, however that’s just the beginning.

That’s all.

It’s a thought. Maybe it will take 10 years, or maybe just 10 months. I am in any case positive about the progress Assam will make in the coming years, it’s been proven by the current leadership that development is their priority, now it’s time the development effort is focused not just on the infrastructure for vehicles but for minds.