What Assam Teaches India About Inclusive Growth: Why the Future Economy Will Be Built from the Margins Inward

What Assam Teaches India About Inclusive Growth by Dr. h.c. Anja Carron

During my visits to Assam in 2025 and through the conversations surrounding Advantage Assam 2.0, one thing became increasingly clear to me: Assam is not a peripheral region. It is a bridge.

Anyone who still sees the region merely as a distant frontier is reading neither its geography nor its political significance correctly. The investment summit of 25–26 February 2025 made this new self-understanding visible. More important than the event itself, however, was the reality behind it. Assam is increasingly positioning itself as the strategic link between the rest of India, the Ashtalakshmi states of the Northeast, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Southeast Asia. Roads, waterways, multimodal logistics, and cross-border connectivity are gradually reinforcing this vision.

My connection to Assam began much earlier. During my first visit in 2020, as a speaker and mentor at the Ekayan Challenge at Dibrugarh University, I felt something that has stayed with me ever since. I have worked across Europe, Africa and Asia, yet few places have challenged my understanding of economic development as profoundly as Assam and the Northeastern Region.

Yes, Assam is moving towards a more sustainable and inclusive development path. At the same time, as in every country and region, everything depends on the reality on the ground. Vision alone is never enough. If it is followed by business as usual, it will not be sufficient to address the growing social, ecological and geopolitical challenges ahead.

If, however, there is the courage to build consistently on local realities and to translate vision into action, Assam has an extraordinary opportunity for long-term wealth creation.

In my view, that opportunity lies in an economy rooted in humanity, in its cultural and ecological heritage, and in a traditional understanding of our place within the web of life. It is an understanding that recognises our responsibility towards all living beings, the biosphere and the communities that sustain us. During my visits, I realised that this way of thinking is not an abstract ideal. It is already reflected in many local practices and may become one of Assam's greatest long-term competitive advantages.

What also impressed me was the structure of the everyday economy.

In many parts of the world, women are still discussed as beneficiaries of development. In Assam, one has to be more honest. Women already sustain large parts of the economy.

In the handloom sector, the second-largest employer after agriculture, around 1.283 million weavers are engaged in production. Approximately 1.179 million of them are women, according to the Fourth National Handloom Census (2019–20).

That fact alone changes the perspective. When an economy produces on this scale through women, women's empowerment is no longer a social agenda. It becomes a question of productivity, competitiveness, income generation and long-term resilience.

This strength begins long before products reach the market. It begins with seeds, farming systems, sericulture, tea gardens, forests and local knowledge passed from one generation to the next.

Assam therefore contributes something important to the global discussion on inclusive growth.

Across the tea garden regions, women's self-help groups are no longer simply organised into community structures. They are increasingly becoming economic actors. Nutrition Shops, known as Bagan Bazars, are owned and managed by women, combining basic services with income generation, entrepreneurship and financial inclusion.

For an investor, this may appear to be a small initiative. For a society, it is anything but small. It demonstrates how resilient economies are built from the ground upward.

Tea itself tells two stories in Assam.

One is industrial.

The other is deeply human.

In 2025, Assam celebrated two hundred years of its tea heritage while the Mega Jhumoir brought greater recognition to the Tea Tribe and Adivasi communities whose labour and knowledge have shaped this history.

To me, this represents an important aspect. Mature economies do not separate economic success from the people who made it possible. Assam is increasingly reconnecting industry, innovation, heritage and community. That may explain why the economy here feels less abstract than in many other places.

Yet another aspect is equally important.

Both the discussion and the reality on the ground increasingly extend beyond women's participation in production to their role across the entire value chain: from producers to entrepreneurs, from entrepreneurs to brand owners, from local markets to international markets, and from community leadership to corporate boardrooms. There are encouraging signs that Assam understands this challenge.

Programmes supporting women farmers, self-help groups, direct procurement of traditional products through initiatives such as the Swanirbhar Naari Scheme, together with mentoring for women-led start-ups, are beginning to connect the grassroots economy with entrepreneurship and innovation.

At the same time, Assam openly acknowledges the remaining obstacles: access to finance, mentoring, management capabilities, and investment. More importantly, it is actively working to address these gaps as part of its long-term strategy for building lasting economic strength.

Another observation from Assam receives far less attention than it deserves.

Culture creates economic value and serves as a bridge to innovation.

The growing number of geographical indication products, including Muga Silk, Gamosa, Majuli Masks, Majuli Manuscript Paintings, Bodo Aronai, Bodo Dokhona, Assam Jaapi, Asharikandi Terracotta, and Sarthebari Bell Metal Craft, illustrates an economic model in which identity, craftsmanship, and place create lasting value.

I am not talking about nostalgia.

What I observed was economic differentiation rooted in culture, tradition, and innovation.

For me, this became one of the most valuable observations during my visits. A future-oriented economy can create enduring prosperity when it builds upon its traditions instead of ignoring them or stigmatizing them as outdated. Traditional knowledge should not be preserved only for cultural reasons. From my perspective, traditional knowledge has always been a source of innovation. I have always understood it as something that can be strengthened and transformed into innovation that creates opportunities for people, communities, resilient regional economies, and resilient ecosystems.

The same applies to biodiversity.

Assam possesses immense ecological wealth, including extensive forests, wetlands, eight national parks, numerous protected areas, a Ramsar wetland and Biodiversity Heritage Sites.

Anyone who spends time in the region quickly realises that biodiversity is not simply an environmental issue. It underpins livelihoods, identity, food security, tourism and long-term economic resilience.

When women from forest-edge communities receive training, gain access to government programmes and markets, and become part of local value-chain ecosystems, this is far more than a social initiative.

It is economic infrastructure.

At the same time, I do not romanticise Assam and the Northeast.

The region continues to face floods, river erosion, climate pressures and persistent social challenges. Inclusive growth is therefore not an achievement. It is the key to a continuous process requiring political commitment, institutional capacity and community participation.

Perhaps this is precisely why Assam matters so much.

The state demonstrates that the economy of the future will not be built exclusively in metropolitan centres, technology parks or financial districts. It will also emerge where communities, women, biodiversity and culture have long been regarded as peripheral to economic policy.

From my perspective, Assam is beginning to demonstrate a different model of prosperity, one that is more resilient, more community-based, more deeply rooted in culture and biodiversity, and increasingly shaped by women from the first seed to the boardroom.

For me, the most important insight from Assam is therefore simple.

The future will not be built by excluding the margins. It will be built from the margins inward. And Assam may well be one of the places where that future is already taking shape.

By Dr. h.c. Anja CarronPrincipal & Strategic Advisor | Territorial & Cross-Border Ecosystems | Socio-Bioeconomy