From borderland to India’s strategic resource frontier

Within a few days of each other, official platforms of the Ministry of Mines framed many states in the north-east with strategic mineral deposits and potentially untapped potential. While Manipur was described as a “quiet mineral frontier” and Arunachal Pradesh as a “resource-rich frontier”, Meghalaya and Mizoram were depicted with similar narratives highlighting the hidden wealth beneath their hills. Governments routinely tout natural resources and development opportunities, and such announcements normally attract little attention.

But taken together, they point to a broader shift in the language with which the northeast is increasingly framed in national conversations and the strategic landscape.

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Critical mineral thrust

Timing is important because critical minerals have moved from geological discussions to strategic discussions. Lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and rare earths are increasingly shaping industrial competition, technological production and energy transitions. Batteries, semiconductors, renewable technologies and defense systems depend on them, and countries have begun to reposition themselves regarding access to these resources. India remains dependent on imports for many critical minerals and has expanded exploration as a result. According to the Ministry of Mines’ response in Parliament, the Geological Survey of India has undertaken 43 critical mineral exploration projects covering minerals such as graphite, vanadium, lithium, rare earth elements, nickel and cobalt in the northeastern states during the 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25 field seasons. Search operations have expanded in Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Assam, Nagaland and Manipur. Projects involving exploration for nickel, cobalt and chromium have recently been initiated in Manipur.

Geological research has been pointing to mineral potential in the region for years. What seems to be changing is the language in which this importance is increasingly understood. The Northeast has long had a strategic importance that goes beyond geology, but the framework for understanding that importance now appears to be expanding.

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change in language

For decades, the northeast has figured in national strategy largely through the language of borders and security. While debates focused on insurgencies, regional governance, connectivity initiatives, and geopolitical issues involving neighboring countries, infrastructure and development were often legitimized as tools of strategic access and regional security.

The language of resources is increasingly entering a strategic arena once dominated by concerns about borders and security. Critical minerals are now being contested with trade corridors and geopolitical access as well as convergence of regional and resource security. Places once considered sensitive border areas are increasingly viewed as strategic assets.

The repeated use of the word border is revealing because borders rarely serve as neutral descriptions. They don’t just define geography; they often reflect how States imagine it. Historically, borders have been viewed as spaces awaiting integration, development, or extraction because they appear as landscapes of future possibilities.

The challenge is that boundaries are rarely empty spaces waiting to be explored. The hills and valleys of the northeast already contain dense social and political worlds structured around traditional land systems, local institutions, and long-standing relationships with the region. Land issues often extend beyond economics; for these are also tied to authority, identity and memory. Resource extraction thus enters fields that already have institutions and histories of their own.

These questions are especially important in regions where political uncertainties continue to shape daily life. Years of violence and displacement in Manipur have intensified debates over land and land regulations. Similar concerns about ownership, ecological sensitivity, and local participation have emerged at different times in the northeast. Projects involving land often take on meanings that extend beyond development as communities interpret them through the lens of trust, representation, and political participation.

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Resources and participation

India’s quest for critical resources is understandable in a global environment increasingly shaped by supply chain uncertainty and strategic competition. The Northeast itself needs infrastructure, jobs and economic opportunities that have remained unbalanced for decades. Questions surrounding fundraising rarely fit neatly into positions of support or opposition.

How quickly these transitions occur and who shapes them may be as important as the resources themselves. For too long, national priorities and local realities in the northeast often moved at different speeds. While connectivity projects sometimes emerged without corresponding economic ecosystems, strategic considerations often overshadowed questions of participation and representation. It risks similar tensions re-emerging if resource development begins to advance faster than institutions capable of managing the social consequences of extraction.

What is being discussed extends beyond the minerals beneath the hills. For years, the northeast was seen as a border that needed to be secured first, and then as a corridor that needed to be connected. If it now begins to figure in the national imagination as an area with strategic resources, the question is: Will this new frontier eventually include the people who live here, or will it merely repurpose the land beneath their feet?

Critical mineral targets must take into account north-east India’s people, lands and history

Sangmuan Hangsing is a researcher and graduate of the Kautilya School of Public Policy.

It was published – 08 June 2026 12:48 IST