Nothing short of history will be created in the North East when Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosts his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe in Guwahati 10 days from now.

The Modi-Abe summit will take place on 15 December, and the two leaders will travel to Manipur’s capital Imphal the next day.

This is the first time that a summit meeting between the Indian Prime Minister and the head of another country is taking place in the North East.

Leave aside holding such a summit in the North East, few foreign leaders have even been encouraged by past governments in New Delhi to visit the region.

“We could never have dreamt of hosting such a summit in this region in the past. It is at Prime Minister Modi’s initiative that this is happening. The people of North East are honoured and happy,” said Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma.

Modi has started the practice of holding summits with visiting foreign leaders in different parts of the country and taking them around to famous heritage sites around those places.

The latest such exercise was his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Chennai. Modi also took Xi to visit the famous temples at Mamallapuram (Mahabalipuram).

The suggestion to host the summit with Abe in Guwahati came from the Prime Minister’s Office and was a pleasant surprise. “We could not believe it when we received the proposal,” said Sarma.

This will be the first time in recent memory that a city in the North East will be hosting the head of a country. Such summits between the Indian Prime Minister and a visiting leader would, earlier, take place only in Delhi.

Soon after landing separately at Guwahati on 15 December morning, Modi and Abe will drive to a colonial-era bungalow on the banks of the Brahmaputra.

The sprawling bungalow, which was the residence of the deputy commissioner of Kamrup, was converted into a heritage centre and renamed ‘Bahniman Brahmaputra River Heritage Bungalow’.