Maoist War Against India: Time for United & Strong Response

Ajit Doval, KC 

(Director, VIF)

The May 25^th extremist attack by Maoists in Chhattisgarh was one of the depredations that hit India. But, more tragic is what follows – delayed tactical response, leadership confusion and helplessness, scripted statements carrying no conviction and even ministers looking for opportunities to derive political mileage. In the world of security what happens is important, but what decides the end game is how the governments respond to them. While the former is not always and fully in their control, the latter is a matter of their conscious choice. The tragedy of what they fail to protect and prevent is compounded by the wrong or inadequate response that guarantees perpetual failures.

There is a predictable pattern of discourse that follows major attacks. Political statements and counter statements, Centre versus State blame game, accusations of intelligence and security failure, all relevant, but leading nowhere. There is no clear and unequivocal message to the perpetrators, enunciation of a new national policy and strategy, initiatives towards capacity building and pressing into action innovative tactical plans.

Prevention of this obfuscated discourse necessitates clarity on the fundamentals. Left wing extremists are enemies of the nation – their ideology, political goals, trans-national linkages, strategic plans all make it amply clear. Their history of siding with the Chinese during the 1962 war, supporting Pakistan Army’s genocide in East Pakistan and dubbing Indian intervention as imperialist, aligning with Kashmiri separatists and supporting North-East insurgents leave no doubt about their intentions. Their putting in place an 18,000 plus guerrilla force, nearly 16,000 sophisticated arms, weapon procuring and manufacturing infrastructure, fund raising abilities and an effective propaganda apparatus clearly indicate their burgeoning capacities. Misled by the rhetoric of them being social activists or crusaders for the poor, we should not underestimate their intentions and capabilities. There is no room to treat them anything other than being enemies of the state who have to be fought, vanquished and neutralised.

The second point that obfuscates the discourse is its political dimension. The message that goes out to the Naxalites is that the government is confused and weak, dishonest and insincere, lacks the gumption to take the battle to its logical end, and wilts under the pressure of media, local level political workers, extremist linked NGOs, etc. The political cross-fire between the Centre and the States only gladdens their hearts. There is a need to make the message to the extremists loud and clear that the state will use all its power to protect its sovereign rights. In the instant case, the Congress leaders were wrong in trying to give it a political colour and advance possible conspiracy theories. There is no ambiguity whatsoever about the role and responsibility of the Centre and the States. Article 355 of the Constitution unequivocally affirms that “It shall be the duty of the Union to protect every State against external aggression and internal disturbance”. Left Wing Extremism (LWE) is no more a “public order” issue, and falls well within the innermost circle of what Justice Hidayatullah calls “three concentric circles” of threats. In the judgement in Ram Manohar Lohia vs. State of Bihar (1965), the Supreme Court asserted that when a threat transcends limits of public order and threatens internal security, the overriding responsibility lies with the Union government. However, to make it happen, the Prime Minister needs to be strong to have his writ run both at the Centre and in the States.

The next requirement is strong laws with an efficient criminal administration system to administer them. The threats, internal or external, that threaten the unity, integrity and sovereignty of India, require a different jurisprudence than ordinary criminal laws and must empower the state to deter and neutralise the enemies. The front organisations, masquerading as NGOs and think tanks, who skilfully assist the extremists in exploiting discontent and subvert them to take recourse to the gun must be made accountable. Those who provide them intellectual and ideological space by projecting them as social revolutionaries are as guilty as the gullible people who take to arms. It is also necessary that the justice system functions with speed, fairness, transparency and honesty. To bring down the crisis of legitimacy, any illegal police action or efforts to frame the innocents should be dealt with an iron hand.

The state police forces, due to their superior knowledge of terrain, language and customs of the local people. are best suited for counter-LWE operations. There is an urgent need to increase their strength, provide them better leadership, training, weapons and equipment. It is pertinent to note that Naxalism has assumed deep roots in States where the number of policemen available per one lakh population is amongst the lowest and much below the national average of 135. This situation should be corrected immediately and minimum of 200 policemen per lakh population must be made available to the Naxal affected states. Not just quantity, but quality equally matters. What India requires is, as the Padmanabhaiah Committee advocated, a “highly motivated, professionally-skilled, infrastructurally self-sufficient and sophisticatedly trained police force.”

The availability of real-time actionable intelligence is critical for launching surgical operations against the Naxal leadership and guerilla armies. For this the operational capabilities of state intelligence, right up to the police station levels must be bolstered for undertaking tactical operations. A good intelligence often has made the difference between victory and defeat, and life and death. We have to develop a totally different set of capabilities to cater to our rapidly changing intelligence requirements. This needs to be done at several levels—from our training modules to doctrines to equipment. This transformation has to be across the spectrum of our intelligence capabilities and operations. Concerted efforts to choke Maoists’ sources of finance and channels of procuring weapons also deserve high priority.

The war is difficult but winnable. The need is for capacity building both at the Central and State levels and right leadership to convert plans into realities on the ground. They have started the war; it will be finished by us.

Synergising the Combat Potential of the Central Armed Police Forces

Brig (retd) Gurmeet Kanwal 

(Visiting Fellow, VIF)

Since independence, India has faced a large number of external and internal security challenges. The Indian army, the paramilitary forces and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) have worked hand-in-hand to manage and neutralise these challenges. While the army has been responsible to maintain the integrity of the country’s long land boundaries through four wars and the Kargil conflict, the CAPFs have been largely responsible to manage the land borders and lend a helping hand to the army for counter-insurgency operations. Some insurgencies are now being fought primarily by the CAPFs by themselves.

In May 2001, the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) had approved the concept of “one border, one force”. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) along the border with Tibet is now being managed largely by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). In the west, the entire border with Pakistan is manned by the Border Security Force (BSF) except the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). Maintaining the sanctity of the LoC is the responsibility of the army and some BSF battalions have been placed under its operational control for this purpose. For over 50 years since the Kashmir conflict began in 1947-48, soon after independence, the two armies were engaged in a so-called ‘eyeball-to-eyeball’ confrontation with daily loss of life and property that could justifiably be called a ‘low intensity limited war’. An informal cease-fire has been in place all along the LoC, including at the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL) along the Saltoro Range west of the Siachen Glacier, since November 25, 2003.

The border with Nepal was virtually un-attended till very recently as Nepalese citizens have free access to live and work in India under a 1950 treaty between the two countries. Since the eruption of a Maoist insurgency in Nepal, efforts have been made to gradually step up vigilance along this border to prevent the southward spread of Maoist ideology. The responsibility for this has been entrusted to the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), erstwhile Special Security Bureau that is now a Ministry of Home Affairs force. The Bhutan border is also managed by the SSB. Since the Royal Bhutanese Army drove out the Bodo and ULFA insurgents from its territory some years ago, the border has been relatively quiet. The border with Myanmar also remains operationally active. Several insurgent groups have secured sanctuaries for themselves in Myanmar despite the cooperation extended to India by the Myanmarese army. The cross border movement of Nagas and Mizos for training, purchase of arms and shelter when pursued by Indian security forces, combined with the difficult terrain obtaining in the area, makes this border extremely challenging to manage. This border is manned by the Assam Rifles (AR), India’s oldest paramilitary force.

Along the Bangladesh border that has seen some action in recent years, the BSF is in charge. This border remains in the news as there are frequent clashes between the BSF and the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR). Managing this border is a peculiar challenge that is usually referred to as ‘Enclaves and Adverse Possessions’. There are 111 Indian enclaves (17,158 acres) within Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves (7,110.02 acres) in India.” Thirty-four tracts of Indian land are under the adverse possession of Bangladesh and 40 pieces of Bangladeshi land are in India’s adverse possession. Though the Land Border Agreement of 1974 has provisions for the settlement of the issue of adverse possession, it has not been implemented so far as the problem is politically sensitive.

The CCS had also approved the nomination of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) as the country’s primary counter-insurgency force. Since then, the BSF has been withdrawn from internal security duties in J&K and has been replaced by CRPF battalions. The CRPF is also the primary strike force for anti-Naxalite or anti Maoist operations in the left wing extremism (LWE) affected states in central India. Though it has suffered many casualties in operations so far and is still on a learning curve, it is gradually gaining experience in counter-insurgency operations and can be expected to acquit itself creditably in future.

Over the last few decades, the CAPFs have seen rapid expansion, some of which appears to have been hastily undertaken. They face many structural problems and need to be reorganized to suit their evolving roles. Also, the lack of inter-departmental coordination has led to the sub-optimal exploitation of the combat potential of the various forces, which is not in the nation’s best interests. It is time the government appointed a high-powered Study Group to enquire into the challenges being faced by the CAPFs, with a view to recommending remedial measures to improve their efficiency.