Insurgency Re-run: Tracking the resurgence of violence in India's northeast

Bibhu Prasad Routray

Jane's Terrorism & Insurgency Monitor, 7 July 2015


Key Points

• A new coalition of ethnic insurgent groups has launched a spate of attacks across India's Northeast since April, including the killing of at least 18 soldiers in Manipur on 4 June.
• The emergence of the United National Liberation Front of Western Southeast Asia marks a notable deterioration in the security situation in the northeast, which had seen a steady decrease  in insurgent violence since 2002.
• The episode has underlined the fragile nature of the various ceasefires and the peace processes in the northeast and highlighted the importance of cross-border cooperation with Myanmar.   

Return of the Native: CPI-Maoist in Kerala

Bibhu Prasad Routray

IPCS Article No. 4850, 16 March 2015

On 7 December 2014, in the first ever incident of its type, personnel of Thunderbolt, the elite paramilitary commando unit of the Kerala Police exchanged fire with a six-member team of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) at the Chappa forest area located on Kozhikode-Wayanad border. No casualties were reported as the Maoist team escaped following a 10-minute long encounter. In the subsequent days, small teams of Maoists vandalised forest offices at Wayanad and Palakkad and carried out an attack on a private quarry-cum-crusher unit in Kannur district.

On the basis of these three incidents that occurred within a span of two months (December 2014 and January 2015), it is difficult to conclude that Kerala could soon become a stronghold of left-wing extremists. However, what is undeniable is that the social conditions that allowed the rise of Naxalism in the late 1960s in Kerala continue to persist and are again being exploited by the extremists. Worse still, in spite of at least a two-year old input of the CPI-Maoist's foray into the region, the state administration has done little to meet the exigencies.

Inspired by the Naxalbari uprisings, Kerala witnessed the first incident of left-wing extremist violence in the form of a raid on the Thalassery police station in North Malabar's Kannur district on 21 November 1968. The attack, however, ended in a failure. Of the 1000 Naxals and their sympathisers planned to take part in the raid, only 315 turned up. A lone grenade hurled at the police station failed to explode and as the sentry at the police station set off the alarm, the group fled. 

Two days later, however, a successful attack was carried out on the Pulpalli police wireless station that resulted in the killing of some police personnel. Other raids on the same day targeted estates of landlords in the Wayanad forests by armed peasants, workers and students under the leadership of Kunnikal Narayanan. Grains seized from the estates were distributed among the poor. However, most of the people who took part in the attack, including Arikkad Varghese and Philip M. Prasad, were arrested.

Following these raids, Naxal supreme leader Charu Majumdar sent a congratulatory message hailing the "heroism and courage displayed by the impoverished masses of Kerala" which he said "have raised a new wave of enthusiasm among the revolutionary people all over India." However, apart from the fact that arrests played a role in weakening the Naxal movement in Kerala, Majumdar's insistence on targeting the unarmed landlords and zamindars further divided the Naxals in the state. Leaders like Kunnikal Narayanan wanted to remain focused on attacking the police stations.

Few more raids took place in the subsequent years. In 1969, a police station in Kuttiyadi was attacked, in which Naxal leader Velayudhan was killed. In 1970, Naxals killed a landlord in Thirunelly and looted grains from another landlord's house.

The spike in extremist violence led the Congress party-led state government to launch an operation that led to several Naxal leaders being arrested. Prominent leader, 32-year old Arikkad Verghese, was killed in controversial circumstances. Such measures crushed the Naxalite movement in Kerala by 1976. Charu Majumadar's hope that the "heroic peasant revolutionaries of Kerala would lead the tens of millions of revolutionary people of India," failed to materialise.

The December 2014 and January 2015 incidents, have been interpreted as a resurfacing of left-wing extremism in the state after nearly four decades. Districts like Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur, and Kasaragod have been identified as areas of Maoist presence. State police sources indicate that these districts would link up the Eastern Ghats to the Western Ghats and provide the Maoists a safe route for movement of cadres and arms.

While these assessments could be true, what is being forgotten is that the CPI-Maoist has been building up its base in the tri-junction of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu at least since 2011. The Kerala government had been alerted by the Ministry of Home Affairs in 2011 regarding the outfit's plan to develop the tri-junction into a ‘perspective area’ for their activities. However, riding on a lethargic state response, by 2012, the CPI-Maoist had prepared well for launching the second stage of its presence in that region by declaring the formation of the Western Ghats guerrilla zone in Dakshina Kannada. The outfit made an abortive bid to attack the Thirunelly police station on 18 February 2012 to mark the martyrdom of Arikkad Varghese. And yet, till the attack on December 2014 took place, the state administration did little in terms of a futuristic plan of meeting the extremist challenge.

In terms of human development indicators, districts like Mallapuram, Wayanad and Palakkad lie at the bottom, thus, constituting perspective areas for Maoist growth and operation. The CPI-Maoist is a far more organised and capable extremist outfit compared to the Naxals who were crushed in the 1970s. Kerala would do well to develop a synchronised plan of development and security to respond to the emerging threat.

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/return-of-the-native-cpi-maoist-in-kerala-4850.html

Book Chapter: The Skewed Balance: Technologists' Dominance in India's Military Modernization

Bibhu Prasad Routray

in Rajesh Basrur & Bharath Gopalaswamy, eds. "India's Military Modernization", Oxford University Press, 2015 pp. 38-66.

1st Paragraph

After six and half decades of India's independent existence, the country's arms acquisition and technology absorption process remains overly skewed, tilted decisively in favour of the civilian technologists and undermining the preferences of the armed forces. A mishmash of policies promoting autarky, distrust of the military, and the avowed objective of building an indigenous technology base and establishing self-reliance in military preparedness, has prevented the graduation from a distorted acquisition process to a structured one. Largely in the name of self-reliance, the technologists continue to reign over a regime that is known for its delays and cost over-runs rather than for providing an efficient system of delivery. Belated attempts have been made to restore order in the overall state of affairs. However, the success of the technologists belonging to the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), India's primary military Research and Development (R&D) agency, in one arena– that of missile technology and missile defence – perpetuate this distortion in the system as a whole. 

http://www.amazon.in/Indias-Military-Modernization-Technologies-International/dp/0199451621

Dizzy Heights: India and China work towards closer relations

Bibhu Prasad Routray

Jane's Intelligence Review, April 2015, pp. 54-55.

Key points

• Border disputes continue to divide China and India, but both sides are seeking closer economic ties.
• New Delhi is taking measures to upgrade the country’s defence preparedness along its borders.
• Both countries will continue a policy of engagement to keep conflict at a manageable threshold.

Naxal Violence: Challenges to Jharkhand Polls

Bibhu Prasad Routray

IPCS Article No. 4741, 17 November 2014

As electorates in Jharkhand start casting their ballot on 25 November, marking the beginning of the five-phase assembly elections spanning almost a month, the threat of left-wing extremism hangs heavy over the poll process. However, while the elections may pass without much violence, addressing the issue of extremism would remain important for the party assuming power.

Statistics reveal an improved security scenario since the last assembly elections. From 208 civilian and security force fatalities in 742 violent incidents recorded in 2009, 152 deaths in 387 incidents took place in 2013. This year, till the first week of November, less than 60 deaths have been reported. Police claim that the Maoists have retreated from the majority of their strongholds, leading to the return of normalcy in several areas.

However, media personnel covering the elections portray a different picture of a lacklustre campaign under a pervading regime of fear. In districts like Latehar, Gumla and Khunti, police personnel bury themselves under barricaded and fortified police stations advising civilians not to venture into the interior areas. The candidates and their supporters, as a result, have indulged in isolated efforts to seek support among the people. Rallies and open canvassing of votes have remained predominantly urban affairs. Prominent journalists from the state like Dayamani Barla have indicated that the results of the polls in several districts of the state are indeed being decided by the power of the gun, wielded by the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) and another three dozen splinter criminal groups, some of whom have been courted by the political parties.

Several incidents of recoveries of arms have given further credence to the fact that the CPI-Maoist that has been announcing the boycott of the polls through pamphlets and posters is determined to carry out some acts of violence targetting the security forces and political activists. Over 400 kilograms of local explosives and 1,740 detonators were among the items recovered in Latehar district on 10 November. On 15 November, an improvised explosive device (IED) weighing 40 kilograms was found dug under a road in Khunti district.

On 15 November, a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel was injured in an encounter with the Maoists in Gumla district. The apparent Maoist strategy before the polls has been to use forested areas such as Kumari and Saranda to launch attacks on the security forces and poll officials. These are indications that the reduced violence of the past months, mostly due to the monsoon rains, may not serve as a parameter of state success any longer. The general secretary of CPI-Maoist's Bihar Jharkhand special area committee (BJSAC) Rupesh has indeed warned that the relative silence of the Maoists should not be confused with the disenchantment of the militia. "It could be a part of our strategy that we are not willing to waste our energy, forces and weapons but apt reply would be given to the security forces if they continue with their repression," he said in a media interview published on 15 November. Thus, some attacks can be expected both during the polling process and also in the days following the exercise, when levels of preparedness decline.

However, sporadic acts of violence are not likely to disrupt the polls in a significant manner. The percentage of voters casting their ballot in the past elections indicate both a popular yearning to take part in the democratic exercise and also the ability of the forces to provide a reliable security cover. Latehar, for example, recorded over 55 per cent of voting in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and 58 per cent during the 2009 assembly elections. Tribal-dominated Khunti district recorded 61 per cent voter turnout in the Lok Sabha elections, whereas Singhbhum recorded a 63 per cent turnout. Over 40,000 security forces were on duty during the Lok Sabha elections. This time, the election commission has promised to treble the number of forces.

A violence-free election ensured by force saturation can only be the first step towards addressing the problem of left-wing extremism. The newly elected government must evolve a credible policy to address the problem. The manifesto and other political pronouncements of the main political parties, however, portray a gross lack of imagination on how to solve the problem. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) broadly promises in four sentences in its 56-page manifesto that it will "try to combine social as well as developmental solutions for extremism." The JMM's 16-page flaws-marred manifesto did not even mention the issue.

Given the state of left-wing extremism that assumes additional complexity in states like Bihar and Jharkhand owing to the caste dynamics as well as factionalism among outfits, an immediate solution to the extremism problem is unforeseeable. While its own police force has been found wanting, Jharkhand's reputation of under-utilising the central forces has remained a matter of serious concern. The least the young state with 40 per cent of the national mineral wealth can hope for is to take forward steps towards the containment of the threat. The past has been disappointing. The future, one hopes, would be different.

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/naxal-violence-challenges-to-jharkhand-polls-4741.html 

Choosing Sides: Islamic State’s influence in South Asia

Bibhu Prasad Routray

Jane's Intelligence Review, November 2014, Pages: 14-17

Key points

• Recent incidents across South Asia attest to a rising threat level from the activities of Islamic State, which includes Afghanistan and Pakistan within its intended ‘caliphate’.
• Islamic State is now encroaching on traditional Al-Qaeda territory in South Asia, as Al-Qaeda’s core leadership struggles to reassert its significance through the establishment of a new branch, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Subcontinent (AQIS).
• Despite recent improvements in counter-terrorism capabilities, a lack of de-radicalisation programmes means that regional security agencies are ill-placed to counter the returnee threat and any further expansion by Islamic State.

Might of a Fragile Revolution

Bibhu Prasad Routray

IPCS Commentary No. 4705, 20 October 2014

On the morning of 18 October 2014, Shiv Kumar, a personnel belonging to the Chhattisgarh Armed Police was pulled out of a passenger bus in Sukma district by a group of Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres and killed. Kumar was ill and was on his way to the hospital when the bus he had boarded was waylaid by extremists. On the previous day, Raghunath Kisku, Founder Member, Nagarik Suraksha Samity (NSS), an anti-Maoist organisation, was killed by Maoists in Ghatshila sub-division of Jharkhand's East Singhbhum district.

Kumar was the 69th security force personnel and Kisku, the 164th civilian, to be killed by Maoists in 2014. Other activities perpetrated by the Maoists till 15 September include 125 attacks on the police; 40 occasions of snatching of weapons from the security forces; and holding of 25 arms training camps and 46 jan adalats in areas under their influence. While the occurrence of larger attacks have substantially decreased, the number of extremism-related incidents roughly remain the same compared to the corresponding period in 2013 – indicating the continuation of the challenge.

And yet it is a hard time for the Maoists. Till 15 September, 1129 CPI-Maoist cadres were neutralised, including 49 who were killed in encounters, and 1080 cadres, arrested. While the outfit can take pride from the sacrifices made by these men and women, what continues to trouble it is the perpetual desolation creeping into its ranks and files, leading to a large number of surrender of its leaders and cadres.

Among the 395 who have surrendered till 30 September are leaders like Gumudavelli Venkatakrishna Prasad alias Gudsa Usendi, Secretary, Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC), arguably the outfit's most potent military division based in Bastar and his wife Raji; GP Reddy, Member, the DKSZC, and his wife Vatti Adime; and Bhagat Jade and his wife Vanoja. According to the Chhattisgarh police, over 140 cadres have surrendered between June and September 2014 in Bastar alone, partly due to the disillusion with the outfit's ideology and partly convinced by the police's method of highlighting the discrimination suffered by the local Chhattisgarh cadres at the hands of those drawn from Andhra Pradesh.

Press statements of the CPI-Maoist, while condemning these surrenders as demonstration of opportunism and desertion of the movement by corrupt and politically degenerated persons, admit that the revolution is currently undergoing its most difficult phase. The CPI-Maoist has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in New Delhi of launching the third phase of Operation Green Hunt, a ruthless war aimed at annihilating the Maoists who are the "biggest threat" to its "pro-reform" policies. Asserting that it has merely only engaged in a "war of self defence," the outfit has called for a "widespread struggle to fight back the threat by uniting all the revolutionary and democratic forces."

Its progressively declining capacity to annihilate enemies since 2010 – in spite of the ability to pull off some of the most spectacular attacks on security forces and politicians in recent years – has remained a matter of worry for the CPI-Maoist. Its failure to disrupt the parliamentary and state assembly elections coupled with a regular desertion of its cadres has descended as an existential threat on the outfit that once controlled one-third of the country's geographical area. Even with the persisting bureaucratic inertia and unimaginative security force operations, most of the affected states have gained in their fight against the extremists.

However, the outfit's domination over large swathes of area in Chhattiagrh, Odisha and Jharkhand with significant presence in states like Bihar provides it with the ability to continue with its small ambushes. Its recruitment and fund raising ability appears to have shrunk. And yet, the outfit harps about a people's militia "now in thousands" united by apathy of the state and carefully calibrated image of the government being a representative of the exploitative industrial houses. Hence, a scenario in which surrenders and killings of the Maoists would push the outfit into oblivion is remote.

The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), after months of deliberation, is now armed with a new policy to counter the Maoists. The policy, subject to cabinet approval, would remain open to use "any element of national power" against the extremists. Although it does not rule out peace talks with the extremists, it makes the peace process conditional to the CPI-Maoist renouncing violence. It plans to make the state police the lead counter-insurgent force against the extremists while assigning the central forces, especially the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the responsibility of holding the counter-insurgency grid together "like a glue." While impressive in its nuances, the approach is guided by the belief that it is possible to wipe out the Maoists by force alone.

The impact of the new official counter-Maoist policy remains to be seen. However, in the clash between a militarily 'down-and-not-yet-out' CPI-Maoist and the official security apparatus that has its own set of serious problems, little more than persistence of the logjam can be expected.

http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/might-of-a-fragile-revolution-4705.html

Six Thousand Plus Killed: The Naxal Ideology of Violence

Bibhu Prasad Routray

IPCS Article no. 4657, 15 September 2014

How does one analyse the killings of 6105 civilians and security forces in incidents related to left-wing extremism between 2005 and 2013? Given that the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), since its formation in 2004, has been responsible for majority of these killings, conventional analyses have mostly focused on big and small incidents that produced these victims. While such methods are useful in terms of attempting to grasp the growing or declining capacity of the outfit, it is also useful to analyse the unceasing violence as upshot of an ideology that has for decades underlined the necessity to shed the enemy's blood to bring about a change in social and political order.

Three leaders – Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal and Kondapalli Seetharamaiah – dominate the discourse on Naxalism, which began in the 1960s. Mazumdar, in his ‘Eight Documents’ in 1965, exhorted the workers of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) to take up armed struggle against the state. He underlined that action and not politics was the need of the hour. Such calls resulted in a number of incidents in which the CPI-M workers started seizing arms and acquiring land forcibly on behalf of the peasants from the big landholders in Darjeeling. These incidents went on to provide the spark for the 1967 peasant uprising.

Following the formation of the All India Coordination Committee of Revolutionaries (AICCR), that emerged out of the CPI-M in November 1967 and was renamed as All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries (AICCCR) in May 1968, Mazumdar further reiterated his idea of khatam or annihilation of class enemies. Although incidents of individual assassinations influenced by khatam resulted in repressive state action targeting the naxalite cadres, the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML), which was formed in 1969 breaking away from the CPI-Marxist, continued professing violence as the key tool of revolution.

While Mazumdar's preference for using violence to overthrow existing social order and seizing state power remained the CPI-ML's mode of operation till 1972, a counter ideology with a stress on agrarian consolidation preceding an armed struggle was reiterated by Kanu Sanyal following Mazumdar's death. Sanyal was not against the idea of an armed struggle per se. However, he opposed Mazumdar's advocacy of targeted assassination.

In the subsequent years, the CPI-ML split into several factions. Although Sanyal himself headed a faction, he gradually grew redundant to the extreme left movement and committed suicide in 2010. Towards the last years of his life, Sanyal maintained that the CPI-Maoist's reliance on excessive violence does not conform to original revolutionary objectives of the Naxalite movement. On more than one occasion, Sanyal denounced the “wanton killing of innocent villagers”. In a 2009 interview, Sanyal accused the CPI-Maoist of exploiting the situation in West Bengal's Lalgarh "by using the Adivasis as stooges to carry forward their agenda of individual terrorism."

In Andhra Pradesh, since the 'Spring Thunder' of Srikakulam in 1970, Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, was responsible for the growth of the Naxalite movement under the aegis of the CPI-ML. After leading a faction of the CPI-ML and forming the People's War Group (PWG) in 1980 Seetharamaiah oversaw a regime of intense violence, thus, earning the outfit the description of "the deadliest of all Naxal groups". Even after the expulsion of Seetharamaiah in 1991, the PWG and its factions remained the source of extreme violence targeting politicians and security forces in the state.

Kanu Sanyal's reluctant support for armed violence was, thus, somewhat an aberration. Playing down the importance of mindless bloodshed remained a peripheral of the Naxalite movement. Each transformation of the movement thereafter in terms of splits, mergers, and formation of new identities escalated the ingrained proclivity to use violence as an instrument of expansion and influence. The CPI-Maoist represented a natural progression of this trend. And as the fatalities data reveal, each passing year, since its 2004 formation through a merger of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the PWG, it became more and more reliant on violence, rationalising the strategy as a defensive mechanism essential to its existence. 

In 2009 Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji, who led the outfit in West Bengal termed the violence as a "struggle for independence". Ganapathy, the CPI-Maoist general secretary, reiterated in his February 2010 interview that the violence is only a "war of self-defence" or a "counter-violence" in response to a "brutal military campaign unleashed by the state". Maoist Spokesperson Azad, who was later killed in controversial circumstances, rejected the appeal for abjuring violence by then Home Minister P Chidambaram in April 2010 indicating that such a move would allow the "lawless" security forces "continue their rampage". Azad also maintained that while the outfit generally avoids attacking the non-combatants, "the intelligence officials and police informers who cause immense damage to the movement" can not be spared.

Thus understood, few conclusions can be drawn, in contrast to beliefs that a peaceful resolution of the conflict could be possible. Its current frailty notwithstanding, regaining capacities to maximise violence would be a priority for the CPI-Maoist. It will continue to reject other methods of social and political change and maintain an unwavering faith in the utility of violence. Even while realising that a total victory vis-a-vis the state is unattainable, the outfit would remain an agent of extreme violence in its own spheres of influence. 

http://www.ipcs.org/article/peace-and-conflict-database-naxal/six-thousand-plus-killed-the-naxal-ideology-of-violence-4657.html

Road without a Signpost: Peace Processes in India's Northeast

Bibhu Prasad Routray

Pragati, 7 September 2014

In August 2014, Khasi insurgent outfit, the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) in Meghalaya declared its intention for starting peace negotiations with the government. Through a bizarre ultimatum, bordering on desperation, it even served an ultimatum on the government for appointing an interlocutor within 24 days. The state chief minister has since responded in affirmation and is asking for the required sanction from New Delhi. In all likelihood, the number of insurgent outfits under peace processes will increase by one in the coming days. Whether this new peace process, like many others continuing at present, will bring peace to the state or the north-eastern region is a different question.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) maintains a list of over 20 north-eastern insurgent outfits, who are in negotiations with the government. In a conflict-ridden region, where outfits capable of orchestrating intermittent violence have mushroomed, to boast of a long list of groups that have found reason in negotiating is a definite achievement for the government. This constitutes a success of the counter-insurgency approach of the Indian state. Quite naturally, in MHA’s lexicon the rest of the outfits who have not joined a peace process are “secessionists and extortionists who indulge in illegal and unlawful activities like abduction, extortions, killings.” While the portrayal is not entirely false, the ministry’s achievement in converting the ‘ongoing’ status of the peace processes to successful deals has remained abysmal.

The oldest of the outfits in negotiations, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) has been negotiating for the last 17 years over 80 rounds of talks. Its bete noire, the Khaplang faction (NSCN-K) joined the peace process in 2001. A group of 19 Kuki outfits in Manipur signed a Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement in 2009. While the Achik National Volunteers Council (ANVC)’s peace process in Meghalaya is 10 years old, the Assam base National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) started its negotiations in 2005.

Why outfits join peace processes has no definite answer. In 2004, a faction of the National Liberation Front (NLFT) in Tripura surrendered and initiated a peace process with the government with the hope that its leader Nayanbashi Jamatiya would be declared as the king of Tripura. After the state government declined, the leader made a disappearing act leaving his 250 cadres in a state of bewilderment and declared his intent to “free Tripura” through a renewed armed struggle. After nine years of faceless existence, however, Jamatiya surfaced in Tripura and surrendered again in August 2013. This time, he had no cadres accompanying him.

Barring this peculiar example, in most cases, a commitment for settlement of grievances through a negotiated settlement develops after a transformation in systemic conditions making continuation of an armed movement highly unfeasible. Barring the NSCN-IM, which hit the peace road through the intervention of the Church and the community elders, rest of the outfits including the Mizo National Front (MNF), the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) and the NDFB joined the peace process after losing their abilities to continue insurgency.

Thus, peace processes in most cases put the state on a high pedestal, allowing it to talk from a position of strength. In these circumstances, the state’s inability to go through a routine process of finalisation of the ground rules and implementing them, locking up of weapons, and reviewing a charter of demands submitted by the insurgents looks perplexing. As is clear with almost all the peace processes, none of these basic requirements have been fulfilled. While New Delhi has not even finalised drafts of peace pacts (as in the case of the ANVC), many outfits are yet to sit for a single round of negotiations with the government. As a result, none of the peace processes (barring the one with the Bodo Liberation Tigers, involving over 10 years of negotiations and a failed peace deal in 1993) has reached a conclusion.

The history of peace talks with the north-eastern insurgents is also replete with interlocutors, whose objective in some measure appeared prolonging the peace process to the best of their abilities. Reminiscent of the legal cases that go on for ever in the courts, the Naga peace process continued with a retired Home Secretary using the occasions for his foreign junkets and enjoying the benefits that came along with his post. With the MHA least interested in keeping an oversight, several dozens of rounds of negotiations were held in Asian and European capitals for a decade, without any substantive progress. Only after the interlocutor was shunted out in 2009 and the venue of talks was shifted to Nagaland in 2010, that some results started flowing in. In 2013, another interlocutor in the Naga peace talks, incidentally another former home secretary, abruptly quit his position to pursue a career in politics.

Wearing down the insurgents through prolonged talks is often highlighted as an important tactic in the security circles. The fact remains, however, that the only reason why the NSCN-IM remained committed to the process of negotiations is the benefit that came along with the process. Media reports cite how money-filled suitcases were regularly delivered in the outfit’s New Delhi office and a blanket licence of sorts was given to carry out its extortion activities in Nagaland. Under the ceasefire regime, the NSCN-IM’s cadre strength and weapons holding underwent a two-fold increase. The status of the Ceasefire Monitoring Group (CFMG) in Dimapur, in charge of implementing the ground rules, was reduced to a body that merely counts the number of ceasefire violations. Army officials who served as CFMG chairmen have chronicled their frustration upon their retirement questioning the utility of such exercises.

The NSCN-IM’s functioning has become a model of sorts for replication for other outfits under peace processes. As a result, such negotiations have co-existed with killings, abductions, extortion, arms smuggling, and involvement in incidents of sectarian clashes in Assam, Manipur and Meghalaya. An investigation by the Assam police in May 2014, revealed that in order to keep their weapons in use, the outfits under ceasefire are floating new groups and continuing extortion activities through them. In short, peace processes today are narratives of the confluence of official insincerity and insurgent opportunism. Any approach that seeks to resolve existing conflicts and prevent emergence of future ones needs to drastically alter the rules of the game.

Saying no to peace talks or imposing a moratorium on peace processes is politically untenable. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls had ruled out unconditional talks. “Talks with the insurgent groups will be conditional and within the framework of the constitution”, it read. Strictly implemented, this clause would make the negotiations will the NSCN-IM a deeply flawed exercise, since the outfit has consistently refused to abide by the Indian constitution.

The urgent need is of political negotiators replacing reliance on retired bureaucrats, who are handicapped in being unable to take policy decisions. The need is also to distinguish between the outfits who are worth negotiating with and groups whose requests can be ignored. There is a further need to implement the ceasefire ground rules with utmost sincerity and not letting criminal activities continue under the garb of a peace process. Drawing of curtains on the circus is long overdue.

http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2014/09/road-without-a-signpost/

Anti-Naxal Operations: Seeking Refuge in Symbolism

Bibhu Prasad Routray

IPCS Article No. 4608, 18 August 2014

The day Prime Minister Narendra Modi unfurled the national flag from the precincts of the historic Red Fort to mark India's 68th Independence Day, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) authorities in Chhattisgarh unfurled the tri-colour at Tadmetla in Sukma district. Flag hoisting at the site of the bloodiest massacre that claimed the lives of 75 CRPF personnel four years ago was apparently to make a statement that the forces have reclaimed the territory from the extremists and are asserting their authority over the piece of land. This avoidable symbolism, in the backdrop of apparent extremist domination over the area, in a way, sums up the country's stagnated approach towards the Naxal problem.

The 2010 attack at Tadmetla (then in Dantewada district which was bifurcated in 2012 to create the Sukma district) still counts as the worst attack ever to have been carried out on the central forces by the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist). The loss of an entire company of the CRPF cast a pall of gloom, and more importantly, pushed the forces into a defensive mindset. It also brought New Delhi's attempts to subdue the extremists through a multi-theatre military offensive to an abrupt halt. Subsequent inquiry by a retired police official revealed serious command and control lapses among the forces. The CRPF has not suffered a loss of that magnitude thereafter. Whether this has been achieved by addressing the weaknesses exposed by the attack or merely by becoming more defensive in its approach is debatable.

Behind the 'successful' flag hoisting at Tadmetla, however, were painstaking preparations. A CRPF contingent consisting of the specialised Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA) commandos and led by an Inspector General, camped in the area for several days. A detailed sanitisation exercise was carried out in the area during which a CRPF personnel was injured in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) explosion and had to be air lifted for treatment. A senior official told the media that the ceremony was essential "to mark the domination of this area."

Extremism related incidents reported in 2014, however, do not indicate any security force domination over the area. Sukma continues to be among the worst extremism-affected districts in Chhattisgarh. On 9 February, two CRPF personnel, including a Deputy Commandant, were killed and 12 others injured in a landmine blast carried out by the CPI-Maoist. Not far from the site where the tri-colour was hoisted, three COBRA personnel were killed and three others injured in a Naxal ambush on 9 April. And on 11 May, extremists killed 15 security force personnel at Jeerum Nullah in the district. Several other incidents of ambush, attack and explosion have been reported from the district. In fact, the domination of the extremists has forced to the CRPF to take upon itself the task of building a seven km road stretch as no private contractor has agreed to take up the job.  

In October 2013, Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami had pulled up the central armed police force organisations including the CRPF operating in Chhattisgarh for their "defensive strategy." Goswami regretted the fact that there was a lull in the action by the security forces despite New Delhi's directive to engage in result-oriented operations. The forces were not just reluctant to carry out sustained offensive operations against the extremists, even the routine area domination exercises were avoided. It is not clear whether the flag hoisting in Tadmetla, with significant sanitising preparations, marks the beginning of a change in the tactic of the forces and is demonstrative of a newfound vision. 

It is unfair to blame the CRPF personnel deployed in Chhattisgarh for the lull in action, for the current state of affairs emanates from a policy stagnation that marks the anti-Naxal initiative. Apart from their own internal problems and the continuing confusion whether to remain a supporting or lead counter-Naxal force, lack of coordination with the state forces, lack of adequate progress in state police modernisation, inertia at the level of bureaucracy, and lack of a national consensus with regard to solving the Naxal issue, have affected the performance of the central forces. This could be pushing them to find refuge in symbolic events rather than attempting decisive gains.

At one level, such policy stagnation is strange especially when the CPI-Maoist has lost several senior leaders across states and has failed to maintain a level of violence necessary to keep its own internal mechanism alive and kicking. At the other level, however, it underlines the country's predominantly reactionary counter-insurgency doctrine, which does relatively well in responding to extremist violence, but dithers when violence dips, either due to the setbacks suffered by the extremist outfits or because of the latter's tactical retreat decision. 

The task for New Delhi, thus, is well cut out. It has to find a way to instill a sense of purpose among the state as well as the central forces. It has to ensure that the bureaucracy and grass root politics works in tandem with the security forces. And it must ensure that the acts of symbolism come to a grand halt.

This article is a part of the monthly 'Red Affairs' column the author writes for the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi.

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