Bibhu Prasad Routray
Pragati, 7 March 2014
In July 2013,
a commander of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI -Maoist) asserted
that the fighting army of the outfit he represents has a definite edge over the
security forces. He said, “Our honesty, dedication and selflessness, coupled
with public support, have kept us firm and strong over the years.” Maoist
literature is replete with such affirmations. While such statements are mostly
rhetorical, typical of an extremist movement trying to assert moral superiority
vis-a-vis its adversaries, these do contain some truths. At least in terms of
attachment to an objective, the extremists are much ahead of the security
forces who are merely to trying to prevent an end game.
To begin with,
the country’s political leaders had less faith in the security forces. In his
address at the Chief Minister’s Conference of Internal Security in New Delhi 20 December 2007 , Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh said, “Inadequate, ill-equipped, ill-trained, poorly-motivated
personnel cannot take on Naxalite extremists who are increasingly getting
better equipped and organised.” In the next six years, enormous resources were
spent to create a force that can discard these loopholes. The country continues
to incur such expenses in modernisation programmes.
Improvements,
as a result, have been achieved in terms of amassing a large contingent of
fighting men, building on their capacities, and also the equipments in their
possession. The days when the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) used to admit that
the insurgents are better armed than the state police force personnel are far
behind. Most of the police posts today are much better protected and are no
longer sitting ducks they used to be half a decade back. While a large scope
for improvement in the operating standards remains, the security forces
combating the Maoists are much better dressed, fed, and equipped today than
earlier.
Contrast this
imagery of a security force personnel with that of a Maoist. In spite of the
reports of the CPI -Maoist collecting
millions of rupees as extortion and establishing arms smuggling networks
through India’s northeast, living conditions of an average rebel has not
undergone any improvement over the years. His/ her life is constantly on the
run with access to the most basic diet just enough to survive and to crude
weapons (only the senior cadres have access to sophisticated weapons) for
purposes of inflicting fatalities on the enemy as well as self-defence. It is
apparent from the descriptions of the media persons who have spent time in
Maoist camps that with the state’s military approach gathering steam, such
operating conditions have become even more precarious and inhospitable.
While one can
go on debating the way the CPI -Maoist has
been able to transform the cadres recruited through a range of methods into die
hard revolutionaries, the fact remains that the steadfast attachment to an end
game invariably differentiates the extremists from the security force personnel.
While doubting the gallantry quotient among the security forces is none of the
purposes of this article, the reality is that the left-wing extremism affected
theatres of the country, much like the insurgency-affected states of the
Northeast, are marked by a contest between resolute attachment to an ideology
and personal bravery. Somehow, the rigorous training modules and expenses on
firearms incurred on the security forces have not been able to bridge the
crucial gap between competency and commitment.
Data on
desertion among the security forces and surrender of Maoist cadres provide a
useful, albeit not the most ideal, empirical evidence for this argument. Between
2009 and 2012, central police organisations like the Central Reserve Police
Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and the Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)
lost 36,618 personnel to resignations and voluntary retirement. In 2013, another
8,500 personnel left their services. Experts attribute such mass-scale
attrition to reasons such as stress, continued deployment in conflict zones and
absence of peace time postings; hostile operating environments; and lack of
basic facilities.
In comparison,
1533 Maoist cadres surrendered between 2009 and 2013. Some attributed their
decisions to an ideological disconnect, some to ill health and some others to
the hardships in the forests. Even considering the fact that not all the
resigning security force personnel were deployed in Maoist affected areas and
also that the total strength of the paramilitary forces is several multiples of
the number of the Maoists, the retiree/ surrendered personnel to total force
ratio is alarmingly higher among the security forces than the extremists. In
simple terms, in spite of much worse operational conditions, most Maoists chose
to remain with the outfit.
While several
factors lie at the root of the “trend of attrition” among the security forces, three
prominent ones are worth mentioning. One, there is a persisting command and
control problem with the security forces, exemplified by forces being led
during operations by less qualified commanders which result in operational goof
ups. Second, in the absence of a national policy on extremism, force operations
resemble a blow hot and blow cold engagement, inducting a sense of bewilderment
among the soldiers regarding the nature of the adversary. And thirdly, in spite
of their value to the government’s endeavours in the extremist affected areas, the
forces continue to be treated as fully expendable. Stories of families of slain
security force personnel being treated shabbily by the government are by no
means infrequent. When national unity is still a contested notion, dying or
getting maimed for a seemingly incomprehensible cause could be a completely
worthless affair to these men in uniform. The extent to which recent proposals
such as stationing security force personnel in the propinquity of their
families during their entire career can address such serious operational
anomalies is debatable.
Among the
state’s several inherent advantages over the extremists, enormous resources are
the key to ensure that there is never a shortage of fighting men. Hardly
anybody anticipates a Maoist takeover of India
No comments:
Post a Comment