Bibhu Prasad Routray
Pragati Magazine, May 2013, Page: 9-11
The
premature claims by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in its Annual Report for
the year 2006-07 that the overall violence in the northeast “has been
contained” notwithstanding, the region’s rendezvous with insurgency and
instability continued much longer. Till the newly installed Awami League (AL) Government
in Dhaka decided in 2009 to put a halt to the country’s
tolerance of the activities of Indian insurgents on its soil, insurgency
continued full steam, thwarting New Delhi ’s
twin efforts of pushing foreign governments in Bhutan ,
Bangladesh and Myanmar
to cooperate with its own counter-insurgency operations at home. However, three
years since this momentous and landmark cooperation from Bangladesh that should
have reduced the insurgents to tatters, insurgency movements in the northeast
live on, albeit weak and a poor caricature of their former selves, yet
demonstrating signs and intent of making a comeback. Ineffectual policies that
make central forces the backbone of counter-insurgency operations are at the
core of such failures.
The
MHA, in its year-end report for the year 2011, asserted, “There has been
significant decline in the incidents of violent killings of the civilians and
the security forces in the North Eastern States due to the consistent efforts
by Ministry of Home Affairs.” While the MHA’s actual contribution to the
decline in violence levels can be a contentious issue, insurgency-induced
violence has indeed hit the bottom. Compared to 2007, the year which witnessed
killing of 498 civilians and 79 security force personnel in the northeast, security
situation in the region has improved significantly to record 97 civilian and 14
security force fatalities in 2012.
Lest
this be construed as a tactical retreat by the insurgent outfits, almost all
the major outfits in the region had been reduced to a state of weakness. The
United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA)’s anti-talk faction, reduced to cadre
strength of less than 150, had to find sanctuary in Myanmar .
From being one of the most potent outfits in Manipur, much of United National
Liberation Front (UNLF)’s action plan, following its chairman R K Meghen’s
arrest in Bangladesh ,
veered around preserving its cadres.
By
the end of 2011, the Northeast appeared on a road to complete recovery and the
days of insurgency, once seen as everlasting, appeared numbered. The then Home
Minister P Chidambaram predicted a “final settlement of the issues” in December
2010 and a more circumspect “ebbing of insurgency” a year later. Insurgencies, by
no means, were dead in this frontier, but certainly were on deathbeds, creating
thereby significant opportunities for the police forces in the region to
consolidate their hold over the hitherto no-go areas.
On
the contrary what continued were the old tactics — combination of alarmist
assessments of the state of insurgencies by the governments of the day and a
lackadaisical approach at enabling the police to take charge of the overall
situation. For the region’s political class, to give up on the central forces, notwithstanding
the latter’s negligible contribution to the transformed state of affairs, remained
an impossible dream. The prospect of the return of peace appeared to be bad
news for the political class, for it could bring in new responsibilities. Carrying
on with the narrative of instability, on the other hand, has been far more
convenient.
Several
questions relating the counter-insurgency strategies remain unasked and
unanswered in the northeast. Why a situation of declining violence, when the
cadre strength and consequent nuisance potential of the insurgents have
declined to record low levels, cannot be handled by the police forces? Why have
the MHA’s police modernisation programme with allocations running into Rupees 1690
crores between 2000 and March 2013, consistently failed to augment policing
capabilities in the northeast? If indeed there is a method to the fascination
of the Chief Ministers of northeastern states to continue projecting a
“conflict-affected” rather than a “conflict- free” status for their states, why
can’t the Army, with all its reservations against involvement in the Maoist
theatres and opposition to the dilution of the controversial Armed Forces (Special
Powers) Act, has not made any unilateral effort to extricate itself from the
northeast’s conflict theatres?
Not
surprisingly, riding on such persistent disinclination to launch police-led
initiatives, the ULFA has been able to cast both its violence profile and
extortion abilities far beyond the upper Assam
districts in the proximity of Myanmar
into districts abutting state capital Dispur. Dismissed previously as a
miniscule faction reduced to irrelevance, it has managed to revive itself into
what the Assam
governor described in February 2013 as a “force to reckon with”. In 2012, 357
ULFA cadres were arrested and 16 were killed in encounters. Yet the cadre
strength of this faction led by Paresh Baruah has increased to over 250, underlining
the irrelevance of the continuing peace talks with the pro-talks factions.
A
similar story has unfolded in Manipur. Major insurgent outfits have managed to
thwart the prophecies of doom by forming an umbrella organisation, the CorCom (Coordination
Committee) and continuing sporadic violence. The Garo Hills of Meghalaya, the
erstwhile transit route for the insurgents between Bangladesh
and Assam , has
again become active. With no end to the Naga conflict in sight, not only the
Nagaland state continues to be a theatre of internecine warfare, abduction and
extortion but problems routinely spill over into neighbouring Manipur and
Arunachal Pradesh.
More
importantly, beyond these narratives on the big and influential among the armed
factions, smaller outfits have mushroomed in the region, filling up the vacuum
left open by the larger outfits. The localised and yet all pervasive activities
of the Santhal Tiger Force, Karbi People’s Liberation Tigers, Bodoland Royal
Tigers Force, United Tribal Liberation Army et al, combining extortion, arms
smuggling and abductions, is not captured by these profusely comforting figures
of 111 civilian and security force deaths in 2012.
In
the last week of April 2013, Assam Police arrested a central committee member
of the Communist Party of India-Maoist in Assam .
Each incident of this nature on earlier occasions has been used by Assam
Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to demand additional battalions of central forces
for the state. Such pathological dependence on central forces could find a
potential facilitator in this year’s parliamentary elections in Bangladesh .
Victory for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP )
may very well put north-eastern insurgency on a path to recovery. New
Delhi then can be left ruing the undoing of a job half
done.
Republished in Eurasia Review
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