Events & Issues

New Delhi, 3 May 2010

Tackling Naxal Menace

ARMY MUST GET MORE INVOLVED

By Lt Gen Pran Pahwa (Retd)

It is paradoxical. The Prime Minister says that the Naxalites pose the biggest security threat to the country since Independence. But simultaneously, he announces that the Army, which has over five decades of experience in fighting insurgency, will not be used against them as they are our own misguided people. But the Army is already being used against our own people in Jammu and Kashmir and some north eastern States. The explanation given for this contradictory stand is that the insurgents there are fighting for secession.

It seems to have been overlooked that the Naxalites are fighting for something even bigger. They want not just a part of the country but all of it, and that too by violent means. This may be brushed aside as mere rhetoric and something that can never happen, but people with an agenda like that are patient. They give themselves sufficient time (in this case the deadline is 2050) and single-mindedly pursue their objective. The purpose of this piece is to stress that the Naxal insurgency is more than just a law and order problem and the Army needs to be brought in immediately.

The very thought of the Army being employed in the heartland of the country is instinctively distasteful for most. It must be admitted, however, that this writer has been advocating this course of action for the last four years but has never found much support. Some people are against the very idea while the others feel that it is not yet time. Meanwhile, the insurgency is continuing to expand.

The danger is that if at all this decision is taken in the future it might be too late because an ideology-driven movement like the Naxalite insurgency follows a typical growth pattern. It begins with a small band of people fighting for a popular cause (like against poor governance and inadequate development in this case) and conducting hit and run raids against the government forces. With each success their popularity increases and more people join them. The group continues to grow with each victory as it is a normal human tendency to side with the winner.

It follows therefore that an insurgency must be stamped out by the police forces in its very initial stages. If the action is delayed beyond a certain point then a more potent force like the Army will have to be called in. In this particular case it appears that the government did not take timely action because it failed to understand this aspect of the growth trajectory of the Naxalite insurgency. Consequently, the movement has now evolved to a level where the insurgents can move around in large groups and attack police posts, hijack trains and take government officials hostage with impunity. At this point of time even the Army may only be able to contain the further spread of the insurgency and wipe it out completely.

Like all insurgencies, the Naxalite insurgency too is essentially a political problem and will ultimately have to be solved politically. At present the insurgents are on a winning spree and in no mood to negotiate. Their aim, as they have unabashedly declared, is not development, but to spread the Maoist ideology throughout the country and finally take over power at the Centre through violent means. They will be convinced that they cannot achieve this aim by violent means and agree for talks only after they have suffered a series of military defeats by the Army. The government can then negotiate from a position of strength.

Punjab is often quoted as an example where insurgency was eliminated predominantly by the police. The government too appears to have been swayed by that experience while planning to tackle the Naxalites. But there is very little similarity between the two. In Punjab, the cause (Khalistan) had little public support, the movement itself was uncoordinated and divided among various groups and their senior leaders were all sitting safely abroad. The insurgency eventually lost focus and degenerated into a law and order problem. These aspects of the Naxalite insurgency are quite the opposite and the Punjab model is therefore misleading. 

The police and the paramilitary forces (PMF) have achieved some successes in the past, specially their Special Forces. But they do not appear to have dented the insurgency seriously as it has continued to grow steadily. There are many factors inhibiting the effective employment of the police and PMF by themselves. Their senior level leadership, which is from the IPS, is not sufficiently knowledgeable about combat operations, their organisational structure does not cater for coordinated employment of small units over a wide area and the efficacy of their logistics system in the field is questionable. The training of most of the troops is also not up to the required standards. Their record in containing the Naxalites has therefore not been very encouraging.

It will take some time before the police and the PMF can be reorganised and restructured to take on the responsibility of fighting the insurgency by itself.  Till then the Army, the PMF and the police must operate together with the overall planning being in the hands of the Army which has both the experience and the staff to launch and coordinate operations over a wide frontage. Once the PMF and the police are ready, the Army must gradually step back and hand over the major responsibility to them. That is what has been done in J&K.

The Army’s reluctance to get involved in the Naxalite problem beyond providing the police and PMF training and advice is understandable; not only is it already over-stretched but it is also facing an acute shortage of officers. It is probably also afraid that counter-insurgency operations spread across five States with local politics thrown in will be a messy affair. And though the Home Minister has declared that he will get rid of the problem in two to three years, the Army knows that it will more likely be 10 to 15 years. In spite of this, if the assessment of the government that the Naxalites pose the biggest threat to the country at the moment is correct, then the Army cannot hold back. It must be brought in immediately to curb the further expansion of the insurgency. 

The impression that the Army is inclined to use excessive force is not correct. It always employs the minimum possible force in internal security tasks as is evident from the fact that it has never used tanks, guns or aircraft against insurgents or rioters in the country. The use of Air Force in the offensive role is, however, not recommended because the collateral damage that could be caused may eventually be counter-productive. Moreover, guerrilla warfare by its very nature is designed to neutralise the superiority of the government forces in manpower, equipment and technology. Thus, while the Air Force may be very effective initially, the guerrillas will soon develop tactics to evade it.

The government will doubtless face many legal, political and organisational hurdles (including protests from human rights activists) in employing the Army against the Naxalites. These must not be allowed to stand in the way of national security and ways must be found to overcome them.  ---INFA  

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)