Homeland Security

Counter-Insurgency Operations in Northeast - I
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Issue Book Excerpt: Lost Opportunities | Date : 05 Jun , 2011

Counter-insurgency operations are politico-military in nature. Political mobilisation and military operations are undertaken side by side to achieve lasting results.

The installation of the government headed by Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh in 1996 augured well for India in its fight against insurgent groups. She denied them sanctuaries in her country and restricted their movement. But her defeat in the election held in 2001 and the victory of Bangla Nationalist Party of Begum Khalede Zia dramatically changed the situation in which the North-east insurgents once again established training and base camps in Bangladesh. The importance of sanctuaries across the international borders was highlighted in 1971, when after the defeat of Pakistani forces in Bangladesh, both Naga and Mizo insurgents lost their bases in erstwhile East Pakistan, which forced both the groups to rethink their future.

Loss of sanctuary in East Pakistan and hounded by the army in their renewed bid to send fresh recruits to China through Myanmar, a section of the Nagas, in fact, signed a peace treaty with the Government in 1975, known as the Shillong Accord. The Mizos also signed a peace agreement with the Government of India in 1976 but later reneged due to intense rivalry between the underground factions for supremacy.

Re-organising of Infantry Battalions for Counter-Insurgency Operations

One of the earliest attempts to reorganise the infantry battalions for counter-insurgency tasks was the creation of (I) Battalions in the 1960s by converting some of the existing battalions drawn from some selected regiments. These units were to be permanently deployed in the Naga Hills and Tuensang Area with their personnel being periodically turned over from within their respective regiments.15 The (I) Battalions were to be lightly equipped having minimal motor transport but more radio sets. The battalions did good work but the experiment was given up for unknown reasons.

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The idea was revived again in the early 90s when the requirement of forces for internal security duties increased dramatically due to enhanced threat posed by Pakistan’s proxy war after Operation Bluestar. It was envisaged to raise ‘a paramilitary force with army’s ethos under the MoD, designated as Rashtriya Rifles. Paramilitary forces and their lobby in the MHA vehemently opposed the idea, which was expected.16

Military operations against insurgents by its very nature are bound to result in some harassment and grievance to the general public, despite the best efforts of the troops.

The Rashtriya Rifles had been conceptually visualised as a specialised internal security formation with units constituted of 75 percent ex-servicemen and balance from the regular army. But it didn’t work out as originally conceived. Ever since its inception the force has 100 percent deputationists from the army and has been deployed exclusively in J&K except for a brief period in the North-east.

Composition of the Assam Rifles

Assam Rifles was raised primarily for deployment in the North-east and comprised men from these areas. Over the years, the force earned a well-deserved reputation as the Sentinels of the North-east, for its exemplary services in keeping peace and guarding our North-eastern frontiers. Some years ago, its composition was changed to all-India force and its distinctive character diluted to one of the many para-military forces. It has thus lost its excellent rapport with the local people, so essential for gathering intelligence.

Gen VP Malik, the former army chief, recommends that the force should comprise 60 to 70 percent of its personnel from the North-east.17 He also favours ‘home and hearth’ units or village guards of the type raised in Arunachal in the past. Such units with as many local ex-servicemen as possible should be raised wherever border-holding forces are thin on ground.18

Civic Action: Winning the Hearts and Minds

Military operations against insurgents by its very nature are bound to result in some harassment and grievance to the general public, despite the best efforts of the troops. They have therefore to be balanced by effective civic actions, which touched people’s lives at the grassroots. A bridge over a rivulet connecting two villages, piped water supply and/or water storage tanks, improvement of village roads, construction of playing fields, repair of school buildings, visit by army doctors to inaccessible villages and treatment of patients in regimental polyclinics touched the lives of poor tribesmen and are parts of the campaign of civic action, which the Indian Army has been executing wherever it has been called upon to undertake counter-insurgency operations.

“¦treatment of patients in regimental polyclinics touched the lives of poor tribesmen and are parts of the campaign of civic action, which the Indian Army has been executing”¦

The concept is, however, not an original formulation of the Indian Army. It can nonetheless take credit for implementing it in letter and spirit. It was practised in Malaya in counter-insurgency operations against the communist guerrillas in the sixties by the British forces under General Templer. In the expanding American empire after 1898, civic action went hand in hand with military measures in the Philippines. In keeping with the American penchant for devising new exotic phrases, they called it the ‘attraction’ programme, which included a variety of public works projects to improve communication and health.19 The experiences in communist countries have been different. The methods adopted by them against internal rebellions and dissents in colonies have been ruthless.

Book_Lost_OpportunitiesThe large- scale violations of human rights of national minorities and political dissenters during the Stalinist period in erstwhile Soviet Russia have been documented in many best selling novels by Russian authors, some of which have been made into classic movies by renowned western moviemakers. The operations of China’s PLA in Tibet and Xinjiang are other examples. The crackdown on peaceful demonstration for the restoration of democracy by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square and the brutalities committed on them by soldiers armed with tanks are too recent to recall.

Psychological Operations (Psy Ops)

Psy ops are powerful weapons in the hands of protagonists in any insurgent warfare. The Naga insurgents scored hands down over the administration and the army in the conduct of psy ops. The NNC had developed an expert publicity department headed until the end of 1955 by the charismatic Sakhrie and later by others. The underground propaganda has often been brilliant, carefully crafted to address the psychology of the people, and in sharp contrast to the dull and pretentious publicity work of the government.20 “An idyllic picture, for example, there is no communal feeling, or are there religious differences, no family ever pays tax (except perhaps to the underground), we do not arrest or imprison anyone, and murder is very rare (other than headhunting, of course), somewhat divorced from reality, of a what a free Nagaland was like, was created.”21.

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In a booklet published in 1953, the villagers were told that in the plains, ‘unlike our country land belongs to the state and the people have to pay taxes for land, for house-sites and buildings too, for fisheries and even for forest product. They have a water tax, latrine tax, entertainment tax and road tax. Everything has to be paid for if they have to live in this world. We Nagas pay no tax’.22 The problem of how to raise finances for a separate state did not seem to bother anyone.

The Nagas are very fond of meat and their rice beer, which the insurgents exploited cleverly to gain their support by propagating that the campaign by the Hindus against cow slaughter and Indias policy of prohibition would one day be applied to them.

In Mokokchung, there was a definite attempt to win over the churches by frightening them that the Hindu Government of India would ban Christianity and force the Nagas to become Hindus, and for a time many Christians became alarmed and joined the insurgents.23 The Nagas are very fond of meat and their rice beer, which the insurgents exploited cleverly to gain their support by propagating that the campaign by the Hindus against cow slaughter and India’s policy of prohibition would one day be applied to them.

The administration’s attempt at psy ops was lackadaisical. Occasionally, pamphlets were produced setting out the protections provided to the tribes in the constitution and the many schemes formulated for the development of tribal areas. Even these never got distributed to the target audience and in many cases rotted in the government offices. Occasionally the government littered the jungles with leaflets announcing amnesty as in the Mizo Hills in January 1967. There was no policy to counter the specifics of insurgent propaganda, based on half-truths, other than announcing the allocation of large funds for the development of the North-east, which did not touch the daily life of the common people.

The local factors and the peculiarities of different tribes were seldom factored in the formulation of policy. In the absence of transparency in the utilisation of the central fund, it was seen as bribe by the centre to the insurgents and their sympathisers. The politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus came to define one part of the tribal scene. The army, however, made civic action an important part of their counter-insurgency operations. ‘To the insurgents, Good Samaritan (name given to civic action programme in Manipur) was a dangerous psychological offensive by the army, which they tried to discredit with all means at their disposal including smear campaign in the local media.’24

Indian Armys record was more humane and practical in similar situation in Nagaland.

Learning from their past experience, the army has lately produced pamphlets, e.g., ‘Bleeding Assam’ that give factual accounts of the amoral life and debauchery which the top leaders of ULFA indulge in the safety of Bangladesh and the brutalities committed by its cadres on innocent people of Assam. Here again, the pamphlets are in English, which is not understood by ordinary Assamese.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Brig (Dr) SP Sinha

Brigadier (Dr) SP Sinha, VSM (Retd)

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