Indian Defence Review

Dearth of cadres has forced outfits to adopt ingenious tactics also in Assam albeit in a manner more devastating than in Manipur. The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has been forced to “outsource” terror on several occasions to avoid detection by security forces, which would have further reduced its strength and led to the disclosure of vital information on hideouts and operations. Several bomb blasts in Guwahati during 2005–2009 have been triggered by teenagers from impoverished families who were tasked to carry the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from remote locations and place them near markets in the city.

As long as insurgency continues to create an opportunity space for children, they will continue to be drawn to armed groups as a way to meet basic needs.

Police officials are of the view that on a few occasions, young boys from Bangladeshi migrant families have also been utilised to carry out operations in return for a fixed sum of money, which ran into a few thousands. Usually, children would be briefed about the procedure and route and almost nothing would be disclosed about the organisation and so the damage would be minimal even if they were caught. Not surprisingly, the police drew a blank when two 8-year-olds—Ganesh Das and Babu Chetri—were apprehended in Guwahati on 13 August 2009 on charges of extortion. On interrogation, the boys revealed they have been sent by a man from a nearby town to collect money from two shopkeepers who he said had taken a loan from him some time ago. The shopkeepers told the police that the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) had been intimidating them since the past several months and even threatened to kill them if they did not pay a fixed amount every year.

Proliferation and technological advancement of small arms, such as pistols, assault rifles, and grenade launchers have facilitated the transformation of children into fighters just as deadly as any adult. For most of human history, weapons relied on the brute strength of the operator. They also typically required years of training to master, which was apparently prohibitive to the effective use of children as soldiers. A child who was not physically mature could not bear the physical burdens of serving in the phalanx of the ancient Greek hoplites or carrying the weight of the medieval knight’s armour, let alone serve as an effective combatant.

“¦there have been many recent improvements in manufacturing, such as the incorporation of plastics, which has made automatic rifles so light that children can use them as effectively and easily as adults.

Even until a few generations ago, personal battlefield weapons such as the bolt action rifles of World War II were heavy and bulky, limiting children’s participation. However, there have been many recent improvements in manufacturing, such as the incorporation of plastics, which has made automatic rifles so light that children can use them as effectively and easily as adults. Just as important, most of these weapons have been simplified in their use to the extent that they can be stripped, reassembled and fired by a child younger than 10. The ubiquitous Russian-made Kalashnikov AK-47, which weighs 10.5 pounds, is a prime example. Having only nine parts, it is simple, designed to be exceptionally handy and requires little maintenance. On the basis of interviews of child guerrillas in Africa, an author concluded that it takes children 30 minutes to learn their use.16

Proliferation of small arms in the Northeast and neighbouring Myanmar has become so organised that even the Maoists of central India are reported to have struck deals with militant outfits in the region for unhindered supplies.17 Gone are the days when militants had to track thousands of kilometres to China to bring a few sacks of arms and ammunition or depend upon agents in various countries for consignments to get delivered. Now, weapons are stacked in huge quantities across the border in Myanmar, at Tamu, Homalin and Tidim, and agents who take orders are found along the entire stretch of the Indo-Myanmar border.

Women and children have been used by the outfits sometimes to bring in ammunition since they stand fewer chances of detection.

If the order is huge, the order is placed with agents deep inside Myanmar, in places like Kachin and Kokang, who get in touch with agencies in China and Thailand. The consignment could be ferried along the Chindwin and Irrawady rivers or even along roads with a tacit understanding with the police and army officials. Then they would be transported in small consignment into Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram through routes that keep changing depending on the deployment of the security forces. Women and children have been used by the outfits sometimes to bring in ammunition since they stand fewer chances of detection.18 In the Northeast, the border town of Moreh in Manipur and Dimapur in Nagaland are hubs where orders are taken and deals clinched. A part of the consignment may sometimes be kept by a militant outfit as “tax” for allowing passage through their territory.

Halting the Trend

The phenomenon of child insurgents violates the universal rule that children do not have any role in warfare. When children are engaged as insurgents, they are likely to indulge in violence since they construct their values and identities guided by military groups and their agendas. They are transformed into vehicles of violence rather than citizens who can build peace. Child soldiering then damages societies, threatens regional stability and is a high-priority issue in building peace, which is inalienable from human rights. The issue of child soldiers is largely a hidden one because most of them spend their time in remote conflict zones, away from public view and media scrutiny. They are invisible because no record is kept of their numbers or their precise roles. Many of them may not be part of the formally claimed strength of the forces or groups to which they are attached but are nevertheless unacknowledged members.

As long as insurgency continues to create an opportunity space for children, they will continue to be drawn to armed groups as a way to meet basic needs. To prevent child recruitment, this opportunity space must be shrunk through multifarious strategies appropriate to the situation. Since cases of forced recruitment or large-scale enrolment of children is not found in the Northeast, tackling the issue and putting a stop to recruitment could be easier than in the Maoist-affected states of the country or even in other countries where the problem has surfaced.

“¦possibility of these children joining another armed group after surrender cannot totally be ruled out given past instances and the existing situation in some states of the region.

India is a signatory to the UN-sponsored Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a comprehensive document prohibiting child recruitment. But none of the accords signed so far by the government with insurgent groups has ever acknowledged the presence of child or women guerrillas, let alone initiate measures for their rehabilitation. The government must first accept that there is a need to look at child guerrillas from a different perspective and that simply concluding an agreement with a militant outfit and ensuring surrender of arms may not be the end of the problem. The possibility of these children joining another armed group after surrender cannot totally be ruled out given past instances and the existing situation in some states of the region.

During his field research covering Afghanistan, Angola, Kosovo, Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and South Africa, the celebrated scholar Michael Wessels unravelled that psychosocial disorders are not uncommon among child soldiers, which necessitates specific programmes for them.19 The government’s task would have become difficult if it were to make efforts for children in underground outfits waging war, but almost all the militant groups in the Northeast that have recruited children have come overground through ceasefire agreements and have shown a willingness for a negotiated settlement. As such, none of these groups is likely to spurn programmes aimed at rehabilitating children. Irrespective of the progress made in talks on the demands of the outfits, agreements can be clinched between them and the government for initiating immediate steps like vocational training and counselling that would assist the children to get jobs and resume a normal life after the group has given up arms.

There is a consensus among researchers on the subject that stringent laws alone cannot lead to large-scale reductions in the use of children by armed groups. While the long-term strategy of putting an end to insurgency and related issues like small-arms proliferation in the region must relentlessly be pursued, efforts must be on to put in place effective measures at the local level that enhance awareness about child recruitment and curb the push and pull factors contributing to the phenomenon. Since the church and some civil society organisations have tremendous influence in the affected zones in the Northeast, they must be roped in to device mechanisms for monitoring, reporting on and acting on recruitment. The delivery mechanism of the government apparatus will have to be improved to ensure that development programmes reach the remotest corners, including the frontier tracts, and that they are implemented without delay and seepage of funds.

Conclusion

Insurgent outfits in India’s Northeast recruit and make use of children in a variety of ways and in a manner distinguishable from the practices followed by groups in other parts of the country and other countries in the world. Children end up in armed groups owing to a distinct set of push and pull factors, and often it is the child’s response to a situation of danger and uncertainty that has plagued many states in the region. As such, the phenomenon is intricately linked to the macro socioeconomic and political processes at work that have produced rapid and irrevocable changes in the tribal societies. In spite of a commitment to protect the rights of the child, the Indian government has neglected the issue, which is evident in its approach to talks with the militant outfits and the accords that have so far been concluded with them.

However, since groups that have enrolled children are overground and engaged in a peace process, efforts to curtail recruitment and detach children from militant camps could yield positive results. These efforts must encompass both the long-term strategy of putting an end to insurgency and related issues like small-arms proliferation in the region and the short-term goal of raising awareness about children and their rights and involving civil society organisations.

Notes and References

1. The first global study of the prevalence of child soldiering, a 1996 UN study, “Impact of Armed Conflict on Children by Graca Machel,” indicated there were around a quarter of a million child soldiers, with the largest numbers found in Africa and Asia. Subsequent reports, such as “Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers,” have estimated that there were approximately 300,000 child soldiers at any point in time, which tallies with the figures given in UNICEF’s factsheet on child soldiers.
2. P. W. Singer. “The Enablers of War: Causal Factors Behind the Child Soldier Phenomenon.” In Child Soldiers in the Age of Fractured States. Edited by Scott Gates and Simon Reich. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010, pp. 93–107.
3. The recruitment of children in the Salwa Judum movement in Chhattisgarh has been discussed in detail in the 2008 report “Dangerous Duty: Children and the Chhattisgarh Conflict by Human Rights Watch.” There is also mention of children in a report published by Asian Centre for Human Rights in 2006, named “The Adivasis of Chhattisgarh – Victims of the Naxalite Movement and the Salwa Judum Campaign.” “The Child Soldiers Global Report 2008” published by Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers has identified the Naxalite-affected states Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir as areas in India where children have been recruited by insurgent outfits. Occasional media reports have been pointing to the prevalence of the phenomenon.
4. Interview with a colonel of the Assam Rifles on 25 September 2007. 
5. Interviews with commanders of militant outfits and field visits made to overground and underground camps in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya between 2003 and 2010. 
6. S. Bhaumik. Troubled Periphery. Sage Publications, 2009.
7. Information given by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on the basis of an application filed by the author under Right to Information Act revealed that 109 cadres below the age of 18 belonging to the Black Widow or DHD (Juwel), which was active at Dima Hasao in Assam, surrendered on 2 October 2009. 
8. Reported on www.kanglaonline.com (1 February 2011). The number of unemployed job-seeking persons in Manipur has reached 685,422 as per the data provided by the Directorate of Employment Registrar. The data provided by the registrar is based on records till December 2010, of which 495,894 are males while 189,528 are females.
9. Reported on www.e-pao.net (7 April 2011) and the Assam Tribune (19 April 2011). The All Manipur Tribal Union (AMTU) highlighted the plight of the children in Manipur in its representation to Karin Hulshof, UNICEF representative to India. It urged the world representative to open a nodal office of UNICEF in Manipur in order to uplift conditions of the impoverished children of the state.
10. Interview with Kiamlo, commander of the ZRA and senior cadres, on 26 October 2010. Excerpts of the interviews and field visit also reported by the author in the Bengal Post (12 December 2010).
11. Reported in the Telegraph (11 October 2008). On 8 October, troops of the 20 Assam Rifles seized 1,870 bags of urea and potash loaded in 13 Shaktiman trucks near Molnom village in Chandel district. The Assam Rifles arrested four activists of the United Kuki Liberation Front, including two teenaged children, with arms and ammunition in connection with the case.
12. Reported in the Times of India (26 May 2010), “NSCN Gun-Runners a Threat to Talks,” which refers to the involvement of NSCN (IM) militants in gunrunning. Intelligence reports also point to the involvement of other groups, like the KNA, People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) and NSCN (K), in the illicit trade.
13. Reported in the Telegraph (7 December 2005). 
14. Interview with a superintendent of police in Manipur on 22 September 2008.
15. Reported in CNN-IBN (25 July 2008) and the Telegraph (11 July 2008).
16. Op cit, n. 2.
17. PLA commander-in-chief Manohar Mayum Pravin Kumar, alias Ngouba, told journalists on 4 May 2009 about the alliance between his outfit and the CPI (M) at an undisclosed location along the Indo-Myanmar border. Confessions by arrested Maoist cadres have also revealed links between CPI (M) and PREPAK. 
18. Interview with a superintendent of police in Manipur on 28 October 2010.
19. Michael Wessels. Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Harvard University Press, 2006.