Indian Defence Review

Current Governmental Plans to Manage LWE

Since the past few years, the centre has endeavoured to adopt a holistic approach to tackle the menace of LWE. This has seen liberal assistance in capacity building, deployment of central police forces, generous allocation of security-related expenditure to the affected states, better equipping and training of special police forces for counter-insurgency operations and construction of specialised infrastructure and fortified police stations. A number of review and monitoring mechanisms have been established by the central government. In addition, a standing committee of the chief ministers of the states affected by LWE has been set up under the chairmanship of the union home minister to achieve better coordination among the states. The union home secretary presides over a coordination centre with the chief secretaries and directors general of police of the various states while a high-powered review group under the cabinet secretary oversees macro security and interstate issues. In addition, the Member Secretary Planning Commission oversees the effective implementation of the development schemes in the affected areas. In addition, a unified command has also been set up in the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, with officers from the civil administration, the police and the paramilitary to jointly strategize anti-Naxal operations and oversee development projects in their areas of responsibilities.

The centre’s Integrated Action Plan and Road Requirement Plans-I have made some inroads into the development of remote regions after years of neglect. As the government allocates additional funding for special development projects, it must scrupulously ensure that funds are being properly used on the ground and not being misappropriated by corrupt elements in the states, as some NGOs have pointed out.

After Pakistan’s ISI-inspired terror attack in Mumbai in November 2009, P. Chidambaram was installed as the new home minister and did a commendable job of giving clarity and direction to the centre’s Naxal policy. He summarised the government’s response in three graphic words – Clear, Hold and Develop – which involves clearing the Maoists-Naxals from their swamps by undertaking offensive operations against them, establishing the writ of the civil administration in these areas and then making concerted efforts to ensure the much required economic development of these areas. Though this strategy is by itself sound, its implementation by some of the LWE-affected states has been tardy, at times even on political grounds. The Chhattisgarh government, however, handled its situation firmly, executed the so-called Operation Greenhunt with sincerity and did not release any of the captured Maoist cadres despite political pressures.8 Both Bihar’s and West Bengal’s chief ministers (Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee, respectively) appeared unenthusiastic about adopting the centre’s approach, and the Odisha government virtually capitulated to the Maoist militants by releasing a large number of the Maoist cadres who had been earlier captured by its police and paramilitary units.9 Earlier, the Andhra Pradesh state government had done well in combating the Naxals by establishing a dedicated and well-equipped counter-insurgency outfit, the Greyhounds – a step worthy of emulation by other states also.

Suggested Future Response

There is no doubt that the nation and the central government (far more than some state governments) are more than seized of the LWE malaise and the havoc it can create to the national security environment if not tackled with firmness, alacrity and the collective wisdom and resources of both the centre and the state governments, even some unwilling ones. The Government of India – with the experience of combating myriad insurgencies, including foreign sponsored and aided, successfully and not so successfully – thus needs to conceive, discuss, war-game, formulate and then implement a comprehensive national strategy embracing the security, political and socio-economic dimensions of the problem to confront LWE, which is truly a multidimensional problem. Importantly, all stakeholders, including central institutions, state governments, political parties of all hues, intelligence agencies, police and central police organisations, paramilitary forces, NGOs, social workers, educational institutions and captains of industry, will have to be taken on board and their visions and activities synergised. In addition, non-Congress state governments must not oppose the establishment of essential mechanisms, like the National Counter Terrorism Centre, and whatever reservations they have can be mutually sorted out in the larger national interest to together combat Naxal-Maoist terror.

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It is a matter of gratification that the government has rightly abjured the employment of the Indian army and the Indian air force against its own citizens for the time being. The air force can be gainfully employed for reconnaissance, speedy transportation of troops, logistics, evacuation of casualties, etc., while the Indian army can continue, now in larger measure, to train the police, central police personnel and the paramilitary in counter-insurgency operations. The Ministry of Home Affairs will do well to absorb in its forces a large number of able-bodied and motivated retired ex-servicemen, including from the Corps of Engineers (especially for anti-IED/mine tasks) in counter-insurgency operations. This well-trained national resource must not be wasted.

The criticality of counter-insurgency operations in the nation also warrants, under the Ministry of Home Affairs, a dedicated minister of state primarily dealing with internal security, who can, at the macro level, synergise all matters, operational, training, logistics, inter-agency coordination and, importantly, centre-state coordination. In addition, the government may wish to review the constitutional provisions of still keeping law and order exclusively under the State List or shifting it to the Concurrent List as law and order problems are, in a majority of the cases, getting difficult for states to handle on their own.

Conclusion

To merely attribute the spread of LWE to socio-economic reasons like lack of development in the regions affected will be rather simplistic. At the moment, when the Maoists-Naxals have explicitly refused to talk to the government and are indulging in the worst form of violence not only against the police forces but also against innocent civilians and lower functionaries of the state, the sole priority of the government should be to take these terrorists head-on and eliminate and jail as many as possible without causing collateral damage to own civilians and villagers in the regions affected. The stated policy of “Clear, Hold and Build” is eminently workable, provided there is synergy in action between the political and security elements at the state, national and regional levels.

The nation has only one choice, and that is to speedily and jointly combat and defeat the LWE cadres before full-scale insurgencies erupt at many places within the country. A five-year immediate-action plan and a 20-year, long-term-perspective plan need to be conceptualised and taken to their logical conclusion. These plans to defeat the Naxal-Maoist menace will have to be an amalgam of the three non-negotiable pillars: security for all, equitable development and genuine and compassionate political and economic rehabilitation of those who surrender to the state. The overriding principle should be to encourage full utilisation of local genius and resources. As a start, police forces, other central agencies and even the armed forces can recruit, in large numbers, people from these poverty-afflicted regions and get them into the national mainstream – a privilege they have been long denied.

Despite our many endemic failings and the machinations of some terror-exporting neighbours, it is a matter of some satisfaction that India has successfully managed and contained insurgencies in Jammu and Kashmir (notwithstanding Pakistan’s persistent efforts to keep the pot boiling there) and the Northeast. Thus, defeating LWE also should not be impossible for a nation that aspires to be in global reckoning.