Adults fight wars, but often they drag children into it. The Spartans of Ancient Greece created a highly martial society, with boys as young as seven being introduced to rigorous military training. But these were exceptions rather than the rule, and children were never a vital component of any military force in history. But the nature of war has changed, and an alarming trend in ongoing armed conflicts is the involvement of children in huge numbers as insurgents and soldiers. There are as many as 300,000 children under the age of 18 presently serving as combatants around the globe in different capacities.1 Their average age is just 12 years old, and the youngest ever was an armed 5-year-old in Uganda.2 Scholars working on conflicts have suggested that with the rise of asymmetric conflicts in which weaker but highly motivated guerrilla forces fight powerful but less motivated national armies, the tendency to recruit children in the irregular forces have sharply risen.
“¦unlike the Maoists in central India, the rebel outfits in the Northeast have not engaged children on a large scale in combat or associated activities.
The phenomenon of child guerrillas in India is far more widespread than most realise but perhaps still much lesser than in Africa or other countries in Asia like Nepal, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. In India, children have swelled the ranks of many insurgent groups covering a vast swathe from the heartland to the extreme edges of the Northeast on account of interplay of several factors.3 But unlike the Maoists in central India, the rebel outfits in the Northeast have not engaged children on a large scale in combat or associated activities. The situation in the region comprising the seven states is unique, having few parallels with situations in the rest of the world.
Definition
Defining a child guerrilla is fraught with problems. For one, notions of childhood are culturally constructed and differ across societies. Western countries view a person less than 18 years as a child, but in non-Western societies, particularly among rural communities where traditional idioms remain strong, a person is regarded as an adult once he or she has completed the culturally recognised initiation ceremony into manhood or womanhood. Such rites usually take place before the person has reached 18 years. Besides, many developing societies view childhood and adulthood vis-à-vis social roles and responsibilities. Due to this gap in perception, a 14-year-old boy brandishing an assault rifle and moving with an armed outfit could be seen as a child by international human rights observers but the same individual might be viewed as a young adult by people in a rural society. However, even though the definition is contested, many elders and government officials in developing countries regard a person less than 18 years as too young to join insurgent outfits.
There are as many as 300,000 children under the age of 18 presently serving as combatants around the globe in different capacities.
“Child guerrillas” are a specific category within the better-known term “child soldiers,” which means all children under the age of 18 attached to both insurgent outfits and regular government forces. A widely accepted definition of child soldiers is given by the Cape Town Principles, constructed by leading scholars and practitioners convened by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 1997. It says that a child soldier is “any person less than 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force in any capacity, including but not limited to cooks, porters, messengers and those accompanying such groups, other than purely as family members. It does not, therefore, only refer to a child who is carrying or has arms.” Inside armed groups, children perform diverse and multiple roles, only one of which is fighting. Although the majority of child insurgents are boys, armed groups also recruit girls, many of whom perform the same functions as their male counterparts.
In India, child guerrillas abound in sizeable numbers in the Maoist-affected states and the Northeast, both in insurgent outfits and government-sponsored counter-insurgency irregular formations like the Salsa Judum in Chattisgarh, which is taking on the Maoists. In the Northeast, though, a replica of Salwa Judum is not found but the police and security forces actively take the assistance of overground rebels of all age groups against the underground.4 Across the northeast, a majority of the 70-odd insurgent organisations have been found to recruit and make use of children in varying degrees. The highest enrolment has been observed among the Kuki-Chin-Mizo outfits active at Chandel, Churachandpur and Senapati in Manipur, North Mizoram and some areas in the hill districts of Assam. All the 19-odd outfits belonging to this ethnic group have signed the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement with the government in 2008 after a brief period of an informal ceasefire.
“¦the general feeling of alienation and neglect so rampant in the region and which have drawn thousands of adults into militant groups have undoubtedly served as examples for and played a role in motivating a section of children to take the plunge.
In Manipur and Nagaland, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), or NSCN (IM); the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang), or NSCN (K); and the Naga National Council (NNC) have children with arms in their ranks though the numbers are much less than in the Kuki-Chin-Mizo outfits. These apart, children are seen in all the ceasefire-designated camps of the four militant groups—Dima Halam Daogah (DHD), Black Widow, United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) and Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Liberation Front—in Assam’s hill districts of Dima Hasao and Karbi Anglong.5 According to a commander of the UPDS, approximately 6–7 per cent of the army comprise children below the age of 18 who are adept in handling different weapons.
Causes of Recruitment
Research conducted by scholars in Africa and Latin America indicate that many factors contribute to enrolment of children by insurgent outfits and some causes discernible among other countries are also prevalent in the Northeast. To begin with, the general feeling of alienation and neglect so rampant in the region and which have drawn thousands of adults into militant groups have undoubtedly served as examples for and played a role in motivating a section of children to take the plunge. That the government has not been able to frame adequate strategies to come to grips with the situation is evident from the number of armed groups that now operate in the region compared to the situation three decades ago.
When children are paid, they often use the money to support their families.
According to an estimate in 2006, there were 109 outfits active in the region with diverse ideologies ranging from secessionism to banditry.6 The government’s strategy of offering autonomous councils and economic packages and stretching peace talks indefinitely have only encouraged more and more groups to take up arms, thereby enhancing the scope of more youths and teenagers to join such groups. Not surprisingly, there have been many instances of smaller factions deviating from the mother organisation to continue with the struggle whenever an accord has been concluded with the government. Thus, as many as three outfits emerged after the Dima National Security Force gave up arms in 1995 in Assam—the birth of the DHD was followed by the Black Widow and then the Dimasa National Democratic Force (DNDF). Therefore, insurgencies do not fizzle out in the Northeast, only insurgents do. In the absence of sufficient number of adults, these smaller groups have been found to invariably fall back on children from remote villages to swell their ranks.7
Poverty keeps many poor children out of school, and children who are out of school are at increased risk of recruitment.
Added to the adverse impact of alienation are poverty and unemployment across all the seven states in the region, and the problems are particularly acute in Manipur, which has the dubious distinction of having the maximum number of militant outfits among all states in the country. According to the latest estimate, the number of persons seeking job has gone up to around 7 lakh of a total of 27 lakh in the state.8 Many children in conflict zones hail from depressed economic backgrounds, and so the promise of getting paid by the insurgent outfits has lured many into these groups. When children are paid, they often use the money to support their families. Poverty is widely regarded as a root cause of many armed conflicts, and it interacts with and magnifies the impact of most of the other factors, facilitating the entry of youngsters into armed groups. Poverty increases the sense of helplessness, boosting the lure of the uniform and gun.
Poverty keeps many poor children out of school, and children who are out of school are at increased risk of recruitment. Although poverty does not by itself cause child soldiering, it exerts a significant impact through interactions with other influences. Tribal bodies in Manipur have made a case before the UNICEF to set up office in the state so that children affected by poverty do not face a “devastating future” and programmes can be ushered in to ensure their development9.
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The Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZRA), active in Manipur’s Churachandpur district and the adjacent region in Myanmar, offers a classic example of how children from impoverished families are supported and groomed to become guerrillas in the organisation. The author saw children as young as 9 or 10 years old in a camp near Songthal belonging to this group whose strength is estimated at around 500. Explaining the phenomenon, a commander said that villages straddling the Indo-Myanmar border are outside the daily reach of the administration.10 Hospitals do not exist, and the nearest school is about 20 kilometres away. He went on to say that many orphans and children whose parents could not afford to have them educated in missionary schools have been adopted by the ZRA.
The children are looked after well, and they are prevented from doing manual labour till they reach a certain age. Though they live in camps with adult cadres, training in the handling of weapons is given only after they reach 14 years of age. The same situation holds true for some other overground organisations, like the Kuki Liberation Army, Kuki Revolutionary Army and the United Kuki Liberation Front, which have camps in Manipur. However, in the case of some groups, children have been initiated into weapons at quite a tender age but they are usually barred from dangerous tasks like operations against rival groups. But instances have been reported when children have been involved in smuggling by such groups.11
Investment in children by a militant outfit is minimal, and returns are high and there is almost no restriction of any kind that needs to be followed. No militant outfit has ever faced sanctions in the region for recruiting children in spite of the strict laws that exist at the international level. Adult cadres may sometimes demand to be paid, but children usually lack the power to do this and are usually content with what they are given. Children fit the bill during times of financial crisis, when groups have to run on shoe-string budgets and salaries have to be reduced.
Though they live in camps with adult cadres, training in the handling of weapons is given only after they reach 14 years of age.
In the Northeast, many groups have complained of financial hardships, which partly explain their increasing involvement in illicit activities like gunrunning.12 Besides, the expenditure of most groups has gone up after they signed ceasefire agreements with the government and came overground.13 Unlike life in the underground, staying regularly in fixed locations means daily expenditure on different overheads, including food, training to new cadres and maintenance of infrastructure. In some camps, cultural shows are regularly organised as part of the groups’ effort to maintain support among the local populace. In violation of the ceasefire ground rules, most of the overground groups regularly purchase arms and ammunition, and their rates have been going up steadily since the past few years, mainly due to an increase in the number of middlemen in the illicit trade.
Children are pliable and easily manipulated, which derives from their stage of psychological development. They are more receptive to new ideas, which are so important in the Northeast since rebel groups have split at regular intervals. Leaders always prefer to build up a clique of loyal cadres who would always obey and follow them if they were to walk out of the organisation. Interestingly, outfits in Manipur that suffered the maximum divisions have also the largest number of children in their ranks. To cite an example: The Kuki National Front (KNF), the first militant outfit among the Kukis, was formed in 1986 in Manipur under the leadership of Nehlun Kipgen mainly to counter the growing hegemony of the NSCN (IM). Its primary objective was a homeland for the Kukis by integrating all areas inhabited by the tribe under a single administrative mechanism.
The situation gets worse if the child comes from a broken family and has been separated from parents. Separated children are at risk of every form of exploitation, whether it involves insurgency, trafficking or drug peddling.
The first division came in 1995, with one faction declaring itself as the “presidential” group and another as the “military council.” Three more groups—Samuel, Zougam and Prithvi—emerged from within these factions in the late 1990s. In the factional clashes that followed among these factions, finance secretary of the Zougam group, identified as Dongkhogin Haokip, was shot by an unidentified cadre of the presidential faction of the KNF at Sapermeina area in Senapati in 2007. All these factions of KNF have utilised children in an extensive manner, including collecting donations and extortion.14
The situation in Manipur is also explicable in terms of the low population of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo tribes and the necessity of the myriad outfits to maintain large cadre strength. These tribes comprise only about 6 lakh of a total population of 2.7 million in the state according to the latest census figures. Although no study has been conducted, it is quite apparent that more and more people are moving out of the state to the metropolises in search of livelihoods. In such a scenario, it is but natural that recruitment into militant outfits cannot follow strict guidelines and there is no option but to enrol children sometimes in the absence of eligible adults. Importantly, these groups have their own areas to control and collect “taxes” from, and stepping into another’s territory could engender bloody clashes, as evidenced on many occasions during the past one decade.
The 19 groups of Manipur are clubbed into two umbrella organisations—Kuki National Organisation (KNO) and the United People’s Front (UPF)—with the former having 15 groups under its wings and the UPF 4 groups. In spite of having almost the same objectives and hailing from the same ethnic stock, most of these groups do not see eye to eye with each other and compete with each other for control of territory. Alliances have been brittle, and outfits have been found to shift their loyalties frequently depending upon the circumstances. There is always a better chance of suppressing rival groups with more cadre strength and greater firepower.
Many children view joining a militant outfit as getting a chance to obtain things they could not have got otherwise.
Usually, a disrupted social system sets the stage for unforced recruitment since it offers few options for young people, who spend most of their time in idleness. And this is nowhere more visible that among the tribal societies in the Northeast, which have witnessed turmoil since the dawn of independence due to a combination of factors. Barring the ULFA in Assam and the organisations in Manipur’s Imphal Valley like the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and Kangleipak Communist Party, the rest of the insurgent movements have emerged from the tribal areas in the region. At least 25 militant outfits are active in the five hill districts of Manipur—Ukhrul, Senapati, Chandel, Tamenglong and Churachandpur—which are predominantly inhabited by Christian tribals of the Mongoloid stock, including the Kuki-Chin-Mizo communities.
The impact of social turmoil has been more acute in the tribal pockets since life was community oriented and the members possessed a consciousness of mutual unity. A child growing up in such an environment imbibes the group’s culture ardently, which is defined through norms and values, language, religion and politics. The community’s identity is expressed and perpetuated through the use of flags, songs, memorials and other symbols. Needless to mention that most of the tribes in the region are known for their martial tradition, independence and hatred for outside interference, which led the British to mark them as “excluded areas.”
“¦in conflict zones, where human rights abuses, killings and arbitrary detentions are a rule rather than an exception, children often learn to label themselves in part by opposition to the enemy.
In the process of socialisation, tribes teach children to sacrifice for their group and to honour their history and way of life. And in conflict zones, where human rights abuses, killings and arbitrary detentions are a rule rather than an exception, children often learn to label themselves in part by opposition to the enemy. They see their choice to join insurgent groups and to fight as based on a cause. They may be seeking revenge, or they may believe that their involvement in the struggle is needed in the community’s interest. In this respect, the recruitment pattern in the Northeast is similar to that in other parts of the world.
Although 90 per cent of the children in conflict zones do not join the armed groups, those who do perceive that getting associated with the organisation may be their best hope of survival and protection. As in other parts of the world, insurgency creates a highly militarised environment in which authority is openly contested. For a child hailing from a village in the frontier tracts, membership in such an organisation increases access not only to clothing, food and health care but also to a sense of power and respect. The thrill associated with wielding military power can be highly seductive to the children who seek escape from the dreariness of rural life. Many children view joining a militant outfit as getting a chance to obtain things they could not have got otherwise.
The situation gets worse if the child comes from a broken family and has been separated from parents. Separated children are at risk of every form of exploitation, whether it involves insurgency, trafficking or drug peddling. UPDS and DHD offered assistance to many families during the deadly riots that engulfed Karbi Anglong in Assam during November–December 2005, when rival militant outfits not only attacked each other but also raided many villages, resulting in displacement of people and huge loss of life and property. In Manipur, in the early 1990s, Naga rebels went on a rampage against Kuki villages in some hill districts, killing or displacing hundreds. Within a couple of years, there was a proliferation of Kuki militant outfits in the state and the existing ones like the Kuki National Army (KNA) had their ranks swelled.
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Children are brought from the parents willingly, and cases of coercion are quite rare in the Northeast. On several occasions, women have also decided to join and don the battle fatigue along with adult males and children. Sometimes, when a militant outfit is about to lay down arms, village headmen would be told by commanders to gather youths who could be shown as cadres and placed in designated camps. Designated camps are set up by the rebels in areas of stronghold, where they have a symbiotic relationship with the surrounding villages. These villages are the nerve centres of support for the group, and care is taken by both sides to ensure a smooth relation. But some villages erupted in anger in Imphal Valley when the banned People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) abducted a few children on their way from school in July 2008.15
Investment in children by a militant outfit is minimal, and returns are high”¦
Following an uproar, the outfit responded by parading a few teenagers in front of journalists in a hideout who said they had joined the group on their own volition. Parents of these children, however, were in no doubt that their wards were picked up forcefully by the militants and intimidated to join the outfit. There were rallies by school children at several places in the hill districts of Manipur condemning the incidents. Later, as it turned out that PREPAK was in dire need of cadres since it had grown weak after a faction identifying itself as the United People’s Party of Kangleipak (UPPK) walked out of the organisation to launch an independent movement and set up camps in Myanmar. The bigger groups active in Imphal Valley, like the PLA and UNLF, have always been able to attract more cadres than PREPAK and smaller groups like the Kangleipak Communist Party and Kangla Yawol Kanna Lup.
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