Author : Gp Capt AK Agarwal,

TIME TO REASSESS THE STRATEGY TO COMBAT LEFT WING EXTREMISIM

By Group Captain AK Agarwal*

 1.         The Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has prepared and released a document titled ‘Strategy & Tactics of the Indian Revolution’. When read and understood in its entirety, this document gives the Maoists a blue-print for utilising the Peoples’ Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) for waging war against the country. Analysis of the present state of the insurgency indicates that the PLGA is more or less playing by the book. Though the PLGA is still in the first stage of ‘strategic defensive’[1], the Maoists are working to move onto the second stage by consolidating their position. The insurgency is spreading across India as per plan. Urban areas are being targeted and so are the Border States in a bid to link up with external agencies for support. Once they are able to get sufficient external support in the form of arms and ammunition, they will be well equipped to move onto the next phase. The terrain and the forests suit the PLGA for guerrilla warfare. On the basis of material gathered from captured left-wing extremists, it is explicitly clear that their objective is to overthrow the Indian Government using violent means and that their basic ideology is a complete rejection of parliamentary democracy as chosen by the people of India. The CPI (Maoist) was formed in 2004 after the merger of various communist parties. The CPI (Maoist) continue to remain the most dominant and violent outfit among the various Left Wing Extremists groups, accounting for more than 90% of total Left Wing Extremist incidents and 95% of resultant killings.[2] They have spread their terror and ensured that the developmental activities are obstructed. The tribal cause, which the Naxals champion, is only a mask to further their own agenda of waging war against the Union of India.

2.         The central government considers this insurgency as a state law and order problem, even though the insurgency is festering in at least 20 of the 28 states of India.[3]  There are 182 districts which are affected by the naxal problem and of these, as per the MHA Annual Report of 2010-11, 35 districts are severely affected.  The government is assisting the state governments in dealing with this law and order problem, by adopting a two pronged approach of security and development.

3.         The security related strategy is a manpower intensive approach, intending to beef up the state police forces in the insurgency affected areas.  In 2003, a Group of Ministers assigned the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) the responsibility for counter-insurgency operations, in support of police across the country.[4] The government has also augmented the state police forces with various para-military forces. 74 battalions of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and Commando Battalions for Resolute Action (CoBRA) teams are currently deployed for assisting the State Police in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. 37 India Reserve (IR) battalions were sanctioned to nine naxal affected States, of which 34 have been raised. Towards developing the insurgency affected areas, the central government has provided funds to the states towards various Central Schemes such as Backward Regions Grant Fund, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme; Prime Minister’s, Gram Sadak Yojana and National Rural Health Mission.[5]

4.         The Maoists control 35 worst affected districts, ensuring that development work cannot progress in these areas. In the other areas, they are also leaving no stone unturned in making all efforts to sabotage development and prevent the construction of roads, power and telecom projects by violence and terror tactics, aiming to portray the ineffectiveness of the local governance.[6] The success of the government’s development projects would help towards removing the grievances of insufficient development in LWE affected areas and win the hearts and minds of the local population, who are the centre of gravity in the fight against the insurgency.

5.         To guarantee the success of these schemes and development in the affected areas, a pre-requisite would be to have a secure and peaceful environment conducive for such development work. The security response is supposed to be tailored to achieve this. However, the Security Forces have not been able to provide a safe environment for development of these areas, setting back the very strategy adopted by the government. Why is this so?

6.         The state police men are given basic small arms training after recruitment. As their main mandate is maintaining law and order in civil society, they are not accomplished or skilled in firing guns and combating an insurgency. The CRPF which has been mandated to combat the insurgency is not yet a specialised counterinsurgency force.[7] Therefore, in order to train the security forces, the Government has approved 21 Counter Insurgency and Anti-Terrorism Schools (CIATs) in the Eleventh Five Year Plan period in Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura. Presently, 17 CIAT Schools are functional in the various states where several training courses are running for police personnel.  About 18,389 police personnel have been trained till April, 2012 in these schools.[8] Even with this large training effort, as per an appraisal carried out on police training, it would take a considerable period of time to impart the required training to the police force, Central Police Organisation (CPO) and CRPF in basic tactical skills. The troops deployed in anti-naxal operations are also plagued with the problem of low morale which has resulted from poor leadership, long tenures in these operations coupled with poor living conditions and continuous battle fatigue, which they are not adept in handling.

7.         Therefore, what is the solution? As per the US Army Field Manual “An insurgency is organised movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted government through use of subversion and armed conflict.”  This insurgency appears to be a war like situation in some areas. The government must reassess the law and order problem and its security response to guarantee the success of the development action plan. The government must strike at the heart of the Maoists by regaining control of the 35 Districts presently under their (Maoists) control. For this, the CRPF must be reorganised to form specialised counterinsurgency battalions constituted only by the troops trained in the CIAT schools. These troops must be under the command of leaders who will be able to lead from the front, thereby inspiring and motivating them to quell the insurgency.  The government must bring progress and prosperity to areas under their control that these islands of prosperity become the envy of the people living in the Maoist ‘liberated zones’.

Endnotes