India's anti-Maoist strategy under fire
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - Seventy-six security personnel were killed in an ambush by Maoists
in the forests of Chhattisgar's Dantewada district a fortnight ago, kicking up
heated debate in India over the government's anti-Maoist strategy.
Civil society and rights activists who are opposed to the government's military
approach maintain that the ongoing military operations in Maoist areas made the
security personnel vulnerable to attack. Others, however, believe that the
approach is not robust enough. While some are calling for better training and
equipping of police and paramilitary forces currently deployed there, there is
a section too that is in favor
of the army and air force being inducted to combat the Maoists.
Immediately after the Dantewada debacle, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home
Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said that "all options were open" in dealing
with the Maoists, triggering speculation that the government was considering
deploying the armed forces.
Described in 2004 by Manmohan as the greatest internal security threat to the
country, the Maoist insurgency is several decades old. An uprising in the late
1960s in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal spread like wild fire but was
quickly suppressed, only to re-emerge in other parts of the country in the
1980s. In the years since it has waxed and waned but has never been defeated.
Maoist influence has grown remarkably in recent years. According to Home
Ministry figures, in 2003 a total of 55 districts in nine of India's 28 states
were affected by varying degrees of Maoist activity. That number rose to 156
districts in 13 states by 2004 and to 170 districts in 15 states by 2005. Some
223 districts (of India's 626 districts) in 20 states are reportedly affected
by Maoist activity today.
The scale of Maoist attacks too has grown phenomenally in this period. Maoists
have stormed jails and freed hundreds of their comrades. They have blasted
railway tracks and telecom towers, looted police armories and hijacked trains.
If in the past they depended mainly on hit-and-run attacks and grenade
explosions, increasingly they are displaying a capacity to stand and engage the
security forces for several hours.
The Maoists have scored significant victories over the past two months. In
February they overran a security forces camp in West Bengal, killing 25
policemen. Then on April 4, 10 policemen were killed in a landmine blast in
Orissa. Two days later came the big ambush at Dantewada in which almost an
entire company of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel was
annihilated. This is the largest single blow suffered by India's
counter-insurgency forces.
The ambush at Dantewada evoked heated discussions in the media, with some
experts calling on the government to give the Maoists a "fitting response",
including the deployment of the army and launch of air strikes in Maoist areas.
"They seem to have drawn inspiration from the Sri Lankan government's aerial
bombing of Tamil areas and believe that a similar combination of armed forces
and air strikes would help eliminate the Maoists," a retired army commander who
was involved in counter-insurgency operations in the northeast in the 1980s and
in Jammu and Kashmir in the 1990s told Asia Times Online.
However, the use of the army and the air force against the Maoists is hugely
controversial as it would involve turning heavy weaponry against one's own
citizens.
Aerial bombing is counter-productive in tackling insurgencies. The large
civilian casualties that come in the wake of aerial bombing fuel anger against
the state and increase support for the insurgents.
This has brought an unlikely combination of the armed forces and rights
activists together on the issue. Army and air force officials have been among
the most vociferous of those opposing their deployment in Maoist areas.
A day after the Dantewada ambush, Indian Air Force (IAF) chief Air Marshal P V
Naik drew attention to the unsuitability of the armed forces for anti-Maoist
operations. "We are not trained for limited lethality," he said. Pointing to
the likelihood of high civilian casualties if the armed forces carried out
combat operations, he said that although the air force had "the capability to
conduct strikes with utmost precision, if a 250kg bomb is dropped at a spot,
its impact will be in a radius of at least 800 meters and that would affect
many people who are not insurgents".
The government has ruled out using the air force in combat operations for now.
The Home Minister clarified that the government was only examining whether
"some special forces" were needed to supplement the paramilitary forces
currently deployed in the counter-insurgency operations and was considering the
use of aircraft for surveillance, logistics and evacuation. He did not
elaborate, however, whether the "special forces" would be drawn from the army.
Home Ministry officials that Asia Times Online spoke to some months ago said
the government was considering deploying the Rashtriya Rifles, a
counter-insurgency force that was formed out of deputed army personnel and was
specially raised in 1990 to tackle the insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir.
Home Ministry officials say that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) "have been
used off and on in Maoist areas for surveillance purposes and this is likely to
increase. Helicopters have also been used for rushing in forces and evacuation
of injured personnel."
But reconnaissance by UAVs has limitations - especially in counter-insurgency
situations. "It can give information about a number of people gathering at a
spot but it cannot tell you whether it is a group of armed insurgents or
ordinary tribals and villagers," the IAF chief said. "Moreover, aerial survey
may not be possible in dense jungles as the devices cannot see through a canopy
of trees, bushes and shrubs."
The use of aircraft, even if only for logistics and evacuation, is fraught with
problems.
The Maoists have fired at aircraft and caused damage. A Mi-8 helicopter came
under fire in November 2008 in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region, killing an IAF
sergeant and a Mi-17 chopper was fired at in April last year in Gadchiroli in
Maharashtra.
The IAF is reported to have asked the government last year for permission to
engage in retaliatory fire if its aircraft come under Maoist attack. It is not
known whether the government granted it permission.
Allowing the IAF to engage in combat, even if only in retaliation, could push
the conflict to a dangerous new level. It would mark an important shift in
India's counter-insurgency strategy, which has hitherto refrained from using
air strikes in counter-insurgency operations, the only exception being in
Mizoram in 1966, when the IAF strafed the capital Aizawl, which was in rebel
hands.
When the government launched its ambitious offensive against the Maoists last
year, many believed that it would only lead to more bloodshed and violence.
This is precisely what has happened.
While it is still too early to assess it - the offensive is only a few months
old - it is evident that the security forces are losing more of their personnel
than the Maoists. What is more, civilian casualties far outstrip those of the
Maoists or the forces.
It is evident that the Dantewada ambush was the result of a gross failure of
intelligence. Unlike the Maoists who know the terrain well, the CRPF has little
intelligence on the ground. And this intelligence on the Maoists is unlikely to
improve as local support for the government is diminishing by the day.
Even those supporting the military offensive against the Maoists are critical
of the government's strategy that relies on pumping in a large number of CRPF
personnel. With personnel being poorly trained and ill-equipped to take on the
Maoists in "their territory", the strategy only results in high CRPF
casualties.
The government's approach to the Maoist problem is under fire from all sides,
including from within the ruling Congress party. A senior Congress party
leader, Digvijay Singh, said the Home Minister was "treating it purely as a law
and order problem without taking into consideration the issues that affect the
tribals".
But the government is in no mood to listen. In a bid to silence divergent views
being aired by the armed forces and Congress leaders on issues related to the
anti-Maoist strategy, the government has imposed a gag order, authorizing only
the Home Ministry to speak.
"If the Maoists overthrow the established authority and seize power, will they
allow any human-rights organizations to function in this country? Will all
those, who write 33-page articles, be allowed to write 33-page articles? Will
there be a magazine to publish a 33-page article?" the Home Minister said in a
speech in parliament, referring to an article by writer/activist Arundhati Roy
in Outlook magazine criticizing the government's operations against the
Maoists.
Perhaps the Maoists will not, if their current intolerance of dissent is any
indication of their position on freedom of expression.
But the government order to its ministers to not critique its strategy in
public and its reported moves to book Roy under the Chhattisgar Special Public
Security Act indicate that the government's record on freedom of expression is
little better than that of the Maoists.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about
sales, syndication and
republishing.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
