Despite enveloping
uncertainty, unremitting misgovernance and widespread public perceptions
of insecurity, the reality of India’s multiple terrorist and insurgent
movements is that most of them are weakening. For the ninth year
in a row, total
fatalities due to terrorist and insurgent
conflicts in the country continued their decline, registering
a total of 1,902 deaths in 2010, as against 2,232 in 2009, and
a peak of 5,839 in 2001 (all data from the South Asia Terrorism
Portal database). Fatalities in 2011 currently total 117 (till
February 13).
The worst and steadily
worsening of conflicts in India is, without dispute, the Maoist
insurgency, principally spearheaded by the Communist Party of
India – Maoist (CPI-Maoist),
but including at least another 20 minor Left Wing Extremist (LWE,
also called Naxalite) factions. Naxalite-related fatalities, at
1,180 in 2010, now significantly outstrip the combined total of
all other terrorist and insurgent movements in the country.
Total fatalities
resulting from the Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorist campaigns
in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) remained at 375 in 2010, the
same number as the preceding year, though this figure excludes
the 111 persons killed (overwhelmingly in Police firing) in the
terrorist and separatist-backed street
violence which peaked through June – October
2010.
Total fatalities
in India’s Northeast fell dramatically to 322 in 2010, from 853
in 2009, and 1,051 in 2008. Manipur and Assam saw the most significant
improvements in this long-troubled region, with fatalities dropping
from 416 and 391, respectively, in 2009, to 138 and 158 in 2010.
Very significantly,
Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorist attacks across the country,
outside J&K, registered a low, albeit marginally rising, incidence,
after their peak in 2008. There were 25 fatalities in Islamist
terrorist attacks across the country, with the worst incident
recording 17 killed and at least 60 injured in the explosion at
the German Bakery in Pune on February 13, 2010. 2009 had recorded
no major incident (involving three or more fatalities), and a
total of eight deaths in such attacks. 378 persons were killed
in 2008 in Islamist terrorist attacks outside J&K, with the
Pakistan-backed 26/11 Mumbai attack alone recording 166 fatalities.
India’s security
and intelligence apparatus also took cognizance of an emerging
threat of ‘Hindutva
terrorism’, confirming or investigating the
role of right wing extremist Hindu groups in a number of terrorist
incidents dating back to 2006-07. While no incident of suspected
Hindutva terror was recorded in 2008, 2009 or 2010, there 12 extremists
were arrested on charges of involvement in earlier incidents,
particularly the Malegaon (September 8, 2006) Hyderabad Mecca
Masjid (May 18, 2007) and Ajmer (October 11, 2007) blasts, even
as linkages to the Samjhauta Express attack (February 19, 2006)
were exposed.
310 of the country’s
636 Districts are currently afflicted by varying intensities of
chronic activity, including subversion, by insurgent and terrorist
groupings. 223 Districts across 20 States register Maoist activity;
another 20 Districts in J&K are affected by Pakistan-backed
Islamist separatist terrorism; and 67 Districts in six States
in the Northeast are affected by numerous ethnicity based terrorist
and insurgent movements.
The broadly positive
trends – with the exception of Maoist violence – do not, however,
provide an accurate index to the quality of the state’s responses
over the intervening period. Indeed, in all spheres, it is a range
of complex extraneous factors that has led to dramatic improvements,
where these have been registered.
The sheer incoherence
of the state’s response to the crisis of militant-backed street
violence in J&K is a case in point. In a heavily securitized
State, with a 20-year insurgency, 17 years of high-intensity violence
(more than 1,000 fatalities per year, between 1990 and 2006),
and with ample warnings in terms of recurrent incidents of stone
pelting over the preceding years, including the major flare-up
over the Amarnath Land allocation issue in 2008, both State and
Central agencies were caught completely off guard and utterly
unprepared in terms of Force deployment and capability, when street
violence surged towards the end of June 2010. Sheer public exhaustion,
the onset of winter, and a measure of disillusionment with the
movement’s leadership led to the dissipation of this violence,
but there is little evidence to suggest that the state is now
better-equipped to respond to the next, and highly likely, cycle
of escalation. The street movement is, in fact, a calibrated strategy
on the part of the Pakistani handlers of the separatist movement
in J&K to compensate for the declining terrorist violence
in the State. This, in turn, is the consequence, not of any fundamental
change of objective or intention on the part of the sponsoring
agencies – the Pakistan Army and its intelligence wing, the Inter
Services Intelligence (ISI)
– but of the increasing international pressure on Pakistan to
wind down its export of terrorism, Pakistan’s own increasing preoccupation
with internal terrorism and with its more pressing strategic imperatives
of disruption in Afghanistan, and the progressive erosion of the
loyalty of a number of state sponsored terrorist groupings that
have progressively transferred their allegiance to the Islamist
extremist combine led by the al Qaeda. There has, of course, been
some improvement in the responses of the Army, para-military and
State Police security grid across J&K as well, and significant
gains from the construction of the border fence along the Line
of Control (LoC) and international border in the State. It remains
to be seen, however, whether these will be sufficient proof against
another cycle of unconstrained terrorism that would inevitably
follow a premature withdrawal of the Western powers from Afghanistan,
were this to occur.
In the meanwhile,
the Union Government has initiated what appears to be a somewhat
directionless process to secure negotiations with the more recalcitrant
separatist elements within J&K through the appointment of
a group of three interlocutors in October 2010. The interlocutors
have, however, failed to meet any prominent separatist leader
in the intervening months. India’s Foreign Secretary Nirupma Rao
has also announced the intention of resuming talks – which had
been suspended after the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, with
Pakistan, "on all issues". The initiative holds out
little hope of influencing the trajectory of violence in the region,
even as Pakistan manifestly continues to support a number of India-directed
Islamist and other terrorist formations on its soil, and demonstrates
no evidence of seeking to abandon terrorism as an instrument of
state policy to secure its perceived strategic objectives in the
neighbourhood.
Sheer exhaustion
and the loss of safe havens abroad have been the principal causes
of the progressive collapse of enduring insurgent and terrorist
movements in India’s Northeast, though operational successes have,
again, been an integral element in processes of gradual attrition.
The gains in Assam were substantially the consequence of a windfall
resulting from a change in policy in Bangladesh after the Sheikh
Hasina regime assumed power in January 2009, ending the state
support and assured safe havens that had earlier been provided
to insurgent groups operating in India’s Northeast, and handing
over several leaders and cadres of various insurgent groups to
Indian authorities. It is, nevertheless, the case that some insurgent
groups retain significant residual capacities, even as others
– ominously including the Maoists – are just waiting to fill the
emerging
vacuum. There is also some evidence that China
is now extending support to the surviving groupings in the region,
prominently including the Paresh Baruah faction of the United
Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
The decline in
violence in Manipur, and the reverses that have been inflicted
on various militant groups, have also opened up avenues for a
more enduring stability in what had emerged as the State afflicted
by the region’s most virulent insurgencies. Unfortunately, the
political space in Manipur continues to be occupied by an incompetent
kleptocracy. In the absence of greater political probity and administrative
maturity, the gains of the recent past may yet again be frittered
away, as were the opportunities of declining strife in 2002-2003.
Unless the gains of 2010 are consolidated and translated into
political initiatives providing economic and administrative relief
to the people of Manipur, the contracting spaces for violence
may once again begin
to expand.
There has been
a gradual consolidation of peace in most of the other States of
the Northeast, though Meghalaya
saw a transient spike in fatalities. The Union and State Governments
initiated negotiations and signed truce agreements with a number
of insurgent groups and factions in the region in 2010, even as
earlier agreements, such as the protracted Ceasefire Agreement
signed with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) in
1976, continued to hold out, despite misgivings and missteps.
The Northeast insurgent groups currently engaged in talks with
the Government include the Isak-Muivah (IM) and Khaplang factions
of the NSCN; the pro-talks faction of the ULFA; the pro-talks
faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB);
the Nunisa faction of the Dima Halim Daogah (DHD);
Black Widow (BW),
United People's Democratic Solidarity (UPDS);
Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC);
Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Liberation Front (KLNLF);
Kuki National Organization (KNO) and United Peoples Front (UPF).
On August 25, 2010, Union Home Minister Chidambaram stated, "We
have appointed two Interlocutors: RS Pandey to talk to the NSCN
(IM) and PC Haldar to talk to NDFB (PT), DHD (Nunisa), DHD (J),
KLNLF, UPDS and ANVC, besides ULFA."
Significantly,
an eight-member ULFA delegation led by ‘chairman’ Arabinda Rajkhowa
held its first round of talks with Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram
at North Block in New Delhi on February 10, 2011. Chidambaram
is reported to have conveyed to ULFA that the Government of India
was willing to amend the Constitution, if the need arose, to solve
any problems in Assam.
There have been
renewed Governmental efforts to bring almost all militant outfits
in the Northeast to the negotiating table. Nevertheless, several
contentious issues concerning post conflict repatriation, resettlement
and, most importantly, demilitarisation of ex-combatants remained
unresolved in the ‘normalised’ pockets of the region, complicating
the contours of ongoing and emerging peace processes.
It is in the theatres
of escalating Maoist violence that the most visible indices of
state incoherence, indeed, incompetence, have been notable. As
noted, 223 Districts across 20 States register some Maoist activity,
though not more than 67 of these are categorized as ‘highly affected’,
with high levels of insurgent organization and persistent violent
activity. Divergent assessments of the intensity of Maoist activities
have been provided by official sources from time to time. Home
Minister Chidambaram, on September 15, 2009, claimed that Maoist
violence "has been consistently witnessed in about 400 Police
Station areas of around 90 Districts in 13 States". There are
well over 14,000 Police Stations in India, and this assessment
suggests that the problem is, at worst, marginal. On March 12,
2010, with, no evidence of any change in the situation on the
ground, the Home Minister went on to state that 34 Districts were
"virtually controlled" by the Maoists. In late 2009,
the Centre launched what were repeatedly described a "massive
and coordinated operations" by Central Paramilitary Force
in combination with State Police Forces, across the five worst
affected States - Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal
and Odisha. There was great initial optimism, but the bluster
quickly faded into hysterical demands for Army deployment and
the use of the Air Force for offensive operations, after a succession
of bloody Maoist ambuscades predictably left hundreds of Security
Force personnel dead in the early days of the ill-planned and
undermanned Union Home Ministry-backed misadventure.
Fortunately, the MHA’s calls for Army and Air Force deployment
were quickly shot down. Unfortunately, however, the great enthusiasm
of early 2010 quickly faded into a defensive sulk, and, despite
claims to the contrary, operations against the Maoists have been
substantially scaled down in desperate measures to save face and
minimize SF casualties. On September 16, 2010, Union Home Secretary
G.K. Pillai, nevertheless, saw fit to boast that the SFs, had
"regained control" over more than 10,000 square kilometres
from the Maoists. It is not clear when the Maoists had ‘liberated’
these areas, nor where the Indian flag has once again been unfurled.
What is evident on the facts, however, is that the Maoists have
not been pushed out of any of the areas where they had established
their disruptive dominance prior to the launch of the Centre’s
"massive and coordinated operations", and there is reason
to believe that they have substantially expanded their areas of
subversion.
Significantly,
West Bengal, with Assembly Elections due this year, has emerged
as the State worst affected by Maoist violence, as the rebels
have chosen to fish in the troubled waters of a murky face-off
between the ruling Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M)
and its challenger, the Trinamool Congress. West
Bengal saw as many as 425 fatalities in 2010,
up from 158 in 2009, as against Chhattisgarh, with 327 in 2010,
and 345 in 2009.
While a detailed
assessment of these is not possible here, huge sanctions for Force
and technology augmentation, and for financial allocations for
the Internal Security and Intelligence apparatus, have been approved
over the past two years, but there is very limited impact on the
ground, as implementation drags on at the majestically elephantine
pace of the Indian bureaucracy. Questionable claims have, of course,
been advanced by various departments regarding capacity improvement.
The MHA, for instance, claims that the Police-population ratio
for the country has been raised from 128 per 100,000 at the end
of year 2008, to a present 161. In fact, the latter figure has
been calculated on population estimates of the 2001 Census, and
does not account for the roughly 20 per cent increase in population
since. If this increase is factored in, the actual numbers will
revert roughly to the original 128. These ratios, moreover, are
often calculated in terms of sanctioned posts, and not actual
Force available. As of January 1, 2009, there were 530,580 vacancies
in the State Police Forces. 116,903 personnel were recruited after
this, till November 30, 2010. It is not clear what proportion
of these simply replaces personnel lost to superannuation, disability,
death, pre-mature retirement and other factors. Central Force
allocation to the States remains meager, particularly in the Maoist-afflicted
areas. Just 62 battalions of CPMFs, yielding a mere 24,800 personnel
on the ground (400 personnel per battalion), are currently allocated
to the six worst affected States, which account for an area of
829439 square kilometers and a population of over 446 million.
The leadership
gap in the Police also remains crippling. Of 4,013 authorised
posts, as on January 1, 2010, in the Indian Police Service (IPS),
just 3,383 were in position, leaving a deficit of 16.7 per cent.
It is widely acknowledged that authorized strength is a fraction
of what is actually needed. The annual intake into the IPS was
to be enhanced to 150, from the present 130, from 2009, but the
proposal has been blocked by technical objections from the Union
Public Services Commission.
The capacity augmentation
measures that have been initiated will, of course, begin to have
an impact in time. No significant gains in any theatre of insurgency
or terrorism have, however, been registered over the past years
as a result of a strategic or policy re-orientation. India continues
to benefit through the sheer inertial advantage of its size and
diversity, as a range of movements succumb to exhaustion. This
can, however, provide only very qualified satisfaction, as the
wider environment shows signs of continuous deterioration, and
as capacities for governance
and particularly for security and justice administration, fail
to keep pace with the growth of population and with the increasing
discontents unleashed by uneven processes of modernization and
rapid transformation of the economy, within a political ethos
and culture permeated by corruption, nepotism and stifling stratification.
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