Perils of fighting insurgents

Why abrogate Armed Forces Powers Act?by Lieut-Gen Harwant Singh (retd)

CONSEQUENT on the incident of killing of Manorma Devi in Imphal by Assam Rifles personnel and the agitation for the abrogation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that followed, the government set up the Justice Jeevan Reddy Commission to go into the issue. The commission has recommended scrapping of the AFSPA and in its place incorporating some of the provisions of this Act — such as immunity to security personnel against arrest — in the Unlawful Activities Act. It is reported that the Ministry of Home Affairs has agreed with the recommendations of the Reddy Commission and forwarded the case to the PMO for consideration by the Cabinet before it is placed in Parliament.


It is essential to examine in depth the likely effect the abrogation of the Act will have on counter-insurgency operations on the one hand and insurgency itself on the other. The fact that the Reddy Commission has found it necessary to incorporate provisions of the AFSPA into the Unlawful Activities Act only goes to show that these provisions are essential to combat insurgency. The fallout of this recommendation, if implemented, will be the Unlawful Activities Act itself becoming more rigorous and its applicability in less virulent situations objectionable.

Our study of insurgencies in Malaya and the Philippines was cursory and we blindly copied one aspect of the counter-insurgency policy, which was least applicable to our setting. In Malaya, the villages regrouped were those of the Chinese rubber plantation “tappers”. They were migratory labourers who had no attachment to places where they had built temporary shacks. In Nagaland, people were attached to their villages and lands, where generations of them had lived and toiled. They had their own jhum fields, forests and sacred groves. Uprooting them from their villages was sacrilege and the Nagas came to hate the armed forces. This was a totally insensitive and thoughtless action. Then cases of torture and third- degree methods led to further alienation and gave a fillip to insurgency.

Roads are the enemy of the insurgents, which we never built or were built only on paper. We failed to give these states a clean and efficient administration, free of discrimination and corruption. Insurgency, which had begun with few causes, acquired a new vigour from these developments.

Low intensity conflict is unlike a regular war. Its setting is in the very midst of own people, where the environs may be that of a war zone, but the rules are different, though never well defined. It is an environment where, if you do not kill, you are more likely to get killed. Where the line between an insurgent and a peaceful citizen is hazy due to unreliable intelligence. To see only the unintentional human rights violations in isolation of other factors in such a setting is to be totally unrealistic. The legal provisions to meet such situations need to be measured in their efficacy to support such operations and that they do not act as impediments in meeting the demands of the war like the texture of the conflict. When insurgency is engineered and abetted by a hostile neighbour it takes the form of a proxy war.

Counter-insurgency operations are both difficult and unsavoury. They involve midnight raids on insurgent hideouts, where the exchange of fire is a common feature. Since the initiative is always with the insurgents and death could be lurking behind any corner, bush or house, troops get edgy and are prone to over- reaction. In this cross-fire, innocents can get hurt though not always by friendly fire, and yet invariably pinned on security forces. Search operations cause annoyance and inconvenience to those being searched. Where intelligence is inadequate wrong persons get harassed. Casualties among the security forces often evoke over-reaction from them, which can be minimised by good and effective leadership.

A few fall victim to “power high”, which they experience and tend to show impatience with legal procedures. Senior commanders should not insist on “results”, assess successes in terms of dead terrorists and weapons seized. They must discourage the rat race for awards, stress on civilised behaviour while conducting search operations, arrests, etc, and exercise of extra care to avoid casualties among civilians and while dealing with women. If the AFSPA is scrupulously followed and the leadership is effective and mature, chances of violation of human rights are vastly reduced.

The Indian Army’s record in caring for the human rights of civilians has been rather good. Cases of violation of human rights are promptly investigated and disciplinary action taken without delay. There is never an attempt to conceal facts or protect the guilty. The number of court-marshals dealing with cases of violations of human rights reinforces this assertion. It is a known fact that front organisations of insurgents and their sympathisers always paint the security forces in poor light and fabricate stories of violations of human rights. These factors need to be taken into account before any decision to do away with the AFSPA is taken.

Abrogation or dilution of provisions of the AFSPA will definitely affect the anti-insurgency operations. In the past, even temporary ceasefires helped insurgents reorganise and consolidate their positions to reappear with greater and added vigour. The number of casualties the Army has suffered, both troops and officers, is a fair indication of the virulent and deadly nature of anti-insurgency operations and the abrogation of the AFSPA will make their task more arduous and costly.


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