Groping in the dark proving costly
by Lt-Gen Harwant Singh (retd)
Why the CRPF with a strength of 210 battalions depend on the military for training when by now they should have had, along with other CPOs like the BSF, the ITBP, etc.) their own training schools? The higher hierarchy in this and other CPOs have no ground level experience in counter-insurgency operations. Small wonder, there is little central policy or doctrine and no accountability.
The government seems to be groping in the dark. One proposal is to raise another police force exclusively to deal with Maoists. Another one is to shift some RR units from Jammu and Kashmir for this task and/or raise more RR units. Equally weird is the idea to induct Remotely Piloted Planes to locate Maoists in thick jungles and much else. Yet another is to have a Central body to control and co-ordinate all anti-Maoist operations in the Red Corridor.
Shifting RR battalions from J&K appears unlikely. If new units are raised, their command and control will have to rest with the military. So, willy-nilly army will get sucked into anti-Maoist operations. The Army’s hands are already more than full and landing it with this additional commitment will have serious implications for national security. Placing these units under the CRPF control will not work.
The CPOs often operate in companies and not as full units and there lies a serious drawback This arrangement creates functional problems in command and control, performance and cohesiveness. There is little unit spirit when companies operate in mixed groups and can seldom meet serious challenges. Such an arrangement may work in duties at election times, but combating insurgency is a different ballgame.
The ease with which Maoists have been raiding prisons, police stations, taking away police weapons and attacking CPO camps does not speak well of the morale of the police. There is little motivation and leadership appears indifferent. For the Centre to pass the buck to states will not wash because higher leadership of the state police is from the Central cadre so also that of CPOs. It is no more a mere law and order case. The Home Minister may, as a first step, bring in accountability of higher police set-up: much else will, thereafter, fall in place.
As for naming of these CPOs as ‘paramilitary’, there is nothing about them that even remotely resembles the military, except perhaps their dress. The law of the land forbids any one to copy and wear any item of uniform that resembles that of the military. Here most brazenly the uniform and accruements are copied with impunity. This creates identity confusion and the military’s impact on terrorists and miscreants gets diffused.
The CPOs have none of the military’s ethos, traditions, skills, spirit and leadership. On their own and with the right leadership, they can be first-rate police force. There is little to be gained in aping the military in dress, form and formulations. CPOs have little to claim as paramilitary and dislike being called police. Resultantly, they fall between two stools.
The military has been ambushed on many an occasion but never at such a scale. Its casualty ratio between troops and officers in counter-insurgency operations is in the region of 1 to 13.4. That is for every 13/14 men killed there is an officer casualty and figure for officers in the last decade and a half is by now well over 560. These are commissioned officers ranging from Lieutenants to Colonels and in a few cases even higher rank officers. The military has been combating well trained and motivated insurgents in the North East and J&K. Whereas Maoists are a ‘ragtag’ force in its present state. To achieve results, police leadership will have to be up front.
The Indian state has been painfully slow in waking up to the Maoist threat. Even the Prime Minister’s wake-up call had gone unheeded. Over time conditions have been allowed to deteriorate resulting in large-scale disaffection amongst vast sections of marginalised and dispossessed population, whom all development and poverty alleviation schemes have simply bypassed. Whose small land holdings have been taken over by mining mafias, hydel projects, MNCs and some others whose forest rights have been dissolved, leaving them no means of livelihood? Added to that has been the gradual withdrawal of governance at district level and the all-pervasive corruption.
As administration shrank and poverty alleviation schemes and development plans were hijacked by corrupt officials and colluding politicians, in district after district, disaffection and deprivation spread. District officials seldom stirred out and often functioned from within their high security residences and offices and on return to Delhi, became experts in dealing with Maoist movement. Given such conditions, the Maoists kept enlarging their foothold and spread the field of activity while Delhi slept.
The media hype over the Dantewada incident portends ill for the developing situation. A kind of hysteria has been created where elimination of Maoists has become the top priority without regard to means and methods. Terms like revenge, enemy and war are being bandied about. What may follow are extreme excesses by the police: provincial and CPOs.
Arrests, interrogations, torture and torching of villages, dislocations, fake encounters could become a daily occurrence. Custodial deaths too will become a common feature, more so when senior leadership stays away from the field. Police brutalities can push more people into the Maoist fold. However, the Home Minister is expected to exercise a sobering influence on the anti-Maoist operations.
There is talk of accelerating development of these areas. If the same set of government machinery is to undertake this task, on which it so miserably failed in the past, how is it expected to do better this time? Government officials are loathe at venturing into these areas. So one proposal is to first bring the affected districts under control, restore law and order and then start developmental work. Yet another view is to start rapid development (whatever it means) as pockets are cleared of Maoists, because time is at a premium.
In the proposed development plans, it may perhaps be possible to make roads, healthcare centres, hospitals and schools (doubtful though) but the larger problem which makes a substantial difference is the creation of jobs, gainful employment and economic activity for the vast majority. That is an area which takes a lot of planning and time. So it is possible that the Maoist problem will not go away in a hurry and police retaliations, consequent to the hype created by the media, may exacerbate the already deteriorating situation.
A new legislation to deal with the Maoists needs to be brought in where this CPO(s) have the authority to operate in various Maoist affected states. It should be placed under a Central authority which co-ordinates its actions and intelligence work with the state police.
The answer lies in splitting the CRPF into two, with about 150 battalions forming the core of the anti-Maoist group, which should be given intensive training in counter-insurgency operations and provided young and competent leadership at platoon, company and battalion level. Perhaps IPS officers with less than 10 years of service be made to spend two to three years leading platoons and companies with anti-Maoist outfits.
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100515/edit.htm#4
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