OPED | Tuesday, October 6, 2009 | Email | Print | 
Winning the counter-insurgency endgame
The war against Maoists cannot be won unless Government strategises for the endgame, write Sushant K Singh & Nitin Pai
It has been recognised that successful counter-insurgency strategy — recently popularised as the Petraeus doctrine and implemented successfully by the United States in Iraq — has three distinct but overlapping stages: “Clear, Hold and Build”. The first involves military operations to clear territory of insurgents, the second calls for holding territory and protecting the population from insurgent attacks, and the third consolidates military successes by building functional institutions of state that in turn can deliver effective governance.
Despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s characterisation of the Maoist movement as the biggest threat to India’s internal security, the Shivraj Patil-led Home Ministry during the UPA Government’s first term showed little imagination and even less resolve in earnestly confronting the growing threat. While the Maoist movement consolidated across the country, moving cadre, arms and funds across State and international borders, the Indian Government’s response was inefficient and lacked coordination. Not only did this result in Maoists gaining strength unchecked, it also resulted in dubious and poorly-conceived responses such as the use of tribal militias like Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and ham-fisted police action against rural and tribal populations.
In its second-term, the UPA Government has demonstrated more seriousness in tackling what it calls Left-wing extremism. Intelligence and law-enforcement efforts have succeeded in the arrest of a number of top leaders of the CPI(M). Concerted action by Central and State paramilitary and police forces — called Operation Green Hunt — targeting Maoist forces across several Indian States has started. Unsophisticated as it may be, the Home Ministry has also attempted to counter the Maoist movement in the psychological space by using the media to project the Maoists as the “cold-blooded murderers” as they often are. Some poorly conceived proposals to buy out Maoist cadres apart, India, at last, appears to have begun fighting the war of counter-insurgency that it must.
It will be a long war, and although late, the Clear stage has begun. The UPA Government must not allow its resolve to be weakened in the face of the expected psychological operations that will be launched by the Maoists, their over-ground operatives and other sympathisers.
While the security forces are equipped, trained and prepared to handle the Clear and Build stages, they find themselves inadequate to take on the challenge of the third, Build stage (more correctly, the Rebuild stage, after the destruction caused by the insurgents and collateral damage caused during counter-insurgency operations). By then, on the one hand, the local civil agencies would have atrophied and left without substantive capacity to undertake development in a conflict-ravaged area. On the other, media, public and political attention will move on to other issues once the statistics of violence show a degree of improvement.
Yet, neglect of the Build phase inevitably leads to a relapse of the Maoist pathology. The vacuum in capacity to impose rule-of-law, provide basic public services and economic development — filled to a degree by NGOs and some central agencies — leaves the third stage of counter-insurgency unfinished or poorly executed. It is for this reason that successful counter-insurgency practitioners — from Lt-Gen Ajai Singh in Assam in the 1990s to General David Petraeus in Iraq in 2007 — are wary of the dangers of “mowing the lawn”. The insurgency seems to just grow back after extensive, ostensibly successful, military operations. A lack of political, economic and social development triggers this regression and pushes the security forces to repeat the ‘Clear and Hold’ stages of counter-insurgency operations in the area.
As evident from the experience in the North-East and in Jammu & Kashmir, neglecting the third stage merely lowers the level of violence for years or even decades, necessitating the continued employment of Central security forces on internal security duties. This is an undesirable outcome. Not only does it drain Government resources, it also leaves the local population, the security forces and the political class dissatisfied. Worse, it results in the entrenchment of a conflict-economy, where vested interests have incentives to keep the conflict alive, at the cost of the well-being of the population.
It is therefore difficult to overstate the importance of a sound Build strategy. As it launches into the war against Maoists, the UPA government must realise that it cannot be successful unless it has a strategy for the endgame.
Security forces cannot play the endgame
Ideally, civilian agencies of the state and local Governments should step in to provide governance and development as the security forces bring military operations to an end. In reality, though, it is nearly impossible to get Government employees back into conflict zones as the security environment is remains risky. The resulting lack of institutional capacity at the ground level severely constrains the success of Central and State Government initiatives aimed at socio-economic development. Similarly, other conventional civil agencies — Central Government departments, private contractors and NGOs — can undertake development initiatives only when basic security has been restored. The binding constraint is the lack of suitable civilians willing to work in relatively insecure environments.
This problem is usually solved by asking the security forces themselves to take on the task of governance and development. This has its own attractions: It offers the Government the simplicity of a single chain of command and frees it of concerns for safety and security of civil employees. Thus, from the formal Operation Sadbhavana mechanisms to informal advisories to State Governments, the security forces have been placed at the fore of most developmental activities in conflict-ravaged States in the North-East and Jammu & Kashmir. Alarmingly, this politically expedient option is now finding favour in Maoist-affected States as well. Expedient as it may be, it is also a bad solution.
The much-publicised example of security forces recently ensuring the construction of a concrete road in the Red Corridor in Chhattisgarh — with heavy attendant costs, both financial and human — is one such case of misperceived success. It serves a limited purpose of signalling the might of the state to complete a project against the will of the Maoists. But road construction, in this particular case, is first an instrument of security and not of development. The road construction model cannot be replicated or scaled for other vital development projects. The security forces cannot build and operate schools, hospitals, markets and community centres on a large scale. Moreover, getting security forces to build roads is a grossly inefficient use of resources.
-- Courtesy: Pragati — The Idian National Interest Review. To be concluded.
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