Such incidents in the Northeast are recurring with not only astonishing regularity, but also with the barbarity that separatists are able to muster
It has happened again. The doggedness with which insurgents from Myanmar have been targeting the security forces in Manipur has become almost a feature happening with uncanny consistency. If it was Sajik Tampak on June 4, 2014, when soldiers of the 6 Dogras were ambushed in the Sajik Tampak region of Manipur’s Chandel district, it is the Commanding Officer of 46 Assam Rifles in the same state’s Churachandpur district this time around.
The only brazen variation was that this time the militants did not even spare non-combatants including the wife and nine-year-old son of Col Viplav Tripathi, a progression in non-state action that is gradually approximating the methodology of terrorism. After all, even when United Liberation Front of Asom’s sophisticated “Programmable Time Delay Device” killed innocent children on 15 August, 2004, in Dhemaji, post hoc analysis determined that it was clearly a mistake and later there was both penitence and punishment (for the perpetrators) by the ULFA leadership with Paresh Baruah apologising for the mistake on 13 December, 2009.
The NSCN, too, have never targeted non-combatants and there are anecdotal accounts that the organisation treated Sunday as a “Day of Forgiveness”. But for all the unwritten ethical conduct of the past the contours of North East insurgency — hijacked by anti-India chaperons — is fast changing and the fact of the matter is that such incidents are beginning to recur with not only astonishing regularity, but also with all the barbarity that they are able to muster.
What can the Indian state do at this hour of darkness? It would probably send out twitters of defiance and censure, condole the action and then contemplate “surgical strikes” by which to erect yet another “blockbuster” in order to inform a beleaguered nation that “revenge had been sweet.” Unfortunately, even the possibility of such reprisals has to a considerable extent been negated. Even when Aung San Suu Kyi was the State Counsellor of Myanmar she had cautioned the Indian government that she would not accept a repeat of New Delhi’s chest-thumping violation of her country’s territory.
Today, when democracy has been usurped by a stratocracy and New Delhi is groping around for a Myanmar policy that is not only ambiguous, but fraught with grave security risks, the possibility of a hot pursuit policy into the safe havens of the Valley Based Insurgent Groups (VBIGs) in the country's Sagaing Division is next to impossible. In any event, even if there were to be yet another “surgical strike” against the perpetrators, the only message that would be relayed is to the electorate in Lucknow or Varanasi. It would neither bring back the blameless son of Col. Viplav Tripathi nor would it add to the morale of a noble force that has been-without fear or favour-carrying out its duties in hostile terrain. This is despite the fact that most thinking personnel of the Assam Rifles or the Indian army for the matter are aware that the mandarins in Raisina Hill have never pondered over an overarching policy for the “enchanted frontiers” that might prevent such continual acts of aggression from belligerence that high policy has failed to comprehend.
After all, the security scenario in India’s North East has far from healthy. The complacence with which cessation of hostilities with NSCN (K) was abrogated, the consequence of which was the 2015 attack on the 6 Dogra bravehearts, the manner in which a plethora of VBIGs were “permitted” to come to an agreement with the Myanmar army after the February 1, 2021, military takeover and the now almost definite collusion between the Chinese Ministry of State Security and insurgent groups such as the Manipur’s People’s Liberation Army (the insurgent outfit which is perhaps the likeliest of perpetrator of the November 13, 2021 ambush), point to not only failure of human intelligence (the most convenient casualty in the aftermath of such incidents), but the inability of New Delhi to grasp the realities of non-state action in the North East which in some ways is far more serious than the ongoing one in Kashmir. For one, there are few rabidly anti-India, pro-Chinese representatives in the Indian Insurgent Groups. One of the foremost “Chinese” agentsis Manohar Mayum the Commander-in-Chief of the PLA (Manipur) and it is he who could be the person who planned the attack on 46 Assam Rifles alongside his Chinese minders.
The most important reason is New Delhi’s inability to match short-term goals with long-term imperatives. Counter operations, for instance, by their very definition play black — a disadvantage that determines its response. But as any sound chess player will surmise, advantages can easily be engineered after opening gambits have been traded. Unfortunately, for the North East, this has not been perceived as a possibility. Non-sensitive solutions that do not look beyond the immediately conceivable, non-comprehension of the dynamics that govern the North Eastern mind and the failure to set into action methodologies that are more than stimulus response are responsible for the ailments that continue to beleaguer the enchanted frontiers.
But what should be the way ahead? As avid observers of the North East, the author has always felt that there should be a separate policy-making body for the region. Polemics apart, brass tacks demand that such an arrangement needs to be anvilled immediately. The vastness of India’s landscape and responsibility has not quite provided adequate attention to the region, which is not to suggest that the frontiers have been consigned to the flames of anonymity by New Delhi. In all probability it has not applied sufficient cerebration for the construction of a comprehensive structure that would resolutely attend to the essentials of the region.
The need of the hour is, therefore, the constitution of a North East Security Council under the Ministry of Home Affairs, which in its wider ambit would not only address traditional security issues like border management, illegal migration, drug-gun running, insurgency, Islamist terror, human and energy security (the listing above not being all-inclusive), but also development which is an important factor of security.
The formation of such a council would also decisively inform the expanse that makes up the North East that New Delhi is serious about the region’s health. Indeed, the author had taken up the issue of the constitution of such a Council even when the Bharatiya Janata Party was not in power. A robust blueprint had been drawn up and presented to the leaders of the dispensation in-waiting. But nothing was done. The untimely death of Col. Viplav Tripathi, his family and the soldiers of 46 Assam Rifles in Manipur by marauders who have not been able to be brought to heel would perhaps prod New Delhi onto serious introspection and even consideration of what is being recommended by way of a North East Security Council.
(The writer is a conflict analyst. The views expressed are personal.)
