Ambush Naxals with a good strategy

The Union government convened a meeting of the chief ministers of India on June 5, apparently over the horrific ambush by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh on May 25 that decimated the top Congress leadership in that state. The expectation was that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would chalk out some strategic direction for the future, different from the bungling and confusion of the past.

British historian Hew Strachan, interpreting Clausewitz, wrote that courage in war takes two forms: one is personal courage in the face of danger, which impacts the tactical sphere; the other is the courage to take responsibility, a must in the strategic space. Alas, Dr Singh, not for the first time, fell short on that count. He blamed Centre-state relations, the Opposition parties and even urged society to devise “effective ways and means”. In effect, he read out UPA’s report card on internal security without leading from the front on the challenge at hand.
Normally, it is said that insurgencies have life cycles that run about a decade. After nine years of UPA rule, the Maoists are re-asserting themselves, if anything, rather than disappearing. Following the meeting on June 5, from which Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi distracted using the national platform for a solo performance, leaders of nine Maoist-affected or connected states met eventually to coordinate, if they could, their approaches. The fundamental issues are both political and systemic.
The political problem is really a factor of the Congress’ inability to maintain a civil relationship with the Opposition. It is understandable that differences cannot be bridged over corruption charges, but what was the need to drag their feet over the resignations of railway minister Pawan Bansal and law minister Ashwani Kumar and thus sacrifice the last part of the Budget Session of Parliament when it had to be done eventually under public pressure?
The National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), borrowed by finance minister P. Chidambaram, without experience in a state government, from the US, a presidential system albeit federal, arouses genuine concern in states of the Centre utilising it to poach on their law and order jurisdiction. Decades of Congress dismissals of state governments and their continuing penchant for posting retired policemen, particularly former directors of Intelligence Bureau, as governors, and the blatant abuse of the Central Bureau of Investigation to keep leaders of the Opposition parties off balance only enhances their paranoia. The responsibility to fight the Maoists is a shared one, but it is the Centre that has failed to carry the states in devising a coherent and consistent policy, which currently oscillates between “parivartan yatras” and police action.
The systemic problems are more serious. Firstly, it is time to acknowledge that the Maoist challenge should not be clubbed with terrorism supported out of Pakistan as their wider support, large area of operation that spills over seven states and danger of a link-up at some stage with forces outside India makes them an insurgency, which requires specialised handling. Secondly, no National Investigation Agency (NIA) or NCTC will be able to help unless a thorough re-think is undertaken on strategy and tactics, as the US did in Iraq in 2006. Gen. David Petraeus, then at Fort Leavenworth, had a multi-disciplinary team re-write their Counter-Insurgency Manual (COIN) to re-orient their approach when the US forces seemed to be on the brink of disaster.
The COIN doctrine was not devised by the US, it was rediscovered by them to succeed in stabilising Iraq, which had spiralled out of control in 2006. They freely took advice, including from David Kilcullen, an Australian with COIN experience in Timor. Essentially, the doctrine builds on the fundamental thesis to protect the populace. Then follows the injunction to “clear, hold and build”.
David Galula, a French COIN theorist basing on French experience in Algeria, wrote, “to defeat insurgency, military units must live amongst the people.” Almost identical principles were articulated by Lawrence of Arabia in his “Twenty-Seven Articles” in 1917. In 2007, the US began to move their soldiers out of protected zones to outposts in the Sunni triangle of Iraq. Soldiers were asked to patrol on foot and in smaller numbers, but retain ground gained. First their losses mounted, from 70 in February to 71 in March, 96 in April and 120 in June. President George W. Bush held steady behind his generals. It is only then that the situation started turning around. Does the UPA government have the resolve to do likewise and do it despite the oncoming elections, imagined electoral gains or losses thus rising above the partisan divide, rather than simply blaming the Opposition?
The related question is how do you re-orient the paramilitary forces of India? Firstly, the time has come to stop fearing a military takeover of India and thus keeping the leadership of the paramilitary organisations in the hands of police officers, who are largely untrained to fight insurgency. There is no reason why a general competent in COIN should not head the Central Reserve Police Force or a divided part of it that specialises in countering the Maoist menace. Secondly, the security forces must regain systematically more area, hold it and then transfer to the local police or village committees. It is in those areas that development should be pumped in. Time and again, vehicles of security forces are blown up, as they were in Iraq, so there has to be foot patrolling and counter measures. The US spent $10 billion on technology to counter road bombs. Have we even discussed it with them?
As the axiom goes, good tactics cannot fix bad strategy; but good strategy will override bad tactics. The ball, Dr Singh, is in your court!

The writer is a former secretary in the external affairs ministry.