India needs a tough hostage policy
The abductions of two Italians and two government officials by Maoist guerrillas in just over a month must have left Indian authorities with a sense of déjà vu as they search for ways to end the cycle of negotiations and eventual accession to demands made by the rebels.
For the Maoists, who say they are fighting for people left out of India’s economic boom, the tactic of taking hostages instead of engaging soldiers brings huge dividends — obtaining freedom for jailed comrades and suspension of military ‘combing’ operations in areas controlled by them.
The method is not new, with government records showing hundreds of kidnappings since 2008 by Maoists, who have fought for decades in a wide swathe of central and eastern India including many resource-rich regions. Authorities stumble along on a case-by-case basis because there is no set procedure on how to handle such situations.
But the recent pattern of high-profile abductions which have grabbed national headlines have worried the central government enough to consider drafting a long overdue policy on dealing with hostage situations.
Countries like the U.S., with its “no negotiation” policy and Israel’s deadly responses to militant attacks have all been contrasted to India’s handling of hostage crises, which most agree is not tough enough to stop or discourage future cases.
No details are known of the policy draft, but for any policy to be effective, India must shed its ‘soft’ image and include the politically risky option of rescue operations, without which the only option of hostage release in most cases is agreeing to the abductors’ demands.
And there are quite a few precedents to learn from – starting from the famous 1999 ‘Kandahar Hijacking’ where three Kashmiri militants were released, to the recent events in Orissa where authorities freed a Maoist leader’s imprisoned wife and promised to facilitate the release of several other rebels.
Sympathy for the devil? Maoist supporters get flak
Hours after Maoist rebels detonated a landmine under a bus in central India on Monday, killing about 35 people including policemen, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram was unapologetic in his criticism of civil society organisations that he said were getting in the way of the state’s efforts to contain the rebels.
It is “almost fashionable” to be sympathetic to the Maoist cause, Chidambaram said in an interview to NDTV news channel.
In defending the rebels and questioning the motives of the government — and not of the rebels — they were weakening the apparatus of the state, he said.
Maoist rebels have been romanticised by some writers and filmmakers, portrayed as modern-day Robin Hoods fighting the establishment and corporate greed to protect the rights of the poor and the marginalised.
Rights activists, some NGOs and writers, including Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, have slammed the government for failing to address what they say is the root cause of the Maoists’ fight: isolation from India’s economic growth party.
The government offensive has brought charges of excessive force and human rights abuses. This is set to grow with Chidambaram indicating there was broad support for the use of air strikes against the rebels.
“….stifling criticism is no way to win hearts and minds.”
Who has stifled criticism? By this logic, it is ok for others to criticise and point out failings of the government, but if the government rebuts that criticism it is charged with stifling criticism? Strange logic. Please allow the government also the same liberty of ctiricising and answering their critics, without accusations of being despotic. After all, what is fair for the activists is fair for the government too.
In fact, if you look at it discerningly, you will find that the administration has admitted its lapses regarding the so called ‘root causes’ and has accepted that criticism. How many activists have we heard asking the Maoistis to lay down arms and refrain from attacks on innocents and to accept government offers of talks?
I am not aware of a single activist, including the most celebrated and oft quoted, Arundhati Roy, of ever having offered even one constructive suggestion towards solving this problem. They are merely criticising for the sake of criticising, there is nothing constructive coming from them. Surely, as so called intellectuals and those who shed copious tears for the downtrodden, they should be interested in finding a solution and at least have some suggestions?
from Afghan Journal:
Bombing your own people: the use of air power in South Asia
(U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt jets, also known as the Warthog. File photo)
Pakistani army chief of staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani offered a rare apology at the weekend for a deadly air strike in the Khyber region in the northwest in which residents and local officials say at least 63 civilians were killed.
Tragically for the Pakistani military, most of the victims were members of a tribe that had stood up against the Taliban. Some of them were members of the army. Indeed as Dawn reported the first bomb was dropped on the house of a serving army officer, followed by another more devastating strike just when people rushed to the scene. Such actions defy description and an explanation is in order from those who ordered the assault, the newspaper said in an angry editorial.
But the question really is wasn't it coming? The counter-insurgency strategy that Pakistan has pursued to wrest control of its turbulent northwest along the border with Afghanistan has consisted of heavy use of air strikes and long range artillery barrages in the initial stages before putting boots on the ground.
It's the steam-roller approach that Lord Curzon, the turn-of-the century British Viceroy of India, spoke about when confronted with a similar challenge in Waziristan - except that it relies on stand-off weapons like releasing bombs from the safety of a jet aircraft to keep military casualties down, taking a leaf from the U.S. playbook in Afghanistan.
Indeed it would appear that while the U.S. is trying to change tack after years of deadly strikes in Afghanistan, and focus on avoiding casualties at all costs, the Pakistanis are relying on the classic counter-insurgency strategy of overwhelming force as Tim Foxley writes on the Afghanistan blog or the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
As a Pakistani, I would not justify it, and label it as one of the stupidiests act on part of our air force. The people involved should be court mashalled in order to bring perfection in their job and avoid any future tragidy like this.
Police taking on India’s Maoists can’t shoot straight?
The killing of 76 police by Maoist rebels earlier this month in central India did not come as a big surprise to experts who know most of the forces that are deployed in the dense jungles are hardly trained in jungle warfare.
Most of them undergo a short training course before engaging the rebels in inhospitable terrain is thrust upon their shoulders.
More than 1,000 fighters, armed with sophisticated weapons, ambushed the central police in insurgency-hit Chhattisgarh state, exposing a lack of intelligence and planning by forces who were totally unfamiliar with the rebel territory.
Only eight Maoists were killed in retaliatory fire, as most bullets hit trees instead of the rebels behind the forest cover.
Within days, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram offered to resign taking full responsibility for the deaths, but will simply owning up help India’s fight against the Maoists at all?
Indian newspapers have carried front-page stories on the government’s failure to tackle the decades-old insurgency that began with a peasant’s movement in 1967 and has now spread to 22 out of 28 states.
In a knee-jerk reaction, like in most cases, authorities directed police to sharpen their skills in shooting ranges this week, and the findings have embarrassed most officials.
Who says Policemen lack shooting?? the rifles/guns provided to them are out of focus, contains only two bullets, one bullet after another takes 15 sec. to re-fire, re-load time 30 sec., can’t be loaded after 3 simultaneous loading i.e., after firing 6 shots wait time of a minute is required or else gun will burst. Most of them were part of corrupted recruitment programme and merely working for extra money in the form of bribe.
And who is not corrupt?? All of us – me, you and everybody being a part of GLOBAL-INDIA society are corrupt. Why?? ask yourselves- if given chance of becoming a politician or business tycoon or policy maker or any key strong person, will you not take part in everything being extra offerred to you in any materialistic form or you wouldn’t have used such forms to avoid penalties somehow so in the vicious circle of sex, religion, caste, community and other 100′s of elements you cannot avoid being CORRUPTED…
Will anti-torture law have the desired effect?
Just days after 76 security personnel were killed by Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh, a long-pending bill to prevent torture has been cleared by the cabinet for introduction in parliament, which aims to align Indian law with the U.N. Convention Against Torture.
Activists have for years demanded ratification of the 1984 U.N. convention, which India signed 13 years ago, to curb alleged brutalities by state agencies especially in disturbed areas like Jammu and Kashmir, the North East and the “red corridor” where Maoists operate.
But some cabinet members reportedly felt the bill was ill-timed in the wake of the Dantewada killings, arguing it could be demoralising for security forces who are trying to maintain security in hostile environments.
The police and security forces are often accused of using violence to extract confessions from suspects, and activists say hundreds of custodial deaths and other alleged human rights violations stoke separatist sentiments in Kashmir and contribute to the growth of Maoists in Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Orissa.
Special legislations like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, which gives extra powers to the armed forces, have been blamed for many rights violations especially in the north-eastern state of Manipur, where protests demanding the repeal of the act are common.
The government’s proposed Prevention of Torture Bill, which is likely to be placed before parliament in the second phase of the budget session, prescribes a maximum of 10 years in jail for a person found guilty of torture.
Being the world’s largest democracy and a self-proclaimed emerging power, India needs a law which clearly defines physical and mental torture, to be regarded as a responsible nation.
I think we need the law on statute books regardless of its effectiveness because we boast of being a democracy. Bragging rights don’t come for free!
Is the government losing the plot in tackling Maoist insurgency?
A day after hundreds of Maoist rebels trapped and killed 76 Indian security personnel in a heavily mined swathe of jungle in Chhattisgarh, a feeling of shock pervades the national psyche.
The nature of the attack, the detailed planning that went into it and the government’s reaction thereafter has raised the question that is being debated for some time now.
Is it time to involve the better equipped and better trained armed forces in ongoing anti-insurgency operations?
Home Secretary G.K. Pillai told a television news channel the central forces are on track in reclaiming thousands of acres of land under Maoist control and the decision to get the army into fighting Maoist insurgency is essentially a political one.
The April 6 attack, one of the deadliest in recent times, is seen by experts as retaliation to the government’s ongoing operation to root out insurgency in Maoist-hit states.
Indian newspapers reacted in rage and indignation the morning after with most dailies calling the massacre a “War” on the Indian state. Some of them expressed the need for calling in the army to counter such violence.
“As the one-sided battle in Chhattisgarh has shown all too glaringly, a military solution in tandem with state forces cannot be shelved,” the Hindustan Times newspaper said in an editorial.
This government seems to have lost the plot a long time ago.
“The security forces that patrol Maoist-affected areas are often ill-equipped to fight rebels armed with latest weaponry.
Frequently outnumbered, victims of poor information gathering and poorly paid — the foot-soldiers in the fight against rising Maoist violence need to be bolstered if the government hopes to take on the rebels on their own turf….”
Kautilya (Chanakya) wrote to Chandragupta Maurya (Around 200 to 300 BC):
“It is my bounden duty to caution you, My Lord, that the day when the Mauryan soldier has to demand his dues or, worse, plead for them, will be a sad day and will point to multiple and multi-level failures in the governance machinery in Magadha. The day will neither have arrived suddenly, overnight nor in vain. It will also bode ill for Magadha.
For then, on that day, you, My Lord, will have lost all moral sanction to be King! It will also mark the beginning of the end of the Mauryan Empire!!”
Relevant today, over 2000 years later.
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
Comparing Pakistan’s Islamists to India’s Maoists
One of the more controversial arguments doing the rounds is the question of whether you can compare Pakistan's Islamist militants to Maoist insurgents in India. Both claim to champion the cause of social justice and have been able to exploit local grievances against poor governance to win support, and both use violence against the state to try to achieve their aims.
The differences are obvious: the Islamist militants come from the religious right; the Maoists from the far-left. In Pakistan, the militants have become powerful enough to strike at the heart of the country's major cities. In India, the Maoists remain largely confined to the country's interiors, although their influence is spreading through large parts of its rural hinterland.
In Pakistan, the military initially nurtured Islamist militants to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan - with U.S. and Saudi support - and later to fight India in Kashmir. In India, the Maoist movement has grown organically from its origins as a local 1967 uprising by communists over a land dispute in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal, from where its followers derive their name as Naxalites.
In Pakistan, the question of whether support for Islamist militants is underpinned by local grievances over social injustice is highly contentious. Many in Pakistan dismiss the Pakistani Taliban as right-wing ideologues, fired up by an alien religious philosophy imported from the Middle East by al Qaeda, and joined by a motley crew of criminals and thugs bent on the pursuit of pursuit of power and money.
In India, even those who oppose the Maoists' violent methods acknowledge that poverty and the alienation of its rural poor - especially among the indigenous tribal people - have contributed to their appeal. (I have rarely been so powerfully struck by the desolation of hunger than on a trip some years ago to Chhattisgarh, the heartland of the Maoist revolt. It is a state where deep in the forests you find children with the protruding bellies and vacant eyes of the seriously malnourished, whose fathers use bows-and-arrows to catch animals (see pix). It also has vast mineral resources which villagers hope might one day make them rich, and which Maoists argue will be exploited by international mining companies.)
But granted the obvious differences, some of the similarities offer a perspective which at the very least allows room for discussion about the challenges faced by national governments in dealing with insurgencies, both from the Islamist right and the far left.
In Pakistan, the Islamist militants are recognised by many as an existential threat to the state. In India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist insurgency as "perhaps the gravest internal security threat our country faces".
@ Dara,
“I read Sen’s “The Argumentative Indian” and freely admit that very often had to read portions repeatedly to even understand the gist.”
I’m glad you said that. I picked up a copy of “The Argumentative Indian” recently and am finding it very hard to get through. Do read his book “Identity and Violence” if you haven’t already done so as it is much clearer.
One thing that did come across in “The Argumentative Indian” is Sen’s view that India suffers from western misconceptions of India. He does not say this, but I’ve been wondering whether the foreign investment view of India as BRIC economy belongs in that category? (I am going way off topic here, but it has been interesting to see that nobody who has commented on this post has recommended foreign investment as the solution to poverty in Chhattisgarh and other places.)
@ Rajeev,
You are right. I should read Khushwant Singh’s “A History of the Sikhs”. (I agree that Kashmir is not terribly relevant here, but it just happens to be the area I’ve read about since I’ve been studying 19th century Kashmir history for an entirely separate project.)
“I have personal experience. During my visit to Venice, standing at a bridge was an elderly couple who overheard us talk in Hindi/Punjabi and they were Punjabis from Lahore, settled in Vancouver. We talked for 20minutes and felt as if we know each other for a long time and departed with invitation next time we visit Canada BC. But my issue is discussing hate, the problem for which we need solution.”
Much as it is risky to generalise, I’ve always had a sense that Punjabis are a bit like people from Glasgow and the west of Scotland (which is where I am from). The sectarian divisions there between Catholics and Protestants used to be extremely powerful, in part, but only in part, because of the Northern Ireland issue. That has changed only in the last few decades. But certainly when I was growing up Catholics and Protestants did not mix, went to different schools, supported different football teams (Rangers is protestant, Celtic is catholic) etc etc.
Obviously in the case of Indian and Pakistani Punjabis you have a division between two different countries, along with all the pain caused by partition that many people still carry. But it’s definitely a subject worth looking at a bit more closely.
Are the Maoists gaining ground in West Bengal?
Hundreds of tribal people backed by the Maoist guerrillas stormed the high-speed Rajdhani Express, one of the country’s most prestigious passenger trains, in West Bengal on Tuesday. Police and security forces could free the train and its driver after a five-hour-long hostage drama, including a gunfight with the rebels in the forest.Maoists have stepped up violence across eastern and central India and internal security experts say it indicates a growing dominance of the insurgents in the state.The rebels raided a police station in West Bengal this month and abducted a senior official after gunning down two of his colleagues.Police officer Atindranath Dutta was held captive for two days and freed in exchange for 23 tribal women lodged in prisons for suspected Maoist links.Maoist attacks on police posts are nothing new in an area that has witnessed an anti-insurgency operation since June and the rebels have taken effective control of large swathes of the countryside.The insurgents say they are waging war on behalf of the poor and the landless against the state. The attack has raised concerns and West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said the swap was an “exception, not a norm.”Security experts say the Maoists, whom Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has identified as the country’s biggest internal threat, have thrown an open challenge to the authorities.In June a combined force of central paramilitary troops and state police retook control of Lalgarh, a town captured by the Maoists in West Midnapore district of West Bengal.The government began cracking down on the rebel leaders and sympathisers since then.The policeman abduction episode has apparently galvanised the communist government in West Bengal which has said it will heavily weaponise policemen and fortify its police stations. The NGOs working in Maoist-affected areas blame the government for the state of affairs.Is increasing Maoist violence in West Bengal indicative of a growing clout of the rebels?
@the last thing we need is a rag-tag group of ‘terrorists’ using outdated ideology which has its own systematic suppression.- Posted by bulletfishbulletfish: Actually Maoist problem is very big problem. They may appear rag-tag, but they are committed. The reasons are genuine issues they have, ignoring for a moment the politics of Maoism. Poor are sandwiched between Indian state who claims 9% growth and gun-totting Maoists. Indian govt does not seem to have a non-military plan to deal with the issue and Maoists will not let the poor shun the gun. If they do not shoot, they are shot. Everybody is at fault.I have a Bihari friend from Delhi whose parents recently chose to settle in native a Bihari village to help the poor in the village. But the rising violence by Maoism has forced them to move back to Delhi. Maoists militants are contributing themselves to the poor-rich gap.
Does India need its army to tackle the Maoists?
I have been noticing a debate in newspapers and television channels about the need to call in the army to tackle the Maoists and wonder whether it is indeed time to turn towards them before the movement spirals out of control.
Last week, hundreds of Maoists, who are expanding their influence in India, chased away police from a tribal area based around the town of Lalgarh about 170 km (100 miles) from Kolkata, capital of West Bengal state.
By attacking Lalgarh and then keeping the police at bay for four days, the Maoists demonstrated their growing influence over poor villagers and their capability to strike close to a big city like Kolkata.
(For Analysis on how Maoist insurgency can hurt industry in India, click here )
Thousands of villagers caught in the crossfire have left their homes in panic and have been put up in makeshift government camps. They are clearly shaken by the siege and the subsequent police campaign to sanitise Lalgarh.
Indian states have time and again asked the central government that it might need the army to fight the Maoist movement, which is rapidly spreading in the country.
But for the moment, India is banking on the police to tackle the Maoists and equipping its forces with modern weapons and training to fight the Maoists in their own den.
Do we need the army to tackle the naxals? The short answer is no. What we need is political will and a well trained, motivated, professional police force – unfortunately it lacks all the above.
The army should not be used to solve problems created by neglect, lack of good administration. It is foolish to pit the armed forces against their own countrymen.
Will it use the army at some stage? Probably yes. The army seems to be the only remedy politicians have now a days to get them out of a mess they themselves create. In the long run, this is detrimental to the army and the country’s security. what we badly need is people with a broader vision in administration and politics.
India in a “ring of fire”
As a growing power which aims to rewrite global economic and geopolitical realities, India’s first order of business is to secure its strategic periphery without provoking a backlash from its neighbours.
But the political crisis in Nepal, triggered by the resignation of Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda, is yet another reminder of India’s strategic challenges.
Nepal has for long sat in India’s sphere of influence, but the rise of the Maoists has seen an increasing antipathy in the nascent Himalayan republic towards New Delhi.
In fact, the Maoists’ foreign policy chief told Reuters that India was to blame for precipitating the crisis by blocking Prachanda’s move to remove army chief Roopmangud Katawal.
India sees the Maoists, who control 40 percent of the parliament seats, as edging towards China. So, it wants to find a counterweight to the Maoists in a ruling coalition, many analysts say. The showdown over Katawal’s removal presented the flashpoint.
In its quest for strategic influence, many say India may have lit too many fires around itself.
War and misery blights Sri Lanka, with political ramifications in India; Bangladeshi politics remains volatile and the country eyes India with suspicion; the military junta in Myanmar is pro-China; Pakistan is wobbling under a spell of violence that has a direct bearing on India’s security.
India is a nobody and can do nothing.
- Posted by Aamir Ali
The wounds have healed I guess.
//Many recent editorials in the media have called on the government to get tough on anti-state elements, with some even advocating a ‘no negotiation’ policy.//
Well said. But India being federal in nature things almost always need to go through a definitive set of meetings with whoever involved in tackling the Maoists menace at the state level. The recent meeting on NCTC (a Center- formulated bill prescribing a stricter control of terrorism) has exposed many shortcomings as far as allocating powers to the states are concerned. The very states (notably Tamil Nadu and Gujarat) who raised a ‘hue and cry’ at the meet for they believed the bill might infringe upon the constitutionally drawn state rights, have often resorted to extra-judicial killings in dealing with crime inside their territories.