Flawed operation

in New Delhi

A skilled commander seeks victory from the situation and does not demand it of his subordinates.

Sun Tzu , 6th century B.C. Chinese military strategist and author of The Art of War, considered to be a seminal book on military strategy.

A NUMBER of assessments of the Union Home Ministrys strategy in its anti-Maoist operation have made a reference to this quotation. Indeed, the legendary Chinese generals statement has acquired a biting edge in the context of the April 6 massacre of 78 men of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Chintalnad in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. The large number of deaths and the manner in which the Maoists carried out their assault have raised questions about the very premise of the Union Home Ministrys approximately six-month-old concerted and coordinated initiative against Maoists (referred to as Operation Green Hunt by many in the security establishment and outside) and the direction it is taking.

The thrust of the criticism is that the Home Ministry has failed to seek victory from the situation through a strategy that involves a realistic understanding of the ground situation, and, on account of this failure, the subordinates in the Ministry are being pressured to bring victory, leading to huge casualties.

A comparison of the objectives of the concerted and coordinated initiative against Maoists, which was launched in October-November last year, with the progress it has made so far does impart some validity to this assessment. The theoretical framework of the Home Ministry initiative was a fundamental principle of counter-insurgency, which was summed up in the catch phrase clear, hold and build.

A senior Home Ministry official had explained then: It is a comprehensive operational strategy that would first seek to clear an area of Maoists, occupy it militarily and follow it up with socio-economic development activity. The understanding is that it would take 18 to 24 months in each of the phases to operationalise the strategy and implement it successfully (Frontline, November 6, 2009).

The major difference between this initiative and the earlier ones was the greater detailing and the specific action programmes that had been drawn up for different regions. Union Home Ministry officials pointed out at that time that a detailed study of the Maoist-affected areas had been done and the most sensitive and difficult areas had been mapped.

The study identified as most sensitive 11 areas spread over 40 districts. According to the Home Ministrys own figures, overall Maoist influence spread from 56 districts in 2001 to 223 in 2009. It rated approximately 70 of these as worst-affected, among them the 40 districts in the 11 mapped areas identified as most sensitive.

The initial strategy was to concentrate operations in one or two of the 11 areas at any given point of time so as to ensure intense mobilisation.

The development plan that was to follow the offensive was to be handled by specialists in various fields, including socio-economic index researchers, development workers, health professionals and educators. Senior officials in the Home Ministry had claimed that the teams were also in place and would move in without delay once the clearing and holding was done.

However, approximately six months later it is evident that the strategy has not helped in minimising Left extremist activity. On the contrary, the Maoists have managed to stage counter-attacks in different parts of the country, with the April 6 attack at Chintalnad being the biggest yet. The other major Maoist strikes were in Koraput district (Orissa) on April 4, in which 11 security personnel were killed; in Silda (West Bengal) on February 15, in which 24 security men were killed; and in Lahiri in Gadchiroli district (Maharashtra) on October 8, 2009, in which 18 security men died.

The security establishment has given out a number of explanations after the Chintalnad massacre. Home Minister P. Chidambaram said something must have gone drastically wrong and others followed it up by saying that the Maoists had launched a full-fledged war aimed at toppling Indias democracy by 2050. Some others felt that the Maoists had taken the challenge to a new level.

Sections of the Home Ministry also hinted that the security personnel did not adhere to the standard operating procedures or to the 48-point guerilla warfare manual. But in many ways the tragedy at Dantewada was the result of ignoring the warnings of security experts, who doubted whether clear, hold and build would work in the current context. Ajai Sahni, executive director of the Delhi-based Institute of Conflict Management and editor of South Asia Intelligence Review, warned in end-2009 that the Maoists will only create situations where there will be significant loss of lives as the security machinery had no significant intelligence inputs, no idea of the environment. Thus, when you get a piece of information, you will send a troop of 40 people and they will attack you with 200 men (Frontline, November 6, 2009).

Sahni also pointed out that the Maoists seemed to be preparing themselves to expand their area of influence so as to force the state to divide its forces. If you do not attain a certain saturation of forces, then there can be no rational deployment of forces. If you spread your present force evenly across the whole affected area, they will have to be on the defensive and cannot launch an offensive as was the case in the past. And if you concentrate your force, they will move out and try to increase the violence and conflagration in your peripheral areas.

Sahni said that the only real solution to combat extremism of any kind was to enhance and improve general policing and remove political intervention in, and political corruption of, the security establishment.

In the wake of the Chintalnad massacre, he told Frontline that the so-called great initiative of the past six months had merely witnessed an enhancement of Central paramilitary forces in Chhattisgarh to 23 battalions (9,200 men) from 16 (6,400 men). He said: This so-called surge, the Centre has led itself to believe, will give it the wherewithal to clear, hold and build areas of present Maoist domination, with an immediate focus on the Rajnandgaon and Kanker districts of the Bastar division, even as the meagre State police and Central paramilitary forces struggle to contain the naxalite backlash, and, indeed, the Maoist strategy of diversion in other areas.

One should also remember that Bastar and Dantewada, the worst-afflicted districts in the division, cover 8,756 square kilometres and 9,046 square kilometres respectively, with nearly 75 per cent of the area under forest cover. Yet the states wisdom has seen it fit to locate just six to seven battalions [2,400 to 2,800 men] of both the Central paramilitary forces and the Chhattisgarh Armed Force [CAF] to fight the Maoists across this vast territory. With such sparse deployment, he said, ill-conceived area domination exercises were being forced on the hapless troops.

Along with this fundamental flaw in terms of security strategy, many other operational problems hampered the implementation of the Home Ministry initiative. Chidambaram himself had pointed out repeatedly that the initiative was an operation conceived and implemented jointly by the Centre and several States that faced the Maoist threat. In a statement in Parliament on April 15, he said: Anti-naxal operations are being conducted in accordance with the policy deliberated and agreed upon at several meetings with Chief Ministers of the affected States. The two pillars of the policy are calibrated police action and development. Central paramilitary forces have been provided to the affected States, including Chhattisgarh, to help the State governments carry out counter-insurgency operations, regain control of areas dominated by the naxalites, restore the civil administration, and restart development work. The State governments, therefore, have the primary responsibility. The Central government stands ready and willing to assist the State governments and to coordinate inter-State operations.

However, the experience of the Central security establishment and the leadership of the Central paramilitary forces on the ground did not reflect the unanimity of purpose that was in evidence during the deliberations between the Centre and the States when the initiative was conceived. In fact, the Jharkhand government led by Shibu Soren and his Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) party went to the extent of withdrawing all operations, apparently motivated by electoral considerations. The Chief Minister even said the operations of the Central paramilitary forces in the State took place without his consent. West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had problems with the manner in which the paramilitary forces carried out operations, bypassing the State forces and with the arrogant support given to the Central forces by the Union Home Ministry.

Several social and human rights organisations also raised their voices consistently against Operation Green Hunt, terming it a war against the people, and the atrocities committed by security forces. According to Home Ministry officials at different levels, such criticism and the public attention it received also impeded the operations.

There were indications that the points raised by the organisations found reverberations even within the Congress, which leads the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government at the Centre. These manifested themselves in the form of questions raised by senior Congress leaders such as former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and former Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar about the line pursued by the Home Ministry. Digvijay Singh wrote in an English daily that he differed with the Home Ministers strategy as it did not take into consideration the people living in the affected area. He is treating it purely as a law and order problem, without taking into consideration the issues that affect the tribals, Digvijay Singh stated. Mani Shankar Aiyar supported this view by saying Digvijay Singh was one lakh per cent correct.

Digvijay Singh said there should be greater attention to the issues of livelihood and governance rather than the conversion of a serene and calm rural environment into a battlefield. Ultimately, whether the bullet is fired from a naxals gun or a policemans, the victim is an ordinary Indian citizen, Digvijay Singh wrote.

The Home Ministrys own plans had talked about development and building, but the track record of several such development initiatives in the past has been far from satisfactory.

Clearly, the message from all this is that there is the need for a rethink on the strategy being followed. While Chidambaram may be ready for a course correction, it is not clear how far he will be ready to go. He said he was ready to resign as Home Minister taking full responsibility for the April 6 massacre but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rejected the offer. Several Congress insiders felt that the Home Minister used his resignation as a ploy to elicit greater acceptance of his line of functioning and greater powers to pursue the current strategy.

His statement in Parliament on April 15 was, in many ways, indicative of this assertion. He said: I may point out that because the security forces are deployed in areas populated by Scheduled Tribes a number of restrictions have been placed on the operations of Central paramilitary forces. Let us not forget that the goal of the naxalites is to overthrow the established authority of the government through armed liberation struggle. The state has a legitimate right to deploy its security forces to resist, apprehend and, if necessary, neutralise militants who are determined to strike at the very roots of our nation. I had said that to counter the menace of naxalism we need a strong head, a stronger heart and enormous staying power. I believe that the government has all three qualities.

However, he also made a reference to the offer of talks made to the Maoists: Our call to the CPI (Maoist) for talks was made in the hope that there will be a sincere response from them. The only condition is that the CPI (Maoist) must abjure violence.

But the central question is how the government plans to go about taking forward its anti-Maoist initiative, especially when there are reports that security personnel in both Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh are wary of venturing into the jungles. The opinions expressed by different quarters, including politicians like Mani Shankar Aiyar and Digvijay Singh, do become relevant in this context.

But, as Ajai Sahni pointed out, there cannot be a fundamental disconnect between objectives, tactics, resources and ground conditions. Sahni also said there could be no oversight in terms of the fundamentals of capacity-building. Again, experience and scrutiny by institutions such as the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) have shown that capacity-building is an area that is consistently overlooked. He added that in the absence of necessary capacities to secure objectives, a so-called strategy is reduced to the level of a slogan, a pipe dream or, worse, a lethal delusion. There is little doubt that the primary vigil has to be against the rise and reinforcement of a sense of delusion in the security establishment. But, obviously, a medium- or long-term solution to Maoist extremism would need to go beyond mere security parameters.

In the past decade and a half, the CPI (Maoist) has grown steadily in the vast tracts of India left completely unaddressed by any form of mainstream politics. The myriad social, economic and cultural issues of mainly the tribal people in these areas were left unattended, and it was in this vacuum that the CPI (Maoist) built up its political, organisational and military base. This base is now coming in handy for them to make inroads into urban areas, where the policies of economic liberalisation and corporate promotion pursued by many a government are actually working as catalysts for Left extremist mobilisation.

Unless mainstream politics is able to overcome the attention deficit on vast tracts of rural India and comes up with concrete programmes that address the social, economic and cultural problems of these areas, and follow them up with proper implementation, the Maoist base will continue to grow. That, in turn, will facilitate the growth of Left extremism in urban centres too. The state, and mainstream politics as a whole, has much work to do to get its perspectives right and move ahead on a correct, people-oriented track.