COUNTER INSURSENCY IN THE NORTH-EAST: A COUNTER-PERSPECTIVE

By: Paolenlal Haokip***

The continuing insurgency in northeast India suggests the failure of the counter-insurgency strategy in place over the years. Considering the threats to human, economic and national security that it poses, a re-examination of this strategy, the presumptions underlying it, their shortcomings, and the formulation of an alternative counter-insurgency plan acquires importance.
Counter-insurgency in India has largely been synonymous with army deployment. Army Headquarters is known to have a counter-insurgency bureau to draw up strategies to bring an end to insurgency. Civil and military intelligence agencies are placed in over-drive. The Police take the back seat in fighting insurgents. Their role is limited to keeping the arrested under-trials in custody, after the army or paramilitary forces have done with their ‘arrests.’ The Judiciary is unquestioningly taken to be just, although no authority exists to probe the integrity and accountability of the Judges. Whatever local support is enjoyed by insurgents is sought to be diminished by rough treatment of the civilian population in areas of militant activity by conducting combing operations; the message is, “keep away from insurgents or suffer the consequences.” Often, civilian support to insurgent groups is taken as a given, resulting in their widespread repression. Insurgency is considered a hindrance to development, to be dealt with severely. This is based on the premise that development will arrest insurgency, which is a late realization that lack of development is at the root of it all.

Surrenders are encouraged, and surrendered militants are often promised benefits that are later found hard to fulfil. Patronage to insurgents by local political figures is often established, but never seriously sought to be undone. Allegations of human rights violations by the army are rampant, but hardly any convictions occur. Worst of all, the brutality of insurgent violence is often used to justify excesses committed by the security forces. Lastly, a posting in insurgency affected areas is considered a punishment, and the general attitude of officials here is of utter disdain or excessive paternalism, (both are invariably resented by the locals) and never quite one of facing a challenge, requiring service or in-house dedication.
Deploying the military, trained to fight enemy hostility, to deal with civilian populations is bound to have, and has had, disastrous consequences. However, this is still resorted to with impunity. Therefore, the rationale, if any, behind this dispensation needs proper analysis. Is it an admission of the wretched state of the police forces, and their incapability to ensure law and order, which is their raison d’etre? Is insurgency much more than a law and order problem, having wider political and security implications, to handle which the police forces are incapable? Or, is it a combination of both factors?? What have the concerned state governments and central ministries done to improve the capability of the police forces? If insurgency has wider political and security implications, what are the initiatives taken to deal with them? Are the political and security initiatives in place adequate to address the problem? If military deployment was inevitable, are there any arrangements to train the deployed units in terms of attitudinal re-orientation, respect and observance of human rights, cognition of civilian and ethnic sensibilities? These are pertinent questions that have to be answered positively to effectively counter the menace of insurgency which is caused by alienation, political, developmental, ethnic, religio-cultural, economic and geographical, and combinations thereof.

Some analysts have concluded that most insurgent organizations in the northeast are nothing more than illegal money making enterprises. While one could find some truth in this, it is also true that insurgency serves this very purpose for corrupt government officials. In states like Manipur, one can safely assert that corruption is the main hindrance to effective counter-insurgency operations. An arrested insurgent can become a petty thief in the police records if the inspector in charge receives sufficient “Cha thaknaba” (a local term for bribe, which literally means ‘for the purpose of having tea’). The Judicial system is in such a wretched state that lawyers no longer argue the merits of a case but evolve conduits for? reaching bribes to Magistrates, and are rated in terms of their personal rapport with concerned Magistrates, and their ability to favorably influence judgments through bribes. A terrible spin-off of this messy police and judicial system is that unscrupulous police officers can arrest innocent and ignorant civilians on charges of insurgency to extract bribes. A young man once subjected to this injustice almost always proves to be a ready recruit for insurgent organizations.

Counter-insurgency must be multi-pronged and cross-governmental to be effective. The various developmental ministries in the government have to play a concerted role. Lack of development and poverty are responsible for disaffection with the state and rise of insurgent movements. Enhanced economic progress can be an effective check on the inclination towards revolt. The developmental departments in the government thus have a major role in countering insurgency. The Police establishment should also be reformed to acquire integrity, accountability, capability and devotion. Measures should be taken to make the police free from political interference. The judiciary has to be made accountable. A judicial ombudsman to whom aggrieved litigators can make appeals could be a good beginning. The army and paramilitary security forces engaged in counter-insurgency should be given special training which emphasizes human rights education, respect for human and constitutional rights, and respect for ethnic and communal sensibilities. There is also an urgent need to establish an independent and powerful Bureau of Internal Affairs within the security forces which can probe excesses and abuse of authority without fear or favor to punish the indicted.
Ordinary citizens in insurgency affected areas should also be made aware of their rights and obligations. This could significantly deter the abuse of authority by the security forces, combined with an effective grievance redressal mechanism such as the proposed Bureau of Internal Affairs. The promotion of legal awareness can be achieved by a combination of governmental efforts and the involvement of non-governmental organizations. Wide publicity of basic rights through newspapers and pamphlets, seminars and their inclusion in the curricula of educational institutions would be useful. Besides, knowledge of basic rights can also be disseminated through established channels of community communication like the church, the village councils, and student bodies, depending on their feasibility in relation to a particular group or community. The chronic insurgency in the northeast is, besides other factors, a product of withering governance and the predominantly military approach to counter-insurgency.
By its very nature, insurgency is a challenge to the existing state of governance. It is a revolt against inadequate governance, which failed to meet the economic, socio-political, ethno-cultural and physical security needs of various communities, especially those on the periphery. Therefore, the first step towards tackling insurgency is to make the administration provide good governance. An efficient, effective and accountable administration, which sincerely and adequately meets the needs of the people would be the most viable counter-insurgency mechanism.

Counter-insurgency should also have a political content. When the crisis in governance gets prolonged, common grievances can acquire political hues. The grievances of a particular region or community that could have been redressed by timely administrative attention, when ignored, acquire political overtones that require political solutions. It is insufficient then to seek purely administrative and developmental remedies. Optimal doses of political decentralization and self-governance then become necessary to arrest the tide of political dissent. This is especially true of many insurgency movements in the North-East. Therefore, along with efforts to ensure good governance, an objective assessment of political decentralization and its timely administration is advisable given the unabated insurgency in the region. Research in the last decade has suggested linkages between education, especially the teaching of history, and conflict. The content and interpretation in history text books, the inclusion or exclusion, inadvertent or otherwise, in chronicles of national histories, and the emphasis laid on civilizational, racial, religious and center-periphery contests are believed to inculcate conflict. Besides, the nationalist discourse, a dominant theme in most historical texts, which legitimizes nationhood, based on differences with ‘others’ tends to influence regional, ethnic and religious communities. Those on the periphery of a state whose heroes are not featured as heroes in the national historiography, whose cultures finds no mention in the national culture and whose religion is identified with ‘others’ and vilified are extremely vulnerable to the temptations of secessionism. Augmented by the lack of economic welfare and the collapse of governance, these disillusionments can give rise to revolts. This thesis fits the situation in North East India.

The focus should now be on evolving the peace-promoting role of education, and explore how education can bring about an understanding of the sources of conflict, promote conflict management, and contribute to post-conflict resolution and reconciliation. Given the comparatively high rates of literacy obtained in the North Eastern states, this approach deserves serious attention and could be tried out rather than continuing with the old and hackneyed carrot and stick policy.

*** The article was originally published in two parts on October 25, 2002 and November 29, 2002 at http://www.ipcs.org
*** The writer is a Research Officer at the Institute Of Peace and Conflict Studies. *** The article has been published with due permission from the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies (IPCS).
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