The enemy within: India faces up to Maoist threat

Passengers look through the broken window of an express train at Patna, India on June 13. Suspected Maoist rebels opened fire on the train in the eastern state of Bihar, killing three people including two policemen. The group of 100 insurgents, including

The first principle of war is selection and maintenance of the aim. And in its war against the Union of India, the aim selected by the Naxal-Maoist rebels is unambiguous - to topple the government in power.

Possibly inspired by the Khmer Rouge model, the Naxal ideology may seem warped and its aim far-fetched, but that is the way the battle lines have been drawn by this banned terrorist organisation.

The massacre of 89 security personnel at Dantewada three years ago was the surest indication that a Maoist rebellion was well underway in India. Yet the incident got dismissed as an ongoing insurgency problem and left on the backburner by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

Now with the recent ambush at Bastar, it has become amply evident that the Maoists are well prepared to challenge the authority of the Union of India and are willing to raise the stakes through a campaign of terror.

What we are facing is a hot war on terrorism. And it would be foolish if we still do not acknowledge the threat of Maoist terror, as the clear and present danger to our nation's security.

What began as a minor insurgency with its moorings at Naxalbari has festered over the years and emboldened the rebels to take on the establishment in frontal combat. Their display of sophisticated firepower even suggests cross-border support for their cause. This was the lesson from Dantewada and Bastar.

It also clearly shows that we are up against a well-organised rebellion, whose tentacles spread across half the districts of the Indian subcontinent. This is now a widespread national security problem that requires a well-conceived national strategy. Being far beyond the scope of our internal security apparatus under the MHA, it requires direction and control by the Cabinet Committee on Security.

The ferocity and precision of the Dantewada and Bastar strikes clearly indicate that the Maoist order of battle will require operational counter-measures that are far beyond the professional capability of our police outfits. With national security at stake, should we not pool in the best resources available to us?

There is no reason why the armed forces, with their superior resources and experience, in counter-insurgency operations, cannot be brought in to bolster the efforts of our police and paramilitary units. If we are sincere about stamping out Maoist terror within our borders, inducting the armed forces into the fray has to be viewed as an operational imperative.

The unresolved debate over the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) could pose an impediment. But in the crisis at hand, do we really have an option?

To bring the Maoist rebels to the negotiating table, we need a radical change of tack. First, we need to shed our "soft state" mentality.

Second, we need to adopt a matching strategy that would raise the operational threshold with graduated force. To win this war on Maoist terror, the involvement of the armed forces has now become unavoidable. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, the AFSPA has to be deemed as an enabling instrument that provides the rules of engagement for military operations.

Sceptics of AFSPA may perhaps be consoled if they look seaward, where the maritime equivalent of AFSPA exists on a global scale under the aegis of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).

The rules of engagement under Unclos enable international navies to counter militancy and terrorism at sea. It works effectively, for unlike AFSPA on land, Unclos at sea operates out of sight, with no fuss or bother, or political bickering for that matter.

In handling the Naxal-Maoist problem, we need to move past quick fixes and reactive crisis management. There is also no time for cosmetic solutions. Sending the National Investigation Agency to inquire into the Bastar attack was an eyewash. We are only shutting the barn door after the horses have bolted. Our security planners must be naive if they have still not realised that we are in the midst of a war with the rebels at action stations.

More importantly, we need to acknowledge that the police outfits that comprise our internal security forces have been outclassed and the recent setbacks at Dantewada and Bastar have possibly affected their morale. Since they need backup, why are we fighting shy of fielding our mainline security forces?

To bite the bullet and take on the Maoist challenge, we need a systematic change that would shed our "departmental mindset" with its limited focus.

With the network of Maoist terror spreading across state borders, the battleground has vastly expanded. The problem can no longer be left to the Department of Internal Security, under the MHA, with its limited resources. This is now a national security problem that requires an overarching strategy with purpose-built capabilities, such as suites of eavesdropping intelligence gathering equipment, unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance, and airlift capability for rapid deployment.

Our security priorities have been confused by the artificial divide that has been created between internal security and national security. Not only has it restricted our options, it has weakened our national strategy for countering the Maoist threat. It is perhaps the reason why there are many who still believe that the massacres at Dantewada and Bastar were only a problem of insurgency. Such misconceptions could result in further Maoist attacks and greater heartbreak.

Sushil Kumar is a former chief of the Indian Navy.

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