By INDER MALHOTRA
TWO former Army Chiefs, Generals Shankar Roy Chowdhury and V P Malik, and a former Vice-Chief of the Army Staff, Lieutenant-General S K Sinha, who has had the added advantage of serving as governor of two insurgency-ravaged states, Assam and Kashmir, have in recent days written thoughtful articles on combating the Maoist challenge.

The country in general and the Cabinet Committee on Security, now in the throes of finalising a comprehensive policy on this burning problem, in particular, would do well to heed their counsel.
Since the CCS is grappling with the issue of using the Army and the Air Force to widen Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram’s “limited mandate” to fight what Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh accurately calls the “biggest internal security threat”, it should give the most serious thought to their sound advice to desist. Their arguments - that the army is already “overstretched”, that if deployed against the Maoists it would need legal protection under the Armed Forces Act which is under vigorous attack in states where it is already in force, and that the presence of men in olive green in the deep interior of the country could enhance existing “alienation” there – must not be brushed aside.  
Armed Forces in Counter-Insurgency
The three generals do not say that the armed forces have no role at all in defeating the Maoists’ war on the Indian State. What they are opposing is the direct embroilment of the army and the air force in counter-insurgency operations in the Maoist-infested areas. For instance, a vital role the army can and must play is to train the personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force in jungle warfare. As became evident after the April 6 slaughter of 76 policemen at Dantewada in Chattisgarh, of the company of the 62nd CRPF battalion that went on a botched up anti-insurgent mission, the bulk had had no jungle warfare training. Also, serving or retired army officers can be posted to unified commands, headed by chief ministers, in Maoist-affected states. Similarly, the air force can be of great help in logistical support to paramilitary and police forces and in surveillance that can be done by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). But any offensive role by the IAF is almost certain to be counter-productive, if only because of widespread collateral civilian damage. It is India’s proud record that during half a century of insurgencies in different parts of the country it has used air power only once – in Mizoram in the sixties when the treasury and the police armoury were being looted and the Assam Rifles were on the verge of being overwhelmed. A civilian assessment of the situation, by eminent Security Analyst, Mr K Subrahmanyam, is that the use of armed forces in counter-insurgency is like “chemotherapy for cancer”. It should be done “sparingly” and with great care.     
According to General Sinha, the 200,000-strong CRPF is the largest paramilitary force in the world, but though equipped with modern weapons lacks training in jungle warfare. It is also the most overstretched force with poor logistics, and besides being ill-trained, it is also poorly led. These shocking shortcomings have to be rectified rapidly.
What goes for the CRPF is even more relevant to the police in the states concerned. The training, discipline, morale and leadership of state police forces are even worse than those of Central paramilitary organisations. At the same time, without adequate rural policing and rural intelligence collection all the tall talk about rooting out Maoism would remain empty rhetoric. There are several other stumbling blocks to the effective action against Maoists that also have to be overcome.
Tackling Maoists
First, the controversy over whether combating Maoism is the responsibility of the states or of the Centre is nonsensical. Law and order is the states’ responsibility under the constitution. But the Maoists are not creating just a law-and-order problem. They are waging an all-out war with the avowed objective of overthrowing the duly elected Indian government through armed force. All constituents of the Union of India have therefore to respond with complete unity and coherence. Unfortunately, the problem is political, not constitutional. The time has come to cry halt to the absurdity of different state governments owning allegiance to different political parties going their own conflicting ways and the Centre arguing that its responsibility ends with providing the states with paramilitary forces. To put in place institutional arrangements to first develop a political consensus and then take coordinated action is not beyond human ingenuity.
Secondly, the country and the government must realise that the first task that brooks of no delay is to inflict on the Maoists greater attrition than is the case today. Indeed, during the first 5 months of this year the Maoists have killed 170 personnel of the security forces as against 108 Maoists that fell to the security forces’ action. The pattern was the same throughout 2009, and the statistics since 2005 are most depressing. Over this period the Maoists killed 1,189 security forces personnel and 1,647 civilians, while fatal casualties among the Maoists were 1,441. Is it any surprise that they are getting more and more emboldened? Of all the targets Dantewada in Chattisgarh is the worst hit. According to Mr B Raman, former deputy chief of the external intelligence agency, RAW, and now a respected analyst, Maoists think that Dantewada would be for them what Yenan was to the Chinese Communists, led by General Mao. They have got to be disabused of this notion.
Lack of Good Governance
Thirdly, and most importantly, the PM is quite right when he announces that in the fight against the Maoists, his government would seriously address the development problems at the grassroot and at the same time enforce the writ of the state. Surely, he knows what the ground reality is. In most Naxalite-haunted areas, there is no scope for development because the administration just cannot reach there. But even this is relatively unimportant. What is of paramount importance is that we have reached this appalling state of affairs because of woeful lack of good governance in the country over decades. Corruption is rampant and apparently irremediable. All political parties happily play politics with every issue, including seeking Maoists’ support in elections. The police forces in the states where the Maoists have a sway are unable to meet the challenge because they have been politicised relentlessly. Shamefully, every recruit to the police has to bribe his way in. The police in this country are not servants of the law, as they should be, but servitors of the party in power. Dr Singh has got to do something effective about this.
Finally, one short point: After the attempted terrorist bombing at Times Square in New York, Mr Obama summoned the US Director of National Intelligence, Mr David Blair, and sacked him on the spot. Can there be such accountability in the great Republic of India?