http://www.kashmirtimes.com/newsdet.aspx?q=110800
Counter
insurgency is not a policeman’s job
One of India’s leading civilian experts on counter insurgency, Professor Rajesh Rajagopalan,[2] has recently articulated a cogent case on handing over of the Indian army’s counter insurgency commitment to the central armed police forces (CAPF). He argues that the two-front threat having materialized over the last couple of years in Chinese belligerence on the Line of Actual Control, the army, that is primarily meant for tackling external threats, cannot continue to be tied down by counter insurgency commitments. It must focus on the conventional threat to redress the power asymmetry with China. Consequently, it needs to disengage from its internal security commitments and concentrate on its primary task of deterring and when necessary militarily tackling the nation’s external foes.
This is not a new idea,
dating as it does to the NN Vohra task force report to the Group of Ministers’ (GoM)
that was formed after the Kargil Review Committee suggested a review in its
eponymous report after the Kargil War. The task force, stated:
“The ultimate objective should be to entrust Internal Security (IS)/Counter
Insurgency (CI) duties entirely to CPMFs and the Rashtriya Rifles, thus
de-inducting the Army from these duties, wherever possible.”[3]
Over the years, this has been largely operationalised, with the army-led
paramilitary forces, the RR and Assam Rifles (AR) deployed in Jammu and Kashmir
(J&K) and North East (NE) respectively and the CAPF operating in Central
India. Some army formations also operate in both theaters and the paramilitary –
the RR and AR - is under the operational control of the army at both locations.
CAPF are central armed
police forces that are officered by their respective cadre officers and have
representation of the Indian Police Service in their higher echelons. Central
Para Military Forces, a term used by the Group of Ministers, include the CAPF
and the RR and the Assam Rifles. Whereas army officers tenant all appointments
in the RR and the force answers to the army chain of command, the AR has its
own cadre of officers, with army officers also in the echelons of command,
company upwards. It is operationally under the army, but administratively under
the Ministry of Home through the Director General AR located at Shillong. The army prefers to use the term CAPF, that
includes border guarding forces, but does not include the AR and RR, preserving
the term ‘paramilitary’ for the latter two in light of the army officer representation
in their hierarchy.
Whereas Prof.
Rajagopalan plugs for the RR to take on a conventional role in light of the
increased threat, the GoM had only envisaged the CAPF – specifically the
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) – taking on counter insurgency, being
trained and upgraded accordingly. Pulling out of the army implies the RR and AR
would come under the police framework, reporting to state authorities and the
home ministry. Army formations in a counter insurgency role would be substituted
by the CRPF, for which the force
has been under training for the last two decades.
The RR was raised in
order to tackle Pakistan’s proxy war and rear area security. The intensity of
the situation having considerably subsided, attributable in part to the RR, it
is possible to hand over the situation to the police and reassign the RR for
conventional tasks, for instance in the communication zone or relieving regular
troops deployed in less threatened sectors and in depth. This is practicable
and is being done to the extent possible with reports having it that some
formations, equivalent to a RR Force, have already been deployed
in Ladakh. Reports also have it that some 200 CAPF companies have been inducted
into J&K, though these have been played down as companies returning from
election duty.
As to whether the RR
can thin out from other areas, it is a question of threat perception. Currently,
the operations are at ebb as Pakistan is calibrating its proxy war to its aims
in the Afghanistan end game. It has therefore refrained from its usual summer
campaign of infiltration. However, the post Afghanistan peace process period is
uncertain. Since the RR has a well-consolidated presence in Kashmir, it may be
prudent to see if the potential ‘first
step’
in the India-Pakistan peace process is liable to birth a credible India-Pakistan
peace process. It would not do to disturb the grid prematurely.
Though the two-front
threat is live, the two-and-half front threat cannot be discounted too soon. This
is particularly applicable for the NE, where in case ‘push comes to shove’ with
China, the potential for instability in the NE – the ‘half front’ - could be
exploited by China to activate the rear areas. In such a circumstance, whereas
there would be a need to pull the army elements deployed out for a conventional
role and substituting these with the CAPF, the command and control will need to
continue under the army in keeping with the Vohra task force recommendation
that reads: “where the Army is involved, the senior most Army officer should
have the clear responsibility and authority, for all operational planning and
execution).”
Significantly, the CAPF
do not have the appropriate operational ethos for counter insurgency. Counter
insurgency – to paraphrase the quip regarding peacekeeping – is in principle
not an army task, but only the army can do it. One does not need to look
further than the recent ambush in Bastar
of the CAPF in which some 25 troopers were lost. The ambush was virtually a repeat
of one a decade back in which some 75 policemen lost their lives. Whether this
professional deficit can be mitigated by training is debatable considering that
the lessons learnt from the 2010 ambush mentioned appear not to have made a
difference a decade on. Recall also it’s taking over of duties from the Border
Security Force in the Valley in the mid 2000s, in compliance with the GoM
recommendation that border guarding forces revert to their respective borders
and roles, had caused considerable turbulence.
There is no doctrinal
pamphlet of the CAPF on counter insurgency. Little is known as to the policy
planning division in the ministry of home affairs that the Vohra task force had
asked be rekindled. It is well known that the parachuting of the Indian Police
Service (IPS) officers with no ground experience into the higher echelon of the
CAPF is its Achilles
heel. The CAPF are liable with their usual highhandedness to worsen the
situation, resulting in army deployment at a later, much-vitiated stage.
There is the indelicate
matter of command and control and turf. In the North East, the AR would require
giving its Shillong headquarters an operational role, and the headquarters
answering in its operational avatar to the Eastern Command, and in due course
to the theater command to come up facing China. Since the CRPF can at best
supplement the RR in Kashmir, rather than substitute it, the operational
control of the RR would continue with the army. There is a requirement to
disengage the corps headquarters from counter insurgency role, as had been done
on an ad hoc and controversially
unsuccessful basis in the Kargil War. The RR headquarters has moved out of
Delhi and is now an appendage to the Northern Command. It can take on an
operational role, under Northern Command, but collaborating extensively with
the state police and CAPF under the unified headquarters framework that was
earlier chaired by the chief minister, and now, presumably, is headed by the
lieutenant governor of the union territory.
Finally,
as the leading realist theoretician in India, Prof. Rajagopalan, rightly sees
the power asymmetry in a two-front situation necessitating the army hand over
the half-front to the CAPF, including the AR but without the RR. In case of an
active two-front situation, there could potentially be two half-fronts, together
making for three fronts. While the professor calls for responsiveness through
upgrading the CAPF, prevention may be better.
Prevention
entails a doctrinally-compliant political ministration of insurgency problems now
that the kinetic indices in all three theaters – Kashmir, North East and
Central India - are relatively negligible. The Nagaland ceasefire
framework needs to be taken to its logical conclusion, while in Kashmir the
applicability of the Nagaland template
can be explored. The numerous ‘suspension of operations’ agreements in the
North East must be speedily wrapped up and the outreach to the outlier Paresh
Barua faction to culminate in an agreement soon.
The
professor is right, that India cannot have its cake and eat it too. For him,
the conventional threat merits a disengagement of the army. The problem is that
the CRPF cannot be relied on to substitute the army, particularly when the
threat of proxy war can be expected to heighten in a conflict situation.
Consequently, the new threat environment entails India end its interminable
insurgencies applying political imagination and the political capital from its
parliamentary majority at the government’s disposal.
[2] Prof. Rajagopalan is author of the well regarded, Fighting Like a Guerrilla: The Indian Army and Counterinsurgency, New Delhi: Rouledge, 2008.
[3] Quotes are from National Security Council Secretariat, Group of Ministers’ Report on National Security, https://www.vifindia.org/sites/default/files/GoM%20Report%20on%20National%20Security.pdf, pp. 50-51.
