October 21, 2009 ☼ Chattisgarh ☼ counter-insurgency ☼ Jharkhand ☼ Naxalites ☼ Security
This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
Tehelka’s Harinder Baweja uses KPS Gill’s shoulder to fire a salvo against the central government-led counter-insurgency operation targeting the Naxalites. Mr Gill makes several good points: among others, that the Naxalites run the biggest extortion mafia in the country, that the corrupt state officials are part of the problem and that the solution to the fundamental problem involves giving property rights to the tribals. He also makes a bad point when he argues that Operation Green Hunt is unnecessary.
He is entirely right when he says that strengthening local police is an important part of the strategy. In fact, as we have argued, the counter-insurgency strategy must focus on improving the overall capacity of the local government such that it can deliver basic public services—law & order, protect property rights, deliver education, healthcare and justice. But in states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand such a strategy will deliver results, at best, in the medium-term. Also, because Naxalites will use violence to block progress in this direction, it is quite likely that such a strategy alone will prove to be ineffective.
Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand are quite unlike Punjab, which Mr Gill alludes to, in important ways: Punjab had a robust agricultural-industrial economy, its administrative machinery was much better developed and the insurgency there was not caused by poor or absent governance. The Naxalite affected regions are tribal/subsistence agriculture-based societies, have primitive administrative machinery and have therefore fallen victim to the dubious promises of Leftwing revolutionaries.
The upshot is that the counter-insurgency strategy for the Naxalite-affected regions needs a well-equipped and well-directed “clear” phase that will create the conditions for Mr Gill’s proposals to stand a chance. That is why Operation Green Hunt is necessary.
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