A new menu

Perhaps the greatest lesson from any war or war-like situation since World War II including counter-insurgencies on all sorts of terrain has been that rapid developments in communication notwithstanding,tactical control and tactical decisions should be taken by the commander with boots on the ground. The quicker any decision is taken,the closer to the situation the decision-maker is,and the greater the amount of information and options available to him,the more likely that the overall operation is carried out effectively and quickly. This would seem straightforward,something that barely needs repeating. But,in the furore that followed Mondays attack by Maoists on a civilian bus in Chhattisgarh,it seems this basic principle is forgotten,again and again. What is required is for those in charge of local counter-Maoist operations to be given adequate support,and a wide enough range of backup options.

Yet the national conversation revolves around the use of air power as if there is no difference between,say,the aerial extraction of a unit under fire from a well-armed enemy and the carpet-bombing of all forest cover in Chhattisgarh. It is difficult to believe that those who appear to conflate one with the other seem to think the two are,indeed,morally and effectively the same. Perhaps the reason for this seeming blindness lies elsewhere: in an unwillingness to believe that this is more than just a minor law-and-order situation in which a bunch of misguided ideologues are leading outraged,half-armed tribals against powerful state machinery. Yet it would require extraordinary blindness for anyone to persist in this belief following both the meticulously executed ambush in Dantewada last month and this weeks bus bombing. Both show that what the paramilitaries and state police have to do in Maoist-heavy areas is indistinguishable from classic,war-like counter-insurgency situations.

There is no longer any heft to an argument that calls for continuing to deny access to commanders on the ground to the entire menu of options that the Indian state has traditionally afforded to those fighting in its behalf in counter insurgency action. After all,we have to trust those who know the most about which of those options is usable and necessary the local commanders to pick what is,tactically,needed at any point. That may be surveillance to ensure Maoists arent laying an ambush,or landmines. It may be aerial evacuation. It may be nothing. But those who would deny that choice are cynically prolonging these operations and Indias poorest are the ones paying for their blindness.