Keeping up

Notwithstanding the profuse outpouring of grief and concern in the wake of the Maoist massacre of security personnel in Dantewada on Tuesday,Indian public and political opinion has,as a rule,been characterised by apathy towards the working conditions and combat imperatives of the paramilitary and police. This general unconcern and many strongly-held assumptions in ministerial circles is what Tuesdays tragedy will ultimately trail back to,since it also marked the strategic and tactical naïveté that allowed 76 personnel to be mowed down at will by ambushing Maoists. Since things must change post-Dantewada,it is best to begin with the misconception that has not allowed us to consider paramilitary personnel as anything more than merely better armed policemen,for whom imbibing a military ethos in mindset,training,command structures is sacrilegious. If anybody yet has any doubt about Maoist motivation,discipline and ability to execute,that should have been laid to rest on Tuesday the CRPF and state police forces involved in Operation Green Hunt are combating a militarised enemy.

Tactical campaigns necessarily involve deception and resultant surprise; and,in an operation on uncharted forest terrain,Maoists will break through the grid to surprise or ambush once in a while. But if that leads to butchery on Tuesdays scale,with almost no scope for counter-attack,it implies training and command problems within the paramilitary. Even as CRPF-police coordination is aggressively reaffirmed,it is time to revisit the Kargil Review Committee and its recommendations for restructuring the paramilitary and upgrading their training and armament standards,along with facilitating manpower movement among the armed and paramilitary forces,such as earlier release of military personnel for absorption into the paramilitary; or putting army officers in command of specially trained and deployed paramilitary companies. Much of this will skirt the political problems of deploying the military within our borders against an internal enemy.

Paramilitaries like the CRPF,battling the Naxals,are engaged in combat against a well-trained,well-armed and highly-motivated adversary,not in mere restoration of civil administration in lawless regions. To keep this in mind is to ask for an overhaul of those of their standard operating procedures at odds with ground reality. Of course,the option of using air power has been kept open. However,the primary focus is revamping the paramilitary,whose training,organisation and operational tactics must change,not their identity of who they are. In other words: a civilian paramilitary,but with a military edge.