Opinion A tragedy repeated
Maoist attack in Sukma revives questions about counter-insurgency preparedness that urgently need to be addressed.
In the wake of these killings, as in the wake of so many past, it will be tempting to pass the blame on to relatively junior officials, and ignore the systemic malaise that urgently needs to be addressed.
THERE was a phantasmagoric quality to the images from Chhattisgarh on Tuesday. The photographs recorded that it was Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh visiting the survivors of the ambush in which 25 Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed, but there was no other significant difference from 2010, when his predecessor, P. Chidambaram, performed a similar, grim duty. The images should tell Indian citizens all they need to know about India’s flailing war on terror. Like in 2010, a Maoist unit stalked CRPF personnel for days, recording vulnerabilities in their defensive preparations. Like then, the build-up of over 300 Maoist insurgents and supporting militia passed undetected by local intelligence, as well as by the National Technical Research Organisation’s multi-million dollar Heron drones — this despite the fact that the Maoists’ annual tactical counter-offensive campaign is underway. And, like then, no effort was made to disrupt the inevitable gathering of large Maoist groups by offensive operations, with both the CRPF and the Chhattisgarh Police showing no strategic anticipation.
In the wake of these killings, as in the wake of so many past, it will be tempting to pass the blame on to relatively junior officials, and ignore the systemic malaise that urgently needs to be addressed. The first question that must be asked is why the CRPF, a 7,00,000-strong force, continues to lack theatre-specific counter-insurgency formations familiar with the conditions in which they operate. Instead, its forces are tossed about the country, tackling everything from anti-riot duties to static guard. Training protocols are based on infantry manuals abandoned both by the army and successful police forces. The force’s expansion has left it critically short of junior leadership; its senior management is pitifully short of counter-insurgency expertise. Perhaps worst of all, the CRPF has no in-house intelligence resources.
That isn’t the end of the story, though. Hard questions need to be asked about why Chhattisgarh Police has subcontracted even the business of patrolling road-construction to the CRPF, the task the force was doing when it was ambushed on Monday. In neighbouring states, from Telangana to Orissa, Maoists have been rolled back; Chhattisgarh’s performance has, by contrast, been abysmal. The intelligence services, too, need to be called to account for their failure to anticipate large-scale attacks, and push for pre-emptive offensive operations. Finally, and most important, the Union Home Ministry needs to ask what it has done on all these issues — issues key figures in this government were loudly protesting not too long ago. For Indians not to receive answers will be an insult to the memories of the lives the country lost on Monday.
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