Understanding Indian Insurgencies

[blueblood]

If experience in my area is anything to judge by, educating the tribal people will make resistance to externally imposed "development" more vigorous and more aggressive.

Support for the NPA (New People's Army, local equivalent of the Naxals) has steadily degraded in my area since the government stopped pushing projects that would displace communities and effectively destroy the local way of life. Today the NPA in this area is a marginal presence and no significant threat. If people fight back when you push them around, you might try not pushing them around.

This is where you are wrong. The current government has consistently bent over backwards for minority, tribal and lower caste votes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India

If you are a tribal, you can study in the best educational institutions for almost free (last I remember, it was nearly $50 for the tribal and lower castes for two semesters in the state eng. colleges). In urban India, things like caste do not exist and this is the thing Naxals fear the most.

[Dayuhan]

This is where you are wrong. The current government has consistently bent over backwards for minority, tribal and lower caste votes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_in_India

If you are a tribal, you can study in the best educational institutions for almost free (last I remember, it was nearly $50 for the tribal and lower castes for two semesters in the state eng. colleges). In urban India, things like caste do not exist and this is the thing Naxals fear the most.

Missing the point, I think. Once tribal people are educated, to they become more receptive to externally imposed "development" - meaning dams, mines, logging, etc - or less?

I ask because I live in one of the best educated truly "tribal" areas in the world... and people here go crazy militant at the first mention of a dam or a mine. I suspect that while education might weaken a movement like the Naxalites, it's likely to dramatically strengthen the kind of protest that Medha Patkar is known for.

[blueblood]

Missing the point, I think. Once tribal people are educated, to they become more receptive to externally imposed "development" - meaning dams, mines, logging, etc - or less?

I ask because I live in one of the best educated truly "tribal" areas in the world... and people here go crazy militant at the first mention of a dam or a mine. I suspect that while education might weaken a movement like the Naxalites, it's likely to dramatically strengthen the kind of protest that Medha Patkar is known for.

Alright, no dams and no mines. What about power plants, cotton mills and steel plants? How do you plan to employ them? If your answer is a agriculture then it's a wrong one. Killing of school teachers and blowing up railways is not exactly a right path to the empowerment of tribal.

Education and urbanization will not only weaken this movement, it will kill the ideology. As I said, no such thing as caste and creed exists in urban India. It's a bane and it exists in rural and backward parts of this nation.

The likes of Medha Patkar are here to stay and they will stay for an unknown period. In the land of Gandhi, she is breaking no rules by protesting peacefully.

[Ray]

Just to keep the records straight, even the Indian army when combating terrorists do not use artillery, armour or air force.

It is obvious that the paramilitary follows the same and what is more they don't have these.

It is mere journalistic sensationalism to give the impression that they are 'in the know' and wish to show that they understand the military better than the readers.

In fact, in the COIN areas, artillery, armour, RCL guns, MMGs, 81mm Mortars etc are all mothballed!

[Ken White]

In fact, in the COIN areas, artillery, armour, RCL guns, MMGs, 81mm Mortars etc are all mothballed!

That is very wise.

Tools available will always be used where they should not be unless troops are truly superbly trained -- an expensive and thus understandably rare case in any Army.

If some standard tools aren't available, then better thinking and tactics are necessary -- and will generally appear...

[Dayuhan]

Alright, no dams and no mines. What about power plants, cotton mills and steel plants? How do you plan to employ them? If your answer is a agriculture then it's a wrong one. Killing of school teachers and blowing up railways is not exactly a right path to the empowerment of tribal.

I agree that "Killing of school teachers and blowing up railways is not exactly a right path to the empowerment of tribal". Education may not necessarily lead to docile acceptance of whatever the faraway bureaucrats decide is the right way, though... and people will fight the government if they believe, accurately or not, that government is a threat to them and their way of life.

I don't think "you" should plan to employ "them". That sort of paternalistic thinking is rarely effective. I'd say provide education and infrastructure and let them sort it out. They might surprise you.

Just to keep the records straight, even the Indian army when combating terrorists do not use artillery, armour or air force.

Do you think this would change if the insurgents were stronger, better organized, better armed, and in general more of a threat? Are any of the Indian insurgencies really perceived as a threat to the state, or are they more peripheral matters of a level that can be handled by police work?

[Ray]

Do you think this would change if the insurgents were stronger, better organized, better armed, and in general more of a threat? Are any of the Indian insurgencies really perceived as a threat to the state, or are they more peripheral matters of a level that can be handled by police work?

I don't think so.

It has been the practice ever since the start of insurgency in India, immediately after Independence.

Our police is inept.

It is only the Army that is organised to take on insurgencies.

[Backwards Observer]

Our police is inept.

It is only the Army that is organised to take on insurgencies.

Ray, are the mass graves recently unearthed in Kashmir an example of police ineptness, or is there a more pedestrian explanation? What's your take on this?

Unmarked graves give up their shameful secrets

Every village has stories of men and boys taken from their homes and never seen again, writes Ben Doherty in northern Kashmir.

The police bring the bodies. In the day or night they bring them, wrapped loosely in blankets or in the clothes they wore.

''The bodies come in very bad condition,'' Nizar Ahmed Mir tells the Herald through an interpreter, standing on the steep slopes of the Shaheed cemetery at the end of a narrow dirt road.

''They are bloody, some are in handcuffs, the clothing is torn. Most have been shot in the face, or the face has been damaged, so they cannot be identified. We don't know who they are, we are just told to bury them.''

Unmarked graves give up their shameful secret - Sydney Morning Herald - Nov 12, 2011.

[blueblood]

I don't think "you" should plan to employ "them". That sort of paternalistic thinking is rarely effective. I'd say provide education and infrastructure and let them sort it out. They might surprise you.

There is a saying in Urdu, "khali dimaag shaitan ka ghar" which means when a man has nothing good to do, he'll do something evil. If you don't employ them this is what you'll get. Many Kashmiris who were throwing rocks last year are now employed by both government and small private industries. Next time these guys will be more worried about completing their targets next day than throwing stones.

Do you think this would change if the insurgents were stronger, better organized, better armed, and in general more of a threat? Are any of the Indian insurgencies really perceived as a threat to the state, or are they more peripheral matters of a level that can be handled by police work?

I am surprised, if you don't consider LET, HUJI etc to be organised then who are? Most of the early fighters were the same that Soviets fought in Astan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyas_Kashmiri

Just for example.

[Ray]

LeT and HUJI and the others are not only well organised, well financed and well equipped, but they are govt and Army to include ISI sponsored and trained!

[Dayuhan]

There is a saying in Urdu, "khali dimaag shaitan ka ghar" which means when a man has nothing good to do, he'll do something evil. If you don't employ them this is what you'll get. Many Kashmiris who were throwing rocks last year are now employed by both government and small private industries. Next time these guys will be more worried about completing their targets next day than throwing stones.

Certainly it is good for people to be employed. My suggestion was that an indigenous economy under local control can be fostered by the development of education and infrastructure, and that this will be more stable and less likely to produce a violent backlash than attempts by outside parties to employ "them". Tribal areas typically - and for good reason - see government and outside investors as internal colonists bent on exploitation.

I am surprised, if you don't consider LET, HUJI etc to be organised then who are? Most of the early fighters were the same that Soviets fought in Astan.

I would consider LeT and HUJI to be Pakistan-based terrorist organizations, not Indian insurgencies.