Understanding Indian Insurgencies

[Dayuhan]

The media has indicated that Foreign NGOs do encourage militancy.

How credible are the media reports? What foreign NGOs are involved, and what are they allegedly doing to encourage militancy?

Here we have a number of (predominantly local) NGOs that are essentially extensions and above-ground fronts for the armed movements. Foreign NGOs and local counterparts are involved, but often in a different way. At times they encourage resistance to government in ways that actually compete with the armed movements, offering peaceful political means toward similar goals, predominantly the goal of helping indigenous populations resist intrusion by extractive industry and outside settlers. I'd be interested in hearing if a similar dynamic plays out there. When NGOs help organize (for example) rallies or protests against perceived "development aggression", that's often seen, at least by some, as encouraging militancy. In practice, at least here, it plays out rather differently on the ground: if people see peaceful means of protecting themselves they are sometimes less interested in resorting to violence (unless of course the peaceful means are suppressed), and peaceful resistance can be an important safety valve, releasing tension before it reaches the point of violence. It's most effective, of course, when it works. If government ignores or steps on peaceful resistance, violent movements will take advantage.

The Church has a great influence upon the tribal and the people of the NE.

Which church(es), and how is that influence typically used?

China has been given proof of their involvement.

What's the nature and extent of that involvement?

How things happen indirectly to influence and even assist is given very lucidly in the book Ugly American. I was a high school student when the book came out and one could see the same happening in India and I felt very sad for the US, which was giving India a lot of aid, but Russia was on the ball! And both were doing their best to influence the Govt and the people.

Certainly foreign parties try to influence these situations, but they don't always succeed. That influence is often overstated, especially by governments that would rather blame an insurgency on foreign subversion than address their own governance issues.

I'm still curious about the allegation in the article cited earlier that many of the fighters are in it for the money. Is that true? If so, where's the money coming from?

This returns us to the overarching U.S. philosophical assumption that establishing a democracy and free market are the decisive actions for defeating (many interpretations) an insurgency. I'm not sure how many times this will have to be disproven before we have our aha moment that is not a universal law.

I certainly wouldn't say that's a universal law, but I would point out that the NPA have been significantly eroded since the fall of Marcos. The symbiotic relationship between dictator and rebel is often under-appreciated.

The levels of corruption in both India and the Philippines largely make their democracies irrelevant to vast portions of the population to begin with (I realize I'm arguing against myself, but I'm trying to be fair).

In the Philippines I'd say the issue is less "corruption" in the broad sense than the persistence of what amounts to dictatorship in regional enclaves where dynastic autocrats still hold absolute sway and operate as a law unto themselves, with no effective central control. I imagine the influences in India are different.

For external support the Maoists throughout S. Asia are interconnected to some degree, and of course the adage that an enemy of my enemy if my friend applies, so it isn't unreasonable to believe the Maoists in India are receiving some support from state actors hostile to India.

Again the question to me is not whether such support exists, but what is the extent and nature of that support.

In the Philippines the NPA at its current level of activity can probably sustain itself through various criminal activities and taxes.

It can and it does. The removal of external funding (mainly from Europe) has affected the internal dynamics of the organization, though. With regional units effectively raising their own funds, central control is diminished and the movement has become increasingly regionalized. If that continues, we could see a point at which it becomes less "the NPA" than a cluster of loosely allied regional armed movements.