During the second half of the twentieth century, the Indian army had more practice at counterinsurgency campaigning than any other army, apart from the British Army, having been fighting insurgencies almost continuously since independence. The Indian army faced a legacy of various imperial police actions that the British had undertaken during the colonial period, notably on the North-West Frontier and in Burma, but this was overshadowed by the very different experience of World Wars I and II. By the 1950s, the army was organized and trained to fight conventionally against an external threat and continued to perceive this as its main priority into the 1990s, while facing the continuing rivalry with Pakistan, and from the 1960s, with China. Until the publication of Indian Army Doctrine in October 2004 and Doctrine for Sub-Conventional Operations in December 2006, the army did not possess a formal written counterinsurgency doctrine. Until the late 1960s, there were no training manuals on counterinsurgency either. Moreover, neither the central government’s home ministry, which controls the paramilitaries, nor the state governments, which operate the local police forces, had any doctrine. The absence of a counterinsurgency doctrine led not only to a continuing overemphasis on conventional warfare but also to a failure to prepare and train for fighting guerrillas. The literature available in journals and training publications did little to disseminate the experience that the army had gained in its various campaigns. As a result, a recurrent theme, which emerges from a study of Indian counterinsurgency campaigns, is the failure to learn lessons from the past. Instead, the army relied on an unwritten, ad hoc counterinsurgency doctrine, in articles written by army officers in professional journals, notably that of the United Services Institution. Doctrine was based initially on British theories and practice, notably from lessons learnt during the Malayan Emergency, which emphasized control of the population, isolating the guerrillas from popular support, and a study of Mao’s theories on a people’s war.1
Within 13 months of independence in 1947, the Indian army was undertaking its first counterinsurgency operation against a communist-inspired peasant revolt in the Telangana region of the Princely State of Hyderabad, now Andhra Pradesh, which took place between 1946 and 1951. This revolt had flourished against the despotic rule of the Nizam, which included forced labor and feudal landlords. Employing intimidation, propaganda, and terror, the insurgents were able to control a large section of the state and establish an alternative government in some 2,000 villages. The communists expected their revolt would bring about a general revolution in India and issued a call for the workers to seize power, believing that “Hyderabad would be one base for the expanding military conquest of the country.” The guerrillas also ambushed the Nizam’s police and military forces, obtaining ammunition and weapons. When the Indian government took control of Hyderabad in September 1948, the insurgents stepped up their terrorist activity from their sanctuaries in the forest. The Indian troops operated in a counterinsurgency role for about a year and, defeated by superior and well-equipped forces, the insurgents took refuge in the local forests but eventually sued for peace. The movement died down after the creation of the state of Andhra Pradesh. However, Maoist splinter groups such as the banned People’s War Group continued the struggle, not only in Andhra Pradesh, but also in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Orissa. The campaign had no impact on the army’s doctrine, which still concentrated on conventional warfare.2
The North-East Frontier region of India now consists of the “seven sisters”—the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, and Meghalaya. Of these Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, and Meghalaya were originally part of Assam. Although the Naga Revolt had been simmering since August 1947, it started to make headlines in the newspapers in 1956 and the progress of the Indian counterinsurgency campaign influenced all subsequent conflicts in the northeast and other regions. Unlike the communists in Telangana, the Naga insurgents were not motivated by ideology but by a more modest demand, that of an independent state (Nagalim) for their tribal homeland, based on their cultural and ethnic identity, separate from India. It would comprise not only the state of Nagaland but also parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, and Manipur, alienating other tribals, such as the Kuki, Meiteis, and Zo, who also occupied these areas. The thickly forested mountains of the North-East Frontier of the British Empire stretching from Bhutan to the Indian-Burma border were inhabited by a host of Indo-Mongoloid tribal groups, who had rarely given trouble or resisted governmental control. The region was isolated and remained undeveloped, and the British maintained a minimal presence and left the tribes to themselves. There was strong resentment by the Nagas of the Indian government’s intrusion into tribal areas and their traditional way of life. After independence in 1947, the Nagas with several other tribal groups in the northeast refused to become part of India and launched a rebellion.3
As early as 1928, the Nagas requested that their district be kept separate from India and in 1946 formed the Naga National Council (NNC) to emphasize their separate identity. Their main demands were the unity of all Naga tribes, separate electorates (the Muslims of India already had them), safeguards for their interests, and local autonomy within the Assam province of free India. In 1950, the new Indian government formed some of the tribal areas of the northeast, including part of the Naga region, into the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), later renamed Arunachal Pradesh. Nagas were thus split between the NEFA and the state of Manipur. Following independence, Jawaharlal Nehru’s new Indian government hammered out an agreement in June 1947 that gave the Nagas tribal autonomy and the NNC became responsible for the collection of taxes and their expenditure as a 10-year interim government. After a ballot, this agreement was ratified by a small majority after much opposition among the Nagas led by Angami Zapu Phizo, who emerged as their most powerful leader, having been released from prison for collaborating with the Japanese in the Indian National Army.4
On August 14, 1947, disowning the agreement, Phizo declared independence and launched the insurgency. Phizo was arrested and jailed but on his release in 1949 led the secessionist movement with ability, charisma, and vigor. Becoming president of the NNC in 1950, he employed its constitutional authority to spread his influence, notably organizing a referendum in May 1951 and claiming 99 percent support for independence. Nagas’ support for his demands was made clear when they boycotted elections for the Assam Assembly and Parliament in 1951–52. The situation was exacerbated by the Assam police who employed excessive force against Nagas, notably in two incidents in late 1952 and on April 4, 1953, in a raid on the home of a prominent Naga leader. This was followed by searches in several villages, which led to arrests and the seizure of arms. Many moderate Nagas were alienated, and some groups began to prepare for a full-scale insurgency, which started in 1953. The Assam government had failed to foresee these developments and acted slowly and inadequately to support and protect moderate Nagas.5
The insurgents launched guerrilla attacks on the Assam Rifles (local paramilitaries), police posts, officials, and villagers in search of weapons, in addition to derailing trains, ambushing convoys on the roads and tracks, and destroying communications such as bridges. Selective killings; kidnappings; and massacres of moderates, officials, and loyal supporters of the Assam government took place. In March 1956 the insurgents set up their own alternative government, which requisitioned food, money, and supplies from the villages. The local police, government officials, and politicians often colluded with the insurgent infrastructure. A Naga army, the Naga Home Guard, later renamed the Naga Federal Army, was raised, organized, and trained by ex-soldiers and deserters from the Assam Rifles, the Assam Regiment, and the Assam police on conventional lines and at first attempted to hold territory employing well-prepared defensive positions. But, once the Nagas had been dislodged and dispersed, with their background of tribal warfare they proved much more adept at small-unit guerrilla tactics, using their knowledge of the terrain. Trained in the use of tribal weapons such as the spear and bow and arrow, the Nagas also had large quantities of ammunition and small arms that had been abandoned by the Japanese, and they later received arms from China and Pakistan. The rebels also received training in East Pakistan and used Burma as a sanctuary, slipping across the frontier.6
In April 1956 the army was sent in to quell the insurgency and the 181st Independent Infantry Brigade was deployed in support of the Assam Rifles and the Assam police. The army began to target the rebel bases in fortified, hill-top villages to deprive the rebels of the ability to launch substantial attacks. During intensive operations conducted throughout the winter, the army at a cost of around 300 casualties searched villages, demolished the insurgent bases, and arrested some 4,000, while a further 3,000 surrendered voluntarily. However, large numbers of guerrillas escaped into the jungle and, although unable to mount large-scale raids, continued to operate from their jungle camps and hideouts and to receive underground support from the villages. Eventually three other brigades were sent and formed the 23rd (Mountain) Division, which between 1960 and 1962 took over responsibility for operations in Nagaland (Operation Orchid). The troops were instructed by the politicians to use minimum force, acting in aid of the civil power, but were far from gentle. For example, in July 1956 two soldiers from the Second Sikh Battalion shot and killed Dr. Haralu, a Naga political leader. This caused an outraged prime minister (Jawaharlal Nehru), aware of the political damage of such actions both internally and externally, to protest to the defense minister and the head of the army.7
Nothing epitomizes more the power of the central government in the northeast (and indeed in the Punjab and Kashmir) than the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) of 1958. This provides the legal basis for deploying the Indian army into “disturbed areas,” giving it powers to detain and interrogate suspects and granting them general immunity for their actions. For many critics, AFSPA remains controversial, allowing the replacement of normal electoral democracy with a military state governed by unelected and unrepresentative security forces, who are shielded when committing atrocities or using illegal methods and thus able to violate the law with impunity. India faces the question of whether it can maintain its democracy while tackling the insurgencies in the northeast and elsewhere.8
Nehru and his government perceived the Nagas as misguided fellow-countrymen whose “hearts and minds” had to be won over and reconciled to the government with “minimum force,” rather than punished with reprisals or by having their villages burnt as had happened under the British colonial administration. However, there was widespread employment of atrocities and torture by the army in the initial stages and villages were burnt. Moreover, army officers continued to complain about restrictions on the use of force, such as air and artillery support, being imposed on the army by politicians. The army continued to display a fondness for a “kinetic” response, but it adopted gradually a doctrine of “minimal force” as it was realized that the use of heavy weapons was counterproductive. During the 1980s army officers no longer advocated a military solution or victory and instead now believed that only a political solution was feasible. The mantra of the “political solution of insurgency” was the army’s answer to an increasingly glaring contradiction between the army’s preferred function and its role during counterinsurgency campaigns. The army’s desire to concentrate on training for a large-unit conventional war against the external threat of China or Pakistan was incompatible with the need to conduct internal insurgencies, which it was increasingly recognized required small-unit operations to fight the guerrillas at their own game.9
Borrowing from the British experience in Malaya, a scheme was introduced in the Sema area in early 1957 to resettle the population from the small villages into larger, grouped villages, which were established under army control. Movement by the villagers was severely restricted to stop them from supporting the insurgents. A double stockade and a guard provided security for loyal Nagas and to isolate the insurgents’ underground support. These villages were given some basic amenities, such as water and food supplies and medical facilities. The program was not a success, however, as it could not be applied to the whole region owing to logistical difficulties and complaints from moderate Naga leaders. The villages were unpopular because they were unsympathetic to the culture of the Nagas, notably the burial in ancestral homes and their reliance on cultivation of widespread fields, as the villagers were resettled away from their homes and fields. The scheme was abandoned toward the end of 1958. The army resorted to regular patrolling instead to protect the villages. In 1963 resettlement was recommenced after the Nagaland State government proposed grouping all the villages in the Kohima and Mokokchung districts into 90 large villages. This ambitious plan, costing 20 million rupees, was not carried out, although some villages, which were supporting the guerrillas, were resettled as a punishment.10
Large-scale cordon-and-search operations were regularly conducted to isolate the guerrillas from the population, identify and capture insurgents using the villages as hideouts, gather intelligence, search for weapons, and provide a government “presence.” The Indian army continued to employ large units, such as companies and battalions, which were very clumsy, often ambushed, and rarely achieved any notable successes against the guerrillas. This operation was in contrast to the small-unit operations carried out by platoons or four-man or five-man teams, which were employed by the British in Malaya and subsequent campaigns. The army rarely occupied villages on a long-term basis to prevent infiltration by the rebels and instead relied on the establishment of posts, manned by large units, to dominate and control the towns, roads, and jungle. However, Naga militias were raised to guard the villages and defend them against the insurgents. Many posts were reliant on air supply or convoys by road, which were vulnerable to attack. Coordination of intelligence and the civil and military policies was often poor so that army operations often lacked the necessary information and direction to make them successful.11
Later, during the 1960s, the security forces developed more effective tactics. In particular, the use of helicopters meant that the slow-moving sweeps could be abandoned and troops inserted into the jungle to act quickly on intelligence giving the location of guerrilla bands. While overcoming earlier problems with mobility, these operations did little to change the prevailing mind-set and the basic doctrine. In August 1963, the 8th (Mountain) Division was raised to coordinate the counterinsurgency campaign in Nagaland. Its nine battalions were given specific areas and villages to control, working to establish good relations with the loyal Nagas and to understand their culture, attacking the insurgent underground infrastructure, and establishing welfare schemes, notably medical and sports facilities. By the late 1960s, the division deployed 36 infantry battalions as the policy of holding specific areas was expanded. Troops were also sent into the jungle to seal the borders, preventing rebels leaving for training in Pakistan and China and the flow of weapons into India. A jungle warfare training school had been set up at Dehradun in the 1950s, but few units were trained there. Now, the counterinsurgency school was established at Vairangte in the Mizo Hills by the Eastern Command in September 1968 to train the infantry. In May 1970, this became the Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School, which trained not only all units of the army for two months prior to serving in the northeast but also the state police forces. But the emphasis in training was on jungle survival skills and tribal languages and customs rather than on small-unit tactics. From 1968, the army also experimented with the new, so-called I or insurgency battalions, which were “lighter” than the standard infantry battalion, for counterinsurgency operations. But in December 1970, these battalions were reconverted to the standard infantry organization so that they could fight in a conventional war against China or Pakistan. By the 1970s there was increasing recognition that small-unit tactics were needed to defeat guerrillas but conventional warfare against external threats remained the main role, preventing any substantial change in doctrine. Counterinsurgency was still seen as being a subsidiary role, and the army was unwilling to change its basic ethos, putting an emphasis on political resolution of insurgencies instead. In the early 1970s, Indian security forces committed atrocities on a large scale against the Nagas. As the police had a poor image, being considered corrupt and coercive, counterinsurgency was devolved to paramilitaries controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs, notably the Border Security Force (BSF), the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Assam Rifles, and the Rashtriya Rifles (National Rifles). This allowed the army to focus on its main role. Nevertheless, the number of armed police battalions doubled in Indian states between 1963 and 1983 from 66 to 144, highlighting the trend toward coercive power.12
In the end a political solution was seen as the answer. The Indian government sought to end the insurgency rather than destroy the insurgents, attempting to reconcile the rebels and remove their grievances. Seeking to buttress and rally the moderates and persuade them to give up the demand for independence, the government employed various measures: development of the region, a general amnesty, and the release of Naga detainees. In December 1957 the formation of the Naga Hills–Tuensang Area united the various Naga areas into one administrative unit for the first time. On August 1, 1960, Nehru proclaimed the establishment of Nagaland as a new state, which was inaugurated on December 1, 1963, giving the Naga the autonomy that they had demanded and marginalizing the extremists. The State of Nagaland Act passed by Parliament in 1962 protected the Nagas’ religion, tribal law, ownership of land, and resources.13
Attempts to broker a long-standing peace from April 1964 failed, however, and the army resumed operations in mid-1968, systematically destroying the camps and hideouts of the rebels who splintered into various factional groups. The border with Burma was also sealed with the support of the Burmese government to prevent infiltration of Nagas trained by the Chinese. The Naga Regiment was formed in 1970 to answer their demand for a distinctive representation in the army. Together with the Assam Regiment, it also provided local knowledge and language skills. The formation of Bangladesh in 1971 allowed the destruction of training centers and the capture of the insurgents and their leaders based in East Pakistan. This was a major blow to the insurgents who signed a peace agreement at Shillong in November 1975, agreeing to bring about a peaceful solution to the Naga problem and to disarm. Nevertheless, in the early 1980s the banned National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) became the ascendant insurgent group across the northeast, where various factions continued to mount attacks in Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland. The NSCN established links in Bangladesh with the military junta and with the Chin National Front, the Kachin Independent Army, and the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in Myanmar to obtain arms and sanctuaries. In June 1981 Indian troops in hot pursuit of NSCN insurgents moved deep into Burma. The bases in Burma were lost in 1991–92 when the Burmese army launched attacks to dislodge them. A cease-fire was finally signed by the NSCN in July 1997, but the insurgency has continued into the twenty-first century, and, having begun in the 1950s, lasted over 50 years. The government has failed to find a long-term political solution to the Naga demand for independence for a Greater Nagaland.14
The Mizos (Highlanders) rebelled in February 1966, unleashing Operation Jericho, protesting against the lack of development of the Mizo Hills District and the rejection in October 1965 of their demand for independence. The failure of the Assam government to provide adequate famine relief in 1958–59 led to the formation of the Mizo National Famine Front, which soon became a political organization, the Mizo National Front (MNF), demanding an independent Greater Mizoram. Further grievances were the imposition of the Assamese language by the Assam government and the curbing of the powers held by the tribal chiefs under British rule. Their leader, Pu Laldenga, formed a guerrilla army, the Mizo National Army (MNA), which trained in the neighboring Chittagong Hills of East Pakistan and received weapons from China via Burma. Laldenga formed his own government and following the failure of the rebellion in February 1966, which broke up the MNA, launched his insurgency. Driven from the Mizo Hills, the Mizos took to the jungle in small bands using classic guerrilla tactics and often operated from sanctuaries in the Chittagong Hills. They killed and intimidated vais (non-Mizos), informers and supporters of the government; ambushed the security forces; raided armories; and attacked posts held by the BSF and the Assam Rifles. A clandestine organization collected funds, recruits, and supplies from the towns and villages while providing external training and arms for the insurgents.15
The 61st (Mountain) Brigade arrived in March 1966 to crush the revolt. Harsh measures were employed by the troops, which together with an air raid on Aizawl by the air force further alienated the population.
In an attempt to learn lessons from the failure in Nagaland, an ambitious program of resettling the population (Operation Accomplishment) in three phases began in January 1967. More than 200,000 people (65 percent of the population) were forcibly resettled into Protected and Progressive Villages (PPVs) before the scheme was abandoned in 1970 after local political parties and human rights groups had challenged the constitutionality of the scheme in the Assam High Court. But the damage had been done, creating a sullen resentment, which took years to alleviate. The army continued to employ large-scale cordon-and-search operations, which were no more successful than in the 1950s and labeled by one senior officer as a waste of time.
In a variation on the French quadrillange, posts were established across the entire region and battalions of the security forces were allotted sectors to comb and encouraged to “fraternize” with the local population to “win hearts and minds.” The BSF manned posts along the border to cut off external support. Mobile units patrolled the areas between, harassing the guerrillas and denying them rest and the initiative. Collective punishment and restrictions on movement and food were also used but, being deeply resented, alienated rather than won “hearts and minds.” Some generals, such as Mathew Thomas and “Sam” Manekshaw (Eastern Command), emphasized the use of minimum force to win over the populace while employing “guerrilla” rather than conventional tactics and helicopters to provide greater mobility and flexibility. The insurgency ebbed and flowed but never completely died out. When the formation of Bangladesh removed their sanctuaries, the guerrillas operated from the Arakan (Burma).16
Across the northeast the government sought to obtain a political solution, employing amnesties and pardons to induce insurgents to surrender and also recruiting former guerrillas into the paramilitaries. The political “carrot” was balanced by the “stick” in the form of a substantial increase in the manpower deployed against the insurgents. The Assam Rifles expanded from 5 to 21 battalions in the three decades after 1950 and from 21 to 31 battalions between 1983 and 1988. The transformation of the Mizo Hills District into the Union Territory of Mizoram in January 1972, followed by the election of a popular government, brought a lull of two years. But in January 1975, having received training and arms in China, the MNF launched a new wave of attacks from bases in Bangladesh, unleashing a reign of terror in the countryside, notably against non-Mizos. A series of army operations, which by the end of 1975 had worn down the MNA, forced Laldenga to visit Delhi in 1976 for talks. The situation then developed into a stalemate. Laldenga eventually signed an accord in New Delhi with Rajiv Gandhi in June 1986, took part in elections as Mizoram became a state in February 1987, and was sworn in as the chief minister of Mizoram, ending the violence. Organized conflict on a large scale has been missing ever since in marked contrast to its neighbors. This peace was driven by the desire of the population for peace and the ability of a cohesive society, which incorporated the insurgents into the power structure, to reinstate the legitimacy of the state institutions.17
Highly literate, the Meiteis were disgruntled by high unemployment and the high number of outsiders, who had flooded into the Manipur Valley, which was densely populated, underdeveloped, and poor in resources. Some 60,000 Nepali settlers joined Nagas, Mizos, and Kukis in the area. Such tensions spawned three insurgent movements. There were similar peasant movements in Tripura, Meghalaya, and Assam, whose primary aim was the expulsion of “outsiders.” The first insurgency was launched in the Imphal valley in 1965 by the Revolutionary Government of Manipur, which established close links internally with the Mizo and Naga rebels and externally with China and Pakistan. It was eliminated within four years following the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971; most of its followers either surrendered or were rounded up by the security forces, and its leaders were imprisoned. Manipur became a state in March 1972. One of the leaders of the rebellion, N. Bisheshwar Singh, while in Agartala prison, made contact with Naxalite prisoners (militant Communists) and established links with China, forming the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) after the Meitei rebels were freed in an amnesty in 1975. In 1978, the PLA launched an insurgency. Another group, the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (the old name for Manipur) was formed in 1979 with the aim of creating a “Socialist Sovereign State” in Manipur.18
All the Meitei extremist organizations, which sought the liberation of Manipur through armed revolution, were declared unlawful in October 1979. In September 1980 the entire Imphal Valley was declared to be a “disturbed area” by the government of Manipur and the 23rd (Mountain) Division was brought in, launching various operations in conjunction with paramilitary forces to deal with the insurgency. The 8th (Mountain) Division took over the area in December 1980. In July 1981 Bisheshwar Singh was captured in his hideout, and in April 1982, his successor, Thoundam Kunjabihari, and his band were eliminated. Nevertheless, despite further successes such as the capture of another leader, Manikanta Singh, in March 1989 the insurgency continued with some support from Bangladesh, terrorizing the population, attacking police posts, and ambushing the security forces. Corruption and nepotism destroyed the effectiveness and morale of the police, leading to a breakdown in law and order. Efforts to bring the insurgents to the negotiating table failed, as unemployment, the lack of development, and the unavailability of land remained as long-term problems, providing recruits for the insurgents. Lack of coordination between the civil authorities and the military and explosive ethnic divisions between the different tribal groups have allowed the insurgency to continue to simmer into the twenty-first century. The abduction, torture, rape, and murder of one woman in Kangla, Manipur, in July 2004 by members of the Assam Rifles and the subsequent demonstrations made headlines in the local, national, and international press. Such incidents showed the reality of relations between the Indian security forces and the local Manipuri population, which suffered from extrajudicial killings, rape, sodomy, torture, disappearances, and illegal detention. Corruption in the state government and a grievance against the central government in New Delhi, which is perceived as being insensitive to Manipuri identity, has continued to fuel the insurgency.19
Between 1978 and 1993, India fought a costly counterinsurgency campaign in the Punjab against Sikhs who sought to establish an independent Sikh state, Khalistan, supported by many Sikhs living abroad. The Sikhs feared a loss of their religious identity and also resented the loss of privileges, such as the reservation of seats for Sikhs in the state legislature and preferential treatment in the armed services, which had been enjoyed in the colonial period. From 1948 the demands of Shiromani Akali Dal (the organization formed in 1920 to create a Sikh-dominated state) for communal electorates and reserved seats in the legislatures were rejected by the central government. After the separation of the Punjab from Haryana and Himachal Pradesh in 1966, the Sikhs became its majority community, but in contrast to other states, which were reorganized along ethnic and linguistic lines, the central government only agreed to the Punjab as a separate state for Punjabi-speakers in 1971. From 1973 the Akali Dal demanded greater economic, political, and religious autonomy and Maha Punjab (Greater Punjab) absorbing the Sikh areas of Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Rajasthan. Their perception of a Hindu-dominated India was reinforced by the efforts of Mrs. Indira Gandhi as prime minister to concentrate power in the central government, which culminated in the state of emergency between 1975 and 1977.20
Extremists led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale resorted to violence in the late 1970s. This created communal tension, driving Hindus out of the Punjab and forcing Sikhs living elsewhere to seek the safety of their “home” state. Armed with modern weapons by the Pakistanis, the rebels launched an insurgency, which included selective assassinations of Hindus and moderate Sikhs, large-scale sabotage, arson, the robbing of banks, attacks on railway stations, the hijacking of aircraft, and murder. The insurgents also used the gurdwaras (Sikh shrines) as sanctuaries, knowing that the government was reluctant to allow the security forces to enter them for fear of alienating the Sikh community. In particular, the holiest of Sikh shrines, the Golden Temple in Amritsar, was the headquarters and main arsenal of the rebels.21
Handicapped by poor recruitment, training, and equipment, the state police neglected intelligence gathering, a trend that was made worse by intimidation and assassinations by the insurgents. Cooperation with the army and paramilitaries was poor as the police were accused of being soft on the insurgents while the army was accused of being anti-Sikh. In response to the inability of the state authorities to control the situation, the Indian government imposed president’s rule in October 1983 and sent in large numbers of the CRPF and the BSF to restore law and order. The deployment of paramilitaries was a mistake as they lacked local knowledge and operated clumsily using large, conventional forces in cordon-and-search operations, achieving very little while alienating the local community. By May 1984 it was clear that the main aim of the extremists was to drive non-Sikhs from the Punjab, a similar exodus to that from Pakistan in 1946–47. The crisis was brought to a head in June 1984. Following the rejection of a nationwide appeal by the prime minister, Mrs. Gandhi, on June 2, the army was sent in to stop the violence and to restore normality in the Punjab.22
Operation Woodrose was planned at very short notice by Western Command (Lieutenant-General Krishnaswamy Sundarji), which reinforced the BSF presence to close the border with Pakistan and brought in regular troops from four infantry divisions stationed outside the Punjab to tackle the rebel strongholds. To ensure close cooperation between the civil authorities and the military, Lieutenant-General Ranjit Singh Dayal (chief of staff, Western Command) was appointed as security adviser to the governor of the Punjab. In the early hours of June 3, the troops were deployed to capture the rebels, their bases, and their arms. All civilian communications were cut off. At 9 p.m. a 36-hour curfew across the whole state was announced and selectively extended from day to day and strictly enforced. Forty-two religious sites had been identified as insurgent hideouts, including the Golden Temple, which was the main target, but tactical intelligence about the dispositions and strength of the terrorists was missing as a result of the speed with which the army’s operations were launched.23
Orders were issued that the troops were not to damage any gurdwara, and attempts were made to induce the insurgents to give themselves up. The opposition was to be silenced by sheer weight of numbers and firepower, but continued resistance meant that the Golden Temple had to be stormed (Operation Blue Star) by the Ninth Infantry Division (Major-General Kuldip Singh Brar). This conventional assault supported by tanks on June 5 and 6 killed Bhindranwale and recovered many weapons and goods stolen by the insurgents in robberies. However, although the operation was successful in its immediate aims, its aftereffects were disastrous. Some 150 people, including many extremist leaders, escaped, and the assault on the holiest of Sikh shrines angered many Sikhs. Cordon-and-search operations in both rural and urban areas as part of Operation Wood Rose also alienated the Sikh population, which complained of brutality and torture and about the damage and looting inflicted by troops during searches. The immediate aftermath was ill-discipline and a number of mutinies and mass desertions by thousands of Sikh troops, who constituted some 10 percent of the army. The Punjab police was demoralized by the killings of policemen and was also badly infiltrated by the insurgents and as Sikhs were treated with suspicion by the Hindus of the CRPF. Both Indira Gandhi and General Arun Shridhar Vaidya (the prime minister and the chief of the army staff, respectively, at the time of Operation Blue Star) were subsequently assassinated in retaliation in October 1984 and August 1986, respectively. The death of Mrs. Gandhi led to murderous anti-Sikh riots, notably in New Delhi. The Congress Party also lost the elections held in the Punjab in 1985. The long-term aftermath was a decade of terrorism in the Punjab with the insurgency threatening to overwhelm the security forces during its peak between 1989 and 1992.24
The successful occupation of the Golden Temple once again (Operation Black Thunder) in May 1988 using special forces and the National Security Guard, in a well-planned assault based on good intelligence and conducted during a media blackout, was a major turning point. The militants, with their criminal behavior and desecration of the temple, lost the support of the Sikh population, splintering into various factions and internecine fighting. The insurgency continued to rumble on until 1993 as the insurgent organization and leadership was wiped out by the coordinated operations of the army, paramilitaries, and a resurgent and reorganized police. Between May 1987 and February 1992, the Punjab was a police state under president’s rule with a series of special laws that suspended the normal political process, allowing the security forces to employ draconian measures to contain the insurgency. Harsh “law and order” policing by local and central police forces was employed by J. F. Ribeiro and K. P. S. Gill, as director generals of the Punjab police. Gill, who declared an “open season on terrorists,” is credited with ending Sikh extremism in the Punjab in the early 1990s. Gill was given control of the CRPF to restore closer coordination with the Punjab police, which was reorganized and supported by a “surge” of nine Indian army divisions, which were moved into the state. The army with the home guard, special police, and paramilitaries provided blanket security. The police provided better intelligence, often supplied by insurgents who had been “turned” and employed as informants or spies, and better policing of the border with Pakistan to stop the infiltration of men and supplies, aided by fencing along the frontier and an increased number of border outposts. There were massive human rights violations on both sides. The Punjab police employed counterterrorism—notably detention without charges and systematic torture and summary executions of thousands of Sikhs—which was encouraged by a bounty system of rewards for police who killed known insurgents. Nevertheless, the Sikh community turned against the insurgents who adopted increasingly desperate tactics such as indiscriminate terrorist attacks against cinemas, buses, trains, and railway stations. There was also a revitalization of the political process, with elections being held in 1985 and 1992 following an accord signed in 1985 with Harcharan Longowal, a moderate Sikh leader. Diplomatic efforts were also made to cut off support from Pakistan and the Sikh diaspora overseas.25
In August 1987, for domestic political reasons, the Indian government sent the Indian Peace-Keeping Force (IPFK) to Sri Lanka. Operation Pawan (fresh breeze)—its only experience of a counterinsurgency campaign outside India—was intended to broker a peace settlement following the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord of July 1987. This was perceived as a solution to the constant flow of Tamil refugees (some 200,000 to 300,000) into India fleeing operations of the Sri Lankan army against Tamil militants, which imposed an increasing burden on the state of Tamil Nadu. The Tamil Tigers (the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE) sought to establish Eelam (a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka). Indian troops had been sent to Sri Lanka before in early 1971 to secure Colombo airport against a Maoist insurgency. However, the IPKF’s mission was doomed from the beginning as neither side was interested in a peace settlement. The Sri Lankan security forces were less than happy about the Indo-Sri Lankan Accord and the introduction of the IPKF. The political failure to obtain the agreement of the Tamil Tigers to the accord led to conflict with them, which cost the Indian army 1,155 dead and a total of some 4,000 casualties. The support of the Tamils, initially welcoming, was slowly eroded. Intelligence was poor, and there was no effective police force to provide local knowledge or gather intelligence. A unified command structure was also missing, and there was little attempt to win the propaganda war with the LTTE. Experts in the employment of explosives and in picking off Indian officers, the Tamil Tigers proved to be far more vicious than the Mizos or Nagas.26
In October 1987, the Fifty-Fourth Infantry Division was deployed to clear the Jaffna area, suffering considerable casualties from ambushes, IEDs, mines, and booby traps as the LTTE changed its strategy from a conventional defensive war to a guerrilla war once the battle for Jaffna had been lost. The Tamil Tigers who had escaped into the jungle then adopted a strategy of outlasting and wearing down the IPKF while undermining Indian political support for the intervention, employing traditional guerrilla tactics such as hit-and-run attacks and well-prepared ambushes. An excellent intelligence network allowed the LTTE to remain ahead of the Indians who relied on large units in fruitless cordon-and-search operations, which blundered blindly around the jungle and limited their flexibility, encouraged a propensity to stick to the roads, and discouraged initiative at lower levels. Attempts to “win hearts and minds” with “civic action” floundered on a shortage of funds and poor coordination with Indian civilian administrators and with Sri Lankan officials, which severely handicapped initiatives such as the Citizen’s Volunteer Force, a local police force raised in Jaffna. The IPKF was unable to gain popular support among the Tamils who were ruthlessly intimidated by the LTTE. Eventually three more divisions (4th, 6th, and 57th) were sent to Sri Lanka to ensure that elections were held and to secure the return of the refugees from India. But there was no unified command to coordinate the operations, while the troops lacked training in basic counterinsurgency tactics and equipment, notably helicopters, to provide tactical mobility, given the use of IEDs by the Tamil Tigers. There was also poor intelligence, which ensured, tactically, that the series of sweeps through the jungle, such as Operation Checkmate in May 1988, proved unsuccessful. Eventually, the IPKF withdrew in March 1990, having failed to defeat the Tamil insurgents, as political support in India for intervention evaporated. Having failed to learn from the lessons of previous campaigns, the IPKF did little to disseminate any lessons learnt in Sri Lanka, preferring, like the Americans after Vietnam, to forget all about it, having to relearn them once again in Kashmir.27
Indian and Pakistani rivalry over control of Kashmir, part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, had culminated in full-scale conventional warfare in 1947–48, 1965, and 1971. Following the 1947–48 clash, India had to contend with control of one-third of Kashmir (Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, POK) by Pakistan, which resented Indian occupation of the rest. Pakistan viewed the loss of a Muslim majority state on its borders to India as a terrible loss of prestige, after the similar loss of Hyderabad and Junagadh. Similarly, the Indian government feared that Kashmir’s departure from India would set off powerful separatist forces in other parts of the nation. This led to acrimony and tension. In 1965 Pakistan invaded Kashmir with tribal troops supported by its own regulars (Operation Gibraltar), believing that the local population would assist them with a mass uprising, which was a very mistaken assumption. Nevertheless, discontent with unemployment and the loss of autonomy within India continued inside Kashmir. By 1970 terrorism and violence such as the hijacking of aircraft were increasing, but the defeat of Pakistan in 1971 and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh followed by the Kashmir Accord of February 1975, which gave extra autonomy to the state, ensured relative quiet until the elections of 1987. Focusing on the growing disillusionment with the central and state governments, these elections were a turning point, lighting the spark that turned into full insurgency.28
Local Kashmiri were recruited, trained, armed with sophisticated weapons and indoctrinated in camps in POK and Pakistan and then infiltrated back into Kashmir to support the insurrection. The main aim of the insurgents was to widen the gap between the local population and the government, building on grievances with the administrations in both New Delhi and Srinagar. The cooperation of the local community was obtained by a combination of intimidation and ideological exhortation to support the “liberation struggle” and exploit popular dissatisfaction with the government and the political system. The insurgency was launched by the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in August 1988. Discontent in Kashmir simmered until it finally erupted in 1989 with the emergence of the People’s Republic of Independent Kashmir against a corrupt government, poverty, and a lack of development. The insurgency included attacks on security forces; intelligence personnel and informers; bombings; civil disobedience; demonstrations; strikes; the kidnapping of foreign visitors; and the selective assassination and intimidation of officials, Hindus, loyalists, and moderate leaders of the Kashmiri community. It was accompanied by a “media blitz,” fanning separatist attitudes and exploiting the growing polarization between Hindus and Muslims. Local, indigenous fighters were later supported by fundamentalists recruited from Afghanistan, Algeria, Chechnya, Saudi Arabia, and the Sudan and in turn supported by al-Qaeda. The initial reaction of business-as-usual by the state government in Kashmir and the central government in New Delhi, treating the symptoms rather than the causes of the insurgency, as well as some of the behavior of the security forces, notably some paramilitary forces, exacerbated the situation. Particularly notable was an incident when 50 civilians were killed by the CRPF in a firefight with insurgents in Srinagar on January 19, 1990, and the killing of 40 people in Sopore by the BSF on January 6, 1993. The two paramilitary organizations, the CRPF and the BSF, although poorly armed and trained, were hastily deployed to quell the uprising. Lacking knowledge of or sensitivity toward local customs, their behavior was inept, clumsy, and harsh. The local police were also ill-equipped and poorly trained for curbing the violence and providing the crucial intelligence on the insurgent organization, suffering heavy casualties and being infiltrated by the insurgents. The police became demoralized and neutralized, even going on strike in January 1990. Finally, in January 1990, the army was deployed to bring the deteriorating situation under control and as a symbol of India’s resolve to retain Jammu and Kashmir as an integral part of the country. It has been there ever since. Owing to the reluctance of the army to undertake internal security duties, which damaged its ability to fight conventional wars, battalions of the Assam Rifles were deployed. A special paramilitary force, the Rashtriya Rifles, was also created in 1990 as a dedicated counterinsurgency unit, developing an acquaintance with the terrain and an ability to gather intelligence and employing former insurgents but also becoming infamous among Kashmiris for human rights violations. The Special Operations Group also acquired a bad reputation for its excesses. The use of conventional methods, notably cordon-and-search operations, also alienated the local population.29
After a stalemate in 1991–92 in which the insurgents targeted civilians (Hindus and Sikhs as well as Muslim moderates) and intelligence and police personnel while both sides attempted to establish supremacy, 1993–94 constituted the turning point. The army presence increased, and the resulting pressure on the insurgents began to tell. The appointment of General K. V. Krishna Rao as governor of Jammu and Kashmir in March 1993 provided leadership, a more coordinated strategy, improved intelligence, and an overhaul of the police force. The Kashmir Monitoring Group, an Intelligence Coordination Committee, and the Unified Headquarters with representatives from the state government and the security forces were established to coordinate the counterinsurgency campaign. The concept of unified command had been evolved during the highly successful Operation Rhino in Assam to provide close cooperation between the civilian and military leaders. Attempts were made to ensure that minimum force was used in security operations so as not to alienate the local community and thus generate more volunteers for the insurgents—a strategy known as “the iron fist in the velvet glove.” Nevertheless, on a number of occasions, the paramilitaries, lacking training and tending to overreact to insurgent attacks, lost control and alienated the local community further. There were human rights violations on both sides, but military excesses, implementing a “Punjab solution,” such as detention, disappearances, custodial torture and killings, rape, and desecration of holy shrines, increased anti-Indian feeling and alienated the population. By the mid-1990s, a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, which displayed little regard for human rights, had decimated the insurgents, who were replaced by a new professional generation of rebels driven by the desire to avenge the Indian excesses. They were aided by so-called guest militants, notably Pakistanis, Afghans, and Arabs. Large-scale cordon-and-search operations, which alienated the population, were replaced by more clinical and focused operations based on good intelligence. As in previous campaigns, “a grid system” was employed, dividing the region into sectors, which were garrisoned and supported by quick reaction teams (QRTs) as a mobile reserve. The security forces were deployed in three layers to prevent the infiltration of insurgents from Pakistan. Former insurgents were used to gather intelligence and to bolster village security as part of Village Defence Committees (VDCs), identifying rebels and their supporters. Counterinsurgency and jungle warfare schools were established at Khrew in 1994 and later at Sarol and Bhaderwah to train units that were deployed to Kashmir.30
Learning lessons from previous operations, which reinforced convictions about the importance of minimum use of force and of “winning hearts and minds,” the Indian army realized the importance of innovation. From 1997 it implemented the strategy of what a former chief of staff, General J. J. Singh, termed the “iron fist on velvet glove,” in Jammu and Kashmir. This strategy combined counterinsurgency operations with activities for “winning hearts and minds” through civic action, known as Operation Sadhbhavana (Goodwill), which was launched in 1998. The “civic aid” included providing basic amenities, computer centers, medical care, hostels, orphanages, new roads, and schools to people in rural areas, education, trips to New Delhi to see Republic day celebrations, and the empowerment of women. Along with an improved human rights record, the operation seems to have improved the image of the Indian army among the population of Jammu and Kashmir and helped to erase memories of the army’s harsh response to the insurgency and to wrestle the initiative from the insurgents.31
The most important lesson was the crucial importance of finding a political solution to the insurgency. Civic, economic, political, and social action was taken, and elections were held in 1996 to “win the hearts and minds” of the population. Nevertheless, the insurgency spread from the Valley of Kashmir to the mountains of Jammu. By 1998 the Pakistan government changed its strategy and began talks with India, the “bus diplomacy,” which led to the Lahore Declaration in February 1999. The insurgency continued in Kashmir, but the Indian counterinsurgency campaign succeeded in reducing the levels of terrorist violence and infiltration from Pakistan by 2008. The massive anti-infiltration operations and the construction of a fence along the 734-kilometer border during 2002–4 enabled the situation to be brought under control, but attacks, notably using IEDs and grenades, continued. Efforts were also made to “assimilate the state into India,” improve the efficiency of the government, and provide greater industrial development. There was a renewed emphasis on a professional and humane approach, using minimum force during counterinsurgency operations. But the militants remain at large, ensuring that the security environment continues to be troubled. Once again the Indians had to relearn the lessons of previous campaigns, although global scrutiny and criticism and the global threat from jihadi (Islamic fundamentalist) terrorists had made success more difficult than ever.32
Following the killing of 11 people when police fired into a crowd in the village of Naxalbari in West Bengal on May 25, 1967, sporadic, agrarian uprisings erupted in the rural areas of the states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal. Adopting guerrilla warfare tactics, the communist-led peasant revolt attempted to seize power through a Maoist armed struggle, killing “class enemies” such as landlords and the police. Between 1967 and 1972, this rural insurgency, notably in Birbhum, Srikakulam, and West Medinipur, was put down by the states with the assistance of central paramilitaries and the army. Raids by the security forces on villages and rebel camps based on good intelligence were employed to kill or capture the guerrilla leaders and their supporters. Operation Steeplechase (July–August 1971) in the bordering districts of Bihar, Orissa, and West Bengal employed a cordon-and-search strategy in which the army cordoned off and sealed the area while the state police, using their local knowledge, carried out the searches. Many insurgents fled the towns and villages to the forests and hills where they were hunted down by the security forces. State governments relocated villagers to “resettlement camps” to destroy the guerrilla infrastructure and isolate them from the local communities. The Naxalites lacked the weapons to engage the police and army and also failed to mobilize mass participation, either by establishing a secure base or an infrastructure within the local population. An urban insurgency in Calcutta was also suppressed. Entire sections of the city were cordoned off and searched, and large numbers of suspects were detained. By the beginning of 1973, most of the Naxalites had been arrested, killed, or surrendered, although the brutality of the repression, employing illegal detentions, police torture, suspicious deaths while held in custody, and extrajudicial killings by “death squads” of criminals, overshadowed the successful counterinsurgency campaign. Atrocities had been committed on a large scale during this brutal crackdown.33
In the 1990s the Naxalite movement, having fragmented into at least 40 groups during the 1970s and 1980s, began to rebuild and reorganize. The Naxalites mobilized mass support in rural areas and recruited in the villages. Despite a growing national economy, many of the problems, which had underpinned the peasant unrest of the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as political corruption, the lack of effective land reform, social oppression of dalits (untouchables) according to caste, and abuses by landlords, still remain. The lack of development and effective governance combined with widespread poverty in large areas of rural India has allowed the Naxalites to thrive. In large swathes of the countryside in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, the Naxalite insurgency threatens to undermine national integrity and prosperity from within. In the forests of the remote tribal regions, the Naxalites have filled a “law and order vacuum” where the administration of the states and the central government is either marginal at best or totally absent at worst. In these no-go areas where officials and the police fear to tread, the insurgents have set up their own alternative institutions and government. Sporadic uprisings and attacks on “class enemies,” the police and officials, continued, and, despite repression by the states, the insurgency continued to smolder and to expand during the 1990s and into the twenty-first century. Controlling large areas of countryside in a “Red Corridor” stretching from Nepal to Tamil Nadu, the Naxalites have killed thousands of Indian civilians and security forces. This problem has increased in intensity to such an extent that the Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, announced in April 2006 that the Maoist insurgency was “the single biggest internal security threat facing the country.” Support for the Naxalites was increased by the brutality of the police and senas (private militias) employed by landlords in the countryside to commit extrajudicial killings of rebels, landless peasants, and dalits and other low-caste laborers suspected of supporting insurgent groups. Naxalite operations were supported by “taxes” raised from officials, contractors, businesses, and industries, allowing the acquisition of modern weapons and explosives. The Naxalites forged links with external insurgent groups, notably the LTTE (Sri Lanka), the Liberation Army of Peru, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, procuring equipment and training. They also created an umbrella organization, the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA), to integrate Maoist activities in South Asia.34
Naxalite terrorism, such as attacks on the police, officials, the “rural rich,” and landlords and the increasing use of bombs, expanded from affecting 14 states and 165 districts in 2005 to 18 states and 194 districts in 2007 and to 20 states and 182 districts by 2012. The attempts of the Ministry of Home Affairs to coordinate and improve state police capabilities in maintaining law and order have been constrained by constitutional limitations on its powers to intervene in internal security matters. This has resulted in the failure to develop a unified command or a cohesive national strategy. The ministry also lacks a counterinsurgency doctrine, which would complement the Indian army’s Doctrine for Sub-Conventional Operations and provide guidance for and integration of state policies, although the government of Chhattisgarh has established the counterterrorism and jungle warfare college in Kanker to train the police in guerrilla warfare. But the ministry has set up its own Naxal Management Division to improve coordination between itself and the various states affected by the insurgency and a number of committees to improve interagency cooperation and communication and the sharing of intelligence. In October 2004 a task force was established under the chairman of Special Internal Security to create and coordinate strategy with the key representatives of central and state governments. In the states most affected by the insurgency—Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Orissa—the poor performance of the police, which remain short of equipment, funds, personnel, and expertise, is a major problem, notably in the collection of intelligence. Efforts to remedy this situation have proved difficult to find, but the government has provided money for the Police Modernization Scheme to re-equip and train the state police in 20 specialized counterinsurgency and antiterrorist (CIAT) schools run by the army and to fortify police stations. The employment of central security forces (some 36 battalions of paramilitaries by 2010; 40 by 2012) provides extra manpower, but they lack knowledge of the local culture, terrain and politics, and access to intelligence that only the state police are able to provide, using their indigenous expertise. Funds from the central government create forces such as the Indian Reserve Battalions (29 by 2012) from local populations to provide security, persuade insurgents to surrender and then rehabilitate them, underpin social and economic development through the Backward Regions Grant Fund (BRGF), and compensate the kin of those killed by Maoists. Joint operations by state police forces have been institutionalized as Operation Green Hunt. Other intended remedies have been harmful. In 2005, the Chhattisgarh state government formed the Salwa Judum (Purification Hunt), “a local citizen’s defence committee,” which abused its power with burnings, killings, looting and rapes, harassment of suspected Naxalite supporters, raids on villages, and forced resettlement of villagers into camps. Much of this activity was a vigilante response rather than intelligence-led strikes at particular identified targets. Such behavior not only failed to contain the guerrillas but also escalated the levels of violence, creating an internal civil war between the Salwa Judum and the Naxalites and providing for the rebels from a population already alienated by the corruption of the state government. Similarly, in Jharkhand, the state police adopted the “Gill formula”—the strict “law and order” policing by local and central police forces employed by K. P. S. Gill, the police officer who is credited with ending Sikh extremism in the Punjab in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Another model for an improved counterinsurgency strategy is the example of Andhra Pradesh, which in 1989 created the Greyhounds, an elite paramilitary force, to prowl the forests. Trained in counterinsurgency, this force achieved some important successes based on good intelligence and a unified command. Improvements in the gathering and dissemination of intelligence allowed security operations to target the insurgents and their infrastructure. Good results were also achieved by encouraging Naxalites to surrender and be rehabilitated.35
The army found the task of dealing with insurgents, such as the Nagas, Mizos, or Meitei, “most distasteful,” as they were difficult to identify and did not fight on equal terms, attacking without warning or remorse and then melting away into the countryside. The effectiveness of the counterinsurgency campaigns fought by the Indian army was reduced by a strong bias toward conventional warfare. Nevertheless, India has yet to lose a counterinsurgency campaign on its own territory. The Indian army’s doctrine developed the theme that the political nature of guerrilla warfare was paramount, stressing the impossibility of obtaining a military victory against insurgencies and the need to find a political solution instead. It emphasized the use of minimum force to prevent the alienation of the population. It manages in each insurgency, after much unnecessary trial and error, to discover the correct combination of military success against the rebels and political reconciliation with the local community to contain the violence and restore “normalcy,” democracy, and law and order. India’s experiences and struggles with the complexity of counterinsurgency suggest that even for a democracy like India integrating civilian agencies and military organizations is a much more difficult task than is often appreciated.36
The main problem for India in combating insurgencies remains that of unified command and the issue of coordinating a cohesive strategy. Not only is there a split of responsibility between the central and state governments but also historical fissures between the Ministry of Defense, which controls the Indian army, and the Ministry of Home Affairs, which directs the paramilitary forces. This structure, which allows political interference and parochial turf wars for power and finance, makes it difficult to develop and implement any coherent strategy. The army has traditionally always been more interested in training to fight an external threat rather than an internal one and therefore reluctant to commit either resources or troops to internal security. Equally, attempts to “win hearts and minds” in the northeast and Kashmir foundered on the inability to satisfy the popular demand for greater political autonomy and during the struggle with the Naxalites faltered as a result of the failure to improve the lot of the rural poor. This ensures that the insurgencies have continued to smolder and erupt as the grievances remain. Insurgencies are often contained by the combination of the “carrot” of development programs and the “stick” of the deployment of large numbers of security troops, but these were short-term rather than long-term solutions to deep-rooted problems that caused the insurgency in the first place. Without these long-term solutions, the insurgencies in the Kashmir, in the northeast, and by the Naxalites have continued to drag on. They simmer away and occasionally boil over, causing the Indian government to take expedient action without ever addressing the core issues or challenging the status quo.
1. Dipankar Banerjee, “The Indian Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” in India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learnt, ed. Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 189–90; Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (eds.), “Introduction,” in India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learnt (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 3; Jennifer L. Oetken, “Counterinsurgency against Naxalites in India,” in India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learnt, ed. Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 150–51; V. G. Patankar, “Insurgency, Proxy War, and Terrorism in Kashmir,” in India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learnt, ed. Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 673; Rajesh Rajagopalan, Fighting Like a Guerrilla: The Indian Army and Counterinsurgency (London, New York and New Delhi: Routledge, 2008), 140, 149–50, 168–74; Rajesh Rajagopalan, “‘Restoring Normalcy’: The Evolution of the Indian Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” Small Wars and Insurgencies, 11, no. 1 (Spring 1999), 44–46; S. K. Sinha, A Soldier Recalls (New Delhi: Lancer International, 1992), 209; and Brigadier (Dr.) S. P. Sinha, Lost Opportunities: 50 Years of Insurgency in the North-East and India’s Response, New Delhi: Lancer Publishers, 2007, 253.
2. Lieutenant-Colonel Vivek Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India: An Analysis (New Delhi: Thousand Oaks; California and London: Sage Publications, 2005), 392–94; Rajesh Kadian, India and Its Army (New Delhi and Bombay: Vision Books, 1990), 87–88; Lieutenant-General S. L. Menezes, The Indian Army: From the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century (New Delhi: Viking, 1993), 458, 503; Oetken, “Counterinsurgency against Naxalites in India,” 129; Major K. C. Praval, Indian Army after Independence (New Delhi: Lancer International, 1987), 548–50; and Rajagopalan, “Restoring Normalcy,” 46.
3. Samir Kumar Das, “Peace sans Democracy?: A Study of Ethnic Peace Accords in Northeast India,” in Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. Sanjib Baruah (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 245, 251; Dolly Kikon, “From Loincloth, Suits, to Battle Greens: Politics of Clothing the ‘Naked’ Nagas,” in Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. Sanjib Baruah (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 5, 91; General K. V. Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish: A Study of National Security (New Delhi: Lancer Publishers, 1991), 259; Bethany Lacina, “Rethinking Delhi’s Northeast India Policy: Why neither Counter-insurgency nor Winning Hearts and Minds Is the Way Forward,” in Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. Sanjib Baruah (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 332; Menezes, The Indian Army, 503; Major-General D. K. Palit, Sentinels of the North-East: The Assam Rifles (New Delhi: Palit & Palit, 1984), 174–76; Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 549–51; D. B. Shekatkur, “India’s Counterinsurgency Campaign in Nagaland,” in India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learnt, ed. Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 10; V. I. K. Sarin, India’s North-East in Flames (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing, 1980), 104; and H. Kham Khan Suan, “Hills-Valley Divide as a Site of Conflict: Emerging Dialogic Space in Manipur,” in Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. Sanjib Baruah (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 268, 272, 278.
4. Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India, 280–83; Major-General Ashok Krishna, India’s Armed Forces: Fifty Years of War and Peace (New Delhi: Lancer Publishers, 1998), 109–10; General K. V. Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish, 260–61; Menezes, The Indian Army, 503; and Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 552–55.
5. Subir Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire: North-East India (New Delhi, London and Hartford: Wi, Lancer Publishers, 1996), 40–42; Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India, 283–86; Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish, 261–62; Palit, Sentinels of the North-East, 212; and Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 555–56.
6. Bhaumik, Insurgent Crossfire, 42–48; Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India, 286–87, 290–93; Krishna, India’s Armed Forces, 111; Menezes, The Indian Army, 503; Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 556–58 and 563; Rajagopalan, “Restoring Normalcy,” 46–47.
7. Banerjee, “The Indian Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” 192–93, 196; Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India, 287–88; Kadian, India and Its Army, 89; Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish, 263; Walter C. Ladwig III, “Insights from the Northeast: Counterinsurgency in Nagaland and Mizoram,” in India and Counterinsurgency: Lessons Learnt, ed. Sumit Ganguly and David P. Fidler (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 47; Palit, Sentinels of the North-East, 200–201, 204–5; Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 559–61; Rajagopalan, Fighting Like a Guerrilla, 141–49, 156–58; Rajagopalan, “Restoring Normalcy,” 47–50, 58–60; Shekatkur, “India’s Counterinsurgency Campaign in Nagaland,” 19–20; and Sinha, Lost Opportunities, 74.
8. Banerjee, “The Indian Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” 205; Shekatkur, “India’s Counterinsurgency Campaign in Nagaland,” 23–24.
9. Banerjee, “The Indian Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” 192–93, 196; Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India, 287–88; Kadian, India and Its Army, 89; Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish, 263; Ladwig, “Insights from the Northeast,” 47; Palit, Sentinels of the North-East, 200–201, 204–5; Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 559–61; Rajagopalan, Fighting Like a Guerrilla, 141–49, 156–58; Rajagopalan, “Restoring Normalcy,” 47–50, 58–60; Shekatkur, “India’s Counterinsurgency Campaign in Nagaland,” 19–20; Sinha, Lost Opportunities, 74.
10. V. K. Anand, Conflict in Nagaland: A Study of Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency (New Delhi: Chanakya Publications, 1980), 139–44; Banerjee, “The Indian Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” 194; Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India, 288–89; Krishna, India’s Armed Forces, 110; Menezes, The Indian Army, 504–5; Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 560–63; and Rajagopalan, Fighting Like a Guerrilla, 149–51.
11. Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish, 262; Rajagopalan, Fighting Like a Guerrilla, 151–59; Sinha, Lost Opportunities, 274–75.
12. Banerjee, “The Indian Army’s Counterinsurgency Doctrine,” 194–95; Patricia Gossman, “India’s Secret Armies,” in Death Squads in Global Perspective: Murder with Deniability, ed. Bruce B. Campbell and Arthur D. Brenner (New York and Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 261; Kadian, India and Its Army, 85–86; Kuldeep Mathur, “The State and the Use of Coercive Power in India,” Asian Survey 32, no. 4 (April 1992), 344; Praval, Indian Army after Independence, 565; Rajagopalan, Fighting Like a Guerrilla, 160–68, 175–76, 180–81; and Shekatkur, “India’s Counterinsurgency Campaign in Nagaland,” 19–21.
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19. Chadha, Low Intensity Conflicts in India, 28, 315–21; Krishna Rao, Prepare or Perish, 269–72; Marvah, Uncivil Wars, 293–95; Pradip Phanjoubam, “Northeast Problems as a Subject and Object,” in Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. Sanjib Baruah (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009),140–50, 152; Sarin, India’s North-East in Flames, 108; Sinha, Lost Opportunities, 122–24; Ahanya Vajpeyi, “Resenting the Indian State: For a New Political Practice in the Northeast,” in Beyond Counter-Insurgency: Breaking the Impasse in Northeast India, ed. Sanjib Baruah (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009), 27–28, 31, 34.
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