Armed against ourselves

The big difference is that we are talking about incidents involving elite formations of the army and police forces, against our own people. We need to recognise that India has been on the march, so to say, for more than half a century. And when a billion people are on the move, some turbulence is inevitable. Tremendous changes have been taking place in the family system, caste and community configurations, social mobility and reduction of poverty with increasing prosperity. And all this is inevitably accompanied with increasing disparities and inequities in spite of our promise of ensuring social justice which carries little meaning if criminal justice itself has become difficult to ensure, what with cabinet ministers absconding in the face of arrest warrants! Our problems and challenges are complex; but so are the assets to deal with them vast. The question that we must ask is: are we using the right instruments for the right task?

We have been facing militancy (some insurgency) and, mostly, militant crime in the Northeast for four decades, and militancy and terrorism in the Northwest for two, where the army has become the instrument of choice. And let us be honest: Assam Rifles and Rashtriya Rifles are the army regardless of technicalities. The military is the ultimate instrument of any state meant to safeguard the survival of the state, essentially from external threats. Its frequent and/or prolonged use in internal security duties, primarily against our own people, not only erodes its professional capabilities, but also its ability to successfully deal with difficult situations. If there was a time — and there was, not so long ago — when a mere flag march by the army was sufficient to restore order and confidence, it is fast becoming a faded memory for most of us. But then the army was called out only during grave contingencies and they went back to their barracks at the very earliest. The army leadership, in fact, took pride in their primary profession and such events were treated as temporary disruptions.

However unpalatable it may be, the truth is that when the army is called out, it demonstrates the failure of the Central police forces; and when the Central police forces are called out to maintain law and order, the state armed police have already failed; and the need for calling out the state armed police arises largely due to failure of the administration to govern fairly, efficiently and honestly. There is no doubt that when we reach the extreme contingency that requires deployment of our armed forces, legal authority and powers like those under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act would be needed.

But this requires that grievances or any fallout be addressed. It is quite likely that if the case of Manorama Devi had been inquired into expeditiously and a summary court-martial (preferably as a public trial) held in case there was enough evidence of culpability, public anger may not have exploded in a situation where politics is zeroing in on scrapping of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act rather than the case itself, partly because everyone knows that the act cannot be abrogated without serious long-term implications, including the severe risk of Manipur sliding rapidly into greater chaos.

What we need is a clear long-term policy on internal security which is based on the right force for the right task. In other words, the army must be withdrawn from internal security on the highest priority, and “paramilitary” forces and (as its name implies) the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) held back as strategic reserves for specific contingencies. There is no doubt that police forces would have to be geared up for their task. But this would never really happen unless we give up the use of the army in internal duties as a policy of choice. The Group of Ministers had decided on this approach three and a half years ago, that Central paramilitary forces (like Rashtriya Rifles) be reverted to their original role within five years and mobilised for internal duties only for “short durations in case of extreme exigencies”.

The answer to the present situation does not lie in scrapping the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, but ensuring that the need to use it is minimised, and when used, it does not lead to situations that aggravate rather than alleviate the problem. The army and Assam Rifles should remain deployed within a band of around 20 km of the international border to help stabilise the internal situation and be replaced with central police forces supporting the state police.

For the longer-term approach, it is not clear whether we have ever carried out a study of the long-term prospects of militancy and terrorism, its root causes, or of policies and means required to address it. Even preliminary studies would indicate that we need to mobilise the tremendous energies of the youth on the side of peaceful change and progress rather than alienate them for whatever reason. This is why the task force set up in early 1998 to establish the NSC (National Security Council) had recommended creation of strategic planning divisions in key ministries, including the home ministry, to be backed up by autonomous think tanks and studies funded by the Central government to provide inputs to policy within a broader future-oriented framework. We will keep stumbling if we do not look ahead.