A school to counter Naxals

Ponwar is director of the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare School in Kanker,a town to the north of Bastar in Chhattisgarh. Five years ago,Ponwar set up the school for the state government and has been running it ever since. His mandate: to convert policemen into combat-ready commandos who can fight,and defeat,the Naxal groups that have slowly built up their reputation as the single “biggest threat to the country’s internal security”,as the Prime Minister calls them.

In the 45 days that the trainees spend in the school,they are put through an intensive training programme that is designed to improve not just their physical abilities but also their mental toughness. The school is situated in Kanker town and inside,much of the hilly terrain has been landscaped to look like a jungle so that the policemen learn to fight Naxals in the forests.

The training regimen starts early in the morning,with Ponwar supervising on horseback,and continues till late in the evening. Fourteen of the 45 nights are also meant for training as the policemen learn the art of moving and fighting in the dark.

The policemen,and women,learn to attack as well as defend,create formations,lay and avoid ambush,slither and disguise themselves in the terrain,fire from both their shoulders—while moving on foot or on two-wheelers—and several such skills that are prerequisites in guerrilla warfare. There is even a helicopter look-alike perched atop a hill from where the trainees practise para-trooping into a danger zone. About 100 trainers,most of them from the police who have undergone training here and some from the armed forces,keep a round-the-clock vigil on the 500-odd trainees.

“This training has given me tremendous confidence. I can take on any enemy now,” writes one of the policemen in the feedback register which every trainee has to fill after the completion of the course. There are many such comments in the register. Some also suggest the need for newer resources and training methods. “More modern weapons should also be included in the training,” reads an entry.

The school,located in the Naxal heartland,about 150 km south of Raipur on National Highway 43,is contributing in a significant way to changing the profile of policemen in the country. It has already trained more than 12,000 policemen,mostly from Chhattisgarh.

“We are producing fearless commandos. The result is for everyone to see. Very few of the boys who have trained here have died in operations. They are more likely to kill than get killed. These boys are no longer the sitting ducks that they used to be,” says Ponwar. “I do not want any policeman to go into the battlefield unprepared,” he adds.

The beginning

The training centre is the brainchild of former Chhattisgarh governor Lt Gen K M Seth (retd),who was transferred from Tripura to Chhattisgarh in 2001. In his previous stint as governor of Tripura,Seth had seen Ponwar run a similar training school in Mizoram and had come away impressed. With Chhattisgarh slowly becoming the epicentre of the Naxal movement,he realised the need to train police forces in jungle warfare. He invited Ponwar to set up a school here and he agreed.

For the first four years after the school opened in April 2005,it ran without an electricity connection. In fact,there are still no proper toilets for trainees.

“Once when a batch of IPS officers came here for the training,we had to install a few western commodes in makeshift toilets. But normally,everyone lives here as they would in a jungle. These people will have to spend long durations in the forests. They need to master the conditions,” says Ponwar. Most of the IPS officers who underwent this training,such as Dantewada SP Amresh Mishra,are now leading anti-Naxal operations in key areas of the state.

Other states such as Bihar,Orissa,Jharkhand,Uttar Pradesh and Kerala have started sending their policemen to Kanker. After the Naxal attack at Silda in West Midnapore district in February,when 24 personnel of the Eastern Frontier Rifles were killed,West Bengal too sent more than 100 policemen to the school.

Psychological war

In the fight against Naxals,mental toughness is probably as important as any other skill. So a lot of the course content is about psychological warfare and how to break the ideological arguments of the enemy. This is extremely important since a large number of the trainees come from the same areas as the Naxals. Their relatives,friends and acquaintances might be with the other camp and sometimes the policemen themselves might be sympathetic to their ideology.

Ponwar agrees that such dichotomies do exist but says they don’t talk about such issues directly. “We do talk about the futility of the war that the Naxals are waging. We tell them (trainees) how such methods have never worked anywhere in the world in improving the lives of the people. We discuss what the alternative methods of development should be,” he says.

So Ponwar instructs the trainees never to trouble local villagers when they go out for their operations. “The fight is with the Naxals,not the people. I tell the boys not even to ask for water from the villagers. In fact,they should be able to give them water or other things that they might need.”

A trainee from southern Chhattisgarh says,“The armed fight is only one part of the solution. Unless the government delivers on other fronts as well,there will be no point in people like us dying in this battle.”

The school is also questioning some conventional wisdom of police operations. “Remember,your first instinct when you are fired upon should be not to duck or look for a safe place to hide but to fire back in the direction the first bullet came from. This should become a reflex action,” Ponwar tells a group of trainees carrying out firing practice. “The enemy must fear for his life,” he explains.

Another dictum: “Roads are not for walking or driving. They are only meant to be navigational tools.” An extremely important piece of advice—though unfortunately often overlooked—considering the number of policemen who have been killed by landmines that the Naxals lay on roads.

The school also teaches policemen how to get the best out of the resources they have. So no complaints are entertained—not even how outdated the policemen’s .303 rifles are,compared to the automatic weapons that Naxals carry.

“The soldier himself is the weapon. If he is fit and is in the right frame of mind,he can do anything. And who says .303 rifles do not work? If you want,you can fire five rounds in six seconds,” says Ponwar. The idea,he says,is to boost the morale of the policemen. Skills can be put to use only when the soldier is motivated enough.

Though most of the trainees are able to complete the 45-day course,there are some who have to come again.

“I have had a couple of policemen who have had to repeat the course thrice. But that is okay as long as the final product is fine. I would not want any policeman to go into the battle unprepared or unfit,” says Ponwar.

The future

Nearly one quarter of the entire Chhattisgarh police force has already undergone training at this school—some as old as a 59-year-old head constable who was put through this rigorous training just six months before his retirement. The school now has ambitions to become a grandiose institute with modern buildings housing offices and residential complexes—as of now,an old ramshackle building serves as the administrative block while the instructors live along with the trainees in tents inside the campus.

With roughly 3,000 policemen completing training every year now,in the next five years,almost the entire operational strength of the Chhattisgarh police would have gone through this school. While the training is aimed specifically at Naxal operations,it is hoped that general policing will also show a significant improvement.

The success of this school has prompted other states to follow suit. After the Mumbai terror strikes,Home Minister P Chidambaram had announced the establishment of 20 anti-terrorism schools throughout the country,to be modelled on the one in Kanker.