By Jaideep Saikia
An important question that needs to be answered in the context of India’s security calculus is why a country that is nearing 80 years has not been able to evolve a grand strategy which would guide its tactical manoeuvres. Almost all responses to non-state action have been stimulus driven. It is both ill-fated and ridiculous that the Indian state has neither felt the need for a “plan” or has failed to anvil one. But in order to conceive a “plan”, the first requirement is for a “vision.” A “vision” should be about where the people who would construct a “plan” expects the country to be ten years from now. However, it wouldn’t do to state that the “vision” is about a state of perpetual peace or rule of law. These aspects have to be clearly defined. Without a definition of what peace entails, a “plan” cannot be put into motion.
India is one of the most terror affected countries in the world. If Islam of the rabid kind is passing through a “transformative movement” and is, as a result, asserting its aggressive identity, then the hunting ground in which the scourge is manifesting itself is primarily India. Surrounded by inimical neighbours, India has been firefighting fanatical Islam ever since it has been balkanised. Tactical considerations had momentarily led it to tactfully sever a Hydra-headed monstrosity by way of Pakistan in 1971.
But the “triumph” could not be sustained, and the country is presently threatened by a plethora of ills from across the border which should have ideally been a successful staging ground for onward Indian forward engineering.
The insurgencies in the North East and the class struggles that are being waged by the Naxalites, too, have been no less virulent. The enchanted frontiers continue to burn and there is little or no let-up in Left-Wing extremism that characterises India’s “heartland.” In sum, the security issues that continue to vex and confound the Indian state are due to the lack of a “plan”, and, as stated above a “vision” about how to go about constructing a “plan.” After all, it is only an iron-clad objective that can set aright problems that are chronic in nature.
Furthermore, it is also an objective that would give rise to a time-tested methodology that would address a problem that comes to the fore with bewildering consistency. An objective would also propel counter action and if necessary, endure course correction from time to time. After all, all procedural mechanisms have to undergo recalibration once systemic anomalies are sighted or encountered. To that end, even as the grand strategy remains steadfast and resolute, waypoints that would invariably be encountered would have to be factored in and attuned to invisible circumstances. Security management of the serious sort has to be cognisant of the fact that the battles that are being waged across the length and breadth of India (and beyond!) are unrelenting in nature.
But why is it that India has not been able to construct a design that guides and governs strategy for robust security management? One of the aspects that this author has been able to unravel is the complete lack of comprehension of a security related dilemma.
Let the question of terrorism of the traditional sort be examined. It does not require rocket science to comprehended that terrorism that has been perpetrated in India is (a) systematic and sustained use of violence over time that is (b) always executed by an organisation that has a predetermined objective which is always political in nature and (c) has an external derivation despite the fact that internal dissonances are invariably manipulated to provide it ground for action. I have been ridiculed on many occasions for harping on the extraneous aspect. A simple gedankenexperiment will prove the point that I have been continually making in all my writings and lectures for the last three decades.
North East India is surrounded by five countries. If one were to hypothetically make all the five countries disappear from the “strategic encirclement” that the region is heir to, would not the non-state action that has been infuriating the expanse also disappear? The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), notwithstanding the modicum of support it once enjoyed inside Assam, sustained itself from the state’s near-abroad. Its period of outward demonstration accompanied its forays into Bangladesh—during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party regime—and Pakistan. Later it had well laid out camps in Bhutan for almost a decade from where it carried out operations inside Assam without let and hindrance. Once ousted from the Himalayan kingdom by the Royal Bhutan Army (with logistical support from the Indian army) it shifted to Bangladesh. Although its 7 and 709 Battalions stationed in Sukhni (Samdrup Jongkhar) and Kalikhola were destroyed, the organisation continued to operate from its 109 Battalion in Bangladesh’s Sherpur. Today, the remnants of the ULFA are billeted in Myanmar with its megalomaniac “chief of staff” attempting to run his motley band of ineffectual cadres from a Chinese prefecture (Ruili) in Yunnan.
The story of insurgency and terror is no different for other insurgent or terror groups. For instance, if there was no Muridke in Pakistan it would have been difficult for the Lashkar-e-Toiba or the Jaish-e-Mohammad to send its operatives into India.
It is true that non-state actors continually change their strategies. Pakistan based tanzeems have been known to “disappear” in order to evade sanction by primarily the United States. But they surface with a new identity to continue what has come to be a relentless war against the Kafirs. There is also great rejoicing among state practitioners at the fact that the once dreaded National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) came overground hook, line and sinker. I don’t wish to be countenanced as a “prophet of doom”, but the prognosis that is being made is that a sinister phoenix could rise from the ashes of the NDFB, perhaps with a different motivation. But with an impetus that would disturb the state. It is this ability to crystal gaze that must become an integral slice of the grand strategy that India must begin to shape. Incidentally, it is not as if there is nothingness “out there”. There are theoreticians of adroit practice and practitioners of sage theory. But for one reason or the other the security managers have either been too preoccupied with self-projection or have not thought it wise to bring about a conglomeration of collective wisdom that could have cobbled out a plan that would translate into a real time definition of an end-state that the Indian state is groping for.
In conclusion a somewhat “ready-to-wear” formulation is being put forward for consideration.
The “battle-strategy” seems quite simple on paper. However, the manner in which it would have to be applied is pretty complex. As aforesaid, recalibration and course corrections would have to be engineered in order to perfect the stratagem. But be as it may, the schematic construction stems from the fact that a state has to (a) defend itself and its assets (in whatever form such assets may take) from a non-state actor. The latter would naturally be a well-honed organisation which is backed by a political ideology that seeks to counter the existing system. It has to then (b) destroy the organisation which is seeking to threaten and overthrow the state. The means by which this could be achieved are manifold, but it would primarily be a combination of Saam (reconciliation), Daam (monetary inducement), Dand (punitive action), Bhed (divide).
Once achieved, the ideology of the organisation has to be (c) defeated by cleverly disseminating a counter narrative that offsets the non-state organisation’s one time appeal/support among the populace. It is here where the human face and the ability of the state to showcase its acceptability to the governed comes into play. Lastly the state, not content with the “temporary” destruction/defeat of the non-state organisation must ensure that the defeated organisation is (d) denied the opportunity or newfound space to resurrect itself.
In integrating and sequentially allowing the four “ds” to permeate strategy, a grand strategy or a plan will emerge. But the “vision” is the most important starting point. It will regulate the “plan”. And, it is such a plan that would usher forth the equilibrium that has been eluding the Indian state for closer to eight decades.
(Jaideep Saikia is a conflict theorist and bestselling author)