From Kashmir to Nagaland: Who failed us?

India has usually made a hash of unconventional conflicts — Nagaland, Kashmir, Manipur and Left-wing extremism (LWE) have been thriving for decades. Punjab and West Bengal drowned in blood for years. There have been a few isolated successes. In Mizoram, the 1986 accord has held. In Jangalmahal, West Bengal, things seem under control though LWE is ravaging neighbouring states.

History indicates that conventional forces fighting lightly-armed civilians face a paradoxical problem: They can lose by winning. It costs a lot to train and arm a soldier and keep him (or her) fed and paid, with provisions for pension and medical care. It costs much less to hand a gun to a civilian along with some basic weapons training. The civilian maybe outmatched in skills. But he (or she) is fighting on known territory with local support.

In economic terms, several gun-toting civilians must be killed to compensate for every conventional casualty. But if too many gun-toting civilians are killed, there’s resentment. If civilians, who are not toting guns, are killed, it generates higher levels of resentment and more civilians tend to pick up guns. This is not a new insight. The Romans knew it. Vietnam is a classic modern example: US forces killed 10 or more Vietnamese for every casualty suffered. Yet, America lost.

Pragmatism dictates that a delicate balance has to be maintained to win. Some gun-toting civilians must be killed to dissuade people from picking up guns. But too many must not be killed. It is better to avoid killing innocents as far as possible. This is hard since combatants blur into non-combatants and some innocents will die. But every time an innocent is killed, more civilians are motivated to pick up guns.

Conventional armed forces can at best, stabilise such situations. Political resolutions have to be found. It’s up to politicians to identify and address the underlying reasons for conflict. If they can’t do it, unconventional conflicts can carry on indefinitely.

In earlier eras, genocide and other drastic “resolutions” were options. Colonisation offers many examples of mass killings. Another grim “resolution” is concentration camps, a concept the British invented during the Boer War. Afrikaner civilians were moved into camps to deny support to Boer Kommandos. One-fifth of the interned Afrikaners (mostly women and children) died. The residual bitterness has lasted for over a century. India’s creation of “Protected and Progressive Villages” in Mizoram has left a similar legacy of distrust.  

A third method was deportation-plus-genocide — Stalin did that to Chechnya. A fourth method is resettlement of populations to change demographics. The British settled Protestants in Catholic-majority Ireland from the 1650s onwards. China has pushed Han settlers into Tibet and Xinjiang. Israel has variations on the settlement option as well.

These methods involve killing, or grievously harming, vast numbers of innocent people. In the modern era, these methods lead to international opprobrium. That can translate, in concrete terms, into lower investments, or even sanctions. 

Apart from being morally repugnant, these methods are also inefficient. Northern Ireland has been a trouble-spot for 300 years. Russia first started fighting in Chechnya way back in the 19th century.

This government is doing its best to maintain the Indian tradition of incompetence. Since 2014, the situation has worsened. Conventional forces (including paramilitary units) have been targeted in Kashmir, in the Northeast and in LWE affected areas. The government is trying to shift the blame for this incompetence onto human rights activists. That adds a secondary layer of stupidity to the incompetence. Human rights activists perform a vital role. They call out the excesses that lead to more civilians picking up guns. By doing this, they help maintain a delicate balance that might lead to an eventual conflict resolution. In the absence of human rights activism, India would soon transform itself into an international pariah by inflicting an endless stream of atrocities on its own citizens.

Unconventional conflicts fester because of political incompetence. Long before the concept of human rights activism existed, India made a habit of mishandling these. India would continue to mess these situations up even if human rights activists did not exist. It’s the politicians who have failed, not the human rights activists.

Twitter: @devangshudatta