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Business News/ Opinion / Online-views/  India’s wars with itself
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India’s wars with itself

Manipur remains red hot; peace talks with the largest Naga rebel group are far from conclusion; and the blood-letting in India's battle with Maoists will likely escalate

Photo: APPremium
Photo: AP

This is a continuation of the mid-year review on major conflicts begun the previous week (Year of a thousand cuts, 22 July).

North-east India: The two key words this year are Manipur and Nagaland. The third key word, Assam, is still fresh from a landslide victory by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in assembly elections in April, mainly on the platforms of development and stemming illegal migration. It’s too soon to tell where things will head; it’s mostly tall-talk thus far.

Meanwhile, Manipur remains red hot. Earlier this week, Irom Sharmila announced that she would end her 15-year-plus fast to demand the removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, or AFSPA, from Manipur. After ending the fast on 9 August, she plans to continue political action by contesting elections to Manipur’s assembly—due by March 2017—as an independent candidate. This has the potential to trigger an ‘aam aadmi’ moment, backed by public outrage at the government of India’s heavy hand, and misgovernance and alleged corruption by the Congress-led government of three-term chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh.

The issues surpass AFSPA—thus far Sharmila’s single-point agenda. Indeed, were she to discontinue this iconic, isolated fast, her stand would go from win (her moral high ground is near-unconquerable) to win-or-lose as a politician; a political plaything pressured by the state, human rights activists, political parties, and Meitei rebel groups that set the political agenda. But that’s her call: One that will now have to ride AFSPA alongside a movement by the majority Meitei to bring about a permit system for non-Manipuris to enter, stay or work in the state, and equally incendiary opposition from the non-Meitei tribal people. The third factor: a move by Naga tribes in Manipur to break away administratively and politically, citing shabby treatment by the state government.

As for the Naga peace process, it’s messy. Peace talks with the largest Naga rebel group, National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) or NSCN(I-M), are far from conclusion. The governments of India and Nagaland, and civil society groups as well as NSCN(I-M), are engaged in getting other rebel factions to the table for composite dialogue, which includes assimilation and rehabilitation of cadres and leaders, and a new Naga political and administrative superstructure. This includes a demand for a pan-Naga entity, including Naga homelands in Manipur.

The BJP-led government of India won’t twitch a substantive muscle over the peace process till the Manipur elections are done—or the party loses negotiating positions in both Nagaland and Manipur. Meanwhile, Naga rebels are recruiting, and fine-tuning exit strategies. Expect trouble.

The Maoist rebellion: More on what I call India’s wars with itself. On 18 July, 10 troopers of the Central Reserve Police Force, or CRPF’s elite CoBRA force, were killed when Maoists exploded their vehicle with an improvised explosive device, or IED, in Bihar. It’s the biggest hit taken by the CRPF this year since an 11 March ambush in Chhattisgarh killed 15 troopers. In addition, smaller clusters of CRPF troopers and several police personnel have been killed and injured since the beginning of the year.

This blood-letting will likely escalate. It goes beyond questions of cooperation between paramilitaries and police forces of various states, and operational lapses and leaks that continue to hamper the CRPF. Top commanders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) met in the jungles of Chhattisgarh in September 2012, and decided to attack security forces only in large numbers. IEDs were to be focused to target security personnel, backed by small “action teams" to harass troopers in camps. Also, a corridor along Odisha’s western border with Chhattisgarh was to be secured. Besides an alternative sanctuary for leadership, it would help to link up with comrades further north in Jharkhand, and assure supply of material. The party’s central committee reiterated a year later to turn the “main direction of our agitations" to “mobilizing people on land and displacement issues".

Although the Maoists are steadily losing territory, leaders and cadres—in battle, arrests, surrenders—they have generally stayed with this blueprint. This government lacks the intention and bandwidth to deal with the Maoist issue with peace overtures (contrary to its approach in north-east India), and is piling force upon force. This renewed attempt at smothering this conflict is again creating Salwa Judum-like human rights horrors by drawing in the civilian population, especially in central India. Ergo: More fire.

Next week, a review of trends in business and human rights.

Sudeep Chakravarti’s books include Clear.Hold.Build: Hard Lessons of Business and Human Rights in India, Red Sun: Travels in Naxalite Country and Highway 39: Journeys through a Fractured Land. This column, which focuses on conflict situations and the convergence of businesses and human rights in India and South Asia, runs on Fridays.

Respond to this column at rootcause@livemint.com

Read Sudeep Chakravarti’s previous columns at www.livemint.com/rootcause.

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Published: 29 Jul 2016, 01:11 AM IST
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