TRACKING TERROR

TRACKING TERROR

PART-1

National security through redefinition

Arun Shourie,

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

‘‘This has not happened in six months’ time. In 2001, it was 131 districts; in 2003, it had gone up to 143, and in 2004, this number had gone up to 157. I would say that the number has gone up, but it has not gone up only in six months time; it has gone up in three years’ time. That has to be borne in mind.’’ That was Shivraj Patil, the Home Minister, speaking in the Rajya Sabha in November 2004.

I had cited figures from official sources about the spread of Naxalite violence. Could it be any consolation that the sway of these violent groups had been spreading for a longer period than just six months? Quite the contrary: every year, year after year, the reach and lethality of Naxalites had continued to spread, showing that the rot in governance had continued to increase without let.

The situation continued to worsen. By October 2005, open sources were reporting that the number of districts affected by Naxalite violence and activity had risen to 165. The Rajya Sabha debated the matter again, in November 2005. Shivraj Patil improved on the reasoning. Though the figures I was citing are published by the Home Ministry itself, he said that such figures give a misleading impression. If one village in a district is affected, the whole district is counted as being affected, he said. Hence, the figures gave an impression of large stretches of the country being in the grip of extremist violence when that is not the case.

Why not disaggregate further, I had to inquire. After all, when the terrorists attack, they do not decimate the entire village. They kill just a handful from the village. They burn down just a few houses. Why not publish figures by household? And divide the number of households that have been attacked by the total number of households in the region, and thereby do even more to keep people’s morale up? Better still, why not disaggregate and count the number of individuals who have been killed, and divide that number by the total population of the region or the country? Wouldn’t we feel even safer?

But the Home Minister is the Home Minister. His reasoning has prevailed. Faced with more lethal attacks over a wider area, his Ministry has just stopped giving figures of the total number of districts that are affected by Naxalite operations and activity. It now gives figures only of districts “badly affected” by Naxalite violence. This comes to 76 districts. Isn’t that reassuring? National security through redefinition!

A truer index of the extent to which this virus is spreading is the fact that, after all, the Home Ministry had been using the same criteria for decades. On that basis, in the early 1990s, 16 districts were affected. In 2003, 56 districts were listed as affected. In October 2005, the number had risen, as I said, to 165. Since then, the situation has become much, much worse.

That Naxalites are actually carrying out violent attacks on police stations, that they are actually executing people is not the index of their sway. Violence comes at a much later stage of their operations; in almost every case, years later. In an interview with The Telegraph (July 15, 2005), a member of the Maoist Central Committee, “Comrade Dhruba”, is reported as saying that, apart from Bankura, Purulia and Midnapur districts, “our mass base in Murshidabad, Malda, Burdwan and Nadia is ready.” He adds, and this is what has a bearing on the Home Minister’s way of measuring, “After five years, we will launch our strikes.”

By the time violence is unleashed, the Naxalites have entrenched themselves firmly in the area. They commence with surveys — a 56-page survey that was recently recovered of “Perspective Areas” in a targeted state is so proficiently done that it would put some of our best institutions to shame: pattern of holdings; crops; problems of each crop; issues relating to wages and tenure; caste composition and tensions. Then front organisations are formed to instigate people on these issues. Experts instigate the demonstrations into violence. Reprisals fuel polarisation. Sympathisers and agents are steered into “voluntary organisations”, local bodies, cooperatives. Only after years of such capture and consolidation are dalams and the like formed. Violence is unleashed thereafter.

By that time, the situation has gone so far beyond the reach of the State apparatus that it can only do what the Home Minister is doing now.

THE PROPER CRITERIA

The criterion, therefore, is not whether violence has actually been unleashed, nor whether the level of violence has become embarrassingly “bad”. That entire area must be taken to be affected by terrorist activity in which that group — say, Naxalites — is able to prevent officials of the State from carrying out their primary functions: of governance, of dispensing justice, of executing development works. The relevant questions to ask, therefore, are:

• Do the people of the area look to the police for protection from the Naxalites, or are they now conducting themselves in such a way that the Naxalites would spare them?

• Have the contractors of the area to pay Naxalites a cut for the works they execute - say, on construction involved in “development projects”?

• Who is dispensing “justice” in the area? The regular courts, or the Naxalites’ mobile courts?

• Are the government officials themselves not paying protection money to the Naxalites?

And remember, there are many types of insurgencies that are afoot in different parts of the country. The tests apply to the NSCN(IM) in Nagaland, to the score or so groups in Manipur, to the terrorists in Kashmir, as much as they apply to Naxalites.

THE COMPREHENSIVE MECHANISM

Replying to the debate in November, 2005, the Home Minister had gone further in providing comfort. He had taken the House into confidence, and, going by the way he spoke, he had shared a deep secret of the State. The passage is worth reading in full. Shivraj Patil told the Rajya Sabha that, in fact, a comprehensive mechanism is already in place to tackle challenges to internal security. ‘‘This mechanism is already there’’, he said. ‘‘Probably, it is not known to the Hon. Members because it is an internal matter that we are doing.’’ He shared this State Secret, the information about this ‘‘mechanism’’: ‘‘We have a Special Security Secretary here. The responsibility given to the Special Security Secretary is to talk to the DIGs and other officers in the Naxalite-affected states every month or two months or whenever it is necessary, and decide as to what has to be done... Then there is a committee which is presided over by the Home Secretary, who talks to the Chief Secretaries of the states and DIGs of the states and they decide as to how the policy should be evolved to deal with the Naxalite activity or the terrorist activities in J&K or the North Eastern states. And, then, there are regional committees of the Home Minister and the Chief Ministers who meet periodically to decide about the policies. And, then, the Chief Ministers have been talking to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister every now and then, whenever they want. There is coordination. There is institution for coordination. You don’t think that we are not talking.’’

So there is a mechanism. There is committee upon committee. There are meetings after meetings. All concerned are talking. The result is before you — in the increasingly lethal depredations wreaked by Naxalites — by now in 14 states; they must have been visible in the trains in Mumbai.

100 PER CENT IMPLEMENTATION

In his statement on the Mumbai train blasts too, the Home Minister gave a long list of meetings that had been held in the wake of the blasts. The last time, there had been more. I had cited recommendations that had been made by the Task Forces on Border Management and Internal Security — two among four set up after the Kargil War. I had shown in detail how little had been done in regard to them.

The first reaction of the Congress Party and its props was, ‘‘Which reports? Where are the reports? Is he prepared to authenticate them?’’ As I had carried both the voluminous reports with me, I lifted them, and said I would authenticate them there and then. The attack shifted, ‘‘These are secret reports, how is he citing them?’’ Then, ‘‘But what did your Government do for three years?’’

Uncharacteristically, the Leader of the Opposition, Jaswant Singh got provoked enough to state, ‘‘As a matter of personal knowledge, I do wish to say that I had the distinction and honour of simultaneously holding the portfolio of Defence at that time and I can state to the House that about 95 per cent of the recommendations of the Subramaniam Committee report and the Task Force on the Armed Forces were implemented.’’

He had, as is usual with him, been careful in his choice of words. He had referred only to the recommendations of the main report of the Subramaniam Committee and the Task Force on the Armed Forces — not to the Task Forces on Border Management and on Internal Security, whose findings and recommendations I had been reading out. But that was enough. The Home Minister built on what Jaswant Singh had said: ‘‘Sir’’, Shivraj Patil said, ‘‘The points which were raised by Mr Shourie have been replied now by the Leader of the Opposition sitting over there. And, I can assure the House that the recommendations which have not been implemented are in the process of being implemented.’’ The Home Minister returned to this later in his response, and remarked, ‘‘I am very happy to point out that when this point was made by Mr. Arun Shourie, the Leader of the Opposition was here in the House and he did get up and say that nearly 95 per cent of the recommendations of the Group of Ministers have been acted upon, have been implemented and I had no difficulty in getting up and saying that even 5 per cent recommendations which remained unimplemented, would certainly be implemented by the Government because they are good recommendations and we have no difficulty in implementing them.’’

One hundred per cent of the recommendations having been implemented — for we must assume that, months having passed, even those remaining 5 per cent have been implemented — the results should not surprise us! On 21 February, 2006, the Minister of State for Home told Parliament that in 2004, 653 had been killed in Naxalite-related violence. In 2005, 892 were killed. Going by open source compilations, in 2006, up to 23 July, already 550 have been killed.

But, as I mentioned, that is not even a partial index of the state of affairs. Captured documents indicate that Naxalites have already put in place ‘‘Regional Bureaus’’ for two-thirds of the country: including one for Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar and UP — and, a high authority on Left-wing violence tells me, the person who has been identified as heading this ‘‘Bureau’’ is one of the very best organisers among them. Further, barring the Northeast, J&K, Himachal and Rajasthan, ‘‘State Committees’’ are by now in place for every other state, ‘‘Special Area Committees’’ have been instituted for UP-Uttaranchal, Bihar-Jharkhand, and Bengal.

An ‘‘Urban Perspective Document’’ sets out detailed strategy for extending operations into and unsettling urban areas. Governance is weakening in many cities even now, it notes. And this weakening can only accelerate: urban population is expected to increase from 285 million to 540 million by 2020. A fertile field.

The point is that each such terrorist movement is proceeding systematically. Its programmes cover every aspect: land, caste-tensions, ‘‘courts’’, targets for raising finances, recruitment, training, capture and production of arms, calibrated unleashing of violence. And on our side?

The Home Minister’s ‘‘comprehensive mechanism’’. His ‘‘100% implementation’’. His redefinitions of the area that is affected.

And yet, the inattention to Left-wing violence is not the worst of the problems.

(To be concluded)

A State Unimagined in Law: A Wrong Without a Remedy

Arun Shourie

Throughout last week one thing seemed completely uncertain: whether the Government at the Centre would survive. Throughout last week one thing seemed just as certain: that in Bihar, Laloo Yadav's Government would return. I think it inadvisable to peg the dismissal of a Government on a single massacre: when things have reached the condition they have in Bihar, in many other parts of the country, a few score can be killed at any time, anywhere. The test ought to be the general condition.

Recall the situation. The general condition in the State has fallen through the floor. A corrupt and intimidatory gang controls the majority of persons in the State legislature. The Central Government requests the President to take the State under President's Rule. He declines. Things continue to hurtle down. Five months pass. The Central Government again requests the President to take the State under President's Rule. This time even he is convinced that there really is no alternative. The State Government is removed. The Constitution requires that the removal be ratified by Parliament. In one House, the motion turns on how parties see their immediate political interest. In the other House, the Government does not have the numbers in any case to have the removal ratified.

That in brief has been the sequence in Bihar. And everyone is reconciled to the State being handed back to that very gang looters, extortionists and rowdies.

We are in the era of coalitions, everyone keeps saying, no party is going to get the sort of majorities in the coming years which will enable it to get such steps ratified in each of the two Houses. Could it then have been the intention of the Constitution that, even though such a large proportion of the area of the country as Bihar, that even though ninety million -- the population of Bihar -- vanish into a black-hole, that even though anarchy in the State becomes a threat to the security of the country, there shall be no remedy under the Constitution?

Because of the numerous occasions on which Article 356 has been misused, the focus of all proposals for instance, of the Sarkaria Commission -- and of judgements -- for instance, those of the Supreme Court in the Nagaland and Karnataka cases -- has been on preventing misuse. The case of Bihar shows that the opposite circumstance -- that of enabling the Centre to use Article 356 when it is imperative to do so in the face of a fractured Parliament -- requires attention just a urgently.

Pursuits keep drawing attention to remarks during debates in the Constituent Assembly to the effect that "mal-administration" shall not be a ground for removing a State Government, that the remedy for that shall lie with the electorate. The word -- "mal-administration" -- is so inappropriate in a context such as present-day Bihar as to be preposterous. If all that is happening in a State is "mal-administration" one can recline back, secure in the knowledge that the consequences of what is going on shall be some minor "mal-effects", but nothing which cannot be corrected in due course. In a word, one can wait for the natural correctives to take effect -- mal-administration causes people to turn away from the Government, elections are held, the Government is replaced, administration is put back on the rails. But when the situation has reached the condition which it has in Bihar, the consequences of waiting are going to be catastrophic -- not just for the State and its hapless people, but for the country. The correction is going to be even longer in coming because of what would have become -- because of what has become -- of elections in areas deteriorate the way Bihar has : at election time, caste will over-ride quality of governance, the rulers will manage "votes"...

The damage shall be irretrievable. The framers of the Constitution had just not envisaged that such a large chunk of the country will be allowed to deteriorate to this extent. The condition stares us in the face. Not to see it -- as the Congress suddenly chose to do -- or to continue to be in a position in which, though everyone sees it, no one can act on it because "mal- administration is not a ground" is murder -- plain and simple -- of the constitutional order.

This has been the classic, textbook affliction of liberals, and liberal societies: to keep debating legalisms, to let constitutionalism paralyze the State even as the rogues use the tools of democracy to destroy democracy, the articles of constitution to destroy the constitution. The massacres are terrible of course. But even they are just a symptom: they show that large parts of the province have literally gone out of the reach of the State structure, that in large parts it is the writ of the local gang -- some "Maoist" gang here, some landlords' Sena there -- which runs, not that of the State of India. Could any enemy prepare the ground better for inducting terrorists etc. into the area?

Every single statistic about Bihar speaks to the same effect. By nature's endowments, it is the richest state in the country: yet the proportion of people below the poverty line in Bihar is a quarter higher than in the rest of the country. It has the lowest literacy rate in the country. In each Plan, a target is set for every State for the extent to which it has to mobilise its own resources for development programmes: during the Eighth Plan Bihar was able to raise only five per cent of the targeted resources. Rs 13,000 crores had been approved as the outlay for the State; it was able to spend -- just spend not "spend productively" -- just Rs. 5,405 crores. When the fodder loot was in the news, we learnt how for years on end accounts of the relevant departments had not been submitted in spite of reminders and the like from statutory authorities like the Auditor General. In those cases, non-finalization and non-submission were at least functional: they were devices for facilitating the loot. In fact, dispensing with such elitist artifacts as audited accounts has become the norm!

To enforce some discipline, it was decided some years ago that central assistance would be cut by 1 per cent if a State did not furnish audited figures of actual expenditure within four years of the close of a particular financial year. Not much of a requirement, not much of a penalty, you will say. But the Bihar Government has not been able to live up to even this little bit: between 1990 / 91 and 1997 / 98 Bihar lost central assistance worth Rs 360 crores because it could not spend amounts which had been provided for plan projects and schemes, and it lost Rs 30 crores because it could not furnish audited figures of what it said had in fact been spent!

That itself is a surprise: as the fodder-scam shows, it is by spending that Bihar leaders have been earning! Things have broken down to such an extent that they cannot ensure even that the amounts they receive from the Centre are spent! The standard charges of the State's politicians is that the Centre is treating the State in a step-motherly way, they are forever clamouring for more schemes. The reality?

Department of Rural Development: scheme, followed by actual expenditure till 1st January, 1999 as a per cent of amount allocated for the current year:

RVS: 18%;
ARVSP: 0;
VNP: 50;
RSP: 0.07;
CRSP: 0;
NSAP: 39;
NOAP:39;
NFBS: 36;
NMBS: 43 ....
All schemes: 31 per cent.

ARWSP, CRSP and NSAP are one hundred per cent centrally financed schemes -- the State Government does not have to put in any thing from its side: in these too the rates utilization are zero, zero and 39! Given the appalling State of Public Health and the recrudescence of diseases such as malaria, an intensive programme was drawn up for rural sanitation. No work, just no work has been done under it for the last three years.

Bihar has 67,000 villages. On paper 46,000 of these have been electrified. To say nothing of the number of hours for which electricity is available in these electrified villages, a Central team which visited the State in February found that, even on the telling of officials of State Electricity Board, 12,000 of those "electrified villages" have reverted to absolute darkness. Cause? The conductors etc. have been stolen!

Everyone keeps saying that the way land reforms have been sabotaged in Bihar has been one of the main causes of unrest and tensions in the State. Generations of politicians of the State have been fooling the poor saying they will deliver "land to the tiller". Facts? About twenty one lakh acres were donated under the Bhoodan movement. Vinoba is dead. The movement is long forgotten. It isn't as if the State had to part with any land of its own. It isn't if it had acquire land from the big landlords. The land had already been gifted. Nor is it that the Government had to do something that would be unpopular. And yet, all these years later, only a third of this land has been distributed!

Everyone has been saying that one of the impediments has been the woeful State of land records in the State. For this purpose the Centre formulated a scheme for the computerization of land records. It pledged to meet the entire expense of the task. About Rs 5 crores have been given to the State for this purpose; it has been able to utilise only Rs 22 lakhs! The target is that by December next year there shall be one hundred per cent coverage of "Jot Bahi/Khatta": actual coverage till now? Ten per cent. But Laloo is the mascot of social revolution, he is messiah of the poor!

The education system has broken down. Governmental hospitals are cess-pools of disease and dishonesty. Teachers have to go for months without their salaries, when at last they get the salary it is a fraction of what is due to them. The Secretariat remained paralysed for long a while ago...

It is well known of course that the State has sunk into a morass of crime. The even more ominous fact is that the nature of crime has changed. Indeed, the word "crime" is as much a misnomer as "mal-administration". Kidnapping for ransom, murders on failure to pay ransom -- these have become an industry, indeed, they are the only growth industry in Bihar. There is a second feature.

Reports available with the Centre list leader after leader, minister after minister as being the one behind this gang or that kidnappers and killers, of their being implicated in this instance of kidnapping and that, of murder, of gun-running, of smuggling.

"... Minister of State for Revenue and Land Reforms,... Minister of State for Relief and Rehabilitation,... Minister of States for Food, Civil Supply and Commerce,... Minister of State for Welfare are involved in various criminal cases," a Central report reads. Furnishing details of the cases, it remarks, "The charges against Shri..., Shri..., and Shri..., include, inter alia, kidnapping." It says that there are in addition reports that Shri..., another minister, "is patronising the gang of Bulaki Sah which is involved in kidnapping for ransom in Muzzafarpur area." "Another minister, Shri... is reportedly patronising the gang of Jamadar Singh which is involved in kidnapping for ransom... It lists two other ministers and notes that they too are suspected of being in the same industry.

"There are reports," it is proceeds, "that Shri..., MP (RJD) had connived in the kidnapping (July 15, 1997) of Shri N. K. Jaipuria, a leading businessman of Bangalore. Interrogation of one of the accused in the case revealed that the gang was in close contact with Shri... [The MP], Shri... (MLA, RJD) and Shri... of UP. The accused also revealed that he had collected three pistols from Shri... [the MP] to accomplish the task."

Next para: "S... M.... S..., an RJD MP from..., is a Mafia don having an estimated strength of 100 armed followers. He virtually runs a parallel administration in the district. His gang, it is reported, attacked those police officers who were inconvenient to him. It is learnt that he was responsible for the attack on SP, Siwan. Killing of Chandrashekhar, CPI-ML leader and ex-JNU student at Siwan, is also attributed to him. Equipped with automatic and semi-automatic weapons like AK series rifles (15), carbines (20), pistols/revolvers (160), Mausers (5), and hand grenades (80), the gang of.... operates in Siwan and its adjoining districts. The gang is responsible for political killings, collecting ransom from kidnapping rich traders/industrialists, extorting money from general traders/contractors, smuggling of arms, synthetic drugs, etc. The gang is reported to have relations with Daud Ibrahim gang presently based at Dubai..."

Next: "The gang headed by Parmanand Prasad, younger brother of Shri..., is active in East Champaran, Muzzafarpur and Siwan. The gang is reported to have in possession AK-47 / 56 rifles (10 approximately), carbines, regular and country-made revolvers / pistols / rifles / guns. The major activity of the gang is presently trans-border smuggling in association with Nepalese Mafia dons. The gang is also involved in illegal arms traffic. Besides, the gang is involved in kidnapping for ransom, political murder, extortion etc. The gang has a good hold in the State Government and the police machinery of the area..."

Next: "Apart from keeping their own criminal gangs, RJD leaders are also actively patronising criminal groups. Such patronization is learnt to have been extended by Shri..... through his close relatives, mainly his brother-in-law,..." The report goes on to detail the criminal activities --- smuggling across the Nepal border, it mentions the "close links" which the brother-in- law maintains with "the most dreaded criminal of West Champaran," Bhagar Yadav, it mentions that "huge money" is reportedly received from this dreaded criminal, involvement of the gangs is kidnapping for ransom. The report says that the officers have learnt that the leader, whom it names, "personally intervened and transferred the then SP of Bettiah district when the latter engaged the Bhagar Yadav gang in encounters (1997)..."

The activities of the rulers are listed -- elimination of criminals of other caste groups..., apart from links with criminal gangs, the links that are assiduously maintained with the Maoist Coordination Committee...

Each time a carnage attracts notice outside the State, the State Government has two standard responses. It sets up a commission of inquiry, it asks for more resources from the Centre -- more paramilitary forces of the Centre, more funds to modernize its own police. And what happens to these commissions and resources?

December, 1997: Massacres by the Ranvir Sena become an issue, allegations fly -- each party says the Sena is an affiliate of the other. Justice Amir Das Commission is set up to excavate the facts, and nail the affiliations.

Thirteen months have gone by. Last month the Chief Secretary told the Central team that accommodation for the Commission was in the process of being arranged!

June, 1998: Yet another leader is killed. A judicial commission of inquiry is set up. Seven months have gone by, the judge is yet to be named...

Resources: In December, 1997 Bihar had one company of central para-military forces, today it has twenty four... Funds have been given for modernization of the State police force: the Central team inquired about Palamu district which is severely affected by "Maoist" violence, only to find that not one bit of the funds made a vailable has reached; in other districts that are badly affected --- Dhanbad, Bokaro, Gumla and Ranchi -- the story turns out to be the same...

The terror in which the people live... The terror to which even the enforces of law have been reduced... the increasing incidents of violence against their own officers and defiance of their orders by policemen: 18 November, 1997: 50 - 60 policemen armed with lathis enter the court of the Additional District Judge, Bhagalpur, assault him for not granting armed bail to a sub- inspector...; 2 February, 1998: An assistant sub-inspector is killed by CPIML cadres, the D M comes to the funeral, the policemen manhandle and abuse him ..: 1 March, 1998: protesting the killing of a policeman by the MCC, policemen ransack the house of the SP, the SP and his family barely manage to escape from the rear gate, the D M rushes to pacify them, his car is set upon...; 14 April, 1998: Criminals kill a policeman, his colleagues block traffic near the Police Lines in Biharsharif, they refuse to lift the blockade even after the SP and D M appeal to them...

One of the senior-most officials visited Bihar in December, 1997. His note reveals what affairs have sunk to: "... Several Block Development Officers and Circle Officers do not stay at their headquarters and are seen mostly at district headquarters and/or loitering at Patna as they go only for a few days in a month to disburse the salaries and to honour the bills of the contractors. The routine functions of the revenue administration like inspection of sarkari land, preparation of land records are not taking place. The police station, the Circle Offices and blocks are not inspected by their Senior Officers. In some districts, even SPs and D Ms do not stir out of their houses after sun-set. Instances of police vehicles and police pickets being attacked and arms snatched are not infrequent. Development activities have been seriously undermined by all-pervasive corruption and extortions in the form of 'cuts', to the extent of 30% of the funds earmarked for various schemes, to the left-wing extremist groups. There are areas where the only symbol of administration is the isolated police picket set up to deal with the left wing extremist lawlessness and the Police Station...."

Team after team documents the collapse. Far from acting on the information, the Central Government cannot even make the information public. How did the secret report become public?, the criminals will orchestrate the shout. How has this journalist got what has not been made available even to Parliament?... Esoteric analyses will commence about the Official Secrets Act, about the privileges of Parliament... And the culprits will be back in the saddle...

Is that what the Constitution-makers intended? Is this condition just "mal- administration"? Is there no remedy for it under the Constitution? If there isn't, what can be a stronger ground for amending Article 356?

Daily Excelsior
March 05, 1999