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)

Fascism will be Inevitable if Aggression is Called Resurgence

Arun Shourie

'Dalits fight back,' 'Dalit resurgence,' 'Dalit politics will never be the same again,' 'Mumbai massacre a watershed' -- headlines, news stories, comments in the wake of the firing at the crowd in Mumbai. There was a little hiccup -- the leaders of the 'Dalits' whom these publications had been building up for years were thrashed by the 'Dalits' whose resurgence the same press was celebrating! But the prophets of resurgence soon regained their vigour.

That 'resurgence' which our press detected, the 'resurgence' it was celebrating, its prophecy -- 'things will never be the same again'. How do that 'resurgence' and prophecy look two months later?

There is a pattern to this. Two years ago the press was full of analyses, 'resurgence of OBCs.' There is no talk of that today -- Laloo Yadav having shown the uses to which that particular resurgence was put, the resurgent Yadavs and the like having shown in massacre after massacre what they will do to the other group, the 'Dalits', whose resurgence the press is hailing. Before that -- what with killings in Punjab, in Kashmir, in Assam and the North-East -- the press was full of analyses proclaiming the resurgence of 'sub-nationalism', the 'coming into their own' of 'sub-national groups'.

And before that the Muslims were the ones who were proclaimed to be resurgent -- the killings in the wake of the demolition of the Babri mosque, the rise of the Islamic Seva Sangh: 'Muslim politics will never be the same again,' the press declared, 'Muslim youth alienated, will turn militant.'

And before that Naxalbari was to light the prairie fire. And after that -- what with Charan Singh, Tikait, Devi Lal -- the 'peasants' were proclaimed to be resurgent. And then of course there were the original resurgents throughout - the 'workers'. No talk of any of those resurgences today -- the resurgence this time round is of the 'Dalits'.

Notice, they proclaim resurgence only in regard to groups which constitute parts, never the whole, indeed to qualify as resurgent the group must be denouncing the whole -- for instance, you wouldn't catch any of these analysts seeing in the destruction of the Babri mosque resurgence among Hindus -- that was vandalism, a return to barbarism!

But the terrorists -- so long as they were Sikhs as in Punjab, or Muslims as in Kashmir -- they represented the resurgent sub-nationalities. So, it isn't that our intellectuals detect resurgence anywhere and everywhere. The group must be repudiating the whole, then whatever it does is a manifestation of that resurgence, and, accordingly, by definition entirely in order.

The first point thus is fanciful theorising. The second is purposeful theorising. The third point, indeed a necessary adjunct to both those kinds of theorising, is to block out the reality of what is going on. In the resurgence of workers, the fact that the leaders were just traders in unions had to be overlooked.

In the resurgence of peasants, the all-too-manifest petty politicking of Charan Singh, of Devi Lal and the rest had to be shut from view. In the resurgence heralded by Naxalbari, the fact that the Naxalites were just murdering and extorting had to be buried.

In the resurgence of OBCs, the fact that these were the very ones who on Mandal's own telling, and of course as evidenced by scores and scores of massacres since -- were belabouring the Scheduled Castes had to be obscured, Laloo's loot had to be obfuscated. The latest resurgence has made similar demands. It wasn't clear at all -- two months after the incident it still is not clear -- who put those shoes around the statue in Ramabai Nagar: A rival faction of the Dalit leadership, said many; the Congress out to create a case for the dismissal of the state government, said as many; the Congress acting through the suddenly respectable don, Arun Gawli, said others: Each theory as plausible as the other.

But our press was interested in only those things which could be used to reinforce the bad name it has given to the Shiv Sena-BJP government. Not only was Arun Gawli suddenly respectable -- the new manifestation, like Haji Mastan earlier, of resurgence -- Chhagan Bhujbal -- till the other day 'the gauletier of Thackeray' -- became a hero-victim just as suddenly. That too required strong amnesia.

With the solitary exception of The Observer, not one publication cared to recall what this very man had done not long ago -- the 'Dalits' held a demonstration around the Martyrs Memorial at Flora Fountain in Mumbai; Bhujbal led his followers the following day, and had the Martyrs Memorial and the area around it washed, he had pujas done, he staged an elaborate Shuddhikaran ceremony at the site: The 'Dalits' have polluted the place, he ' declared, and he is having it cleansed with Gangajal.

The resurgents silence the propagandists: No talk of the resurgence of sub-national groups after Bhindranwale, after the Kashmir mercenaries; no talk of workers and peasants after Dutta Samant and the Communists; no talk of the OBCs 'coming into their own' after Laloo Yadav. I have little doubt that the Ambedkarites will, with comparable thoroughness, silence the ones who have read into the latest events the empowerment of yet another group.

Our intellectuals make out that, because the group has been wronged, it has the right to behave as it will, that it has a right to flout norms and rules: It is but natural, and therefore it is but right, their theories go, that the long-suppressed should have no patience with institutions, norms, rules and such fetishes; after all, the theories go, these rules and norms are devices by which the rest keep this group down.

When these two notions are compounded in the consciousness of a group -- the notion that it has been wronged, and that therefore it has the right to do as it will -- Fascism is the certain outcome: A Laloo Yadav acting above the law, his goons taking over the streets when a step is taken to bring him to book - that, if only our press gives up its blinkers, is the real Fascist force.

As are those acting in the name of 'Dalits' today -- the muscle they deploy, the amounts they exact, the brazenness with which they proclaim their exemption from every norm. No society can survive the abandonment of norms, of rules. On the other hand, at each step by reading resurgence into the latest aggressive group, these intellectuals are goading that very shredding of norms.

Soon enough the group which these theorists stoke suffers too. Along with the leaders, these intellectuals make it believe that it has a right to receive without working, that it has a right to grab -- for what the others have today is what belonged to it in the first place, that it is what they have grabbed.

In a word, the intellectuals rationalise aggression, and thereby foment it. This has immediate consequences. Work is no longer a duty, on the contrary the notion that we must work for what we want or need is proclaimed to be a device of the exploiters to keep the group in bondage. As the group becomes aggressive, other groups get pushed and thereby a strong reaction against that particular group develops.

That is what happened in regard to the Sikhs, it is what happened in regard to unionised labour, it is what has happened in the last five years against the Yadavs. What is being done in the name of 'Dalits' will ensure the same outcome against them.

When a group has been taught that it is right for it to be in a rage, rage becomes its second nature. Flying off the handle becomes a habit, even a fashion. And once a habit, it doesn't remain confined to exploding at outsiders: Members of the group -- and the leaders of the group really are the leaders in this regard -- explode just as ferociously at each other.

You would have noticed how such groups split, and go on splitting -- workers' and peasants' organisations, Naxalites, the OBCs, the uncounted factions of the Republican Party, every single group which has been worked up.

The leaders had started by exploiting the sense of insecurity in the group. Intellectuals started by fabricating 'reasons' for the group to feel suspicious of others, and to feel insecure. But the sequence compounds the insecurity. The reaction the aggressive behaviour of the group ignites gives genuine ground for feeling insecure -- that is obvious.

But I have observed a deeper, subterranean reason in addition. The entire chest-beating in the name of the group -- the chest-beating by intellectuals as much as that by the leaders -- comes to be based on gross exaggerations, indeed on wholesale falsehoods. This in turn becomes another reason for being even more aggressive -- the way these leaders and intellectuals descend to scotch the mere attempt at examining their assertions has been put in full view in the last decade.

That screamed-out righteousness, that worked up rage give the game away: They show that the leaders and intellectuals know that there is nothing to their assertions, that the moment examination begins, their shops will shut.

The group suffers -- but our intellectuals will not give up their practised trade any more than the leaders will. So intense is their need for these worked-up groups that, if one ground for stirring them falls through, they immediately latch on to another. Notice how every leftist denounced caste till the other day: 'class, not caste,' that was the war-cry. And today, every leftist is a casteist -- 'in India, caste is class,' that is the new analysis.

The need flows first of all from the high opinion these worthies have of themselves. They are convinced that their anointing is very important: It is vital strength for the group, they are certain. In their own eyes, and something they are even more keen about, in the eyes of others of their kind, shouting on behalf of the latest resurgent group is to declare oneself, it is to take a stand.

Then there is calculation: These intellectuals have convinced themselves for ever so long that shouting 'injustice,' 'exploitation' will get them a following in the target group: To see how potent this lure is you have just to read the internal Communist party documents of the late forties, documents in which the high-command explained that supporting the Muslim League's demand for Pakistan on the ground that Muslims would never get justice In a united India would attract Muslim middle class youth to the party.

But there isn't just calculation, there is compulsion, a psychological one: The very trade of these intellectuals is denunciation of India, of the whole as against the parts. When a group within the whole screams in anger, they feel vindicated: Hence, they ignite the group, 'it is right for you to rage,' they convince it; when it is enraged, they proclaim in triumph, 'see, this is an unjust society.' Even more compelling is the hunger of the impotent. These revolutionaries-by-proxy are a timorous lot, gnawed at by feelings of irrelevance and impotence. They search for the latest group that is stirring into aggressiveness. They gravitate to it. They goad it along. Then, shouting on its behalf, they convince each other they are a part of it, and thereby make-believe that they have power, that they count for something!

Society suffers as a consequence. The group suffers. But by then our friends are on to the next group. Jharkhand Tribals, next round?

The Observer
September 12, 1997