http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-reviews/responding-to-insurgency/article6234648.ece?homepage=true
POLICING INSURGENCIES — Cops as Counterinsurgents: Edited by C. Christine Fair, Sumit Ganguly; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, 1 Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 995.
It is strategic folly to expect police forces to do counter-insurgency job for which they are neither equipped nor trained
The fight against insurgents has mainly been conducted by military forces around the world. Insurgencies are a politico-military enterprise in which political power is attempted to be seized as much by military action against the state as through political action amidst the population. Insurgent organisations aim to discredit the state apparatus by attacking its organs of law and order maintenance, political leaders and economic activity.
The insurgents extensively use weapons, explosives and intimidation to force the populace to abide with their diktats. More often than not, state police are found incapable of dealing with insurgent forces, and the recourse to military forces is the option exercised by the state. While there have been exceptions, for example in Northern Ireland, the involvement of military forces either directly or as a back-up to police action has been the norm.
The vast literature on counterinsurgency (COIN) relates substantially to military forces and their operational strategies or to socio-economic and political measures undertaken by the states. The role of the police forces in COIN is largely overlooked, even though in some instances such forces have made a significant contribution to bringing the conflict to an end.
In India for instance, while COIN operations in the North Eastern states have been largely entrusted to the army, the final closure in Punjab was brought about by the police. In the Maoist insurgencies in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, COIN operations have continued to remain the responsibility of police.
Need for neutral force
The larger question remains one of whether police forces can conduct effective COIN operations. Most often the police are themselves a part of the problem, in which their exploitative or oppressive rule and corrupt and unaccounted-for conduct originally creates conditions for an insurgency to begin.
Yet, winning the support of the aggrieved populace requires a neutral, competent and reliable police force. Use of police forces in COIN, therefore, seems like a contradiction in terms. Insurgent forces are often better equipped, trained and led than police forces. It has certainly been the case in India, where the much-touted CRPF is regularly ambushed, its men slaughtered and their weapons and equipment taken away. It is not a surprise that in all developing states, the military becomes the main instrument of state response in COIN.
The book examines the role of the police in COIN environment in a number of countries. While Philippines, Malaya, Kenya, Colombia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and India provide the developing countries’ perspectives, Northern Ireland provides the juxtaposition from a developed state’s experience. One wishes the experience of Nepal and Sri Lanka had been included in the book, as these states had dealt with long and costly insurgencies. This is especially since the volume is part of the series on Oxford International Relations in South Asia.
The editors thus missed an opportunity to produce a perspective that would have shown the characteristics of COIN in the South Asian region, whose states have all inherited the British colonial traditions of policing and managing internal conflicts.
The book offers two essays on the role of police in COIN in India. The Punjab insurgency is examined more as history than on any operational or conceptual basis. The conclusion drawn is that, “it is more important to identify the specific political, discursive and institutional dynamics that allow local police forces to become successful counterinsurgents than it is to simply debate whether local police are effective or not.”
Neglect over years
The analysis fails to take into account that the Indian Army had been massively deployed in Punjab as a back-up to police COIN operations. The chapter on Police and India’s Maoist Insurgency, highlights that the neglect of police over the years is difficult to undo and “throwing funds at this problem does not restore capability”.
The essay lauds the strategy used by the Greyhound Force in Andhra Pradesh to combine armed action with development needs of specific communities, and regrets that other states in India have not used this concept. This raises the central question of who is to be responsible for COIN.
Ultimately it is the state, which should undertake the task which needs coordination between political, social, economic, legal and armed action, in that order of importance. The state should bring synergy into the responses to be generated by its departments and ministries. It is a strategic folly to expect the police forces to do the job for which they are neither equipped nor trained.
In India, the state, whether at the Centre or in the provinces, has abdicated its responsibility to either the Army or the CRPF. The debate therefore revolves around either bringing in the military, or, the need for Armed forces Special Forces Act to provide legal backing for military operations, thereby neatly avoiding looking at the role of the state.
Perceptions of political actors and the population in COIN is analysed with considerable insight in the last chapter. The idea of ‘police’ is more often than not one of a dysfunctional police manipulated by political actors. The role of police reflects dominant governing principles.
In a democratic state like India, the police should be accountable to the people, which is not the idea in the public mind. The need therefore is for massive police reform in concepts, capability and accountability. Such reforms have not been forthcoming in developing states and India is no exception to this pattern.
POLICING INSURGENCIES — Cops as Counterinsurgents: Edited by C. Christine Fair, Sumit Ganguly; Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, 1 Jai Singh Road, New Delhi-110001. Rs. 995.
It is strategic folly to expect police forces to do counter-insurgency job for which they are neither equipped nor trained
The fight against insurgents has mainly been conducted by military forces around the world. Insurgencies are a politico-military enterprise in which political power is attempted to be seized as much by military action against the state as through political action amidst the population. Insurgent organisations aim to discredit the state apparatus by attacking its organs of law and order maintenance, political leaders and economic activity.
The insurgents extensively use weapons, explosives and intimidation to force the populace to abide with their diktats. More often than not, state police are found incapable of dealing with insurgent forces, and the recourse to military forces is the option exercised by the state. While there have been exceptions, for example in Northern Ireland, the involvement of military forces either directly or as a back-up to police action has been the norm.
The vast literature on counterinsurgency (COIN) relates substantially to military forces and their operational strategies or to socio-economic and political measures undertaken by the states. The role of the police forces in COIN is largely overlooked, even though in some instances such forces have made a significant contribution to bringing the conflict to an end.
In India for instance, while COIN operations in the North Eastern states have been largely entrusted to the army, the final closure in Punjab was brought about by the police. In the Maoist insurgencies in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, COIN operations have continued to remain the responsibility of police.
Need for neutral force
The larger question remains one of whether police forces can conduct effective COIN operations. Most often the police are themselves a part of the problem, in which their exploitative or oppressive rule and corrupt and unaccounted-for conduct originally creates conditions for an insurgency to begin.
Yet, winning the support of the aggrieved populace requires a neutral, competent and reliable police force. Use of police forces in COIN, therefore, seems like a contradiction in terms. Insurgent forces are often better equipped, trained and led than police forces. It has certainly been the case in India, where the much-touted CRPF is regularly ambushed, its men slaughtered and their weapons and equipment taken away. It is not a surprise that in all developing states, the military becomes the main instrument of state response in COIN.
The book examines the role of the police in COIN environment in a number of countries. While Philippines, Malaya, Kenya, Colombia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and India provide the developing countries’ perspectives, Northern Ireland provides the juxtaposition from a developed state’s experience. One wishes the experience of Nepal and Sri Lanka had been included in the book, as these states had dealt with long and costly insurgencies. This is especially since the volume is part of the series on Oxford International Relations in South Asia.
The editors thus missed an opportunity to produce a perspective that would have shown the characteristics of COIN in the South Asian region, whose states have all inherited the British colonial traditions of policing and managing internal conflicts.
The book offers two essays on the role of police in COIN in India. The Punjab insurgency is examined more as history than on any operational or conceptual basis. The conclusion drawn is that, “it is more important to identify the specific political, discursive and institutional dynamics that allow local police forces to become successful counterinsurgents than it is to simply debate whether local police are effective or not.”
Neglect over years
The analysis fails to take into account that the Indian Army had been massively deployed in Punjab as a back-up to police COIN operations. The chapter on Police and India’s Maoist Insurgency, highlights that the neglect of police over the years is difficult to undo and “throwing funds at this problem does not restore capability”.
The essay lauds the strategy used by the Greyhound Force in Andhra Pradesh to combine armed action with development needs of specific communities, and regrets that other states in India have not used this concept. This raises the central question of who is to be responsible for COIN.
Ultimately it is the state, which should undertake the task which needs coordination between political, social, economic, legal and armed action, in that order of importance. The state should bring synergy into the responses to be generated by its departments and ministries. It is a strategic folly to expect the police forces to do the job for which they are neither equipped nor trained.
In India, the state, whether at the Centre or in the provinces, has abdicated its responsibility to either the Army or the CRPF. The debate therefore revolves around either bringing in the military, or, the need for Armed forces Special Forces Act to provide legal backing for military operations, thereby neatly avoiding looking at the role of the state.
Perceptions of political actors and the population in COIN is analysed with considerable insight in the last chapter. The idea of ‘police’ is more often than not one of a dysfunctional police manipulated by political actors. The role of police reflects dominant governing principles.
In a democratic state like India, the police should be accountable to the people, which is not the idea in the public mind. The need therefore is for massive police reform in concepts, capability and accountability. Such reforms have not been forthcoming in developing states and India is no exception to this pattern.
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