Don't use the Army against the Naxalites

At present, there is a debate in India about the action to be taken against the Naxalities/Maoists who have increased their operations against the Indian government and civilians over the last few months. In the month of May, Naxalite attacks killed around 175 people including 29 security personnel. Prior to that in April, they carried out the massacre of 72 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Dantewada. The Indian government has since then come under sharp criticism and pressure for its failure to deal with the Naxal problem and allowing it to grow to such extremes.

The Home Minister, P Chidambaram, has been trying to assure the Indian people that he will take strong steps against the Naxalites and end their menace. But so far their has been no real movement. One of the actions being seriously contemplated for the purpose is using the military, including the Air Force to launch attacks on the Maoists hideouts and camps. Considering the damage to life and property that the Maoists have caused in the name of protecting the interests of the tribals, some might consider it to be a viable option. The Naxalities have almost waged a war against India, and bringing in the Army in a war situation seems to be the next logical step.

However, there is one big problem. The Naxalities are Indian citizens. They belong to the same group of people that the government is mandated to protect. Henious and illegal though their actions might be, they still are lawful Indian citizens. It is true that the State alone has the power to wage war, but it cannot do so against its own people. The maximum possible use of force for law breakers, criminals, treasonists is police action. But bringing in the Army to fight against its own people would be abuse of government power. It would turn India into a dictatorship, a police State. It would be nothing short of a complete failure of the Indian political system.

This does not mean that the Indian government should not bring the Naxalities to justice. But they would have to be treated as criminals, and not an enemy like Pakistan was in 1965 or 1971. The Naxalite problem is not just about the violence, it is also about the State’s failure to adequately provide for the tribals. Addressing the Naxal menace would require working on the root-cause of the problem so that once crushed, the Naxalite movement does not resurface. The Army may be used only in an advisory position, to guide the police forces to plan successful operations to capture the Naxalities. Once they have done so, they should step out of the way immediately. No army personnel should be used in the actual ground operations. That would be crossing the line into abuse of fundamental rights of Indian citizens.

The Indian government is in a big quandary at the moment. If it does not act against the Naxalities, it would have to face severe public criticism. If it does, and uses the Army, it will have waged a war against its own people. If the Indian government brings in the Army against the Naxalities, who is to say where it will stop? What assurances will the Indian people have that their threshold of State’s use of force will not be pushed back further? How would India deal with the drastic blow to its democratic principles and foundations? As the next big player in the global arena, would India survive without the support of its democratic institutions and values?