The monsoon has finally arrived but the heat and dust of elections 2014 is unlikely to settle down anytime soon. It promises to be a long hot summer for the recently installed government in New Delhi as it takes stance for its initial innings against an Opposition still swaying on its feet from the impact of an electoral result as historic and decisive as the Third Battle of Panipat, 1761 (though the incumbent Prime Minister may take understandable umbrage at the implicit parallel with Ahmed Shah Abdali, the foreign invader who was victorious in that historic defeat of the forces of Hindustan). The Third Battle of Panipat too had brought about “regime change” — by the bullet instead of the ballot — that altered India’s history.
The elections of 2014 can be seen as something similar. An established political party and its hereditary leadership were emphatically defeated and a new establishment took over almost overnight. Relations between the Prime Minister and his Opposition have begun on an adversarial note and are likely to remain so. There has been the usual wholesale replacement of governors and other dignitaries and functionaries — this has become almost de rigeur whenever there is a change of government. It is a ritualistic symbol of human sacrifice, where victors behead those perceived, rightly or wrongly, to owe allegiance to the defeated camp.
Governors of states are the representatives of the President of India; they should neither be appointed nor dismissed with such off-hand nonchalance. It doesn’t behove a modern liberal democracy such as India claims to be to indulge in such medieval bloodletting. Also symbolic has been the initial outreach to Pakistan — a traditional adversary now under a new civilian management.
Hopefully, Pakistan is more amenable to reason and civil debate rather than low-intensity proxy warfare. India, of course, can handle both.
Bhutan as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s choice for his first “foreign” visit and Jammu and Kashmir for his first internal tour have also transmitted significant positive signals.
The visit to Bhutan conveyed reassurance to a neighbour that has consistently demonstrated solidarity with India, sometimes in spite of national sensitivities bruised on occasion by patronising boorishness of Indian officials. The trip to Jammu and Kashmir acknowledged its special strategic importance as a border state with boundaries contiguous with an adversarial neighbour. The visits are in the nature of a personal ground reconnaissance to study the political and security terrain of the state, in keeping with the old military tenet — “one look is better than a thousand reports”.
However, the most important and primary national security concern remains the zone of darkness straddling the heartland of the country — the region of the Abujhmarh forest and the tribal regions extending across the deep interiors of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Gujarat. These are largely inhabited by tribals who have collectively become the “forgotten people” of India. The Abujhmarh forest is India’s equivalent of the U Minh forest in Vietnam.
In U Minh, Vietnamese resistance groups, the Viet Minh and its successor, the Viet Cong, established “War Zone D” during the Vietnam War. A densely forested redoubt near the national capital Saigon provided an operating base and administrative sanctuary. Also, it could never be overrun even by the overwhelming material superiority of the US-supported government forces.
The plight of the tribals, who are mainly concentrated in these under-developed forest regions, require personalised attention of the new government. Periodic high-profile visits, including some by the Prime Minister himself, would keep the searchlight of good governance focused on this region and its inhabitants.
What is required is a quick beginning to the many adivasi welfare schemes that have already been conceptualised, funded and launched in almost all states that have an adivasi/tribal population. Indeed, it is ironic that many communities which hitherto evinced not the slightest interest or concern about adivasi populations or their welfare, have begun clamouring and competing to be included in the adivasi fold in order to obtain a share of this welfare pie.
The security and welfare of adivasi communities is of great importance for national security. Located as many or most of them are in heartland regions, astride major lateral lines of surface communications between the various regions in the country, any sustained internal instability involving breakdown of law and order, militancy or full-blown insurgency, will effectively sever national connectivity. This will severely interdict and degrade the country’s strategic surface communication systems, road as well as rail, perhaps better than conventional airstrikes.
An intensification of the ongoing Naxalite militancy into a low-intensity conflict, possibly with covert external sponsorship and support, can achieve the desired result and is within the bounds of possibility. The antidote prescribed to prevent such a situation is well known, time tested and simple — a responsive administration of tribal areas, under caring civil and police administrators, backed by a positively involved political leadership.
Pre-emptive intervention in Naxalite areas is required. Do it now, beginning perhaps with a prime ministerial visit.
The writer is a former Chief of Army Staff and a former member of Parliament
