Top

Shikha Mukerjee | Conflicts fester, statecraft missing as Republic is 75

India must embrace dialogue and diplomacy to resolve long-standing internal conflicts and uphold democracy

The Republic is now 75 years old. It’s not a peaceful republic, even though it’s better off, in terms of poverty and hunger, than in 1950. Peaceful is not how India is at the borders on the east, west and north; peaceful is not how it is within these borders.

Between 1950 and now, the country has acquired internal opponents who have used the force of arms to fight whatever causes they believe in against the immensely powerful State. Successive elected governments, including the one headed by Narendra Modi, have used force against such enemies of the State and then realised that force alone cannot resolve conflicts and bring peace.

Talking pays better dividends if the search is for a long-lasting solution. The festering conflicts, some that have festered for decades, have their reasons for being as tenacious as they are. This is not to argue those reasons are right and the State, represented by the elected government, today and in the past, are or were wrong. This is to argue that the resolution of conflicts is the responsibility of whoever is in power, at the national level or in the states. A militarist solution thrown at a militarist movement does not address the problem, which is fundamentally political. That may cover many reasons, from a clash of ideologies, to a clash over identities such as belonging to a nation different from India or a clash over policies.

The Maoists, the separatist movements in Nagaland, the liberation movement in Assam, among Bodos, Karbis and Kamtapuris, and in Mizoram, Manipur, the Khalistanis in Punjab, have been around for decades. The response of successive governments has been to use force against them. The spiral of violence had its peaks and troughs, but it hasn’t gone away, regardless of the asymmetry of resources between armed insurrectionists or extremists and the State.

The current fragile ceasefire in the genocidal war in Gaza waged by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu government is a reminder that the use of force isn’t a solution, especially in a republic, as the State’s enemies cannot be annihilated, for “the last enemy to be destroyed is death”. The grandstanding of the “Operation Finish” variety, setting a 2026 deadline by when armed Maoist conflict against India will end, is unbecoming of a government that has vowed to uphold the Constitution and ensure “that our journey is rooted in democracy, dignity and unity”, though the word “peace” is noticeably absent in the lineup.

To uphold the Constitution, including India’s integrity, the Narendra Modi government has to use statecraft that involves a mix of tactics as a combination adding up to a sophisticated strategy that is appropriate to a route that is democratic and dignified. The way democracy works is through dialogue and a capacity to respect the views of the other side, even enemies of the State, in order to hammer out a deal, perhaps unsatisfactory to both sides, but a deal nevertheless that achieves the objective of a peaceful and negotiated end to conflict, as all parties to it are citizens, within the borders of India.

To deal with an intractable problem and what was deemed as irreconcilable differences, the Modi 1.0 government in 2015 engaged in talks with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) to end insurgency. Though the draft framework to find a solution to a “political conflict of two sovereign entities” seems to be failing and the NSCN(I-M) has warned of resumption of armed resistance against India, the fact is the Modi 3.0 government is still trying to talk even as the military and special security forces continue to operate in the area.

The combination of intimidation and persuasion has been how governments in the past have dealt with volatile and violent internal security issues. Past governments would use force and open up channels to negotiate a peace, be it with the Asom Gana Parishad-United Liberation Front of Assam, the Maoists, the Khalistanis in the 1980s and 1990s, the Naga, Mizo, Bodo, Manipuri insurgents and other organised movements for specific demands.

In the 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance, the Maoists were reckoned to be the “greatest internal security threat”. Special security units trained in counter-insurgency were set up in undivided Andhra Pradesh and now in Telangana, too. Other states also set up special counter-insurgency units. Eleven years later, the Maoists are still there; the special counter-insurgency units and the police are battling the Maoists in Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra and keeping watch on such people-supported movements in Bihar and Jharkhand.

As people’s movements are deeply embedded for decades, it is improbable that the State, represented by the Modi government, can “finish” off the organisations that spearhead them. Apart from being grassroots entities, they are organically grown insurrections against State policies, mainstream politics and ideologies of the right, the centre and the left, as well as social hierarchies and economic liberalism.

Organised peoples’ protests, be it fisherfolk on the east and west coasts, tribal communities living in forest areas or in places coveted by, for instance, the mining industry, farmers with small and marginal landholdings or commercial scale farms, living in areas impacted by development like railways, roads and dams, all have a reason to get into a confrontation with the government in power. These movements are not illicit; people, that is, citizens, invest their time and their lives to confront the government for reasons that cannot be rejected because these are not aligned with the views of the government.

The renewal of the farmers’ protest movement, the surge in the number of deadly conflicts between the police and Maoists, the unresolved conflicts in the Northeast, including in Manipur and Nagaland, the series of protests along India’s coasts against ports, pipelines and other such “development” activity, are signs that the successive Modi governments over 10 years have not worked out a conflict resolution strategy. People’s protest movements can be aggressive or relatively peaceful. How the government responds to these protests is key to the resolution of or escalation of the conflict. In order to resolve the fairly long list of unresolved internal conflicts, the Modi 3.0 government has to create a new repertoire of responses.

To do so would require, among other things, confidence building in its trustworthiness, patience and a willingness to give as well as take, instead of opting for the “might is right” attitude that it uses in dealing with the Opposition in the legislative space. Statecraft, or the art of the possible, is not Narendra Modi’s strength; the absence of such skills is his weakness.
( Source : Deccan Chronicle )
Next Story