An Afghanistan Insight on Maoists

Taking a cue from Afghanistan, where for the first time in nine years, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is beginning to right some of the wrongs in its ‘war of necessity’. To nudge India to look towards its western proximate neighbour in turmoil would appear to be disingenuous in the face of the exalted importance it is now accorded by the world: all the ‘big five’ leaders will have visited us before the year is out.

The recent spate of graft and greed cases have confirmed why India has, ‘islands of prosperity’ in a ‘sea of deprivation’. And the gridlock that has ensued in Parliament, thereafter, will ensure, as always, that priority issues in the country will continue to be put on the backburner. Like India, Afghanistan, too, has more than a fair share of malign actors, power brokers, corrupt politicians and warlords (India has corporate czars).

A Centre for Strategic and International Studies survey suggests that a whopping 75% viewed Taliban in an unfavourable light, putting Taliban, drug peddlers, local warlords, the US and the Afghan government in the order of threat. Corruption, at 76% (December 2009), was considered the biggest stumbling block to progress. Remarkably , on a poser whether the country was moving in the right direction, 56% (November 2009) thought so.

A year later, the ISAF has been able to significantly arrest the second largest source of corruption and funding for the Taliban, i.e., poppy cultivation by concentrating on higher level traffickers rather than broad eradication. As a result, from a peak of 8,200 metric tonnes, it has come down to 3,600 metric tonnes in 2010 (CSIS survey, September 8, 2010). Additionally, ISAF is working with the Afghan government to further economic development and transition agriculture from opium cultivation to legal and profitable crops.

Even as ISAF now has the requisite boots on ground (100,000) for the first time and have addressed all the Taliban strongholds in the south and east, there is a focused approach to simultaneously target the government’s lack of governance, graft and greed by malign actors. Out of a realisation that the US contracting money to support its war effort for fuel, water, ration, construction material, convoy escort are all being misappropriated and redirected to insurgent hands, the ISAF has been able to substantially curtail the flow of aid and contract money to malign hands.

If this money increasingly reaches the people it is meant for, the ISAF will be well on its way to reduce corruption. Whether and to what degree they succeed, only time will tell. But the important thing is that they are drawing the right lessons from an engagement of only nine years, whereas India refuses to draw its lessons from its almost four decades of experience in fighting insurgences in the Northeast and Maoist menace and two decades of countering terrorism in J&K.

It does not require a wise man to discern the nexus between power brokers, corrupt bureaucrats, bad policing and other malign actors which keeps the insurgency going and financially viable in the above contexts, with severe consequences for our poor and deprived sections.

If, approximately, 240 districts are under the Maoist shadow governance, it is more or less for the same reasons that Afghanistan has 33 out of 34 provinces under Taliban shadow governance. And, unlike India , the debate on what should come first, security, empowerment and governance, has already been clinched in favour of security.

In Afghanistan’s case, it is obvious that unless people feel secure and have confidence in the government, there can be no meaningful governance. Already, in Afghanistan , local governance, school attendance (5.8 million children including 38% girls attend school in Afghanistan today ) and commerce have increased.

Of course, it is but stating the obvious that India has to apply its own models keeping the Indian conditions in mind. Whether empowerment should precede security and development is a call for our leaders to take. But at least start somewhere, put timelines for review and amend strategies if the ones being pursued are not working. But, at least start addressing the problem.

Like Afghanistan, if India has to lift millions out of poverty, it is time we tried out a few innovative things of our own to break the vice like grip of our own fair share of power brokers, malign actors, corporate czars, and anarchists masquerading as ideological insurgents. That is, if we have time away from scams. If there is one enduring message from our four decades of fighting insurgencies, is the lesson not to become embroiled in ‘open-ended ’ irregular wars that fuels corruption, among other evils.

And for a way forward, if we have to take a cue or two from war-torn Afghanistan, then so be it.

The author is a research associate at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, 01 January 2011

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/7199383.cms

(The views expressed in the article are that of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).