GS Paper: GS3-21.Role of External State and Non-state Actors in creating challenges to Internal Security.

Central Idea

• The April 26 attack on District Reserve Guard (DRG) personnel and a civilian driver by Maoists in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to tackling the insurgency. Despite claims of a weakened Maoist movement, the attack shows that they still have the ability to strike at will.

About District Reserve Guards (DRG)

• District Reserve Guards (DRG) is a special unit of the police force in some Indian states, primarily in Chhattisgarh, that is trained and equipped to combat Naxalite and Maoist insurgency.
• DRG personnel are typically drawn from local tribal communities and are familiar with the local terrain, which makes them effective in fighting the insurgency.
• They are provided with specialized training in guerrilla warfare, jungle warfare, and use of modern weaponry.
• The DRG is often at the forefront of anti-Naxalite operations and is considered a vital component of the Indian government’s efforts to counter the Maoist insurgency in the country.

Maoist ability to strike at will

• Strategic planning by Maoist Central Committee: A strike such as the one carried out on April 26 cannot be the brainchild of a local Maoist unit; it is highly likely that this was a trap laid out under the directions of the Maoist Central Committee, indicating the sustained hierarchy of the Maoists.
• Timing of attacks: The Maoists carry out maximum attacks against security forces during the tactical counter-offensive campaign which is the period between February and June every year. Out of a total of 17 major strikes in Chhattisgarh (2010-2023), six were carried out in April alone, indicating a pattern that should give the government enough leads to plan its strategy.
• Flouting of standard operating procedures: Standard operating procedures and protocols were blatantly flouted during the unfortunate strike on April 26. It is imperative that the security forces remain extra cautious during the months of the tactical counter-offensive campaign by strictly adhering to standard operating procedures and protocols.

Challenges associated with employing local tribal youth for the DRG

• False sense of empowerment: When armed, local tribal youth often get a false sense of empowerment, which can lead to feuds with the Maoists. This is because they are familiar with the ecosystem of the Maoists and may harbor resentment towards them.
• Intelligence network: During the April 26 incident, the intelligence network of the DRG was outclassed by that of the Maoists. This highlights the need for better training and support for local tribal youth who are employed by the DRG.
• Ad-hoc planning: The DRG personnel, in this case, seem to have acted independently, exposing their ad-hoc planning. This demonstrates the need for better coordination and control over the DRG by the state police.
• Lack of discipline: Although the combat-worthiness of the DRG is beyond doubt, it is not complemented by the rigor of discipline, which is an imperative quality for troops in any protracted counter-insurgency campaign. The track record of the DRG regarding discipline is not too encouraging, with many of the cadres having been cashiered on disciplinary grounds and some having been found to be involved in crime. This highlights the need for better training and support to ensure that the DRG personnel are adequately disciplined and accountable for their actions.

Way ahead: Lasting solutions

• Effective Policing: Effective policing in insurgency-affected regions is the function of a strong State police force. It is widely acknowledged that Central police forces should supplement and not supplant the State police.
• Vacancies in State Police Force: According to data of the Bureau of Police Research and Development, there are many vacancies in the State police forces. Without comprehensive transformation of the State police, Central forces would achieve little beyond random and misplaced killings.
• Control on Local Tribal Youth: Local tribal youth should be employed for the DRG in a controlled manner by the State police. Security should not be simply outsourced to them.
• DRG Personnel Discipline: The combat-worthiness of the DRG is beyond doubt, but it is not complemented by the rigour of discipline. This is an imperative quality for troops in any protracted counter-insurgency campaign. The track record of the DRG regarding discipline is not too encouraging.
• Deeper reflection on the discontent and dispossession of tribal people: The incident calls for a deeper reflection on the discontent and dispossession of the tribal people of central India, who are in all respects the most disadvantaged of citizens.
• Perception management: The government needs to pay adequate attention to perception management. The government should communicate that extensive road construction projects in Bastar will ease the lives of the local population and not just enhance the reach of the security forces.
• Weaken the Maoist ideology: The futility of the Maoist ideology in current times is not adequately exposed to weaken the insurgency. Security is no doubt necessary, but the focus needs to be beyond security and development.

Conclusion

• The Dantewada attack highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to tackling the insurgency, taking into account the tactical counter-offensive campaign, the need for strong state police forces, and the controlled employment of DRG personnel. The government should focus on addressing the root causes of the insurgency, paying attention to perception management and exposing the futility of Maoist ideology

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Context

Military experts, international relations academics, and practitioners like retired diplomats dominate the debates on global security in India. International lawyers are largely absent in these debates despite security issues being placed within the framework of international law.

Using international law to further security interests

In recent times, several examples demonstrate India’s failure to use an international law-friendly vocabulary to articulate its security interests.

• First, India struck the terror camps in Pakistan in February 2019, after the Pulwama attack India did not invoke the right to self-defence; rather, it relied on a contested doctrine of ‘non-military pre-emptive action’.
• Second, after the Pulwama attack, India decided to suspend the most favoured nation (MFN) status of Pakistan.
• Under international law contained in the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, countries can deviate from their MFN obligations on grounds of national security.
• Instead of suspending the MFN obligation towards Pakistan along these lines, India used Section 8A(1) of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975, to increase customs duties on all Pakistani products to 200%.
• The notification on this decision did not even mention ‘national security’.
• Third, India wishes to deport the Rohingya refugees who, it argues, pose a security threat.
• India’s argument to justify this deportation is that it is not a signatory to the Refugee Convention.
• This is a weak argument since India is bound by the principle of non-refoulment.
• National security is one of the exceptions to the non-refoulment principle in international refugee law.
• If India wishes to deport the Rohingya, it should develop a case on these lines showing how they constitute a national security threat.
• Fourth, to put pressure on the Taliban regime to serve India’s interest, India has rarely used international law.
•  India could have made a case for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) using its implied powers under international law to temporarily suspend Afghanistan from SAARC’s membership.

Reasons for international law remaining at the margins

• First, there is marginal involvement of international lawyers in foreign policymaking.
• The Legal and Treaties Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, which advises the government on international law matters, is both understaffed and largely ignored on policy matters.
• Second, apart from the External Affairs Ministry, there are several other Ministries like Commerce and Finance that also deal with different facets of international law.
• They have negligible expertise in international law.
• Third, there has been systemic neglect of the study of international law.
• Fourth, many of the outstanding international law scholars that India has produced prefer to converse with domain experts only.

Way forward

• If India wishes to emerge as a global power, it has to make use of ‘lawfare’ i.e., use law as a weapon of national security.
• To mainstream international law in foreign policymaking, India should invest massively in building its capacity on international law.

Conclusion

Notwithstanding the central role that international law plays in security matters, India has failed to fully appreciate the usage of international law to advance its national security interests.

Back2Basics: Non-refoulement principle

• The principle of non-refoulement constitutes the cornerstone of international refugee protection.
• It is enshrined in Article 33 of the 1951 Convention, which is also binding on States Party to the 1967 Protocol.
• Article 33(1) of the 1951 Convention provides:

“No Contracting State shall expel or return (“refouler”) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his [or her] life or freedom would be threatened on account of his [or her] race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

Context

India lacks a domestic tracking system for fugitives. That makes it easier for them to evade the criminal justice system.

Challenges at investigation and prosecution level

• Central agencies have developed reasonable expertise in investigation and prosecution because they are focussed only on investigation and prosecution work.
• On the other hand, State police forces (except specialised wings) are engaged in law-and-order work as well as investigations.
• The bulk of the investigation and prosecution work happens at police stations in the States.
• There is a tendency to close investigations once the accused have absconded.
• Some police stations do initiate proceedings for attachment of property and declaration of the accused as proclaimed offenders, but the number of cases where coordinated efforts are made to pursue fugitives – domestically or internationally – are hardly documented.

No system for tracking criminals domestically

• Through Interpol Notices and the sharing of immigration databases of different countries, there exists a system of tracking criminals worldwide.
• However, there is no coordinated system or database for tracking criminals or wanted persons domestically in India.
• In the absence of such a system, it is relatively easy for criminals from one police station/jurisdiction to melt into the population in any other area, almost undetected.

Way forward

• The creation of a nationwide database of wanted persons, which could be accessible for police agencies, the public and others is needed.
• A nation-wide system of ‘Wanted Persons Notices’, similar to Interpol Notices, is required, to help track fugitives domestically.
• The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems and the National Intelligence Grid are efforts in the right direction/
• Countries like the U.S. have functional inter-State extradition and fugitive tracking systems.
• India needs to set up such dedicated ‘fugitive tracking units’.
• There needs to be enhanced integration between immigration agencies, State police agencies, Interpol-New Delhi, the External Affairs Ministry and Home Ministry and central investigation agencies.
• Sharing India’s ‘wanted’ database or providing access to it to foreign embassies on a reciprocal basis or through treaties or arrangements would also be helpful.
• Signing of more bilateral and multilateral conventions on criminal matters would help plug legal infirmities.
• Signing bilateral agreements on cooperation in policing matters would also help.
• All relevant legal processes and requirements should be incorporated into one consolidated law on international cooperation.
• The entire gamut of activities pertaining to fugitives, from investigation to extradition, needs to be incorporated into a specialised set-up.

Conclusion

In the absence of a coordinated database, criminals can go undetected. What we need is a watertight system that would deter criminals from hoodwinking the law.

Back2Basics: Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS)

• CCTNS aims at creating a comprehensive and integrated system for enhancing the efficiency and effective policing at all levels and especially at the Police Station level.
• It aism at adoption of principles of e-Governance, and creation of a nationwide networked infrastructure for evolution of IT-enabled state of- the-art tracking system around “investigation of crime and detection of criminals” in real time.
• It is is a critical requirement in the context of the present day internal security scenario.
• The scope of CCTNS spans all 35 States and Union Territories and covers all Police Stations (15,000+ in number) and all Higher Police Offices (6,000+ in number) in the country.
• The CCTNS project includes vertical connectivity of police units (linking police units at various levels within the States – police stations, district police offices, state headquarters, SCRB and other police formations – and States, through state headquarters and SCRB, to NCRB at GOI level) as well as horizontal connectivity, linking police functions at State and Central level to external entities.

National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID)

• First conceptualised in 2009, NATGRID seeks to become the one-stop destination for security and intelligence agencies to access database related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details of a suspect on a “secured platform”.
• All State police are mandated to file First Information Reports (FIR) in the CCTNS.
• It is only a repository and the data pertaining to FIRs of a particular police station are a State subject.

We have been spared of some unfortunate news of terrorist attacks in the recent past, however, it would be mistake to discount the threat posed by the terrorist organisations especially when we consider the backdrop of Doha Accord. The article deals with the threat of terrorism.

Declining support

• Terrorist organisations like Taliban, al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) have been dormant during a pandemic.
• This is partly explained by the fact that open terror attacks have been reducing, presumably because:
• 1) Terror outfits lack resources.
• 2) Because of temporary loss of support from those normally hostile to the non-Islamic world and tolerant Muslims.
• However, given their past resilience, they continue to pose threats to modern society, especially to India and its neighbourhood.

But threat persists

• These terrorist organisations continue to be attractive to misguided youth in India whose loyalties are extraterritorial.
• Their numbers may not be formidable, but they can cause a ripple effect that cannot be underestimated.
• Terrorist cells are probably engaged in the quiet process of collecting resources for future lethal assaults against India and other countries in the neighbourhood.
• Once the pandemic eases, we may see a resurgence of terror.
• The aggravation of poverty in developing nations due to COVID-19 could offer a fertile ground for recruitment.
• The al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are carrying out their recruitment undiminished by the problems posed by the pandemic.
• Only these two outfits have an impressive global reach backed by global ambitions.

What are the implications of Doha Accord?

• The Doha Accord signed this year between the Taliban and the U.S., which has brought about an improved relationship between the two.
• The U.S. has agreed to a near-total withdrawal of its troops in return for the Taliban’s promise to preserve peace in Afghanistan.
• The Taliban and the al-Qaeda need each other in many areas.
• Both are friendly towards Pakistan and could pose a problem or two to India in the near future.
• Many recent raids by the National Investigation Agency point to an al-Qaeda network in India.
• Once the situation gets better, the al-Qaeda, in cahoots with other aggressive Islamic outfits in and around Pakistan, is bound to escalate the offensive against India.
• This is one factor that makes the al-Qaeda and other terror outfits still relevant to India’s security calculus.

Consider the question “What are the implications of Doha Acord for India’s security architecture?”

Conclusion

The threat posed by the changing geopolitical landscape is bound to increase in the coming days and hence India should prepare itself to tackle the challenge.