The threat of external aggression no longer continues to be the only source of destabilisation, collapse or degradation of a state system. Rather, in the post-Cold War period, political instability, legitimacy crisis and violent conflicts within a state has given rise to the concept of internal security (IS). Internal security can be broadly defined as a state of law and order of a nation being challenged by various groups of that state over issues like governance, legitimacy of the regime, distribution system, inequitable society, drug trafficking, ethnicity, and so on.
In the decades post-Independence, insurgency related violence in the North East Region (NER) has resulted in thousands of casualties. Not all insurgencies are seeking a separate state from the Indian Union; however, the movement has seriously affected the economic, social and political landscape of the region. It continues to remain disconnected from the rest of India in many ways due to the lack of development and most importantly, that of political will to ‘integrate’ the region with the Indian Union in the true sense of the term. It has severely strained relations between the Central Government and the people of this region. This piece will discuss some of the pertinent IS challenges that India faces by focussing on India’s North East Region (NER) as a case in point.
An Overview of India’s Internal Security Challenges
The State of India has been facing numerous internal security challenges since its Independence in 1947. Over a period of time, the nature of these IS threats in India has been evolving, which has been underscored in many addresses of the Indian Prime Minister (PM), Manmohan Singh in various forums. For instance, while reflecting on his assessment of the IS issues at the annual conference of Director Generals and Inspector Generals of Police in 2004, the PM, emphasised that Left Wing Extremism (LWE) had the “potential to pose an even graver threat than militancy in some parts of our country.” In 2008, against the backdrop of the Mumbai attack in November, the PM declared ‘terrorism’ as the central theme of the conference. The conference of the DGPs and the IGPs in 2010 focussed on issues relating to Jammu and Kashmir. In 2011, P. Chidambaram, the former Union Home Minister exhorted the “intelligence apparatus to continue to do their silent and solid work”. In 2012, the PM gave an overview of the IS challenges by highlighting six major challenges that India faces on the IS front, namely ethnic violence, Left Wing Extremism, evolving security situation in Jammu and Kashmir, coastal security, terrorism in hinterland and cyber security.
These six challenges listed by the PM pertain mostly to the traditional conception of IS and are not the only IS challenges that India confronts. Traditional security is a state-centric conception of security aimed at rendering the adversaries or hostile elements insecure through state forces or ‘power’. In this category, the Jammu and Kashmir issue, insurgency in the North East, border management, Naxalism and terrorism can be included. There are a number of other burning issues beyond the traditional areas of IS threats that India has to address in both long and short terms as these are as big a threat to internal security of India as the traditional security threats mentioned above. The threats that can be categorised as ‘non-traditional’ like human trafficking, money laundering, refugee problems, illegal migration, environmental degradation, religious fundamentalism and communalism, failure of governance system, development crisis, poverty, illiteracy, uneven economic growth, unemployment among the youth are of grave concerns too.
Similarly, a single threat may also have multiple dimensions, which calls for addressing all the aspects that are embedded within a threat, which have been overlooked in the past. For example, the LWE issue is not a mere law and order problem. Issues like the lack of governance, development and employment, deprivation, displacement are also interlinked with it.
Threats to Human Security in the North East
India has not done much better on the human security front (purely in physical terms) either. According to National Bomb Data Centre (NBDC) report, India is the third most dangerous place in the world as far as bomb blasts are concerned ─ next only to Iraq and Pakistan. The report says that India witnessed 212 bomb blasts in 2013, more than double of what Afghanistan (with 108 blasts) had. Many other internally torn countries like Syria, Libya, and Bangladesh have reportedly done better than India. India’s North East, especially Assam and Manipur, and the Maoist dominated areas are worst affected by blasts. Assam ranked the highest in terms of violent crimes in the country during 2011-12. According to 2013 National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) reports, Assam reported the highest crime rate (54.2 percent), followed by Manipur (44.6 percent), Kerala (42.7 percent) and Delhi (34.7 percent) while the total IPC crimes in the country was 11.5 percent only. The number of abduction cases in 2012 was 3,812 and it has increased to 4,113 in 2013. A major portion of Chirpur Bridge on National Highway 37 was severely damaged in 2013 after an IED explosion in Cachar district of Assam. This largely impaired transport of essential items to Manipur.
Meanwhile ethnic violence continues to haunt Manipur. 107 incidents of bomb blasts were recorded in 2012 in Manipur, in which nine people were killed and 90 people were injured. In 2013, 76 incidents of bomb blasts were reported in which 24 people were killed and 103 were injured. After spending millions of rupees to curb insurgencies and extremism and to put in place a series of counter-terrorism measures, the Indian Government has hardly been successful in mitigating the degree of conflict and violence in the country. Take the case of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) of 1958 which has widely been criticised by human rights activists and various other groups. The Indian Government is reportedly spending millions of rupees on maintaining the Indian Army in North East India. However, there are a number of structural impediments that hamper governance and security at one level and destroy the image of an otherwise impeccable record of the Army at another level. The recent arrest of a Colonel-rank Defence PRO and two personnel of 8 Manipur Rifles along with drugs worth at least 15 crore (INR) in the international market have exposed the policy and security gaps that the authorities need to deal with. Such incidents would exacerbate the existing trust deficit between the policymakers in New Delhi and the people of the region. Moreover, many rebel groups take such opportunities to exploit India’s vulnerabilities.
The ‘Development Gap’ in India
On the one hand, India and particularly the North East, has been adversely affected by terrorism, insurgency and communal violence. On the other, there is another India, which the country’s elite and policymakers are seemingly hesitant to tackle urgently and appropriately. There is a need to look beyond terrorism and insurgency as the only source of IS threats in India. Poverty and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor still remain the biggest challenge that could derail India’s growth story. Besides, farmer suicides, high incidence of malnutrition, land encroachment and human displacement are only some of the many serious failures in governance that has caused detriment to India. The establishment clearly needs to pay more attention to “poor governance and declining standards of administration”. The economy of India is the tenth largest in the world by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). The country is one of the G-20 major economies and a member of the BRICS. Yet, India’s current rank in the UN Human Development Report is 136 among 187 countries falling behind Iraq, Guatemala and Ghana. In the Global Hunger Index, India ranks 63 out of 120 countries, behind Pakistan and Bangladesh. There are 55 Indians on Forbes’ 2013 list of billionaires but 21.9 percent of the country’s population lives below poverty line on Rs. 816 per month for rural areas and Rs. 1,000 for urban areas. According to the Multidimensional Poverty Index report, India has more poor people in eight states (421 million in Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal) than the combined twenty-six poorest African countries (410 million). The rising economic strength of India is unfortunately not matched by the commitment to human development. The case of North East India in this context is exceedingly relevant as it continues to be marginalised.
The infrastructure in the region remains one of the poorest in the country. All the state capitals of the region have not even been connected with railheads. Many of the smaller towns and villages are still inaccessible. The percentage of population living below poverty line in Manipur and Assam (47.1 and 37.9 percent respectively) is much higher than the percentage of persons in India below poverty line (29.8 percent) during the year 2004-05. The unemployment rate in the region has increased rapidly in recent years. Unemployment rate per thousand persons in labour force in Nagaland and Tripura (159 and 141 respectively) is also higher than the national level (68) during 2009-10. While framing the policies and defining the Government’s stance on security in the region, the policymakers have failed largely to realise that developmental schemes should also be seen as a key to bringing peace and stability in the region.
The Use of Social Media for Fanning Tensions
Importantly, social media also seems to be playing a significant role in polarising different communities in India and compounding India’s IS challenges. The role of social media in raking up communal and racial hatred and tensions has thus come under the scanner of the Indian Government. The need for a mechanism to check the malicious use of social media has been taken up seriously by the Government. In a DGP/IGPs Conference in New Delhi in 2013, Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde spoke about “the exploitation of social media by vested interests to generate fears amongst the people of North East India in Bangalore which resulted in their exodus in large numbers.” Social media could also bring Assam into mainstream by gathering 50,000 Muslims in Mumbai’s Azad Maidan to protest against reported atrocities on Muslims in Assam and Myanmar after seeing the incendiary MMS video clips depicting gruesome killings. The incident left two dead and several people injured. The video clips and images circulated on social media were supposedly fabricated. The incidents were politicised further by politicians. In an effort to bring the situation under control, the Government blocked access to 245 web pages that contained doctored videos and images. Such threats expose the failure of traditional security measures and therefore there is a need to develop a new security concept, which is endorsed by every political party cutting across all divides across the country.
India’s Governance Challenges in the North East
India’s internal security, one can argue, has reached a state of permanent crisis due to a series of crises that the country has faced over decades and therefore, cannot be dealt with blinkered and quick-fix solutions or policies. With the present socio-economic development level in the North East, regaining trust of the people as well as transforming the economic environment of the region through well-informed policies and development programmes is the need of the hour. A sincere approach to end the armed conflict in the region by giving ‘democratic’ and ‘all-inclusive’ space to the dissenting voices is desirable instead of depending on just heavy militarisation that is currently alienating the communities that reside in the region.
In the face of rising tensions between indigenous population in the region and the migrant population (mostly illegal) over land and resources, demands for re-implementing the Inner Line Permit system are emerging from Meghalaya and Manipur. India’s domestic problems, marred by fractured societies caused by ethnic tensions and violent clashes in the region, make its population vulnerable to many virulent anti-national forces, both national and international. Ethnic tensions, the indigenous peoples’ claim over the land and natural resources, illegal immigration and migration from the neighbouring countries and the states lying west of the Siliguri corridor, demand for the repeal of AFSPA and call for the end of militarisation are various issues that need to be handled effectively and sensitively. Better education, augmented trade and commerce in the sub-region, capacity-building, infrastructural development, enhanced transportation/connectivity systems, improved health systems and a revamped power sector would cater to the needs of the people in the region and lead to economic regeneration. Improved intra-state, inter-state and NER-ASEAN connectivity should be given top priority. Both the Central and the state governments have to adopt drastic policy measures to achieve the goals set in the North Eastern Region Vision 2020, which identifies the above-mentioned goals.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are personal.
Md. Abdul Gaffar, Ph.D. candidate in the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
