Trial And Terror

Of all the insurgencies the Indian state is fighting, Kashmir gets the most attention and quite rightly, because that state is now associated with the concept of the right of a secular multi-ethnic society to live within stable territorial boundaries. The authors have some provocative solutions, based on their assessment that the Indian army has largely failed to stop infiltration at the LoC. If, according to the authors, there are a total of 153 crossing points, why can't the army effectively seal them with a combination of manpower and modern devices? Perhaps the authors should have researched this question with the army authorities prior to publishing, so that the reader gets a fairer answer, which probably lies in the nature of the terrain. The authors contend the army operation at Chrar-e-Sharif was a blunder, but again there is an absence of narrative and detail from the officers who conducted the operation, condemned in absentia.

The insurgency in the northeast is a vast subject and the historical aspects leading to the situation are well-covered. Less well-covered are the details of major army operations like Operation Rhino in Assam and some others, which had substantial successes but were called off at the request of the local political authorities. The authors do make the point, at least implicitly, that the problem with combating insurgency in the northeast lies with the local representatives who are in many cases running with the hares and hunting with the hounds.

The Punjab problem has been given extensive coverage with almost half the chapter being devoted to the army blunder (once again) at the Golden Temple and the mutinies in the Sikh regiments thereafter. The actual tactics that ended the terrorist threat have been described as being the change in leadership of the Punjab Police and the resultant raising of their morale. This enabled them to go back to performing their duties better and achieving night dominance. This may well be part of the story but once again the reader is curious for more details of the macro- and micro-measures that eventually broke the back of Sikh terrorism. The authors have come down pretty hard on the poor intelligence provided to the security forces in combating terrorism. A number of instances are given which anyone in government service would recognise as the vague and all-encompassing warnings that Indian intelligence agencies generally dish out.

There are two excellent forewords by Julio Ribeiro and K.P.S. Gill. The former has also reviewed the book pretty thoroughly and feels that for once someone has taken the trouble to research the phenomena of terrorism from Kashmir to the farthest northeast. Gill has made an impassioned appeal for a strong central policy to combat terrorism without which the efforts of the state police would be ineffectual. The authors don't think highly of the sense of responsibility of the press. They cite many instances when what the press thinks is 'unbiased' reporting only strengthened the demands made by terrorists. Similarly, they deplore what they call misplaced judicial activism.

In conclusion, some strong doubts arise. Can a serving officer write an unbiased appraisal of government action? Asthana is a proud police officer who feels that the police can handle terrorism, and this is a praiseworthy attitude. But one fails to find in the book the reasons why five Police Commission Reports on improving police efficiency lie unimplemented. Or the facts uncovered by the Kalyanakrishnan Committee on the ineffectual functioning of the Central Police Forces. The authors are right that the army should not be used as extensively as it is. But it is the failure of governance and police inability to smother low-level insurgency that eventually leads to the army's induction.

The book is a valuable work on terrorism and even at the price is a must for most serious libraries.