Naxal Hostage Crisis: Who Blinks First Matters
April 11, 2012 by Team SAISA
Filed under internal security
The Naxal Rage
The ongoing hostage drama in Odisha begs national response. In traversing the initial, negotiation and termination stages of the crisis the state has to finally come up on top. Else the story shall continue – another time, another place. Our history of managing hostage crisis from Rubbaiah Syed to Kandahar and many witnessed during the ongoing naxal rage are indicative of a hapless state negotiating under extreme duress.
In this recent case, Paolo Bosusco, who runs a tour company, was captured by the rebels on March 14 along with another Italian man, Claudio Colangelo, who was released 11 days later. Their kidnapping was the first time the rebels, who say they are fighting for the rights of India’s tribal people and landless farmers, have targeted foreigners. Italian diplomats have been in Odisha during negotiations to free the hostage. During the negotiation phase while the naxals freed one Italian hostage they abducted Orissa state assembly member Jhina Hikaka, who was picked up by the Maoists in a separate incident on March 24. While Paolo was abducted by the Odisha unit of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) from Kandhamal district, Hikaka was kidnapped by the Andhra-Odisha border special zonal committee from Koraput district. Maoist rebels have threatened “extreme steps” unless their demand for the release of their jailed comrades is met.
This combination targets the diplomatic as also the political arena to box in the state and provide the requisite leverage to the naxals.
Why does this happen and why has the state not matured its responses over the years to stand firm and deal with any such situation firmly?
The reasons are not tough to fathom. Any hostage situation requires interlocutors who can mediate between the state and the naxals to come to a meaningful settlement. There is no evidence that we have skilled and seasoned interlocutors who can give shape to the negotiations. Secondly, the foreigner/political mix complicates the drama as rules for engagement for both are different and both need to be conducted at different levels. We do not yet have a Negotiation Manuel or enough trained and skilled negotiators. We may have some that can deal with Pakistan, but none who are Maoism trained. These have to be people with anti Maoist experience; people who understand the issue that is on ground as opposed to what the media rails about. They also have to be trained psychologists who can speak the local language, dialect, negotiate with men, women, ideologues etc.
The negotiation phase has gone on now for over three weeks with the state forces not aware of the whereabouts of the hostages. A vital intelligence necessity which forms the basis for any rescue attempt envisaged. The termination stage, if imaginatively planned can have three possible outcomes: The hostage-takers surrender peacefully and are arrested. Forces assault the hostage-takers and kill or arrest them. The hostage-takers’ demands are granted, and they escape.
The fate of the hostages does not necessarily depend on what happens during the termination phase. Even if the hostage-takers give up, they may have killed hostages during the negotiations. Often, hostages are killed either accidentally by police or intentionally by their captors during an assault. There have even been cases in which the hostage-takers were granted their demands, but they killed a hostage anyway. The questions which merit attention here are:-
- Have we activated our hit teams; kept them informed, positioned; tasked surveillance sources for locations etc?
- Do we not need a different tack with the two factions that have picked up the two hostages left? They have differing beliefs..
Under these situations the response to hostage taking has to be from a position of strength. While the results may be disastrous tactically, the abductors can not be allowed to get away with the idea of hostage taking as a means to meet their demands. Negotiating to meet the genuine demands of the naxals and solving the red puzzle also mandate that uncivil acts of violence and terror do not go unpunished. Else the state loses the moral authority to find amicable solutions and is held hostage to forever emerging demands. The trouble with yielding is that the naxals would always want more once a set of demands is met. A weak state also psychologically strengthens the naxal case for employing these strategies repeatedly and demoralises the security forces which have gone to great lengths to arrest the suspects/activists.
Giving-in in one state means the modus operandi being tried out in others. So it is not a state but a national problem much against the recent fracas between centre and the state to handle the situation collectively. While the government considers naxalism to be the biggest internal security threat, there is no coordinated national effort cutting across centre – state animosities to manage the situation. social and economic issues are one part of the problem which need addressing urgently but the security situation has to be tackled cogently as naxals can mutate easily across states.
There is a need to develop a strong case for dealing with such incidents firmly to ensure the image of the state does not take a beating. This would require sound intelligence, excellent interlocutory skills and sharp responses to terminate the crisis at a favourable long-term cost.
Giving in without a fight would only worsen the case against a soft state.
Related articles
- Maoist rebels free one hostage, hold two others in eastern India (washingtontimes.com)
- Odisha court acquits Maoist leader’s wife (icrindia.wordpress.com)
This HT editorial of 12 April echoes similar sentiments.
The recent kidnapping of two Italians (one of them has been released) and a legislator in Orissa by the Maoists has again brought up a question that has been confronting successive Indian governments for the last 25 years: how should the Indian State tackle a hostage crisis, be it involving the
Maoists or terrorists? Should the State negotiate with such groups or follow a no-negotiation policy on hostages?
Even though a 2006 guideline of the Union home ministry bars negotiations in a hostage situation, the hard reality for a democratic country like India, with competing political forces at play, is that a firm no is fraught with difficulty. Starting with the 1989 abduction of Rubaiya Sayeed by Kashmiri militants to last year’s abduction of IAS officer V Krishna, not to forget the infamous IC 814 case, parties in power have faced enormous pressure to negotiate. There is another facet to such cases: the families of the security forces often oppose releasing arrested Maoists/terrorists in exchange for the abducted people, as we have seen this time too.
Thanks to such different and competing emotions and demands, India can no longer afford the luxury of continuing with a policy of ad hocism on this crucial issue.
There is no dishonour in negotiating — even the so-called ‘hard’ State, Israel, had to release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners to get back the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit last year. But what India needs, even to negotiate effectively, are professionals who know the business well. For example, the American Federal Bureau of Investigation has a crisis negotiation unit that manages such requirements. So does Israel. But unfortunately in India, negotiations are left to well-meaning individuals who may have sympathies for the Maoist cause. While the political leaders should decide on the ‘give and take’ details, negotiators should be employed to be the go-between and also to buy crucial time.
India has not managed a unified policy till now because of the lack of a cohesive political approach on security-related issues. While the BJD-led Orissa government has been complaining about the fact that the Congress-led UPA government has not been helpful enough in tackling the latest hostage crisis, let’s not forget how its chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, along with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, objected to the setting up of the proposed anti-terror hub, the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC), saying that it would infringe upon the states’ powers.
It is in the interest of all that India takes a unified approach against terror, no matter where it emanates from. We cannot start putting the house in order when the danger is at the door. We have to keep it fortified well in advance.
Would someone please clear the implicit confusion in the hostage imbroglio: to undrstand is: who is the hostage? The Indian State or the two bedraggled compatriots of Lady Sonia?
Pasting an interesting ideology linked article
Maoism’s ideological threat to India
By Kunal Majumder
http://tribune.com.pk/story/378256/maoisms-ideological-threat-to-india/
Every time there is a Maoist orchestrated kidnap or a killing in India, we hear the same old arguments in the streets of Delhi and Mumbai. The rightwingers speak about getting rid of the menace through armed action. The leftwingers and the liberals speak about the state-sponsored violence and the state of development in the Maoist-infected areas of the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Of course, there will also be some who openly speak in favour of the Maoists. But it surprises and even shocks me that people of all ideological hues refuse to understand the true nature of this ‘movement’. People speak about the poverty, the deprivation, the state-led violence or even the corporate-led “stealing” of resources in these mineral-rich areas. But they fail to see that these are mere causes. The actual threat is from the ideology.
Finally, there is now a shift in the discourse of mainstream media on Maoism. Liberals often make the mistake of mixing up the Maoist movement with the tribal developmental cause. Popular middle class understanding fails to look at history. The Maoist movement in West Bengal in the 1960s had almost nothing to do with that of the tribals. It was a fight for land rights. In Bihar, the Maoist struggle came about because of caste conflict. In Andhra Pradesh again, it was land. It is in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh that the movement has taken up the tribal cause. However, if one looks at Jharkhand Maoists, at the moment there is a presence of a strong caste factor which is leading to factionalism.
The Maoist movement, wherever it has spread across India, has picked up the issues that are troubling the local population. We have even seen Maoist statements supporting separatism in Jammu and Kashmir and northeast India. Maoist ideologue Varavara Rao speaks about the “common enemy” of the Maoist and the separatist, i.e., the Indian state. Though there is still no evidence to show a direct link between Maoists and the terrorist groups operating in these regions, such statements only help create the image of bonhomie between forces who are fighting the Indian state.
The biggest setback to the idea of India came 65 years ago when the country was divided on communal lines. Over the next six decades, the leadership and the intelligentsia tried their best to keep this original idea intact — a secular free society where caste, creed, religion and region didn’t matter. It faced numerous challenges in the form of separatism, communalism and even regionalism. Yet the broader consensus about this Idea of India managed to survive. But in the last few years, the biggest threat to this idea of India has come from another idea — rather an ideology — Maoism.
Both the Left and Right and the Indian state fail to understand that you cannot treat an ideological movement as a law and order issue, nor can you deal with it just as a developmental problem. Violence — Maoist sponsored or state sponsored — and kidnapping are just methods used in an ideological game the two sides are playing. The tribals, ordinary policemen and paramilitary soldiers are mere pawns. Ideological games cannot be won by a military victory or by merely developing a region physically.
One must not confuse between an ideology and a fight against injustice, though often ideology takes up the fight to justify its survival. The conflicts in Jammu and Kashmir and in India’s northeast have weakened primarily because it’s been a fight without an ideology. The challenge for India in both these regions will be to ensure that any ideological group — such as the Taliban or the Maoists — stays far away from the fight on the ground.
Ideologies are creatures which know various survival tactics. That’s how Maoism spread across one-third of India. Look at al Qaeda’s ideology and how it is spreading in India’s immediate neighbourhood. For them, America is the enemy today, tomorrow it will be someone else. Ten years down the line, the Americans have failed to contain this idea. Why? Because it made the same mistakes as the Indian state is making at the moment.