India tackles non-state actors

By M H Ahssan

In South Asia's volatile geopolitical scenario - with political unrest seething in two of India's immediate neighboring countries (Bangladesh and Pakistan) - it is not enough for the country to safeguard its borders from hostile armies. India also needs to cobble together an urgent plan to grapple with a new villain - the non-state actor - which has emerged as an indisputable threat to security.

When Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told the global media last year that "Pakistan is not threatened by nations, but by non-state actors”, he could well have been talking about India. India has also faced persistent threats from non-state elements, such as Afghanistan's Taliban, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka or those burrowed in Pakistan like Lashkar-e-Taiba - over the past few years.

These disruptive groups have succeeded in unleashing terror across India, killing and maiming thousands, apart from causing grievous harm to the economy and tourism. The biggest of such recent attacks made global headlines last November when jihadi terrorists, armed with sophisticated weapons, laid siege to Mumbai for four days, killing nearly 200 people and destroying property worth millions of dollars.

In this context, Lieutenant General Aditya Singh, commander-in-chief of the army's Southern Command, stated that the Indian military was always fit to meet "conventional challenges" on the border, however, the real causes of worry were "the lurking sub-conventional threats that come from divisive forces and non-state personnel".

Not that Singh's is a lone voice of concern on the issue. The persistent and underlying fear posed by non-state actors to India's security resulted last year in the constitution of the high-powered Transformation Committee by India's Chief of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor. This is an unprecedented development as the Indian army has formed such a panel for the first time to examine multifarious issues, including ways to tackle conflicts with non-state elements.

The committee - which is also comprised of the general officer commanding Eastern Command Lieutenant General V K Singh - is currently analyzing, among other things, the requirements to fight fourth-generation wars, conflicts with non-state actors and the logistics of training the Indian army in that environment. If need be, the committee's recommendations - to be submitted this year - may even initiate a major revamp in the Indian army's profile.

"Unlike traditional warfare where a country has to grapple with a tangible enemy, India's new security environment warrants a radically different approach," said a member of the Transformation Committee. "It requires the country to prepare itself to fight an invisible force. So the pressure is as much psychological as physical."

The committee will thus make recommendations about a new modus operandi the army will need to adopt to tackle such types of terrorism. It will also probe the urgent need for the army's various wings to work cohesively in the future. Another suggestion being considered by the committee is further delegations of power and the empowerment of the junior ranks of the army. This is aimed primarily at setting in motion a much-needed decentralization process. The panel is also studying operations in India's neighboring countries, besides United Nations' peacekeeping and stabilization operations.

Indian defense experts feel that preparing troops in the contemporary geopolitical environment is akin to fighting a "proxy war" with an enemy that exists but isn't all that visible, unlike the full-fledged army of a hostile country. The newly constituted committee will thus also examine the need to strengthen the junior ranks of the army - right down to the platoon level - so that they too can be a part of the overall strategy to fight this new fear factor.

The role of the committee - and the changes that will likely get ushered in through its findings - will be all the more significant considering that India's political environment has deteriorated significantly over the years. Communalism, sectarianism and regional parochialism are rearing their ugly heads like never before. There is also a growing criminalization of politics and politicization of the bureaucracy.

Infrastructure development by China along India's border and Beijing's burgeoning military ties with all of India's South Asian neighbors - Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and even the Maldives - has also exacerbated New Delhi's insecurity. So unless these evils are overcome, India's internal security environment may well turn out to be extremely unhealthy.

In such a sensitive scenario, defense experts feel the Indian army and defense forces need to develop synergy and work in concert rather than function as independent, disconnected entities. According to a senior defense official, the army has traditionally been manpower intensive, which is an anachronism. "It needs to shed manpower and replace it with high-end technologies. This hasn't happened due to inadequate resource allotment," said the official.

In his report "Indian Army: 2020" - a blueprint for the army of the future - General S Padmanabhan wrote that it is threats from non-state groups armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that India needs to watch out for. "These elements could be acting on their own initiative or, at the behest of a sponsor nation," he said. "This dimension of WMD would warrant a war-like response from us."

In any case, at present there's an intense debate within the Indian military and the rest of the strategic community concerning the shape of future warfare, and the type of army required by India to meet the threats. The abiding query is: will a traditional conventional army be adequate to handle all kinds of threats when they occur?

"The biggest challenge for the Indian army," opined retired colonel S K Veer, "is how to retain the basic configuration of a conventional battle force yet not lose its essence through radical reformation." In this context, Veer recommended that funds allotted to the armed forces should be sustained at a level of 3% of India's gross domestic product for at least a decade to ensure the requisite modernization and to plug existing shortfalls.

In other words, India needs to create an integrated force that works with seamless communication, possesses integral multi-tasking capabilities across the entire spectrum of conflict, whether nuclear or conventional. This is a vital requirement for India's safety and security in today's heightened environment of terror.