Mexico, in an attempt to regulate its struggling police forces, fired 9% of its officers for various degrees of corruption. While this is easy to do on paper (and a short term PR victory) it is not a sustainable strategy.
Pakistan tried to do the same thing with ISI. (In that instance, however, the spectre was radicalism rather than an allegiance to the drug cartels.) All it managed to do was turn loose a bunch of experienced operatives with the training, inclination, and imperative to take advantage of the opium money in Western Pakistan.
A better option, is to keep those dirty cops on the books, at least that way, you can monitor them to some degree, shape their actions, and use them in disinformation operations. By throwing them out, you lose the entire incentive/disincentive structure altogether, creating a huge void within which these actors thrive.
Naxals who surrender are eligible for an immediate grant of Rs. 150,000, and a stipend of Rs. 2,000 per month for three years, as well as a bonus for surrendering with weapons, and vocational training.
That’s a rough total of about Rs. 250,000 ($5,355.63) over three years.
Some 61 trucks loaded with over 300 tons of explosives have gone missing in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, a senior police official said Friday.
Classic. Bureaucrat claims its not his fault:
“We hand over the explosives to those who have the license. And they then dispatch it on their truck. Now, whatever happens to that explosive thereafter, we are not responsible for that,” Y.C. Upadhyay of the company said.
300 tons of actual explosives (assuming even a big part of that is usable, and is effectively distributed among component groups) is enough to turn the tide on the conflict. (For a larger, full scale conflict, for example, Iraq’s insurgents probably used something in the range of 200,000 tons.)
(H/T Charles)
“The Bangalore Police received credible inputs to the effect that the ISI had engaged Dawood Ibrahim and through his accomplice, Chotta Shakeel, to engage Maoists, that is Naxalite leaders in India and instigate them to commit terrorist acts,” said Shankar Bidari, the city’s Police Commissioner.
Altaf from Dakshina Kannada district and Vinay Kumar from the Hassan district were allegedly authorized to pay the Maoists to commit terrorist acts in India. The police claims that money had been transferred to Hyderabad for this purpose – and that 4 lakhs had already been paid to the Maoists. The police also believes that visas and tickets to Dubai from Hyderabad had also been arranged for Maoist leaders from Andhra Pradesh.”
In contrast to legacy terrorism (ideologically motivated, big target focused ), modern warfare is driven in a large part by the global market (much more complex, much less of an academic exercise).
Naxals have traditionally enabled other insurgencies in the country, including terrorists, via keystoning (ensuring it goes untouched by the authorities, facilitating the actions of independent actors) a black market network that spans the country and beyond.
It is no surprise then, to readers of this blog anyway, that the key factor in any linkages between Dawood Ibrahim’s D-Company and Naxals is the exchange of cash and benefits.
I’m not holding my breath for this on a massive scale (the Indian government’s track record for vaporware is long), but what’s cool about this particular effort was that the government leveraged its public college system as an innovation engine.
Students from the Indian Institutes of Technology and Science collaborated on the project, and built an initial prototype at $47. This is in stark contrast to the traditional approach – the IITs and IIS’s generally act as express trains out of the country or as a pipeline for knowledge worker outsourcing.
The next step is to unlock this entrepreneurial capacity throughout the country, as I outlined here.
“Mainly due to frequent bandhs called by naxal organizations and also due to stoppage of work because of threats meted out to the workforce engaged in coal production and transportation.”
“Coal and iron ore are the two key bulk commodities transported via railways. Repeated disruptions in the Naxal-hit areas have affected the traffic of these commodities considerably. Our tonnage target could not be met in the first quarter,” a senior official at the ministry said.”
Of the 226 million tons projected, the Railways were only able to transport 218. A 4% Naxal disruption rate?
Of all the huffing and puffing at the cabinet minister level regarding the Naxal threat, it surprisingly, Union Minister of New and Renewable Energy Dr. Farooq Abdullah that really has the opportunity to make an impact on the problem. To this end, he has declared “all possible assistance would be extended for setting up Solar, Mini-Hydal and Wind energy projects in these areas.” This could prove to be the only winning strategy.
Why? Unlike roads and rail transportation platforms (on which billions have been spent with little or no progress), decentralized energy platforms aren’t reliant on a centralized urban hubs.
Nor are they open to disruption. Only hijacking. And that makes all the difference in the world.
In the past few days, Naxals have launched a concentrated cluster of attacks in Chhatisgarh. This began with a declaration of a two day bandh in remembrance of Rajkumar and has gained momentum:
- Attacked a Congress leader’s house in Chhatisgarh, in conjunction with a raid on a nearby police station. They killed his brother-in-law and father.
- Blew up a bridge.
- Destroyed a railway line.
- Destroyed a police station, as well as another in Orissa.
Azad Cherukuri alias Rajkumar was a senior most member of the core Naxal hierarchy. He had been in hiding for the last four months. He was taken out in an operation by the Andhra Pradesh intelligence service.
While a counterinsurgency/counterterrorism coup, his death will have very little impact, if any, on the day to day functioning of the ecosystem.
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