Be Mains Ready

Approach

• Briefly describe the Government’s approach to deal with the insurgency.
• Give the social welfare measures adopted by the Government.
• Suggestion/Way Forward.

Introduction

• Left-wing Extremism in Central India and insurgency in Northeastern states aimed at greater autonomy or outright secession are the two major regions in India facing insurgency for various socio-political reasons.
• The Government’s approach to deal with insurgency has focussed in the areas of security, development, ensuring the rights and entitlements of local communities, improvement in governance, public perception management and also managing of law and order situation.
• According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, incidents of violence have seen a sharp decline while the geographical spread of LWE violence also shrunk from 76 districts in 2013 to 58 districts in 2018.

Body

Government’s Measures in Insurgency-hit Areas

Social Welfare measures adopted by the Government:

• The Ministry of Home Affairs has been tasked with the monitoring of Aspirational districts programme in 35 LWE affected districts.
• Skill development and education are critical challenges in insurgency areas and Government is running several schemes to impart local population education and skills so as to boost the socio-economic status of local people.

Infrastructure:

• There has been greater emphasis on strengthening the connectivity in insurgency areas.
• To fill critical gaps in Public infrastructure and Services e.g. medical facilities in the form of primary health centres, primary and secondary schools; Government has started Special Central Assistance (SCA) for 30 most LWE affected districts.
• Physical infrastructure relating to water supply, power and connectivity enhancing tourism and social infrastructure relating to primary and secondary sectors of education and health are being improved through the North East Special Infrastructure Development Scheme (NESIDS), a 100% centrally funding scheme.
  
  • 10% of the Annual Plan Budget of 52 Ministries of the Union Government is earmarked every year for spending in North Eastern region since 1998-99 to ensure dedicated and focussed implementation of development reports.

Trust Building:

• For building trust and effectively bringing out the human face of forces and local people, Central Police Forces conduct various civic activities in the welfare of the local people e.g. Civic Action Programme (CAP).
• Demands of various ethnic groups in the northeastern states for development and for autonomy in managing their affairs are being addressed by the Government.
• Rehabilitation is important to bring out former rebels into the mainstream and weakening the insurgency. The issues relating to rehabilitation of people affected by militancy, bringing underground outfits to the mainstream through negotiations, confidence-building measures etc. are also being actively pursued.

Even though various interventions that bore fruits in tackling with LWE, certain government interventions have backfired, creating a more complex situations such as Salwa Judum where tribal youths were deployed as Special Police Officers - or as 'Koya Commandos', - in the fight against the Maoist insurgency. Arming the tribal youth went against various Constitutional principles and led to disturbance and instability in an already vulnerable situation.

Way Forward

• As per internal security experts, the operations have to be coupled with an effective development agenda for people vulnerable to join Maoist ranks and the current numbers from LWE areas are proof that the strategy is working.
• There is a need to enhance the implementation capacity of these states, merely allocating central funds will not resolve the developmental issues of these areas.
• A focussed programme like ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts programme’ under the monitoring of NITI Aayog may be launched. Similar approaches like convergence, collaboration and competition can be used to spur development in these areas.