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Orissa losing war against naxalite violence

Praveen Swami

Like other naxalite-hit States, Orissa is desperately short of police personnel and officers

Successive governments reduced police recruitment

India’s police-population ratio adverse

NEW DELHI: Behind the grim killings in Nayagarh on Friday lies an even more depressing fact: Orissa just doesn’t have the resources or men it needs to fight the anti-naxalite jungle war which could lie ahead.

Official data obtained by The Hindu shows the State is desperately short of police personnel, officers and, worst of all, the infrastructure needed to train them. Although large-scale investments are now being made in police modernisation, capacity constraints have ensured that the pace of reform is an agonising and life-claiming crawl.

Years of neglect underpin the problem. Although experts have for years warned that naxalite violence could escalate in Orissa, the crisis that hit adjoining States seemed distant. In 2007, for example, Orissa saw just three incidents of terrorist violence, in which eight naxalites, two police personnel and 13 civilians were killed — a small fraction of the death toll elsewhere.

As a result, impoverished Orissa dragged its feet on spending money on policing. Successive governments reduced police recruitment, particularly in the armed unit which deals with violence, by the simple expedient of not hiring new personnel when older ones retired. Given that Orissa faced no insurgent challenge or large scale communal violence, the cuts seemed justified.

Just how deep the cuts run are documented in National Crime Records Bureau data. Last year, Orissa had just 10,839 armed police personnel, instead of the 14,891 who should have been in place. It had 252 officers ranking from Deputy Superintendent of Police to Senior Superintendent of Police, instead of the 304 needed, and only 4,542 Inspectors instead of the 5,933 sanctioned.

In 2005, Orissa began scrambling to augment its police force, steadily filling the 12,000 vacancies it then had. Last year, for example, Orissa hired an estimated 6,000 cadets. However, the police training centre at Angul can process just 300 cadets at a time. Although training time has been slashed from nine months to six, it will be years before the personnel are ready for duty.

Depressing figures

As things stand, it seems unlikely that Orissa will be able to mount a serious anti-naxalite campaign with the resources it has. With just 99 police personnel for every 100,000 residents against the United Nations-recommended peacetime norm of 222, and an all-India average of 122 the state just does not have the numbers it needs to combat a rural insurgency.

Orissa’s problem is shared by several other States now hit by Maoist violence, including Chhattisgarh, which has 133 police personnel for every 100,000 residents; Andhra Pradesh, which has 99; Jharkhand, which has 98; and Bihar, which has just 57.

Figures from States which have run successful counter-terrorism campaigns speak for themselves. Jammu and Kashmir has 505 police personnel for every 100,000 population and Tripura, India’s least-known counter-terrorism success story, 591. Punjab, which defeated Khalistan terrorism, has 276.

India’s police-population ratio falls significantly below that in States with no counter-insurgency problems, like Australia, Singapore, Japan and the United States, as well as that in States which do face similar internal security challenges, like Russia and Thailand. Interestingly, India also ranks behind many of its neighbours, including Pakistan.

It isn’t as if politicians are unaware of the problem. Speaking on December 20 to a conference of Chief Ministers, Orissa’s Naveen Patnaik called for the creation of five additional police battalions some 5,000 personnel for his State.

Mr. Patnaik also asked for a Rs. 300 million grant to construct a jungle warfare school for the State’s dedicated anti-naxalite Special Operations Group. Eventually, some of these facilities will be in place but for the hundreds who will have died in naxalite violence by then, they will have come too late.

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