R.C. Sharma

Pakistan was unable to achieve its political goal of annexing Kashmir through conventional war and so it resorted to asymmetric war. It devised  a strategy of step by step indoctrination of Kashmiri youth to bleed Kashmir and India through this measure. Asymmetric warfare has internal and external security dimensions, encompass counter terrorism, counter insurgency and Left-Wing Extremism. External component of asymmetric warfare is military domain and internal police and Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) domain.

After the Kargil review committee report came out, the government executed one border one force concept. Assam Rifles, Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Police Force (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) were designated as border guarding forces and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) as internal security force, the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) for airport and industrial security and National Security Guard (NSG) for VIP security and anti-terrorist operations. India had insurgency problems in Northeast, Kashmir and Naxal problem in central India. The area of insurgency was vast and forces insufficient. The government devised a plan to utilise the army to fight insurgency and so, deployed it in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir to fight insurgency. The government later raised Rashtriya Rifles (RR) to tackle insurgency. It was a short-term measure, which gained permanency and still continues. It, however, needs reconsideration.

In the late Nineties, the BSF fought insurgency in Kashmir valiantly. Now, the CRPF is doing it with the army and police. However, after the roles were demarcated by the government for CAPFs, fighting insurgency went off the priority radar of some of the CAPFs and rightly so. There was dilution in counter-insurgency (CI) training except for the CRPF, which focussed on CI training. The hard-earned CI experience was pushed into the background, thus, affecting capability to fight insurgency. Despite the role demarcation there was no let-up in CI, anti-Naxal and internal security deployment of CAPFs. They need to revive and enhance capability by removing inherent weaknesses in their organisation structure for independently fight insurgency.

CAPFs have combined the strength of a million plus force as great national asset for internal and external security of the nation. However, despite professionally proving their worth, they have not been able to provide breathing space to the army from CI operations. The major reasons for this is the government’s reluctance to trust CAPFs and inherent weaknesses in CAPFs’ structure. The problem is also colossal. These inherent weaknesses need addressing to deal effectively with the insurgency battle. Tackling terrorism and insurgency is a long-haul battle, which can only be won through hard-hitt