The Rehabilitation That Does Not Rehabilitate
In a hill district of a north-eastern state, three factions of an insurgent group operate. One faction signed a suspension of operations four years ago; the other two did not.
In the last eight months there have been three ambushes on security forces, killing eleven, including a junior commissioned officer; six cases of extortion from contractors building a national highway; and two abductions of schoolteachers. In the same period, 300 cadres surrendered under the state's rehabilitation policy - but roughly 40% drifted back to their camps because the monthly stipend and the ₹4 lakh rehabilitation grant were not released for eleven months. Youth unemployment in the district is 34%, and the highway contractor has invoked a force majeure clause and stopped work.
The corps commander seeks extension of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act to two additional police stations and permission for area-domination operations. The Chief Minister wants no new operations before the monsoon session. A Unified Command meeting is scheduled.
1. Diagnose why the surrender and rehabilitation policy is failing, and identify the single change you would make first.
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The policy is failing not on ideology but on credibility. A surrender offer is a deterrence instrument: it works only if a rational cadre calculates that surrender yields a better and more secure life than continuing. An eleven-month delay converts that calculation into evidence that the state does not keep its word - and in an insurgency, credibility is the entire currency.
Three linked failures. Delivery: the stipend and grant sit across departmental budget lines with no ring-fenced release, so administrative friction becomes a strategic signal. Design: a lump sum without a livelihood creates a person with money and no future, which is a recruitment pool for the factions the surrenderer just left. Security: returnees who face retaliation from non-suspended factions are not protected, so the marginal cadre stays armed.
The first change I would make is institutional, not financial: a single ring-fenced rehabilitation budget line released quarterly to one nodal officer, with the first tranche paid automatically within 30 days of surrender and the record published monthly. Cost is small - a few crore - against the cost of one ambush in political and human terms. Then redesign the grant as part cash, part enterprise credit and part sub-contract preference on the highway itself, so the ex-cadre has a stake in the road being built rather than an incentive to extort from it. Finally, separate surrender from rehabilitation administratively, and provide witness protection for returnees, because the second defection destroys the credibility of the first.
2. Recommend an 18-month sequencing of kinetic and non-kinetic actions. Defend the ordering and state what you would deliberately not do.
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The binding constraint is not military capability but legitimacy and information. Sequencing should reflect that.
Months 0–3: pay the pending stipends and grants before anything else, publicly and with photographs. Secure the highway corridor with a static, low-visibility presence - state police as the face, central forces in support, army in reserve - because a stopped road hands the factions a veto over development. Simultaneously run intelligence-based targeting only against the two non-suspended factions, with a clear public distinction maintained between them and the suspended faction, so the ceasefire is not casually destroyed.
Months 3–9: continue targeted operations, but pair each with a development deliverable in the same area within weeks, so that the population's experience of the state improves rather than merely the security statistics. Reopen the schools with police protection and prosecute the abductions through the civil courts, not the army.
Months 9–18: convert the ceasefire into a written agreement with verification, local employment quotas and sub-contracting on the highway, and a time-bound review.
What I would not do: no indiscriminate area-domination in the suspended faction's area, because it would collapse the ceasefire and validate the factions' narrative; and no blanket AFSPA extension before the civil administration's capacity has been tested.
3. The corps commander has asked for AFSPA to be extended to two additional police stations. Advise the Unified Command, arguing both sides before deciding.
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For extension: the ambush pattern is concentrated in exactly those two police stations; soldiers operating there need legal protection against routine criminal complaint; the civil police are under-equipped; and the 'disturbed area' test is about objective conditions, not reputation.
Against: the request is shaped by a general sense of vulnerability rather than a station-wise analysis; the Act is symbolic and its extension would be read as a statement that the entire civil administration has failed, handing recruiters a grievance; and the flow of intelligence, which is what actually prevents ambushes, depends on the population's willingness to talk to somebody, including the army.
Decision: do not extend it as an area-wide measure to two more police stations. Instead, invoke the narrower power - a time-bound notification for the defined ambush corridor, with a mandatory review at six months and published reasons. In parallel, transfer highway protection progressively to the state's India Reserve Battalion, strengthen the two police stations with manpower, mobility and forensic capacity, and set measurable triggers for either expansion or withdrawal (ambush count, attacks on civilians, conviction rates).
Reasoning for a soldier is not the same as reasoning for a jurisdiction. The question is not whether the army is trusted, but whether a legal shield is the least costly way to achieve the effect - and here the same effect is better bought by police capacity and by intelligence that comes from the population.