“We do not have the forces to move into areas occupied by the rebels,” Home Secretary Gopal K. Pillai told India’s Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in March, according to media reports. “We have a long, bloody war ahead. It is going to be a long haul, and I see violence going to go up.” Pillai declined to comment for this story.
Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told chief ministers of Maoist-hit states on July 14 that the federal government will strengthen security forces and provide better roads, schools and health care in areas where Maoists operate. Maoists have some degree of influence in 220 of the nation’s 626 districts, the government estimates.
India’s failure to defuse the conflict is another setback as it struggles to become a Western-style power. The nation must spend $1 trillion to improve living standards and infrastructure from 2012 to 2017 for its $1.2 trillion economy to grow at close to 10 percent, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on March 23. Growth has averaged 8.5 percent a year in the past five years.
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I want to thank one of my readers for sending me some scoop on the situation in India. He had sent me an article from the Economist originally, and I went into research mode due to how interesting this conflict was. This article from Bloomberg was a little better, and very extensive, so I will put this one up. Both articles cover the same subject.
The areas that I like to look at with conflicts, is the position of the insurgency and what economic forces are at play. Specifically, resources that are at stake which could significantly help out a country. Especially if that country’s success will positively help out the free world, and help to provide some balance in the global economy (China needs more competition to keep it in check). India is a democracy, and I sure would like to see it succeed as a democracy. I am no fan of Maoists and the communist game plan, and what they are doing in India and places like Nepal are troubling.
The other thing my reader mentioned, which kind of falls in line with the market of force principles I was talking about earlier, is why do we continue to send money to countries and not offer the services of PMC’s? If India does not have the manpower or COIN capability, then why are we sending money to them so they can somehow ‘re-invent the wheel’ of counter-insurgency? Why not tell them ‘hey, we will help you out, but because we do not have troops to spare, we will send PMC’s’? At least with that arrangement, the money we give to India would instead be going into the pockets of our own companies who would be assisting India in their fight against Maoists.
The best analogy I have for this, is that if you see a homeless man on the street, is it smarter to give them money, or give them an assistant who can clean them up and teach them to fend for themselves? Feed a man a fish, and you feed them for a day, teach them how to fish, and you feed them for life. So the saying goes.
We could be sending companies who can teach the latest counter-insurgency methods and strategies, or even tap into our market of force that is certainly experienced in dealing with insurgents in today’s wars. Companies could be contracted to clear, hold, and build districts that India has lost or is losing too the Maoists. The return on investment in contracting the services of a company to do this for India, would be far better than just throwing money at the ‘homeless man’. Isn’t India’s success within the free world’s best interest?
Because as it stands now, the way the west throws around aid to places like Pakistan or even India seems to never offer a good return on investment. It’s as if we are giving money to that ‘homeless man’ so he can go buy booze with it. lol Besides, wouldn’t it be nice to actually put that money back into the pockets of those who would go back the US or UK, and spend it at home? Is it better to feed them a fish, or teach these countries how to fish?
I also look at how a vibrant steel/mining industry could actually help a government to help it’s citizens. From the jobs it would produce, to the infrastructure the government can improve on, to invigorating the pride of a nation because it is actually doing well. All of this is important for a country to evolve and do well, and especially during a global recession. It does not evolve or do well, when a country is limited by an ideology that a few seem to think is the path. Might I also add that the drug cartels, al qaeda, the taliban, al shabab are all using guerrilla warfare/modern insurgency/4th gen. warfare methods (which relies on much of what Mao thought up), and certainly these groups do not have any kind of moral superiority or world wide support for their cause. I mean who supports the Maoists in India or Nepal? lol
Although I will put this out there for thought. A government, no matter it’s design, must always seem like a good idea to it’s citizenry. If it is thought of as corrupt or ineffective, or they are not able to show progress and true security for the people, then they will be fighting an insurgency (whatever that might be) that will only increase in size and influence, and possibly become victorious. –Matt
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India’s Maoist Menace
By Mehul Srivastava
Jul 29, 2010
Armed rebels hold the Red Corridor, a region the size of Portugal, in their grip. The nation’s mineral wealth and 8.5 percent annual growth are at stake.
At the heart of the Bailadila Hills in central India lie 1.1 billion tons of raw ore so pure and plentiful that half a century after miners first hacked at it with pickaxes, it remains the richest, and one of the largest, iron deposits on the planet.
Essar Steel Ltd. built a plant near the hills in 2005 to turn the ore into a liquid. The Mumbai-based company, controlled by billionaire brothers Ravi and Shashi Ruia, added a 267- kilometer pipeline to pump the slurry to the east coast, where Essar makes steel.
Yet on this quiet June day, cobwebs hang on rusted pipes in the all-but-abandoned facility, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September 2010 issue. Caretakers prepare to switch truck-size rock crushers out of their coma, rousing the machines for five minutes a month to ensure they still work.
Maoist rebels from the surrounding Dandakaranya forest armed with guns and explosives — and some wielding axes and bows and arrows — attacked the facility four times in little more than a year, officials at the now-mothballed plant say. They burned 54 trucks waiting at factory gates in April 2008 and damaged part of the slurry pipeline, the world’s second longest, in June 2009. Essar idled the plant that month.
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