ISAS Insights

The inability to craft an effective national policy to deal with the surge of left-wing extremism (LWE) is a subject of intense policy debate and mounting public concern in India. A short-sighted counter-insurgency (COIN) strategy, an apathetic political class, an unresponsive state machinery, bureaucratic inertia, problems of coordination (between the centre and state governments)and the growing disconnect between a prospering and an impoverished India, have been flagged as some of the factors that contribute to the lack of an effective strategy and the near-unassailability of the extremists. At the heart of such inadequacies, however, is the persistent conceptual ambiguity regarding the nature of the movement and the threat it poses to the Indian state. Authorities have been periodically compelled to revisit their strategies after each successful extremist attack. And yet, a comprehensive and unified national strategy providing a long-term solution to LWE remains a far-fetched goal. The 25 May 2013 extremist attack in the state of Chhattisgarh provided yet another opportunity to rethink and reset the COIN strategy. Whether the new strategy would end the ambiguity and explore alternate mechanisms for conflict resolution, however, remains to be seen.