NEW DELHI — Several countries in South Asia — including India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh — have been battling major insurgencies for decades, but recent developments have given their governments hope that low-intensity warfare may be a thing of past and they can use their resources for long-neglected economic development.
India is the biggest state in South Asia geographically, with the largest land mass and the greatest diversity of populations. Though its government has tried to accommodate the interests of these diverse communities, armed insurgencies have taken root, especially in Kashmir and northeast India. Kashmir has been a center of conflict due to the territorial claims of India and Pakistan, while the insurgencies of northeast India have been fueled by the demands of some ethnic groups for separate homelands.
But lately, the life of insurgents and terrorists on the subcontinent has become more difficult and fighting seems to be loosing its appeal for their cadres. A number of factors are responsible for this.
Bhutan’s crackdown against Indian insurgent groups on its territory started the process, which also appears to have inspired Burma, which recently announced that it will not allow foreign insurgent groups to use its territory and will act against them if they do not remove their camps from its soil.
The insurgents and terrorists got their biggest blow during the 12th summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which ended Jan. 6 in Islamabad, Pakistan, where member countries adopted an additional protocol on terrorism.
U.S. military and security operations in Afghanistan and western Pakistan have done serious damage to terrorist infrastructure. Terrorist groups remain a major force in areas bordering India, but even there states backing insurgencies seem to be withdrawing active support, at least for the moment.
Terrorist groups operating from bases in Pakistan have expressed dismay at the Indo-Pakistani decision to continue their cease-fire and try to find a solution to the Kashmir issue through talks. They now realize that the withdrawal of proactive Pakistani support will weaken their striking power considerably.
Pakistan’s new policy of not allowing its territory to be used by hard-line Kashmiri and other militant groups has shaken the militant groups. No wonder they have called the accord the biggest sellout of their cause by any Pakistani government in the country’s history. Amanullah Khan, head of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, called it “a surrender worse than the surrender of 90,000 Pakistani troops in former East Pakistan [now Bangladesh] before the Indian army in 1971.”
Though Sayed Salahuddin, the chief of the biggest Kashmiri group Hizbul Mujahideen, vowed to continue the struggle without Pakistani support, he knows that now it will be a different ball game.
The most important and probably the largest insurgent group in India’s northeast — the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) — suffered heavy losses after Bhutan’s action. ULFA knows that in the absence of easy access to Bhutanese territory, it would be difficult for it to operate.
Its base camps in Bhutan were of great use in hit-and-run attacks because of their proximity to the Assam border. Though it has camps in other neighboring countries, now it would be harder to strike targets within India and the risk would be much greater.
Now, the problem remains only from Bangladesh, whose government’s policy is fundamentally different from that of other countries in the region. Bhutan and Burma concede the presence of insurgents, but Bangladesh denies that any camps of Indian insurgents exist on its territory.
Though lately, Dhaka has used force against some of the insurgent groups in border districts, killing or arresting some insurgents, it insists these actions were not taken under Indian pressure. It appears that the ruling alliance in Bangladesh, which has been soft for so long on foreign guerrillas, will take some time before it decides its course of action.
The insurgents and terrorist groups who long had a free run in South Asia will find it difficult to operate if the change of policy begun by Bhutan spreads elsewhere. They already seem to have lost much of their force.
New Delhi’s “look east” policy seems to have succeeded in persuading Rangoon to put pressure on insurgent groups to vacate its territory. The euphoria generated by this month’s SAARC summit has also thrown these insurgent groups off balance.
If SAARC manages to keep in step, then the days of guerrilla war and terrorism on the subcontinent are numbered.
• Anand Kumar is a research associate at the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi.
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