Securing the State against terrorist onslaught is a complicated struggle involving a number of actors that need to coordinate their joint effort. It is not just deploying security personnel in the affected areas and then leaving the entire matter to their discretion. Proxy war is rather a new concept in adversarial diplomacy. Its prolongation in Kashmir has happened because the perpetrators of proxy war have been able to carve out a formidable social constituency in the area of conflict. Thus the terrorists have forced the State to fight on two fronts, the external incursion and internal subversion. The more urgent task before the State is to contain internal subversion because its ramifications are grave for any democratic dispensation with impact on the people.
Our State has specific geography and topography, the two factors that are major players in the proliferation of internal subversion. Our border with the western neighbour wherefrom major infiltration takes place is a mix of snow capped peaks, gorges with tortuous passes and plains with normal surface connectivity. This means that we need to evolve calculated diversification of our security strategy. Leaving the military aspect of the proxy war to the care of the army, which has been doing an excellent job and has contained infiltration to a large extent, we have to concentrate on the role of the State Government in meeting the challenge posed by internal subversion. At the end of the day, the role of the State formulates into administrative and financial components. The two need to be coordinated with finesse leaving no space for any uncertainty or confusion.
Obviously given the dimension of challenges of internal subversion, the State Government has not the financial capability of putting up the desired level of resistance. Making 2009 as the cut off line for the Home Ministry to finance expenditures on internal security is simply not justifiable. If it has been the considered decision of the Home Ministry to continue deployment of security forces including Rapid Action Force (RAF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in J&K, at a cost of Rs. 600 crore, it should have cleared the arrears on account of this expenditure and thus facilitated the administrative chapter to streamline resistance to internal subversion. The Home Ministry had agreed in its meeting with Chief Minister to give due weightage to certain important demands connected with security of the State. It had assured all help for upgrading police training centres/institutions, sanctioning additional 5000 posts of SPOs and increasing the remuneration of the SPOs from Rs. 3000 per month to Rs. 5000 per month. There should not have been any delay in releasing funds to meet these reformative schemes. We are told that the Chief Minister had submitted details of expenditures on these and other security measures to the Home Ministry in good time. As such, delaying the release of funds and also pending instalments of arrears would naturally hamper effective anti-militancy operations with adverse impact on the security scenario in the State. Take the case of Special Police Officers (SPOs). This force was set up as a frontline security to assist the police and security forces in anti-militancy operations and to provide security to the people in remote areas at at the peak of militancy. Out of 25400 SPOs, 23577 are working in different districts. The government has the policy of absorbing these SPOs in regular police service if they fulfil the conditions. Home Ministry has turned down the demand of the State for meeting expenses on upgrading the structure and increasing the numerical strength of the force.
The fact of the matter is that meeting the grave threat to the territorial integrity of the country is the concern of all of us. But since the Union Home Ministry is directly handling the issue of normalcy and peace in Kashmir, it has to treat Kashmir situation on the merits of ground situation. If the Ministry of Home Affairs sits tight on financial aspect on anti-militancy operations, the State simply will not be able to expect normalcy to return to some of the districts still under the influence of the militants. There appear some bottlenecks in the coordination process of anti-militancy action plan that make the State Government and the Home Ministry look at some of related aspects not from the same angle. The Ministry of Home Affairs needs no further elucidation from the State Government on the overall scenario of militancy prone areas of the State. When the Home Ministry as well as the Government of the State announces that they will broach no complacency on meeting the challenge, it follows that their coordination has to be flawless and watertight. State Government should not be tied down in the critical area of financing new schemes of countering militancy in the State.
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