Why militants and insurgents turn to politics, and the benefits of allying with them

In January this year, as the campaign for the assembly elections in Assam was warming up, PM Narendra Modi had a massive rally in Kokrajhar, the nerve centre of the Bodoland territorial area of western Assam. He did not announce a much anticipated economic package for the area, instead choosing what was politically expedient for the moment: holding the hands of Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) chief Hagrama Mohilary on the stage, as the crowds enthusiastically cheered. Mohilary’s party, which failed to win a Lok Sabha seat in the 2014 parliamentary elections, swept the Bodo belt in the assembly polls, contributing 12 seats to the kitty of the BJP-led alliance that eventually formed he government.

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Mohilary, a new BJP ally, is not your quintessential politician. He was a militant heading a guerrilla outfit, the Bodo Liberation Tigers, before shunning violence and joining active politics in 2003. He first allied with the Congress, nominating a fellow militantturned-colleague Chandan Brahma to Tarun Gogoi’s ministry before leaving the alliance two years ago.

As Kokrajhar became a target for a jihadistyle attack last week, when three gunmen fired indiscriminately in a marketplace and killed 14 civilians, the spotlight was squarely on the thin, blurry line between insurgency and terrorism in the region. What if, after the BPF, other factions of the Bodo insurgency, including NDFB(S) — the outfit believed to be behind the killings — join mainstream politics some day, and compete or even ally with Mohilary?


That question leads to another broader one with significant implications: how liberal should the Centre be with its surrender policy and till what point should political negotiations be acceptable? Who decides who is an insurgent “eligible” to return to democratic politics and who is a terrorist who should be tried and possibly hanged?

“If you take up arms, you don’t necessarily become a terrorist… if we bracket all groups as terrorists, it would be an escape from reality,” says Naba Kumar Sarania, a Lok Sabha MP and former commander of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), conceding that there are some elements of terror in the Northeast militant outfits too (see “If You Take Up Arms...”).

Everyone largely accepts the Union home ministry’s definition of declaring a militant outfit as a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. But if all militants are terrorists, should they be getting a second life in politics?

To Woo or Not to Woo?
There are occasions when the government itself seems to be in a dilemma over this question.


In practice, an organisation is declared a terrorist organisation not just because of its acts and the nature of violence it indulges, but if it turns out to be a recalcitrant partner in peace talks. For example, the NSCN (Khaplang), with whom the Centre had a ceasefire till last year, is now a terrorist outfit whereas the Centre has maintained the best of relations with the other Naga faction, NSCN (I-M); the PM even sent a condolence message on the death of Isak Chishi Swu, who stood for the “I” in the NSCN (I-M).

The PM’s outreach to militants, of course, has a strategic rationale, what with such wooing having paid peace dividends in the past. Once infested by insurgency, Mizoram, for example, has remained an island of peace in the troubled Northeast for the last 30 years. That two of the rebels belonging to the Mizo National Front (MNF), an insurgent groupturned-political party, went on to become chief ministers would have played a part in the state of harmony. The duo were Laldenga (1986-88) and Zoramthanga (1998-2008).

As more and more militantsturned-politicians chose ballots over bullets in NE states and Kashmir, voters have at times overwhelmingly supported them. Even in Kashmir, Congress MLA and former minister Usman Abdul Majid is a militantturned-counter insurgent-turned politician. Hakim Mohammad Yasin Shah, another militant-turned-MLA in J&K, won elections in 2008 and 2014. Two of the 60 BJP MLAs in the Assam assembly — Bhaskar Sarma and Kushal Duwori — are former ULFA militants. The Congress too fielded a former ULFA member, Suresh Bora, against former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta of the AGP in the recent Assam polls, although Bora lost narrowly.

Ajai Sahni, executive director of Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management, terms negotiations with militants as an incentive for violence that appears to reward criminality. “Expediency is the only law in India today, and every party appears to have accepted the ‘necessity’ of negotiating with terrorists and insurgents,” he says.

AS Dulat, former chief of India’s foreign intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing, reckons there may be a path to salvation for those who are willing to lay down their arms. “I don’t know the circumstances behind (Hizbul commander) Burhan Wani’s killing. But as an intelligent officer, I would have tried to bring him overground.” If that is possible, showing a militant the ballot if he throws away the bullets may well be a logical progression.