Terrorism was for a long-time underlying force in India. Just a spark here and there.. but for the past 2 years or so it has slowly and surely spread its claws through out India.

A US state department report is putting India at the top of the list of countries worst afflicted by terrorism. India’s figure of 2300-plus terrorism-related deaths in 2007 is about 10 percent of worldwide figure of 22,000 terrorism-related deaths in 2007 (That’s an astonishing number considering a lot of those 22,000 worldwide deaths occurred in war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan). The US report has also put a question mark on India’s ‘outdated and outburdened law enforcement and legal systems’. Commenting on the preparedness of Indian police, the report says,

“…The Indian court system was slow, laborious, and prone to corruption; terrorism trials can take years to complete. Many of India’s local police forces were poorly staffed, lacked training, and were ill-equipped to combat terrorism effectively….”

While the US report calls the Indian police ill-staffed and ill-equipped, Indian government has said that it has been allotting crores of Rupees for several years, to combat those issues. Within last 4 years, about 2000 crore rupees were allotted to modernize state police forces, for combatting Naxalite activites. An additional 2400 crore rupees was allotted to fill in critical gaps to help Naxal-affected areas.

That leads to the obvious questions about disbursement of state funds, accountability and results. One one hand, we know that much of the Naxalite terrorism is a byproduct of the poverty and social/infrastructural gaps in the affected communities. The money allotted to the police force doesn’t seem to be doing much. If at all, it may be fueling the fires even further. I am not arguing against a stronger police force. But I would like to point out that the money pourportedly spent on strengthening the police force may not be strengthening anything. Buying new and more modern equipment is good news for some contractors who deal in these businesses and one tends to wonder if the contractors and businesses that deal in military-style equipment are making just busy hay while the sun shines in border areas. For all we know, the same defense contractors may be supplying equipment both to the law enforcement as well as the terrorists.