While the Ceasefire Agreements appear to have imposed enormous restrictions on the operations of the central security forces (SFs) consisting of the Assam Rifles (AR) and the para-military Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), a ‘free for all’ appears to be in place for the insurgents, who kill, abduct and extort with impunity. The Union Government chooses to describe the state of affairs as a ‘law and order problem’ to be tackled by the Nagaland Police. The State Police, however, have demonstrated an abject lack of will to rein in the rampaging insurgents.

According to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) data, Nagaland registered 154 fatalities in 272 insurgency-related incidents in 2007. Year 2008 had witnessed 244 such incidents claiming the lives of 175 persons till August 31. Nearly 35 percent of the total fatalities are those of civilians. The insurgency, however, is not just about the fatalities – a dominant proportion of which result from fratricidal clashes between the insurgent factions. The insurgents have established a regime of perpetual and pervasive fear among the people across Nagaland, with very little resistance from either the agencies of the state or from tribal community groupings.

Nagaland: Insurgency-related fatalities: 2004-2008

Head	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008*
Incidents	186	192	309	272	244
Civilians killed	42	28	29	44	61
SFs killed	00	01	02	01	03
Insurgents killed	55	70	116	109	111
TOTAL KILLED	97	99	147	154	175

Almost similarly worded Ceasefire Agreements with both major outfits [with the NSCN-IM in 1997 and the NSCN-K in 2001], prohibit extortion in garb of ‘tax collection’, abduction for ransom and killings, smuggling of arms and ammunition, issuance of demand letters, issuance of threat or azhas (orders) to senior politicians and bureaucrats, movement and stay in populated areas with arms and in uniform, inter-factional clashes and targeted killing of rival cadres, stand off between cadres and SFs, and unauthorized concentration. In actual terms, however, none, barring stand offs between the SFs and the insurgents – essentially the consequence of self-imposed restrictions by the SFs – has been adhered to. During the last five years (2004-08), only seven SF personnel have been killed in Nagaland, including two para-military India Reserve Battalion (IRB) personnel who were killed in the months of April and May 2008 in the south-western Dimapur and eastern Peren Districts.

The absence of an SF-insurgent confrontation has had little positive impact on the lives and security of common civilians, both in urban areas and in the countryside. Extortion regimes imposed by the militants have targeted everyone, from top politicians and administrators in the State down to common villagers. Refusal to pay has led to abductions and, on occasion, killings. Each faction has not only pursued a policy of eliminating tribal leaders sympathising with its rival, on occasions non-Naga traders have been attacked and killed in various places, including State capital Kohima and the commercial hub Dimapur. According to one estimate, over 60 affluent non-Naga traders have been abducted for ransom just between November 2007 and May 2008. At least 10 non-Naga businessmen have been killed in the State in 2008.

It would not be unreasonable to expect the Nagaland Police to impose some measure of order in this dismal scenario. With a staff strength of 20,784 (as of March 2007), the Police Department is the biggest Government Department in the State. Effectively, in this State of 19,88,636 people, one in every 95 persons is employed in the Police Department. The total number of Armed and Civil Police personnel stands at 11,947, of whom 6,450 are in the ‘Armed’ branch and the remaining 5,497 in the ‘Civil’ branch. Nagaland, thus, boasts of a Police population ratio (Policemen per 100,000 population) of 558, marginally higher than Manipur (554), which is the worst militancy-affected State in the region; and dramatically higher than Assam (178), the second most militancy affected State; and also far in excess of the national average, at 126. Similarly, Police density (Policemen per 100 square kilometre area) is 72.1 for Nagaland, significantly higher than the national average (44.4), as well as Assam (66.4) and Manipur (63.8).

Nagaland has also been extremely ‘efficient’ in spending funds made available by the MHA for Police modernisation. Available data indicates that its utilisation of the central funds between 2000-01 and 2003-04 was 100 percent. [In 2004-05, the usage was 68.98 percent, with incomplete utilisation figures]. A senior Police official told SAIR, in terms of weapons and facilities available, the "Nagaland Police is second to none."

Clearly, neither the relative Police strength nor the prevailing ‘modernisation’ in terms of weaponry and equipment, as well facilities for the Police, has led to any augmented capacity to secure control over the insurgency. The reasons lie in political ambivalence and a succession of policy failures.

Over the years, the Nagaland Police has paid scant regard to accepted principles of maximising competence of its personnel. In 2000, the Padmanabhaiah Committee on Police Reforms recommended, "There should be a greater recruitment of Sub-Inspectors instead of Constables. Recruitment to constabulary should be restricted till a teeth-to-tail ratio of 1:4 is achieved as against present ratio, which ranges from 1:7 to 1: 15 in different States." Nagaland, against a sanctioned strength of Officers to men ratio ranging from 1:11 to 1:12 during 2002-07, maintained a men-in-position ratio of 1:12 to 1:13. Moreover, in spite of having a constabulary in excess of the norms, the Department recruited another 435 constables over the period 2002-07, accentuating the problems of the Department, which is clearly oversized at the base with an insufficient number of officers to lead the rank and file. In fact, the Group D cadre (Lance Naik, Constable and non-combatant employees) the State has, as per available data between 2002-03 and 2006-07, been consistently overstaffed. It is significant that Police personnel and officers comprise just 57.48 per cent of the total strength of the Police Department. It is not a matter of great surprise that the Police Department spent almost 70 percent of its total budget in 2006-07 in paying salary to its personnel.

Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) data for the year 2006 indicates that an all-India average ratio of Inspectors to Constables at 1:47. The Nagaland Police, against the ratio of sanctioned strength of Inspectors to constables ranging between 1:64 to 1:69 during 2002-07, maintained a men-in-position ratio between 1:88 and 1:103 during this period. The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the Nagaland Home Department – 2006-07 clearly highlights this "ad hoc and irregular policy" that "impacted on the promotional aspects of constables for effective control and utilisation of the Police force at the line level."

Apart from recruiting unnecessary personnel, mostly at the constable level, the Department has also critically erred in almost abolishing the basic necessity of training for its newly recruited personnel. The CAG report, in fact, maintains that as many as 91 Sub-Inspectors belonging both to the ‘Armed’ and ‘Civil’ branches and 144 Assistant Sub-Inspectors have remained untrained, till the publishing of the report in 2007. The report further notes that "Due to lack of basic training as per norms, 777 Recruit Constables remained without any stipulated work and the Department incurred an idle and unfruitful expenditure of the INR 49.7 million towards pay and allowances of these personnel from April 2006 to March 2007."

Despite the enormous Force available, the Police Department has failed to deploy its manpower rationally, either in terms of the security requirements or the distribution of population across various Districts and Police jurisdictions. In the southern Kohima District, where the State capital is located, for example, 75 percent of the population lives in rural areas. The District Police, acting on some inexplicable formula, allocates only four percent of its personnel to the rural areas. In the north-western District of Mokokchung along the inter-State border with Assam, just 23 percent of the Police Force is posted in rural areas, where 86 percent of the total population of the District live. Deployment in the rural and urban areas of Dimapur, where the bulk of internecine clashes between insurgent factions have occurred in the current year, is better, but in no way representative of the rural-urban distribution of population. While 60 percent of the total population of the District is concentrated in rural areas, they are served by only 47 percent of the total District Police Force. The CAG report, thus, notes, "Deployment of Police personnel in rural areas was significantly low in comparison to the urban areas. Due to improper deployment, the people in rural areas remained out of security coverage."

The grossly inadequate Police presence in the rural areas is inexplicable, given the fact that the 44 Police Stations in Nagaland are almost evenly distributed among rural (20 Police stations) and urban areas (24 Police stations). The near absence of rural policing creates the context of the virtually unchallenged movement and criminal activities of armed insurgent cadres in Nagaland’s countryside.

It is important to note that, in spite of the gradual limitation of the fratricidal clashes among the insurgent factions principally to two Districts (Dimapur and Kohima) in 2008 – a sharp decline from nine of the 11 Districts in the State in 2007 – the Police has remained incapable of imposing a modicum of order. According to the Institute for Conflict Management database, out of 73 such clashes reported till November 14, 2008, 53 took place in Dimapur alone while Kohima accounted for another 12. The remaining eight clashes were reported from Mokokchung, Mon, Phek, Peren and Wokha.

The Special (Intelligence) Branch (SIB) of the Nagaland Police, which should have been at the forefront of the battle against the insurgents, remains a wing with little achievement to its credit. Consisting of over 910 personnel, this Branch has failed to provide critical inputs for action against insurgent activities. Speaking to SAIR, a senior Nagaland Police officer stated that there has "not been a single instance where the District Intelligence Branch had provided any information for the past two years." He stated further that the SIB is bloated beyond requirements and consists of officers with "no evidence of professionalism and commitment." The Branch, he added, has become "a playground for cops only interested in keeping company of politicians and bureaucrats."

That the Police in Nagaland has best served the security concerns only of the powers that be in the State is further evident from the assertion in the CAG Report. Police personnel have not only been deployed much in excess of the requirement on VVIP/VIP duties. The report notes, "The Department has not reviewed the threat perception of various VVIPs/VIPs at periodical intervals to ascertain the need to deploy security guards". Sources told SAIR that "Providing security to the ever growing number of VVIPs in the State has led to critical neglect of intelligence gathering, crime prevention, investigation and conviction."

In return, the Political Executive in the State sustains and uncritically accepts the ineptitude and ineffectiveness of the Police Department. The Democratic Alliance of Nagaland (DAN) Government in the State, headed by Chief Minister Nephiu Rio, continues to maintain that factional clashes between the insurgents are ‘political’ in nature and are ‘largely unavoidable’ as long as the conflict exists. The Government, further, adopts a ‘soft’ line on other forms of criminal activities – extortion, abductions and killings, as well. To expect such a political establishment to take steps at providing a strong mandate for the Police to act as a force to counter the insurgency remains far fetched.

Police-led counter-insurgency operations were a critical factor in the elimination of militancy in the western Indian State of Punjab in the early 1990s. Within the Northeastern region, the State of Tripura, which was ravaged by a Bangladesh-aided tribal insurgency for over one-and-a-half decades, benefited immensely from an official policy that not only better equipped its Police force, but also made policing available to the population in the most inaccessible of places. Police-led responses have also been critical to successes against the Maoists in Andhra Paradesh. Even where central forces remain pivotal to the counter-insurgency effort, as in Jammu & Kashmir, the Police has come to play an increasing role in counter-insurgency. The lessons of these campaigns, however, have clearly been lost on Nagaland. A lack of will both within the political and the Police leadership is in clear evidence, and there is little to justify the colossal amounts that are currently being wasted on a bloated, ineffective and unaccountable Police Department in Nagaland.