Indian And Sri Lankan Counterinsurgency Campaigns: A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The South Asian region has been marred by various insurgencies, internal conflicts, and civil wars. Multiple conflicts are mainly discussed and deliberated in piecemeal and standalone case studies. This paper will carry out a comparative study of Indian and Sri Lankan insurgencies while facing protracted insurgencies with different natures, magnitudes, and cultural propensities. Some conflicts were bloody and ultra-violent, and some resistance movements and insurgencies (Indian) have spanned more than five decades. Though Sri Lanka had defeated the insurgents, it is imperative to analyze the causes and factors that led to its success. Both India and Sri Lanka adopted a response pattern in the form of Counterinsurgency, which brought forth distinct consequences. Counterinsurgency is complex irregular warfare involving various logical operations lines such as political, economic, information, psychological, and military operations. But the chief consideration is non-kinetic. The non-kinetic procedures are administered under the ‘Population centric Counterinsurgency approach, in which the counterinsurgent is more inclined toward securing and protecting the population. This paper will ascertain whether India and Sri Lanka have launched the ‘population-centric Counterinsurgency’ or ‘enemy-centric Counterinsurgency.’ Moreover, it will also draw the parallels and variations followed in the respective theaters of insurgencies by both countries and discover how successful they are in suppressing their separate insurgencies. Lastly, this paper will provide the intellectual foundation for understanding the counterinsurgency paradigm for the whole of South Asia.