The Assam Rifles and the Rashtriya Rifles

Abstract The modern Indian state, from its origins as a colonial autocracy through its development as a post-colonial democracy, has had a long and continuous history of armed insurrections. Yet, the counter-insurgency practices of the post-colonial state, and the Indian Army in particular, have not received sustained historical evaluation. This chapter focuses on a particular institutional innovation in the Indian state and military’s capacity to deal with insurgencies: the two large and specialized counter-insurgency forces of the Assam Rifles and Rashtriya Rifles. This chapter offers a comparative analysis of the Assam Rifles and the Rashtriya Rifles along four dimensions: historical development, organizational structure, human resources, and performance and reforms. The analysis suggests that the Assam Rifles and the Rashtriya Rifles present contrasting yet similarly instructive models of specialized counter-insurgency forces. Their capabilities and challenges also cast into relief larger questions of state capacity and reform in the security domain.