Synopsis
In light of a growing transnational terrorist threat to India and South Asia, Delhi has
to move beyond its Pakistan-oriented counter terrorism approach. With the arrest of
ISIL operatives in India and the recent hacking of an Indian government’s website by
AQIS, India needs to adopt a more nuanced approach in sync with the increasing
complexity of the threat.
Commentary
INDIA IS situated in a volatile and violent neighbourhood which has experienced
insurgencies and terrorism for decades. It has been attacked by terrorist networks
that it alleges have long been harboured and funded by neighbouring Pakistan. It
has been in constant battles with a variety of radical militants who seek to destabilise
it.
Prior to 11 September the Kashmiri militants and jihadi groups were the vanguard of
the terrorist attacks, alongside Maoists and northeast tribal separatists. With the
advent of the Al Qaeda era post-2001, though India’s focus remained on battling
threats emanating from across the border and internally, the extent of the jihadi
threat increased manifold, especially in Kashmir. For decades terrorist groups based
in Pakistan, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Hizbut
Mujahideen (HM), which India alleges were sponsored by its regional nemesis,
dominated India’s terrorism landscape.
Rise of global jihadism
The tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, which have long been
outside the effective control of both states, is a natural sanctuary for militants. Now
with ISIS, also known as ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and Levant) in the picture, India
has become a target of global jihadists in the region.
With the rise of the ISIL and its play of the Islamic symbols of the Caliphate, Ummah
and Hijra, new Indian youth constituencies have now shown a greater disposition to
align themselves with global jihadism.
Pertinently, youths from the southern parts of the country, a region that traditionally
has not seen serious penetration of global jihadism, are aligning with ISIL’s ideology.
About 32 individuals from South India have been arrested by the authorities for being
involved with ISIL. And numerous others have been rumoured to have travelled to
Syria to fight in the on-going civil war there.
The internet has played an instrumental role in connecting the Indian youths to a
global community of Islamist terrorists. It has proven to be much more potent than
off-line jihadi recruiters of the past. Given the spike in the number of youths
radicalised in the past year, it is clear that ISIL’s propaganda content and approach
is more appealing and meaningful than Al Qaeda’s amongst constituencies that were
previously unaffected.
Notwithstanding, AQ has not lost its regional salience as evidenced by its creation of
the Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), with an Indian Muslim, Maulana
Asim Umar, as its emir. Though AQIS has not mounted any terrorist attacks, it had
hacked the Indian railways website, leaving a message of call to join jihad and is
attempting to build a strong network of terrorist groups throughout the subcontinent.
Moving Away from Pakistan-centric Approach
Despite the evolving threat of jihadi terrorism in the world, with the onslaught of terror
groups like ISIL and the phenomenon of ‘Lone Wolf’ attacks, the Indian authorities
are still approaching the threat in the traditional way. Even though, as India alleges,
Pakistan has played a role in financing, arming and harbouring terrorist and
insurgent groups against India, and its association with JeM, LeT and HM, India is
holding back in formulating its counter-terrorism strategy against the changing terror
landscape, including ISIL’s global campaign and penetration into India.
Indian authorities have not gone beyond blaming Pakistan for attacks targeting
military or police establishments, such as the Pathankot airbase, or civilian targets as
in the case of the Mumbai and Hyderabad attacks. This, of course, does not mean
that terrorism emanating from India’s western borders has diminished. It behooves
the Indian authorities to adopt a new strategy at a time when a number of terrorist
groups in South Asia have splintered and are no longer under the absolute control of
Pakistan.
This makes further sense when Pakistan uses the phrase “Good Taliban, Bad
Taliban”, hinting that many of the terrorist attacks may not have the sanction of the
Pakistani establishment. Nor might the state have the capacity to rein in terrorist
groups, given the splintering and attacks such as those in Peshawar.
Secondly, the new attraction of global jihadism in South India as evidenced by the
arrest of young, educated ISIL sympathisers and operatives from Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka and Maharashtra, further indicate that India needs to look beyond
Pakistan, especially when ISIL has been successful in carrying out lone wolf attacks
across the globe.
Way Forward
India is no stranger to managing terrorism. However, security agencies have been
weighed down by their older counter-terrorism paradigm. They have to recognise the
need for a new paradigm and pursue it in order to effectively manage the threat of
global jihadism that now confronts India.
The changed nature of the increasingly transnational terror environment means that
we will not witness ‘terror spectaculars’ as seen during the attacks in Mumbai or New
York. Instead there is a higher propensity for ‘lone wolves’ to carry out small -scale
attacks on both military and civilian targets and for AQIS and ISIL to claim
responsibility for them. Unfortunately, this means that such attacks carried out by
self-radicalised individuals may escape the radar of Indian agencies which are still
set in the Pakistan-centric terrorism paradigm.
India thus needs to adopt a nuanced counter-terrorism policy. Among others it needs
to implement the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) and the National
Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) project so as to create nodal agencies and foster
greater intelligence sharing. It needs to train its security agencies to think outside the
realm of normalcy, improve community cohesion and address the issue of
radicalisation, especially in regions that were previously untouched by jihadist
propaganda.
Akanksha Narain is a Research Analyst with the Studies in Inter-Religious Relations
in Plural Societies (SRP) Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International
Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.