Historically, India has been among the peace loving countries. But since its independence, India has been facing the problem of insurgency and terrorism in different parts of the country. India has faced exclusively terrorist movements in Jammu & Kashmir, bordering Pakistan, and in the northeast, bordering Myanmar and Bangladesh. India has also faced terrorism of an ephemeral nature like serial explosions in Mumbai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Varanasi, attack on Indian Parliament, Akshardham Temple in Gujrat and the list is unending. There have also been sporadic acts of religious terrorism in other parts of India. Countless innocent lives have been lost to the terrorist’s bombs and guns.
Terrorism in India can be construed as an armed violent movement directed against government as well as non-government targets. It involves pre-meditated attacks with arms, ammunition and explosives against civilians, and resort to intimidation tactics such as hostage taking and hijacking, but not seeking territorial control.
The political factors that led to insurgency-cum-terrorism included the failure of the government to control large-scale illegal immigration. The economic factors include the absence of land reforms, rural unemployment, exploitation of landless labourer etc. The social factors largely include fear psychosis among minorities. The administrative factors broadly include inadequate coordination between the law & order enforcing agencies operative in the States and the Centre.
Terrorist groups draw moral support and material sustenance from the overseas. Aid from supporting countries, contributions from trans-national criminal groups, extortions and ransom payments for releasing hostages, Narcotics smuggling are the major source of funding for the terrorist and insurgent group.
Besides steps taken by the Government within the territory to combat terrorism, India has consistently been highlighting the need for a unified international response to trans-border terrorism, which is today affecting many countries. The spate of the terrorist attacks in different counties and the resulting causalities of innocent civilians lend greater urgency to the need for the international community to unite and fight the menace and censure states that give support and sanctuary to terrorists. However, it was the attacks of 11 September, which thrust the ‘war on terror’ into the international sphere. Despite the increased recognition of the urgency of the issue of terrorism, India continues to face terrorist attack with no substantive immunization support from international big brothers. This raises the question as to whether terrorism is in fact global or it still remains a task for national governments.
In this lonely war against terrorism, enough has been lost and maximum sacrifices have been made. What we need today is a firm and systematic approach to replace the existing soft counter terrorism infrastructures with world-class law and order, intelligence and anti-terror agencies. At the same time, India must work strategically pressure on Pakistan. Besides, concrete steps need to be taken urgently to address the political, economic, social and administrative factors that contribute in flourishing Terrorism and every effort may be made to choke the flow of arms, ammunitions and funds to the insurgent groups.
Moreover, India needs to develop a proper intelligence mechanism to deal with such act of terrorism. Undoubtedly, it is a difficult rather impossible task to accurately predict terrorist attacks, but a proper coordination among various security agencies would minimize the extent of such attack to the maximum.
