Changing face of Terrorism and India | UPSC Mains: Internal Security & Disaster Management PDF Download

Definition of Terrorism

• Generally, the term terrorism indicates a criminal and violent activity performed by an individual or group of individuals or an organisation in order to strike terror among the general public and send messages to the public and governments, to fulfil a goal. 
• Although the victims of the terror act maybe a few people (depending upon the event), the intended target is usually larger than the number of victims alone.
• The terrorists’ purpose is to send a strong message to the larger public and the government. They generally claim responsibility after conducting a violent act so as to let people know of their power and capabilities and thus, inflict terror upon the people.

Some commonly-used definitions of terrorism are listed below:

• UN Definition: As per the definition by the United Nations , any criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for a particular purpose are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.
• US Department of State Definition: Terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.

A definition according to the lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act is very inclusive and exhaustive:
“Whoever with intent to overawe the Government as by law established or to strike terror in the people or any section of the people or to alienate any section of the people or to adversely affect the harmony amongst different sections of the people does any act or thing by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive substances or inflammable substances or lethal weapons or poisons or noxious gases or other chemicals or by any other substances (whether biological or otherwise) of a hazardous nature in such a manner as to cause, or as is likely to cause, death of, or injuries to, any person or persons or loss of, or damage to, or destruction of, property or disruption of any supplies or services essential to the life of the community, or detains any person and threatens to kill or injure such person in order to compel the Government or any other person to do or abstain from doing any act, commits a terrorist act.”

In 2002, the European Union described terrorism as having the “aim of destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country”.

Terrorist Activities 

Terrorists indulge in a variety of activities for primarily three things:

• Generate fear among people.
• Create publicity for their goals/causes.
• Try to convince people that the government is powerless against them.

Terrorists and/or terror groups engage in random killings/assassinations, bomb blasts in public places, suicide attacks, kidnappings, extortion, destroy public property/infrastructure, hijacking, cyber-attacks, etc. They also indulge in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear warfare. Many terror groups also engage in an armed insurgency against governments.
The aim of political terror groups varies from toppling the established government of a country to having better representation for a group of people, to seceding from a country and forming another country, to acquiring a share in the government, etc. Many other groups of terror exist solely for making illicit money and expanding their own illegal criminal empires. Many groups of organised crime are also labelled terrorist groups.

History of terrorism in India

• The hand of Pakistan in fuelling the jihad in Kashmir to create an environment of either Azadi (freedom) or joining Pakistan is evident.
• During the Afghan jihad in the 1980s against the Soviet Union, Pakistan trained 80, 000 Mujahideen in training camps established in Pakistan.
• Once the Afghan jihad was over with the end of the cold war and Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan turned its attention on India. At that time, Kashmir was going through a tumultuous phase in the 1980s. There were accusations that the 1987 state elections which witnessed the victory of the Congress-National Conference were rigged. Losing candidates were declared winners. Protests against these elections grew violent in 1988. These rigged elections provided the fuel to the losing parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami, the People’s Conference and the Ittihad-ul-Muslimeen to become part of the main separatist alliance, the All Party Hurriyat Conference.
• Kashmiri leaders like Yasin Malik of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) also took to violence during that period (he renounced violent means in 1994)
• Terrorism in Kashmir exists due to the ability of outfits like LeT and HuM to operate from Pakistan. The hand of Pakistan in fuelling home grown terror groups like Indian Mujahideen (IM) is also suspected especially through the LeT proxy. It was the IM that claimed responsibility  for most of the terror attacks on Indian cities in 2008. The year 2008 also witnessed multiple bomb blasts in Assam in October of that year and the 26/11 terror attacks.
• The terror bombings were also meant to indicate the inability of the security agencies to thwart such terrorist activities. RDX and ammonium nitrate were used during the blasts. This aspect indicated that the terror outfit’s objective was to engineer heavy civilian casualty.
• Earlier terror attacks had involved simultaneous bomb blasts in crowded market places and official complexes. In Mumbai, the seizure of its five star hotels and Nariman house and attacks on its main railway station by the terrorists involved a direct engagement by the terrorists with the security forces.
• The terror cell mostly used the GPS to reach Mumbai through the sea on November 26. (They can use it again in future- Pathankot airbase attack is an example).
• The terror bombings in India were either for “territorial change” or “social control”. The LeT’s involvement in the Mumbai blasts was motivated by its goal of territorial change in Kashmir by incorporating it with Pakistan. SIMI and the Indian Mujahideen were more geared towards social control as they wanted to strengthen their own status amongst their present recruits as well as the target population.
• It can be predicted based on the patterns of the earlier attacks that the terrorists will target urban centres like New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Lucknow or Raipur in the near future, given the wide coverage it receives and the state reaction it effectuates.
• Industrial and upcoming areas like Bangalore, Jamshedpur and Chennai also face terror threat.

Changing face of Terrorism

• India has been a victim of terrorism and insurgency since Independence.
• In the late 1980s, Kashmir, one of the most strategic states in India and sharing land borders with Pakistan, witnessed the rise of terrorism with visible support from Pakistan. Without the external hand, which includes base areas to terror groups, arms supply, financial help and training terror recruits in Pakistan, the Kashmiri terrorist groups could not have sustained themselves for so long.
• Since 1993, a new trend of terrorism emerged which was not territorially bound as those in the Northeast or Kashmir. This distinctive wave of terrorism targeted Indian cities with the political goal of discrediting India’s economic growth by creating disorder.
• This urban terrorism is a growing threat and needs special emphasis since India’s urban population will grow over the years with massive migration from rural to urban areas in search of better livelihood. This will make it the target of terror groups whose aim is to promote disorder in Indian cities to project the image of instability and lawlessness to the outside world utilizing instant media and the internet. A recent phenomenon is the mushrooming of pan-Islamist militant outfits with links to radical organisations in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and some other West Asian countries.
• Fired with religious zeal, a large number of the so-called “jihadis” have already entered into the bordering States and are in the process of penetrating deeper inside the country.
• These bands of religious fanatics are indulging in subversive activities and have expansionist designs. They will work relentlessly for the breakup of the Indian Union.
• While there could be several antecedent causes of terrorism, some of the most significant ones are a perceived sense of injustice by the aggrieved group, and a belief by that group that the use of violence will bring about a change. Thereby, most terrorist groups use their political ends for justifying violent means.
• Weak actors like terrorists therefore establish their “terrible” credibility by public display of violence.

Terrorism in India

• India faces terrorism from secessionists in Kashmir, the north-east and to an extent in Punjab, from left-wing extremist groups in central, east-central and south-central India.
• India is one of the countries most affected by terrorism in the world. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, India was the seventh-most affected country in 2018.
  (i) It reported that from 2001 till 2018, more than 8000 people have died in terror attacks in India.
• Jammu & Kashmir is the region most affected by terrorist activities in the country.
• The Global Terrorism Index 2019 also places India on the 7th rank in terms of the most-affected country by terrorism.
• It was after the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai by terrorist groups that the government formed the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
• India is trying to push a global intergovernmental convention called the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) to counter-terrorism since the late 90s.
• India is also a member of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force), an organisation that works towards establishing global standards for combating money laundering and terrorist financing.
• India has a network of intelligence agencies such as the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the Intelligence Bureau (IB), etc. which are involved in fighting terrorism emanating both inside and outside the country.
• There is also a National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) that is an integrated intelligence framework connecting the databases of security agencies of the Indian Government to gather inclusive patterns of intelligence that can be accessed by intelligence agencies of India.
• The National Security Guard (NSG) is a paramilitary force that is primarily responsible for counterterrorism and anti-hijacking operations.