Violent Extremism in India

Of late India presents the theatre for various forms of extremism. It is confronted with numerous
incidents of violent terrorism with somewhat strong religious overtone, affecting so far a large
section of our population. These incidents are reported to have support from some Islamist Jihadi
elements and also external actors from across our borders. The State of Jammu and Kashmir in
particular and other states, such as UP and Delhi continue to bear the brunt of escalated levels of
violence with every passing day. Besides these, insurgencies in the northeastern states and Maoist
offensives add to the large degree of such extreme violence, being witnessed in several states.
Despite improvement in the security operations, one doesn’t see any decrease in the number of
reported violent incidents, as alongside, there has been a proliferation of armed groups with wide
national and transnational linkages. This has led to rather an increase in the ability of these armed
groups to perpetrate violence. These groups have been continuously undertaking measures, which
has led to these groups’ capacity for using enhanced techniques in their terror operations.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt. of India, of all the internal threats, the incidents of
terrorism, by far pose the gravest threat to our country and various forms of incidents of terrorism
include ethno-nationalist terrorism, religious terrorism, left wing terrorism etc. The regions which
have suffered for long due to the terrorist activities, are Jammu and Kashmir, east-central and
south-central India and the North eastern States. In the words of Former National Security Advisor
M K Narayanan, there are as many as 800 terrorist cells operating within the country.  Some 205
districts out of total 608 districts have been affected by terrorist activities. These acts of terror in
India have been such intentional act of violence that is aimed to cause death, injury or property
damage, induce fear, and is mostly targeted against groups of people, easily identifiable by their
political, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other markers of identity.

While ethno-nationalist form of terror has focused on creating a separate state within India or
independent of India mainly based on the views of any one ethnic group against the rest, such as
insurgency of tribal groups in North East India, the religious terrorism has emphasized on some
religious interpretation, or a presumed duty or in solidarity for a specific religious group, against
one or more religious groups, of which Mumbai 26/11 terror attack in 2008,is an example of
religious terrorism. The Left-wing terrorism, on the other hand, is focused on economic ideology,
influenced by the ideology of Marx, Engel, Mao, Lenin etc and is encapsulated in the Maoist
violence in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.

 
According to The Hindu, the government informed the Lok Sabha that it has identified 65 terror
groups active in the country, out of which a maximum of 34 are in Manipur and that that these
militants/terrorists active in India have been often supported and funded by their parent outfits
located abroad, particularly from Pakistan, for shelter, training, weapons and finance. Among the
terrorist groups which are active in various states, Jammu and Kashmir has five such
organizations, including Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Hizbul-Mujahideen (HM), Jaish-e-Mohammad,
Harkat-e-Mujahideen (HM) and Al Badr, whereas Assam has 11, Meghalaya 4, Tripura 2,
Nagaland 4, Mizoram 2 and Manipur 34.Further three militant groups, Babbar Khalsa International,
Khalistan Zindabad Force and Khalistan Commando Force, are also active in Punjab. Several
terrorist groups like LeT, IM, HM, HuJI, and Al Badr are active particularly in Uttar Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi, in the hinterland
of the country. The upsurge in their violent extremist activities, has led the government to ban 36
outfits and 9 organizations within the country.

It has been reported that out of 976 deaths resulted from terrorism/violent extremism, in 2014, 465,
the highest occurred in the North East, the second highest, 314 were killed by Left-wing extremists,
the Maoists. The Jammu & Kashmir only had 193 deaths and Islamist extremism claimed only four
lives. As far as the religious background of most terrorists in India are concerned, the majority are
said  to be Hindus, which include mostly the "Maoist" , the second largest group of terrorists
happen to be the tribals, Hindus animists and perhaps some Christians of the North East. The
Muslims constitute the third in number, which is also the lowest in the world, in terms of their
violence and terrorism levels, if we ignore the incidents of separatism of Kashmir.

In the words of Stephen P. Cohen, noted South Asia expert at the Brookings Institution, the
unequal distribution of wealth gained from India’s burgeoning economy has fed the movement. He
further said, “Indian society has educated young men and young women to the point where they no
longer fit into traditional society, but modern society has not been able to incorporate them.
According to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, poverty in Naxalite strongholds is the cause
of violent extremism in Maoist affected region as distribution of development funds has remained a
challenge, due to which the Naxalites have managed to successfully spread their revolutionary
message by targeting the failed system of governance and with mere ten and twenty thousand
strong supporters, have been able to wage a strong campaign of violence and kidnapping against
Indian security personnel and vigilante groups. Their clashes with security forces has led to forced
displacement of thousands of villagers, and compelled them to seek refuge in temporary
government shelters or in forest camps.

In spite of ongoing insurgencies and continuous threat terrorism related incidents, the Central
Government has tried to tackle such internal security threats, through a combination of deploying
heavy military force and addressing grievances through negotiations. However the experts have
criticized such tactics as they have proved not so effective over time. Such casual commitment of
inadequate resources, inappropriate force mobilization and lack of unified effort and political will on
the part of government, have not only failed  to address the social and religious fault lines, but also
has helped the armed terror groups which have survived through an effective  combination of
mechanisms, which range from either splintering to fracturing their own respective groups,
temporarily lying low, maintain a low or almost invisibility or exploiting peace deals by entering into
cease fire agreement with the government to unite with other ideologically diverse groups, for
carrying out an effective strike in the future.

Its laudable that India under the leadership of our present PM, Shri Narendra Modi, has started to
work with other countries, particularly our neighbours and ASEAN countries, in its fight against
terrorism and violent extremism to find a combined solution an all-encompassing partnership based
on mutual respect for sovereignty, equality, trust and understanding, beyond the strategic
partnership, as the terror groups are said to have relocated them in this region. Though such joint
approaches may get us the required support and convergence by way of common strategy, yet  to 
protect our society  from the threat of ideologies of hate, violence and terror as posed by
extremists, terror groups, a zero tolerance policy and a comprehensive approach in fighting violent
extremism and terrorism at all levels, is perhaps inevitable. Any long term solution to the situation
surely lies in bringing about rapid socio-economic and infrastructure development in the poverty
stricken areas of our country, as that would have a positive impact on all the communities living
within and would end alienation and can prove to be useful in containing violent extremism in the
immediate future.