The origin of the Jammu and Kashmir insurgency can be traced back to the partition of India when Pakistan attacked Kashmir to capture it. Since then, India and Pakistan have fought three wars on this.

Many terrorist organizations are active in Kashmir.

• JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed): Formed by Masood Azhar with the stated objective of uniting Kashmir with Pakistan. JeM was behind various terrorist activities, including the attack on Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly.
• HM (Hizbul Mujahideen)
• HuM (Harkat-ul-Mujahideen) 
• LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba)

The unrest in Kashmir is not a new incident. The Valley has been the victim of such violence for many years. It started in 1947 with the State’s accession to India but worsened at the end of the 1980s (1988)  with the rise in the militant insurgency. Reasons are

• Geographical: The presence of an envious neighbour in the form of Pakistan, which incites the sentiments of the Kashmiri people.
• Historical background: The demand for a plebiscite has been there since 1947, which the people feel is their legal right as per the instrument of accession. However, due to the actions of Pakistan and changed conditions since 1950, a plebiscite cannot be performed in the Valley. It has enraged generations of Kashmiri people.  
• Economic reasons 
  • Unemployment is a significant reason for youth frustration. Tourism has been down due to the disturbed security situation. 
  • Kashmir has limited industries and enterprises. Due to harsh weather conditions, there are limited days of productive work.
• Mujahideen Infiltration: After the victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Mujahideen fighters, with the aid of Pakistan, slowly infiltrated Kashmir to spread a radical Islamist ideology. 
• Political Reasons : 
  • Perceptions of the domination of politics in the State by one or two families (i.e. Abdullahs and Muftis) 
  • The immediate reason was the widely perceived rigging of state elections in 1987. 
  • Laws like AFSPA, regular curfews, presence of armed forces, allegations of human rights violations
  • Use of pellet guns on the protestors, including children. 
• Weakening of Decentralization: History shows that Pakistan has tried to foster an anti-India jihad in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947 but without much success until the late 1980s. In the 1980s, they succeeded because, till that time, Article 370 of the Constitution had been rendered a dead letter.  
• Social Cause/Wahhabization of Kashmiris: Increasing radicalization has choked the more tolerant Sufi tradition and introduced a new Wahhabi culture in the Valley.
• New Generation raised in troubled times: The present generation of Kashmir was raised during troubled times that started in the 1990s. Hence, they feel alienated from the political establishment.
• Social Media: The new generation having access to the internet has been radicalized by anti-India propaganda spread on the internet. Messaging apps such as Telegram and WhatsApp have helped the militants to mobilize the crowds and indulge them in stone-pelting incidents. 
• “Doval Doctrine” which posits that under no circumstance should the State be seen as yielding, either tangibly or symbolically

• Terrorism has no globally accepted definition because one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. Palestinian militants call Israel terrorists, Kurdish militants call Turkey terrorists, and the nation-states call the militants who oppose their regimes “terrorists.”
• In general terms, terrorism is any violent activity done by a non-state actor against common people or their property for political purposes.
• The motivation behind terrorist acts can be political, ideological or religious. 
• What do Terrorists try to achieve through such activities?
  1. Revenge: Eg – Bombay blasts in revenge for Ayodhya Mosque demolition
  2. To invoke a reaction.
  3. To become famous.

• Terrorism is always associated with violent activities. 
• It operates on the principle of instilling fear in the minds of people.
• It is always driven by a certain ideology.
• Their motivation includes revenge, anger, jihad, self-righteousness and exclusiveness. 
• They use public statements for propaganda, justification and branding.

• One of the significant challenges in combating terrorism is there is no internationally accepted definition of Terrorism. 
• To fill this lacuna, CCIT was drafted by India in 1996.
• It includes the following major objectives:
  1.  To have a universal definition of terrorism that all 193 members of the UNGA will adopt into their criminal law.
  2. To ban all terror groups and shut down terror camps.
  3. To prosecute all terrorists under special laws.
  4. To make cross-border terrorism an extraditable offence worldwide. 

Challenges

It is yet to be adopted by the UN General Assembly because of various challenges. These challenges include 

• Difference in threat perception: E.g., Hezbollah is considered a threat by Israel and Saudis but not by Iran, who considers them Freedom fighters. Similar is the case with many other organizations like East Turkestan Movement, Lashkar etc.
• Some states (like Pakistan) use terrorism as state policy and will not allow this.
• Other problems 
  • US: Concerned that its armed interventions without a UN mandate can declare its soldiers terrorist.
  • OIC: Concerned that it will undermine groups fighting for self-determination of Palestine and Kashmir and declare them terrorists.

• Insurgency is the struggle between a non-ruling group and the ruling group, where the non-ruling group uses political resources and violence. Insurgency aims to gain enough strength to have a regular army strong enough to conquer the ruling group. 

• Although Insurgency and Terrorism are used interchangeably, there are differences 
  • Insurgents usually target only combatants and not non-combatants. Terrorists deliberately target combatants as well as non-combatants. 
  • Insurgents seek territorial control by establishing “liberated areas”. Terrorists do not seek territorial control. 
  • Insurgents try to create the paraphernalia of a seeming State in the areas controlled while Terrorists don’t. 
  • Insurgent work quite visibly on a regular basis. Terrorist does not let their presence be felt in their area of operation.

• Examples of Insurgency 
  • Purely insurgent groups. E.g., North-East Insurgent Groups, Irish Republican Army (in the UK) and Euskadi ta Askatasuna (fighting for freedom of Basque in Spain).
  • Purely terrorist groups. E.g., Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)
  • Mix of the two. E.g., Maoists and LTTE (which fought a war against Sri Lankan armed forces from the 80s till the 2009 war for the formation of Tamil State in Sri Lanka)

Terrorism is the outcome of various reasons including

Ethno-nationalism

• They are a group of people who desire to break away from the union government and form a terrorist group to achieve this objective.
• For example Kashmiri Terrorist Groups, Khalistani groups, Naga Insurgents etc. 

Feeling of alienation and discrimination

• Discrimination of a particular group (ethnic or religious) can lead that group to take up arms and indulge in terrorist activities.
• For example 
  1. Rohingya National Army in Myanmar due to discrimination of Rohingyas by Buddhists.
  2. LTTE in Sri Lanka where Tamils revolted against the majority Sinhalese.
  3. Muslims in European countries like France and UK, where such social misfits frequently resort to Lone Wolf Attacks

Religion

• Religion is the major cause of terrorism. However, any religion doesn’t preach terrorism per se. But some spiritual leaders do preach this.
• For example 
  1. Global Salafi and Wahabi ideologies preached by Saudi-backed spiritual leaders  
  2. Myanmar’s Buddhist Monk named Ashin Wirathu started Islamophobic 969 movement, which led to riots against Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state
  3. Khalistani movement and organizations like Babar Khalsa aim to create Sikh majority nation-state
  4. Hindu fundamentalist/terrorists carried out incidents like the burning alive of an Australian Christian missionary and his children in 1999, the Samjhauta Express bombings of 2007, the Ajmer Dargah attack of 2007, the Malegaon blasts of 2008 and the Mecca Masjid bombing of 2007.

Unequal distribution of resources

• Unequal distribution of resources is the main cause behind Left Wing Terrorism. 
• For this reason, followers of Karl Marx, Lenin and Mao, popularly known as Naxalites in India, frequently take up arms against the state.

Regional disparities

• Neglect of a particular region and use of its resources for the development of metropole can lead locals to take up arms to attack the state, and its machinery in the region, often creating their own structure of bureaucracy. 
• E.g., Various terrorist organizations in the North East such as NSCN (Nagaland), Mizo National Front (Mizoram) etc.

Unemployment

• In the absence of jobs, unemployed youth frequently take up arms. 

Envious and jealous neighbours

• India has envious neighbours in the form of Pakistan and China, which are ever ready to foment disturbances in India.
• China funds and supports the Maoists and various insurgent groups active in the North-East. Along with that, it frequently stops India’s attempts to designate individuals involved in planning and orchestrating acts of terror in India, such as Masood Azhar, as a global terrorist under the UNSC Resolution.
• How Pakistan use terrorism as state policy is dealt with in detail below. 

Deep State in Pakistan has nurtured Islamic Radical Groups (Mujahideen) as strategic assets to be used against its adversaries (especially India). This strategy has been increasingly adopted after the success of US-funded Mujahideen in Afghanistan against the USSR in the late 1980s.

Timeline

1970-80

After failing in two conventional wars, Pakistan adopted the path of sub-conventional/proxy war with the motto of ‘bleeding India with a thousand cuts‘. Hence, they started to fund various local insurgent groups to strengthen the secessionist demand of different groups in India.

1980-90

• Support and Fund Punjab Insurgency: In the 1980s, they started to fund the Khalistan movement to create a sovereign buffer state between India and Jammu & Kashmir.
• Encourage terrorism in Kashmir: In the late 1980s, Pakistan started to fund and train Kashmiris to indulge in terrorism by tapping into the anti-India sentiment of the Kashmiri population. Terrorists were trained in Pakistani Occupied Kashmir and financed by the ISI and Pakistani military. 

1990-2000

After the Ayodhya incident in 1992, there was a subsequent rise in reactionary activities all over the country, providing a ripe opportunity for the ISI to further its objective of spreading terrorism and communalism in India.

2000 onwards

• The rise in reactionary right-wing extremist activities in the form of bomb blasts in Malegaon, Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Samjhauta express etc., allowed ISI to exploit the communal fault lines in our society and ensure that the Muslim community remains vulnerable to mobilisation, recruitment and radicalization.

1. Terrorist activities damage the life and property at the location of the attack.
2. Due to terrorist activities, consumers’ confidence dips, and the country’s economy is pushed toward recession.
3. It negatively impacts the business as commercial activities in such regions go down. 
4. Governments are forced to increase their spending in the defence sector, and as a result, social welfare spending suffers.
5. Rise of xenophobia against the community whose members indulge in terrorist activities. E.g., European Muslims face xenophobia due to Islamic terrorist groups. 
6. Survivors of terrorist attacks are forced to pass through Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
7. It gives legitimacy to the government to pass Counter-terrorism legislation (like TADA and UAPA) that infringes on individual freedom and personal privacy.
8. Due to terrorism, the tourism industry suffers drastically, as seen in Kashmir valley.

1. Strengthened Legislations

NIA (Amendment) Act, 2019

• Under the amendment, the NIA is empowered to investigate offences related to 
  1. Human Trafficking
  2. Offences related to counterfeit currency  
  3. Manufacture or sale of prohibited arms
  4. Cyber-terrorism
  5. Offences under the Explosive Substances Act, 1908
• The NIA will have the authority to look into specified offences committed outside of India, subject to international agreements and other nations’ internal laws.
• Enables the central government to designate session courts as special courts for NIA trials.

UAPA Act

Parliament has passed the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Act, 2019 with provisions like

• Individuals can now be designated as terrorists on certain grounds (Earlier, only Organizations could be declared Terrorist Organisations).
• Empowers the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Director General to authorize the seizure or attachment of property while the case is under investigation.

2. Institutional framework strengthened

• NATGRID has become the one-stop destination for security and intelligence agencies to access databases related to immigration entry and exit, banking and telephone details of a suspect on a “secured platform”.

3. International Steps

• Christchurch Call To Action: It outlines collective, voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers intended to address the issue of violent extremist content online.

To tackle the menace of terrorism, a multi-pronged approach is needed, which includes

• Socio-economic development is a priority so that vulnerable sections of society don’t fall prey to the propaganda of terrorists.
• The administration needs to be responsive to the legitimate grievances of people so that these are redressed promptly and cannot be exploited by terrorist groups.
• Good governance to provide clean, corruption-free and accountable administration at all levels
• Government agencies should respect the rule of law and human rights. If the existing laws cannot deal with an extraordinary situation, new laws may be enacted so that law enforcement agencies do not resort to extra-legal or illegal methods.
• International Cooperation becomes crucial as terrorism is a global threat and cannot be handled by nations acting in silos. As a first measure, the international community should develop a globally accepted definition of terrorism.