Analyze the basic causes of insurgency and terrorism in two major areas that are affected in the country. In this regard, to what extent have state policies to counter terrorism been effective in these areas? (2009, 60 Marks)
An insurgency contests control of territory and population and needs a base; terrorism is coercion through violence against civilians and needs only a target. India’s two longest-running theatres, Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East, combine both. They share a structure: grievance of the kind Ted Robert Gurr called relative deprivation (Why Men Rebel, 1970) turns violent when a group finds sanctuary and support across a border.
Causes in Jammu and Kashmir
- A contested accession that Pakistan treats as unfinished Partition business.
- Political alienation: the erosion of autonomy and the disputed 1987 election turned a political revolt violent in 1989.
- Externalisation: Pakistani support shifted from the pro-independence JKLF to Islamist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed; Praveen Swami (India, Pakistan and the Secret Jihad, 2007) traces this covert war, and Ayesha Jalal roots it in the army’s primacy over civilian politics.
- Nuclear cover: the stability–instability paradox makes proxy violence cheap for the sponsor.
Causes in the North-East
- Contested integration: the Naga movement claimed independence from 1947, and the region joins India through a corridor about 20 km wide.
- Homelands and migration: Myron Weiner’s “sons of the soil” logic (1978) explains the Assam agitation and Tripura’s tribal insurgency; rival homeland claims set groups against each other, as in Manipur since May 2023.
- Under-development and remoteness, which feed recruitment.
- Sanctuary in East Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar, with early arms and training from China.
State policies
| Instrument | Jammu and Kashmir | North-East |
|---|---|---|
| Security | Army, AFSPA, LoC fencing, NIA and UAPA | Assam Rifles, AFSPA |
| Political | Article 370 abrogated (2019); assembly elections (2024) | Mizo Accord 1986, Bodo Accord 2020, ULFA settlement 2023, Tripura accord 2024, Naga ceasefire since 1997 |
| External | Surgical strikes, Balakot, Operation Sindoor, FATF pressure | Sanctuary denial: Bhutan (2003), Bangladesh (from 2009), Myanmar (2019) |
| Development | Special packages, tourism revival | Act East, infrastructure |
How effective?
- North-East: largely effective. Violence is far below its peaks; AFSPA left Tripura (2015) and Meghalaya (2018) and in Assam now covers four districts. Major groups entered politics once sanctuary went. Gaps remain: the Naga talks are unconcluded and a faction declared a “provisional government” in July 2026; ULFA-I operates from Myanmar; Manipur needed President’s Rule from February 2025 to February 2026, and the first direct Meitei–Kuki-Zo dialogue came only in March 2026.
- Jammu and Kashmir: partly effective. Local recruitment and stone-pelting have fallen, and the 2024 elections restored an elected government. But Pahalgam (April 2025, 26 civilians killed) and the Red Fort car bombing (10 November 2025), traced to a Jaish-linked module of doctors, show that cross-border capacity survives because the sponsoring state will not close it. Sindoor raised the cost without yet changing Pakistan’s calculus.
- Left-wing extremism, a third theatre, contracted fastest: CPI (Maoist) chief Nambala Keshava Rao was killed in May 2025 and the movement was reduced to a remnant by the Union’s 31 March 2026 deadline.
- Costs in legitimacy: long use of special powers and allegations of excess, as at Oting (2021), breed fresh grievance. Sanjib Baruah (Durable Disorder, 2005) argues that counter-insurgency without democratic deepening manages rather than ends conflict.
Conclusion
Policy has worked where three tools moved together: force, a political settlement and sanctuary denial by neighbours. That is why the North-East improved more than Kashmir, whose sanctuary lies with a hostile state. Counter-terrorism has contained violence to a large extent but not resolved it; lasting success needs political accommodation at home and sustained costs on the external sponsor.