Why it is necessary for India to distinguish between regional and transnational terrorism

When the People’s Liberation Army of Manipur led a motley group and cold-bloodedly killed Col. Viplav Tripathi and his wife and five-year-old son, India woke up to an alarm which proclaimed that non-state action was entering a new reality that had irregular manoeuvre as its “new normal”. But such action is not entirely new in the Indian subcontinent. Kashmir had been bearing the brunt of the nauseating battle-space for long. But the North East had generally steered clear of uncharacteristic behaviour. Non-combatants have seldom been deliberately targeted in the distant past. There is—according to this author—a crisis of definition comprehension in New Delhi. Although it has long been felt (once again by this author) that there exists a “non-articulated” comprehension in Indian officialdom about what constitutes insurgency and terrorism, the fact of the matter continues to be such that state action has never been able to counter non-state action in correct measure. Therefore, even if “retribution” was sought to be meted out for the killing of jawans of the Dogra Regiment in 2015, nothing visible was done for the Churachandpur attack on Col. Tripathi’s family. Anecdotal reports have suggested that the attack by the People’s Defence Force (the armed wing of the National Unity Government of Myanmar which is waging a war against the Myanmar army) on the Indian Insurgent Group Senam camp in the “Southern Cluster” of Myanmar’s Sagaing Division had a component of Indian Special Forces. But this has not been borne out by facts. At any rate the magnitude of harm to the Senam camp was negligible. In any event, the time has clearly come to separate the wheat from the chaff. To that end, it is important to discern that clearer the definition of terrorism as a certain tactic of political violence, the less space it leaves for political deception. On the part of terrorists themselves and for political speculations on the part of any other actors, including governments that may tend to interpret terrorism too broadly; the popular saying that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” is to allow oneself to be dragged into a muddle. No matter how universal this maxim is and how well it underscores the politicised and speculative nature of terrorism, the fact of the matter is that it is—on most occasions—misleading. An insurgent group normally advances a political goal that can be interpreted as “freedom fighting”—whether just by the group itself and its supporters or even by a section of the international community (as one witnessed in the case of the NSCN when it sought the good offices of “Kreddha”).  Such a phenomenon has also been the case with anti-colonial struggle or resistance against foreign occupation. Sometimes, this political goal—for instance, the end of the occupation of the Palestinian territories—may be even recognised as legitimate by the international law and ratified by a resolution in the UN Security Council. Whether or not a group that pursues such a goal qualifies as a group engaged in terrorist activities depends, however, not on the nature of its political goal, but solely on whether or not it actually uses or threatens a certain violent tactic—politically motivated, intentional, asymmetrical use or threat of violence against civilians and non-combatants designed to have a broader destabilising and intimidating effect, namely terrorism. The same ultimate political goal—for instance, the independence of India from British rule—can be shared by different groups who use different tactics: Some of the more radical ones would employ terrorism, while others, as in the case of India’s struggle for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi may even opt for mass non-violent resistance. In other words, freedom fighting as a goal—whether it implies anti-colonial struggle, resistance against occupation, the fight for greater autonomy etc. and terrorism as a tactic are not mutually exclusive—terrorism has been used to augment freedom fighting in certain cases, and in the name freedom fighting. Apart from subjective political interpretations and the high level of politicisation of the notion of “terrorism,” the main reason for the lack of agreement on its definition is the wide diversity and multiplicity of forms and manifestations of terrorism. To achieve the broadest destabilising political effect, terrorists seek to tailor, and time their actions as closely as possible to a certain political context, which makes the phenomenon extremely context-dependent and context specific. This has been seen to be the case in the North East when non-state actors resort to violence on or during 26 January or 15 August, or even when an important dignitary comes avisting. It is hardly unexpected, therefore, that, given the array of political contexts, terrorism can take various forms. This obscures the task of trying to fit all these different forms and manifestations of terrorism under one single, sweeping definition without running the risk of leaving some important aspect of terrorism aside. This also explains why the classification of terrorism is closely connected to its typology. In other words, while there are some general criteria that apply to all types of terrorism there may also be considerable specifics of and variations between different types of terrorism. One of the traditional and common typologies of terrorism involves a basic distinction between international and domestic—internal or homegrown—terrorism. In demarcating one from the other, international terrorism has usually been defined, both in legal and political documents, and in academic literature, in a rather simplistic, technical manner—as any terrorist activity carried out on the territory of more than one state or involving citizens of more than one state. This is precisely how international terrorism, for instance, is defined in the US legislation, as well as in many other national anti-terrorism laws. It is unfortunate that India, which is one of the most terror-affected countries, does not have an anti-terror doctrine. This author has attempted to shape one in his October 2005 paper [Template for Anti-Terror Doctrine] which was published in the prestigious security journal Aakrosh. A revised paper was also published in The War College Journal (2021).The theory of “non-articulated” distinction in India was put forward in these papers by this author. In the past, a distinction between insurgency and terrorism had never been too strict in practice. Modern day terrorism emerged as a specific asymmetrical tactic of political violence in the second half of the 19th century; especially when it began to systematically perpetrate violence, often crossing state borders. This phenomenon has become almost a given in the North East with Myanmar acting as the primary launching pad for non-state action. The terms of logistics—bases, funding, arms and materials supply—or/and could be guided by some form of internationalist ideology, perhaps at the goading of anti-India powers such as China. But even as insurgency emerged as one of the main forms of political violence in the 1960s–1980s for groups such as NSCN, UNLF, PLA and ULFA, the situation still stood lower than the violence that was being perpetrated in the Valley. Today it is more relevant to distinguish between local/regional terrorism employed to pursue an agenda confined to a particular armed conflict, national borders or regional context and internationalised to some extent—and the truly transnational terrorism employed by networks pursuing unlimited goals in a trans-regional or even global context. While these are two ends of the spectrum, a range of groups and movements involved in terrorist activities may fall somewhere in between internationalised terrorism at the local level and transnational super terrorism of the genre of the al-Qaeda or the Islamic State with a global outreach. This author has been researching on different typologies of insurgencies and terrorism for the last quarter of a century. One of the aspects that he was able to fathom was the fact that it was an act that defined a grouping. Therefore, there was clarity that ULFA can be characterised as a “terrorist” group when it detonated the Programmable Time Delay Device on 15 August 2004 killing innocent children in Dhemaji. As a matter of fact, it is this author who raised the issue in a roundtable in 2004 in New Delhi which was attended by important representatives of the United States. Former Chief of Army Staff, Gen V P Malik who was also one of the personages attending wholeheartedly supported this author. The result was the placing of ULFA as “Other Selected Terrorist Organisation” when the United States reworked its list soon afterwards. The Indian state should similarly draw up lists of groups responsible for heinous crimes. Certain observers have been of the view that there should be no dialogue with groups such as the PLA (Manipur). Not even if repentant terrorists responsible for the attack were to come over ground. There should be no quarter for terrorists who kill a five year old child in cold-blood. Dialogue with such elements not only showcase weakness, but embolden other hyenas on the lurk. It is one thing to engineer celluloid accomplishments and mouth insipidities that showcase triumph to a gullible electorate. Yet another to achieve a reality by bringing the culprits to justice. It is a sad commentary of the times. But what seems to be happening is the scape-goating of able officers for the crimes of a Sanatomba—the PLA (Manipur) hit team leader responsible for the Churachandpur attack—who rests pretty across the borderlands and in the lap of despicable anti-India clout. The author is a conflict theorist and bestselling author. Views expressed are personal. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. 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