Terrorism has become a global phenomenon posing a major threat to international peace, security and stability. Access to advance technology, including cyberspace, sophisticated communications, global funding and military grade weapons has given such groups enormous strength. It is no wonder that terrorism constitutes one of the principal challenges at the global, regional and national levels and has become a key factor in national security planning.
Providing sponsorship and safe havens have further played a major role in the phenomenal growth of global terrorism. In addition, State support has granted terrorist groups access to resources, guidance and logistics, which would normally be beyond their capabilities. Any effort to counter the activities of terrorist groups carries the danger of placing the victim nation in direct confrontation with the host nation and its resources.
In recent few years, perception of ‘Global Terrorism’ has undergone a massive makeover with the rise of violent armed terror groups especially in the Middle East, South Asia and African continent. This phenomenon could be attributed to the diminishing control in the terror space of the al-Qaeda leadership, which just a decade ago was the face of terrorism. The shift of AQ Network from the Middle East to South Asia is a phenomenon, which is of serious concern to India. The Boko-Haram-IS alliance primarily seeks to enhance the idea of global jihad with an aggressive brand of terror and footprint of Caliphate into Africa, through innovative measures.
The new face of global terrorism can be most vividly seen in the dramatic change and growth in its infrastructure. Terrorism has come a long way from selective recruitment in secret cells to mass recruitment. In addition, the source of recruitment and training is no longer confined to the affected areas but spans the entire globe, with a phenomenal upgradation of weaponry. Funds and finance channels are no longer confined to resources locally mobilised through individual contributions, extortion and crime.
Radicalisation of populace, particularly youth, is another trend and one of the most challenging problems being faced the world over. Several countries in the world have identified this problem and have taken measures to check and control the process of radicalisation and India has timely busted some modules that were planning to orchestrate terrorist attacks on her soil.
State-of-the-art communication systems are available to the terrorist which is at times better than the ones being used by the counter-terrorist agencies. Access to advanced technology including cyber-space, internet, electronic mail, etc. has provided terrorist groups with a global communication system. It has also provided such groups with an immensely destructive tool which can be potentially crippling for technology based economies.
Another relatively new dimension is the networking of terrorist groups with the criminal underworld including organized crime gangs, gunrunners, smugglers, drug peddlers, with hawala and parallel banking channels being used for ensuring global flows of finance. It has enabled global terrorist groups to use the infrastructure and terrain knowledge of local outfits for launching attacks in countries, despite having no presence in the area.
India has kept a keen watch on the growth of ISIS and their ways of using social media as a key tool for ideological indoctrination, recruitment and networking by targeting a section of young generation. The potential threat posed by IS are large scale radicalisation of Muslim youth throughout the world, rise in “Lone-Wolf” and terror attacks by returnee foreign fighters to their home countries. The terror attacks in Australia and France are telling examples of such threats.
The on-going propaganda by IS has significantly altered jihadi discourse in India, which so far was rooted in grievances against the Indian state/society. Indian social fabric has not been affected by the emergence of Islamic State and this will not have any further impact in our country.
The events of September 11, 2001 marked a watershed in the march of international action against global terrorism. India has consistently taken steps to intensify and strengthen international co-operation through a variety of means. Terrorism, in all forms, including, Left Wing Extremism, Insurgency, etc., poses a challenge on national sovereignty of India and it already faces a serious challenge due to relentless efforts of Pakistan sponsored anti India Islamist groups like LeT, JeM, HUJI and Hijbul Mujahideen .
Emergence of India at the global level is also being challenged by the terrorist groups, due to its vibrant economy and plural character. Devising a strategy to counter these diverse trends is an extremely complex task. India has taken steps for setting up of Joint Working Groups (JWGs) on counter-terrorism matters with key countries. Bilateral treaties on Mutual Legal Assistance (MLATs) in criminal matters to facilitate investigation, collection of evidence, transfer of witnesses, location & action against proceeds of crime etc. have been signed with other countries.
Our Government has placed security and safety as its top priority. It has identified several key areas and allocated enough budgetary resources to address this issue. It has boosted the security-related infrastructure at the border management by launching new schemes, and has been able to successfully minimize cross-border-infiltration. Similarly, it has allocated substantial funds to the police modernisation programmes all over the country with a view to ensure quick and better response mechanisms. We have raised Regional Hubs of NSG battalions in important strategic locations, to meet any unforeseen challenges.
We have created a new division in the Home Ministry exclusively to deal with Counter Terrorism. Having realized the importance of funds for the growth of terrorist organisations and the necessity to curb its flow, this Government introduced Demonetization and got raids conducted by Security Agencies, to choke the funding patterns of various terrorists’ outfits and effectively curbed the expansionist designs of these outfits.
The Govt. of India in tandem with the State Governments, has adopted a multi-pronged approach to deal with the emerging situation. What we need is a sustained united effort, to identity the terror modules operating in the Globe and neutralise them. Only then, our dream of ‘New India’ can be realised, which aims elimination of terrorism completely.
Besides, we have taken a slew of developmental agenda to further, curb the spread of terrorism. I believe this Government has successfully delivered on this front, in the form of special projects such as Road Requirement Plan, improvement of Rail Connectivity, installation of Mobile Towers, improvement of education and health infrastructure, financial inclusion, among others. The success is visible in the sharp decline of violence, be it in J&K, North East or LWE affected areas.What we need is cooperation & coordination from all countries, to make this globe safer and secure, where every citizen is free and is able to walk with heads held high.
(This article is a summary of the inaugural address made by Shri Rajnath Singh,
Union Minister of Home Affairs, Government of India at the Counter Terrorism Conference 2018
on 14th March, 2018 at Gurugram, Haryana.)
(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

The sad truth is that governments, law enforcement, security forces, intellectuals and journalists do not have an ideological response to political violence’s latest reiteration, jihadism. Moreover, the struggle against political violence, is not one that is predominantly ideological.
To add to this, mistakes are being repeated. Al-Qaeda produced the counterterrorism industry in the context of a response that was focussed on law enforcement, security and military engagement. To be sure, that has produced significant results. It has enhanced security across the globe, stopped plots before they could be executed, driven al-Qaeda into caves, and deprived the Islamic State of its territorial base.
All of that, however has not solved the problem, nor has it fundamentally reduced the attraction of religiously-cloaked extremism. No doubt, social media has provided militants with a megaphone. But let’s be clear: social media are vehicles, media channels, they are not drivers. Yet, much like the terrorism industry, the call for a counter-narrative has produced an industry of its own. Like the terrorism industry, it has vested interests of its own: its sustainability is dependent on the continued existence of perceived threats.
Further troubling the waters is the fact that the public and private anti-terrorism and counternarrative industries see human rights as second to ensuring security and safety; have little interest in addressing the problem through notions of alienation, marginalization, socio-economic disenfranchisement, youth aspirations and basic rights in which counterterrorism and counter-narratives would be embedded. Aiding and abetting the problem are the ever more evident campaigns by non-egalitarian and non-inclusive democratic societies as well as autocratic Middle Eastern and North African regimes that either have reduced interest in independent analysis and reporting, seek to restrict freedoms of expression and the press, or define any form of dissent as terrorism. The notion that one can eradicate political violence is illusionary. Political violence has been a fixture of human history since day one and is likely to remain a fact of life. Its ebbs and flows often co-relate to economic, social and political up and down turns. In other words, counterterrorism and counternarratives will only be effective if they are embedded in far broader policies that tackle root causes.
And that is where the shoe pinches. To develop policies that tackle root causes, that are inclusive and aim to ensure that at least the vast majority, if not everyone, has a stake in society, the economy and the political system involves painful decisions, revising often long-standing policies and tackling vested interests. Few politicians and bureaucrats are inclined to do so.
Starting with al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, militants have benefitted from the fact that the world was entering a cyclical period in which populations lose confidence in political systems and leaderships. The single largest success of Osama bin Laden and subsequent militants is the fact that they were able to disrupt efforts to forge inclusive, multicultural societies, nowhere more so than first in Europe, then the United States with the rise of Donald Trump, and exploit ripple effects in Asia.
The result is the rise of secular and religious nationalism, populism, greater acceptance of autocratic or illiberal rule, and the erosion of democratic values and institutions. Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and other forms of ethnic and religious prejudice that no doubt existed but lived under a cloud of primarily social taboos and have become socially acceptable and often politically convenient. Of course, the refugee crisis put oil on the fire.
Nonetheless, what makes this cycle of lack of confidence more worrisome and goes directly to the question of the ideological challenge is how it differs from the late 1960s, the last time that we witnessed a breakdown in confidence and leadership on a global scale.
The difference between then and now is that then there were all kinds of worldviews on offer: anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, socialism, communism, concepts of extra-parliamentary opposition, and in the Middle East and North Africa, Arab nationalism and Arab socialism. Today, the only thing on offer are militant interpretations of Islam and jihadism.
Human rights activist and former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki was asked in a Wall Street Journal interview why it was not only those who lacked opportunity and felt that they had no prospects and no hopes but also educated Tunisians with jobs who were joining the Islamic State. His answer was: “It’s not simply a matter of tackling socioeconomic roots. You have to go deeper and understand that these guys have a dream—and we don’t. We had a dream—our dream was called the Arab Spring. And our dream is now turning into a nightmare. But the young people need a dream, and the only dream available to them now is the caliphate.”
It is hard to build an ideological challenge or develop counter narratives without a dream. With democracy on the defense, free market enterprise having failed significant segments of the public, and newly found legitimacy for prejudice, bias and bigotry, democratic governments are incapable of credibly projecting a dream, one that is backed up by policies that hold out realistic hope of producing results.
Autocrats are in a no better situation. The mayhem in the Middle East and North Africa is not exclusively, but in many ways, due to their inability and failure to deliver public goods and services. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appeared to be holding out a dream for his kingdom. But that dream increasingly is being shattered both in Yemen and at home. Autocrats in the Middle East and North Africa are about upgrading and modernizing their regimes to ensure their survival, not about real sustainable change. Elsewhere, populists and nationalists advocating racial, ethnic and religious purity and protectionist economic policies are unlikely to fare any better.
What this means is that identifying the root causes of political violence demands self-inspection on the part of governments and societies across the globe. It is those governments and societies that are both part of the problem and part of the solution. It is those governments and elites that are at the root of loss of confidence.
Translating the need to tackle root causes into policy is proving difficult, primarily because it is based on a truth that has far-reaching consequences for every member of the international community. It involves governments putting their money where their mouth is and changing long-standing, ingrained policies at home that marginalise, exclude, stereotype and stigmatize significant segments of society; emphasize security at the expense of freedoms that encourage healthy debate; and in more autocratic states that are abetted by the West, seek to reduce citizens to obedient subjects through harsh repression and adaptations of religious and political beliefs to suit the interests of rulers.
The result is a vicious circle: government policies often clash with the state or regime’s professed values. As a result, dividing lines sharpen as already marginalised, disenfranchised or discriminated segments of society see the contradiction between policies and values as hypocritical and re-confirmation of the basis of their discontent.
Creating a policy framework that is conducive to an environment in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia that would favour pluralism and respect of human rights and counter the appeal of jihadism and emerging sectarian-based nationalism is not simply a question of encouraging and supporting voices in the region, first and foremost those of youth, or of revisiting assumptions of Western foreign policies and definitions of national security.
It involves fostering inclusive national identities that can accommodate ethnic, sectarian and tribal sub-identities as legitimate and fully accepted sub-identities in Middle Eastern, North African, and South Asian, as well as in Western countries. It involves changing domestic policies towards minorities, refugees and migrants.
Inclusiveness means, that victory has to be secured as much in militant strongholds in a swath of land that stretches from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean as in the dismal banlieues, run-down, primarily minority-populated, suburbs of French cities that furnished the Islamic State with its largest contingent of European foreign fighters; in the popular neighbourhoods in Tunisia that accounted for the single largest group of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq; in Riyadh, seat of a government whose citizens accounted for the second largest number of foreign fighters and whose well-funded, decades-long effort to propagate a puritan, intolerant, interpretation of Islam has been a far more important feeding ground for jihadist thinking than the writings of militant Islamist thinkers like Sayyid Qutb; and in Western capitals with Washington in the lead who view retrograde, repressive regimes like those of Saudi Arabia and Egypt as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
In territorial terms, the Islamic State has been defeated but the problem remains unresolved. Al Qaeda was degraded, to use the language of the Obama administration. In the process, it weakened a jihadist force that increasingly had advocated a gradual approach to the establishment of its harsh interpretation of Islamic law in a bid to ensure public support. Instead of reducing the threat of political violence, the largely military effort to defeat al-Qaeda produced ever more virulent forms of jihadism as embodied by the Islamic State. It may be hard to imagine anything more brutal than the group, but it is a fair assumption that defeating the Islamic State without tackling root causes could lead to something that is even more violent and more vicious.
Defining repressive, autocratic rule and the Islamic State as the greatest threat to stability and security and the furthering of more liberal notions is problematic. In the case of the Islamic State, that definition elevates jihadism – the violent establishment of Pan-Islamic rule based on narrow interpretations of Islamic law and scripture – to the status of a root cause rather than a symptom and expression of a greater and more complex problem. It is an approach that focuses on the immediate nature of the threat and ways to neutralize it rather than on what sparked it. It also neglects the fact that the ideological debate in the Muslim world is to a large extent dominated by schools of thought that do not advocate more open, liberal and pluralistic interpretations of Islam.
That is where the real challenge lies. It is a challenge first and foremost to Muslims, but also to an international community that would give more liberal Muslim voices significant credibility if it puts its money where its mouth is. Support for self-serving regimes and their religious supporters, as in the case of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, reduces the international community’s choices to one between bad and worse, rather than to a palate of policy options that take a stab at rooting out the problem and its underlying causes.
There are no quick solutions or short cuts and the value of partial solutions is questionable. The key is the articulation of policies that over the medium term can help generate an environment more conducive to change rather than the continuous opting for knee-jerk reactions to events and facts on the ground.
One place to look for alternative approaches is Norway. In contrast to most reactions to political violence and expression of pro-jihadist sentiment, Norway’s response to right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik’s traumatic attacks in 2011 that killed 77 people stands as a model for how societies can and should uphold concepts of pluralism and human rights. Norway refrained from declaring war on terror, treated Breivik as a common criminal, and refused to compromise on its democratic values. In doing so, Norway offered a successful example of refusing to stigmatise any one group in society by adopting inclusiveness rather than profiling and upholding the very values that autocrats and jihadists challenge.
The result of exclusively security-focussed approaches, coupled with the exploitation of economic opportunity by autocratic Middle Eastern and North African regimes and Western governments, is an increasingly insecure region in which the creation of pluralistic societies that honour human rights seems ever more distant. Said an Egyptian Islamist militant, whose non-violent anti-government activism is as much aimed at opposing the regime of general-turned-president Abdel Fattah Al Sisi as it is designed to persuade increasingly frustrated youth that there are alternatives to nihilistic violence: “The strategy of brutality, repression and restricting freedom has failed to impose subservience. It hasn’t produced solutions. Governments need to give people space. They need to prove that they can address the problems of a youth that has lost hope. We have nothing to lose if they don’t.” The Egyptian’s inclinations pointed towards peaceful protest in favour of a more liberal society, albeit bound by Islamic morality codes; his options, however, left him little choice but to drift towards jihadism.
(This article is a summary of the remarks made by Dr. James M. Dorsey,
at the Counter Terrorism Conference 2018 on 15th March, 2018 at Gurugram, Haryana.)
(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

In recent years, an entire industry has evolved that is devoted to addressing the ideological challenge of terrorism. Academics and journalists, think-tanks and public relations firms, security consultancies and intelligence agencies have all been engaged in the task of understanding and countering the belief systems supposedly underpinning the terrorist phenomenon.
In relation to the Arab world, the ailment is invariably diagnosed as the intolerant interpretations of the Islamic faith espoused by militant takfiris or other groups described as terrorist. And the cure – apart from purely punitive measures – is considered to be ‘de-radicalisation’, aimed either at dissuading young people, especially, from adopting such ideas and attitudes, or persuading those who have already been lured by them of the error of their ways. In addition to various educational initiatives, this effort has taken a variety of forms in various places: from requiring school teachers in the UK to report suspected ‘terrorist’ leanings among their pupils, to widespread internet and communications surveillance worldwide, to the establishment of special centres to rehabilitate repentant jihadis in countries like Saudi Arabia.
I will not comment on the effectiveness or otherwise of these de-radicalisation measures as they apply to individuals. But taking a broad view, I would argue that an excessive focus on the ideological aspect of terrorism and the challenges it poses is misguided – both as an analytical tool and as a basis for policy making.
Terrorism is not an ideology. It is a tactic. It is political violence employed in certain ways, depending on one’s precise definition. It is also a label: a political slur that delegitimizes the perpetrators and often, by extension, their cause. It may be a cliché to say that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter, but it is no less true for that. It is also true that the label has always been applied selectively and inconsistently, in accordance with the power, politics and interests of both the labeller and the labelled.
To illustrate this from a personal perspective, as a Palestinian, all my life I have seen my people’s national struggle labelled as ‘terrorist’ by Israel and its Western backers. Initially, their analysts would depict this terrorism as a product of primitive nativism and Arab nationalist ideology. As the Cold War progressed, our terrorism became attributed to Soviet-inspired revolutionary Marxist ideology. In later decades, Islamic fundamentalism became the ideological force supposedly driving our incorrigible terrorist behaviour. I mention this to illustrate two points. First, the abuse of the ‘terrorist’ label to eclipse a political cause and reduce it to a kind of collective mental pathology. Secondly, how, over time, that political cause can change the ‘ideological’ colours in which it is expressed – in line perhaps with broader changing ideological ‘fashions’. The ‘ideology’ changes but the underlying cause remains, and continues for the same objective reasons to generate political violence.
None of this is to excuse or justify terrorist acts or their perpetrators, nor question the need for action to be taken to protect societies from them or for tolerant and pluralist values to be actively promoted in the communities that spawn them. But it is important to reiterate these basic truths, because they are increasingly being forgotten, or wilfully disregarded, in the Arab world today.
In the Arab world, the states most closely identified with the ‘war on terror’ are pursuing approaches to it that are to a great extent self-serving, short-sighted and ultimately counter-productive – if the aim is genuinely to combat the perpetrators of political violence and the ideologies that drive them.
For one thing, in the past few years, the number and range of organisations, individuals and governments they have designated as ‘terrorist’ has expanded so vastly that it has become meaningless. The clearest example of this is the ‘terrorist’ designation applied by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others to the Muslim Brotherhood movement and various of its offshoots and other non-violent Islamist political groups and figures. The reason for this is nakedly political: part of a campaign by ruling regimes to reverse the region-wide Islamist political resurgence in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 (selective thought this campaign may be: where expedient, such as in Yemen and Syria, Brotherhood-affiliated groups have remained in these countries’ good graces).
In Egypt, this ‘terrorist’ designation has been used to justify vicious repression, the killing of thousands and the jailing of tens of thousands of Brotherhood supporters and supposed sympathisers, accompanied by a wider draconian crackdown against all and any dissent or independent political action, liberals and leftists included. The Brotherhood is far from blameless, either in terms of its historical role or during its brief stint in power in Egypt. But the ferocious crackdown against it not only demonises its latter-day brand of moderate, civil-minded political Islam, but also signals to its followers that they have no prospect of promoting their convictions by democratic or peaceful means. The prisons have been filled with aggrieved activists, arbitrarily arrested and badly mistreated, while civil society as a whole has been suffocated mercilessly and public space subjected to a comprehensive shut-down. One could scarcely imagine conditions more guaranteed to fuel and encourage ‘terrorist ideology’ – all in the name of combating it.
The same can be said of the government’s approach to combating the groups already infected with the ‘terrorist’ bug, in Sinai and elsewhere. This has focused on the use of iron-fisted security measures and full-scale military force, with little regard for the marginalised local populations out of whose long-neglected socio-economic grievances these groups originally emerged, later attracting like-minded outsiders.
In Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the ‘terror’ label is also increasingly being used to silence and detain other critical or independent voices – including but by no means confined to Islamists – greatly restricting the public sphere for debate or airing social, economic or political grievances and demands. This too is a perfect recipe for driving dissent underground and destroying any faith in the possibility of effecting change by peaceful means – in other words, helping to nurture ‘terrorist ideology’. Yet the governments concerned loudly trumpet their anti-terrorist, modernising and reformist credentials.
Meanwhile, these countries conveniently disregard their own roles in spawning the region’s most egregious ‘terrorist’ groups, either by directly sponsoring them to achieve political goals such as in Syria, or indirectly by supporting the US invasion of Iraq (which led to the creation of the Islamic State) or the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan (which gave birth to al-Qaeda).
Even Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls the Gaza Strip, has made it onto the Saudi and allied ‘terrorist’ list, even though the kingdom was until recently on relatively good terms with the group. This designation seems related primarily to Saudi Arabia’s desire to befriend Israel, rather than Hamas’ Brotherhood affiliation as such. But it has nothing to do with actual ‘terrorist’ behaviour or ideology. Indeed, Hamas’ political platform has become strikingly moderate in the past few years, and its previous paramilitary actions were always confined to Israeli targets within historic Palestine. The ‘terrorist’ designation sends out the message that nothing is to be gained from this relative moderation and restraint, either for the group or for the besieged and embattled Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Should we be surprised if this fuels the growth of hardline jihadi groups in the Strip? Whatever its portrayal in the West, nobody in the Arab world ever used to consider Hamas to
be ‘terrorist’.
The same can be said of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, whose actions have only ever been directed at Israeli occupation forces and military targets, yet finds itself designated as ‘terrorist’ by Saudi Arabia and its allies for reasons unrelated to any ‘terrorism’ but for entirely political considerations – to do with Israel, the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, the situation in Bahrain, and the over-arching regional rivalry with Iran.
Here too, we are seeing the language of anti-terrorism used in a manner that actually fuels the ideology of terrorism. Saudi Arabia and its allies are engaged in a fierce war of words with Iran. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the two sides’ disputes, this war is being waged in increasingly sectarian terms. Official pronouncements and media coverage routinely couch the struggle against Iran as one against Shi’ism and the Shi’a and their millennial beliefs, depicting them as an ideologically-driven existential threat and as the font of global terrorism. Given the dominance of Saudi and Gulf-controlled pan-Arab media, this has contributed greatly to the alarming growth in crude sectarian attitudes and discourse in the public sphere that we have seen throughout the Arab world in recent years. But it is playing with fire to stoke anti-Shia prejudices among Sunnis (or vice-versa) as a way of rallying support against a regional rival. Ultimately, it draws on the same well of bigoted takfiri intolerance which – in other contexts – everyone now claims to be combating.
This has extended to the horrific and futile war in Yemen, which was launched virtually on a whim three years ago to burnish the new Saudi leadership’s credentials. It thought it could prevail over the lightly-armed Houthis within weeks and restore its deposed allies to power in Sanaa. But the more the Saudi-led coalition gets bogged down in the conflict, the more it depicts it as a struggle against a menacing Iranian-sponsored Shia (and terrorist, of course) threat from its impoverished neighbour. In the real world, meanwhile, one of the intervention’s main outcomes has been to strengthen the position of al-Qaeda and similar groups in the south of the country– while creating what has been described as the worst humanitarian disaster on the planet. The aim of causing all this suffering, despair and resentment, we are told, is to combat terrorism. But what could be a better incubator of ‘terrorist ideology’?
That ideology can take many forms and need not be religious: the Kurdish PKK’s avowed secularism does not prevent it from being designated as terrorist by Turkey’s NATO allies (even while they sponsor its offshoots in Syria to suit their purposes!). Ultimately, ideology is a shell. The root cause of political violence lies in tangible political, social or economic grievances, mostly related to domestic misrule and/or foreign occupation and military intervention. It has thrived above all in the ‘failed states’ produced by the combination of these two factors, such as Libya, Iraq and Syria. Terrorist ideology can take on a life of its own, of course, and induce horrific behaviour, and serious efforts are required to counter both. But that will always be a secondary factor unless and until those underlying causes are tackled.
This may sound like a statement of the obvious, but it has to be made given current circumstances and attitudes in the Arab world. Using the ‘terrorist’ label to consolidate domestic power or pursue regional rivalries may be expedient. But in the ways they are waging their supposed wars on terror, Arab governments are recreating the conditions that generated the phenomenon in the first place.
Reducing terrorism to an ideology serves to belittle, discredit or deny the root causes, and to avoid tackling or drawing attention to them. It could be concluded, therefore, that a large part of the ideological challenge in combating terrorism lies in combating the ideology that deems ‘terrorism’ to be an ‘ideology’.
(This article is a summary of the address made by Mr. Abdel Bari Atwan, Editor-in-Chief of
Rai Al-Youm and Founder and Former Editor-in-Chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Palestine at the Counter Terrorism Conference 2018 on 15th March, 2018 at Gurugram, Haryana.)
(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

The topic of terrorism has been discussed ad nauseam and yet we remain distant from finding enduring solutions. Unfortunately, Afghanistan is no stranger to terrorism and has been inflicted untold suffering over the last four decades. In this paper, I will focus on our complex region. I was in the 7th grade when the then Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the country has been witnessed to many cycles of instability since then. To put it in perspective, 6% of the entire Afghan population has been killed, 10% suffer from physical disabilities, 20% fled the country, and 35 % of our population were direct subjects of four decades long conflict.
Today, Afghanistan and its region face many security challenges. I will focus on one key external factor and one key internal factor for the region. The key external factor remains Pakistan, which is a major source of instability for Afghanistan and the wider region. Internal factor is the alarming internal instability in Afghanistan.
The United States and the international community declared a Global War on Terror (GWOT) after the 9/11 attacks. Many countries and nations from around the world joined the US to fight terror and bring the al-Qaeda leadership to justice. Today, nearly 17 years have passed since the start of the war in Afghanistan. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have lost their lives and billions of dollars have been spent. Unfortunately, terrorism is not only far from being eliminated, it has instead further strengthened, and flourished into new complex shapes and forms in our societies as well as across the world. Pakistan played an important role in this catastrophic failure simply by using religious extremism and terrorism as a foreign policy tool.
Pakistan has not been a reliable ally of the international community. Its army and intelligence continue to play a double game with the international community on fighting terrorism and extremism. Their primary goal in any efforts related to terrorist networks with the international community and, in particular with the US, is manipulating the cooperation to its own regional geostrategic interests.
In terms of limiting the US presence and influence in the region, particularly in Afghanistan, Pakistan gains at least two major strategic objectives. First, through secretly supporting terrorist networks such as the Taliban and their Pakistani based extremist allies, it restrains the consolidation of a strong Afghan state, one that can effectively ally with the US and other regional forces. The US war in Afghanistan has been a source of revenue for Pakistan and it will remain so as long as the US remains dependent on Pakistan in the absence of a strong Afghan government. This is only possible if the conflict in Afghanistan continues endlessly.
Pakistan is not only one of nine countries with nuclear weapons. It is also a hotbed of global jihad, where the military and the intelligence services use terrorist networks to advance their regional goals. Those Pakistanis with the most knowledge of the country’s nuclear program are among the most worried. Imagine, for a moment, a nightmare scenario: a nuclear warhead explodes in New York City or Paris; a dirty bomb goes off in Washington or London. The most likely source for the deadly material that makes these attacks possible is a supposed American ally.
Pakistan also believes that if their relations with the US deteriorate to a level whereby Pakistan will have to become an open enemy, the only other alternative ally in the region will be Afghanistan from where the US can stage operations to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, the same as the Osama bin Laden raid that the US carried out from Afghanistan.
In addition, Pakistan enjoys a geographic leverage over the land locked territory of Afghanistan that depends on its sea access on either Pakistan or Iran. While knowing that Iran will also not genuinely open its sea ports to Afghanistan as long as the American’s are present in Afghanistan, Pakistan will continue to use its geographic containment of Afghanistan as a tool to influence the course of events in Afghanistan to its own regional strategic interests.
All of these factors also benefit Pakistan in terms of curbing Indian influence in Afghanistan and the region. India is keen on using Afghanistan as a route to gain access to Central Asia’s natural energy resources, something that both China and Russia have concerns about. Both countries have vested interest in aligning with Pakistan to continue doing whatever they can to minimise the US and Indian influence in Afghanistan and the wider region.
The Pakistani intermingled military and intelligence institutions, fearing a strategic encirclement by India, have been utilizing religious extremism and terrorism to fight India in Kashmir and to use the same tool to keep Afghanistan unstable or dependent on Pakistan’s political support. According to the ISI, the nightmare for any strategist is to fight an enemy on two fronts. This is the dilemma Pakistan faces on their border with India along the Kashmir region, and the other in Afghanistan.
This very shortsighted and closed belief by the Pakistani Military and ISI seeing Afghanistan only as a second Indian front against Pakistan combined with the exaggerated fear of India has been one major factor on which Pakistan has based its strategy that uses religious extremism, militancy, and terrorism as a tool to fight India. They have ignored that this could one day turn against them making Pakistan, the region and the entire world far more unstable than the pre 9/11 era.
The last 17 years, during which Afghanistan established multilateral relations with the rest of the world, has irritated the Pakistani army and intelligence. They have been trying and will continue to try hard to restore that past status-quo over Afghanistan, oblivious of the fact that those days are gone and will never return again. The strategies that they used to achieve this objective have already backfired. Instead of establishing control over Afghanistan, they are about to lose control of their own affairs and territory to rogue jihadists, extremist and separatist groups that they have created or provoked themselves.
Pakistan wants to be treated as a sovereign state, and while sovereignty confers certain privileges on states, it also confers responsibilities. Pakistan wants the world to allow it to deal with the extremists group as it sees fit, and continue with their double game. When Osama bin Laden resides in one country for years, in a military garrison town a few miles from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point, when many extremists and terror groups establish bases and operate with complete freedom of movement and have sanctuaries, and when there is ample evidence that the state, one with over a hundred nuclear weapons, is not sincere about dismantling the terror groups, then what is the US prepared to do to meet its own national security interests? If the US acts, would US allies follow if the US were to designate Pakistan a state sponsor of terror?
A test of Pakistani sincerity in the War on Terror is not whether they arrest a senior member of the Afghan Taliban that they have lost control over or one that is in the of process of reaching out to the Afghan government, but instead sincerity is reflected when Pakistan reacts and acts towards individuals such as Hafiz Saeed, with a $10 million US bounty on his head, or to groups such as LeT which boasts many members who have close family members in the Pakistan army.
The recent resurrection of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a coalition of Pakistani religious oriented groups created by the Pakistani military that assisted the Taliban in early 2002 as they retreated from Afghanistan, and the attempt to mainstream Hafez Saeed by the Pakistani military shows their true intentions of deliberate support to radical and extremist groups. Yes, on occasion they may turn over a terror suspect to the US, but it is done in a retail fashion, not wholesale. They may seek to obtain recognition as a fireman with some well-timed gestures and conduct, though more often, Pakistan is the arsonist. The level of support that the many extremist groups in the Af/Pak theatre receive from the formal and informal sector in Pakistan, clearly proves the point.
An internal factor or a trend that is a cause of concern on the security front is that Afghanistan is a diverse country ethnically, geographically, and linguistically. In recent years, the adhesion throughout the country has been the commitment to inclusivity rather than exclusivity, the commitment to reaching out to other groups and segments of Afghan society and reaching a consensus on key issues, mainly social, political and security. Since 2015, however, there has been an erosion of the consensus concept, and many segments of Afghan society feel alienated by the polarising politics and policies of the Presidential Palace.
The Presidential Palace frequently pushes a platform of “reform,” yet in reality the Palace day to day actions appear more akin to purges. These actions have caused damage to the fragile consensus, painstakingly built by the Afghans and its international partners since fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. In Afghanistan, national unity via consensus is an essential, stabilising element in order for us to effectively combat terrorism and extremism in the region for the foreseeable future. A break down in the internal Afghan consensus can have a devastating effect for Afghanistan, the immediate region and its international partners.
Thus, Afghanistan’s friends in the International Community should not give the current government a free pass on policies and politics that seek to alienate many segments of Afghan society. The Palace politics must be national and inclusive instead of an exclusive approach which seeks to favor one group over other ethnic or geographic groups for shortsighted and shallow political gains that endangers national unity, stability and inclusivity; achievements that cost Afghans blood and treasure for the past several decades.
In order to have an enduring solution to the regions challenges on the security front, dismantling the infrastructures for terrorism and extremism that receive material support from the formal and informal sector in Pakistan, should be the key focus. That is the generational game changer not some type of peace deal with the Taliban. Even if somehow a peace deal is reached with the Taliban, unfortunately that will not deliver stability in Afghanistan, as other Islamist extremists groups will continue to be a proxy for Pakistan.
(This article is a summary of the remarks made by Mr. Rehmatullah Nabil, former Director,
National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan at the Counter Terrorism Conference 2018
on 14th March, 2018 at Gurugram, Haryana.)
(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

The world has seen various changes in international terrorism but also first and foremost many successes in rooting out this menace. For many years, al-Qaida was the most evident threat which was followed by the creation of a caliphate by the Islamic State in the Middle East in 2014. Recent years have seen new concentrated political, economic and military efforts by the international community in order to fight international terrorist groups. Many states have coordinated their efforts to help each other in the fight against local and global terrorist networks. New regulations against terrorist financing have been enforced and new sanctions have been imposed against various states and individuals.
Due to efforts on different levels the number of attacks from al-Qaida has come down and the Islamic State’s control over territories in Syria and Iraq has been broken in 2017. Nevertheless, the threat of global terrorism is not over but has only shifted its focus. There are several new challenges. First, will the IS be able to survive in other countries? The caliphate of Al-Baghdadi may be no longer exist but there are still IS branches operating in many countries. Second, countries especially in Western Europe are confronted with the return of foreign IS fighters to their home countries. It is not clear how far these fighters will continue their struggle and how far they can be legally prosecuted. Finally, the ideological attraction of Islamic extremism is still high and the new forms of radicalization, especially over social media are difficult to control in open democratic societies.
Global terrorism in South Asia
South Asia and the West have suffered in different ways under global terrorist groups. Global terrorism refers to terrorist groups who pursue a global ideological agenda (i.e. creation of an Islamic caliphate that negates national boundaries, attack on the West / United States) and who have the capacities to operate globally (i.e. to execute attacks on different continents). When these criteria are used it is evident that Western countries have suffered mostly from al-Qaida and IS attacks in recent years whereas India had been targeted by other terrorist groups.
At least since 9/11, al-Qaida was the most important global terror organization which has conducted attacks on different continents. In 2014, al-Qaida set up its regional branch al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) as an umbrella organization for different jihadi groups.1In recent publications the groups has focused on India and its activities in Bangladesh and on Kashmir. But despite its propaganda AQIS has found very little resonance among Indian Muslims. Local al-Qaida groups in Kashmir could be eliminated by the security agencies. So far there has been no noteworthy attack in India which could be attributed to AQIS.2
The Islamic State also has a clear global agenda, not only targeting Muslim societies but also Western countries with new forms of militancy, as we have witnessed in the attacks in London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin and other places. Western European citizens have also been more often recruited by the IS. The estimates for Germany are around 900 to 1000 fighters who joined IS.
With the creation of its Khorasan province which includes large parts of South and Central Asia, the Islamic State also found its way to South Asia. In Afghanistan it was able to establish its own networks partly in cooperation with local militant groups who split from the Taliban. IS was also able to link up with local militant groups in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
In India, a small three digit number of people have been arrested as supporters of IS but there have been only very few attacks in India that are attributed to IS so far. The most prominent one was the train attack in Madhya Pradesh in March 2017.3 The main threat is the radicalization of “lone wolves” which may be able to carry out attacks.4 The interesting point is that many IS followers have middle class background which differs from the social profile of IS fighters from European countries.
India may not have experienced attacks by al-Qaida or IS but it has been confronted for many years with attacks from groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).5 They also have an international orientation but it is more limited compared to that of al-Qaida or the Islamic State. LeT has trained foreign fighters in its camps but most of its operations have targeted India.
Al-Qaida, Islamic State and LeT follow different ideological traditions in Islam. Their political, economic and ideological rivalry has already led to many armed clashes among them for instance between al-Qaida and Islamic State but also between the Taliban and the Islamic State.
Changing Dynamics in the Af-Pak Theatre
These changes have also affected the dynamics in the Af-Pak region in various ways. Generally, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan belong to the top ten countries most affected by terrorism in 2016 according to the Global Terrorism Index.6 So despite all successes these figures remind us that the region is still plagued by different forms of militancy which pose a threat to all South Asian states and their societies.
Moreover, it seems that Af-Pak remains one of the main epicentres of terrorism. First, Afghanistan is one of the places where the Islamic State has the highest presence in Asia after its defeat in the Middle East. Second, the new South Asia policy of the Trump administration and the efforts of the international community against the infrastructure of terrorist financing have shifted the focus much more on Pakistan.
Afghanistan
Afghanistan is confronted with multiple militant challenges. For many years the Taliban have been fighting the elected government. Moreover, al-Qaida are still present in the country and the Islamic state has also gained its strongest foothold in South Asia in Afghanistan. The IS successfully used frustration within the Taliban so that many former Taliban groups joined the new grouping after 2014. The security situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated in recent months. It was not only the fights between the Afghan National Army and the Taliban but also the clashes between the Taliban and the Islamic State. Moreover, the IS was responsible for several attacks against government institutions, religious minorities and the civil society. The international community has increased its military cooperation with the Afghan security forces and has stepped up its number of troops.
Pakistan
In contrast to Afghanistan, the security situation in Pakistan has improved since 2015.7This was the result of military operations in the Tribal Areas in 2014. Moreover, the IS has never been successful in gaining a permanent foothold in Pakistan. The IS was however able to win supporters among parts of the Pakistani Taliban and some sectarian Sunni groups. The IS has also claimed responsibility for attacks on religious minorities in Pakistan.
However what is more important is the changing international focus which has shifted to Pakistan. This was brought about by two developments since 2017. First, the new South Asia policy of the Trump Administration targeted Pakistan for its lack of commitment in fighting terrorism. It was followed by various financial sanctions and has led to a deterioration of the bilateral relationship. Second, it was the successful effort of the international community to put Pakistan again on the watch-list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for its inadequate anti-money laundering and anti-terror financing policy8.
Pakistan has used non-state actors in its wars against India from the beginning starting back in 1947 when tribal warriors invaded the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan abilities were used by the West during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan when the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) trained the Afghan Mujahedins. Pakistan copied this successful strategy when it sent foreign fighters to Jammu & Kashmir in the 1990s. Moreover, Pakistan supported the Taliban in the Afghan civil war in the 1990s in order to establish strategic depth vis-à-vis India. The Taliban regime also provides space for inter-national terror groups like al-Qaida which found refuge in Afghanistan. The support of militant groups by the Pakistan armed forces is widely acknowledged. In 2017, former president Musharraf praised publicly the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT).9
Although LeT and its political arm Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD) are listed as terrorist organisations by the United Nations10, Pakistan has only banned the LeT back in 2002. In early 2009 the Pakistan government promised to ban JuD after the Mumbai attacks. But this has not happened so far. JuD has for some years been only on the watch-list of terrorist groups of the Interior Ministry.11 JuD bank accounts have officially been frozen according to UN Resolutions. LeT leaders have been banned from foreign travel but are still allowed free movement in Pakistan.12
Since 2017 we have witnessed new actions by the Pakistani state against JuD and its leader Hafiz Saeed. In January 2017 the Pakistan government put Hafiz Saeed again under house arrest.13 The army welcomed this as a “political decision” for the national interests.14 The Punjab government put Hafiz Saeed and some of his supporters on a list of terror suspects in February 2017.15 Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said during the Munich Security Conference in 2017 that Hafiz Saeed was arrested because he was a threat “to his country”.16
In February 2018 the Pakistan government promulgated an ordinance amending the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997.17 This allowed the government to put further sanctions on proscribed groups from the UN terror list. A first step happened when the Punjab government took over several institutions from JuD and the Falah-i-Insaniat Foundation (FIF).18 In March 2018, the government had taken over all institutions in Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and ‘Azad Kashmir’ and has confiscated more than 140 properties of the two organisations in Punjab.19 In the same month, the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) also shut down offices of JuD and FIF.20
But it seems that JuD and FIF have been able to transfer some properties to individuals before the confiscation. So it will take more time for the Pakistani authorities to get hold of the organisations’ infrastructure. Moreover, press reports indicate that Hafiz Saeed and other JuD leaders are still using these institutions for their purposes.21
With these steps Pakistan tried to prevent further sanctions from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which met in Paris in February 2018. The United States and European countries like Germany, the United Kingdom and France have tabled a motion to place Pakistan on a watch-list of countries which are considered not to be compliant with the global regulations against terror financing. Pakistan had been on the FATF grey list from 2012 to 2015. It was removed then after improvements in its anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-financing terrorism (CFT) laws.22 Pakistan’s opposition to the move of the FATF was first supported by China, Turkey, and Saudi-Arabia. But Pakistan was finally put back on the list after two important allies China and Saudi-Arabia withdrew their support for Pakistan under American pressure.23 China’s decision against its main ally Pakistan was welcomed in India. This step has also raised hopes that China may give up its veto in the United Nations to put Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) leader Masood Azhar on the list of global terrorists of the U.N. Security Council’s al-Qaida Sanctions Committee.24
Since 2017 one can also observe attempts to bring militant groups into the political mainstream. In August 2017, JuD tried to set up its own political party with the Milli Muslim League (MML). The registration was refused by the Government.25The party was able to run in the by-election in Lahore in September (NA-120) with an independent candidate who used posters of Hafiz Saeed. He secured nearly 6000 votes, which was nearly five percent of the total vote. That was also much more than the combined votes for the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Jamaat-i-Islami (JI).26 The Islamabad High Court has also challenged the decision of the Election Commission not to register the MML as a political party without a hearing of its case.27
Besides the MML, various Islamist parties have, for the elections in 2018, revived the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) which had ruled KP province from 2002 to 2008.28 Moreover, the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), a political party headed by Khadim Hussain Rizvi, which had blockaded Islamabad in November 2017 and brought parts of the capital to a standstill, has also announced that it would enter the political mainstream in the 2018 elections. In contrast to traditional religious parties which are part of the MMA that follow mostly the Deobandi School, the JuD/MML follows the Ahl-e-Hadith tradition and the TLP represents more radical parts of the Barlevi school.29
It is not really clear why the security forces allow the entry of extremist groups into the political mainstream. On the one hand, the greater number of religious parties may foster religious extremist views in the election campaign. This can be a challenge for moderate parties. On the other hand, religious parties never had a large following in Pakistan. With the exception of 2002 they have achieved between three to eight percent of the votes. The new parties represent different religious traditions. This may increase competition among the religious parties which may lead to a further split of the vote.
Moreover, the military seems to be more confident to control the militants after its success in the Operation Zarb-i-Azb in 2014 against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups. These military operations have been decisive to improve the security situation in Pakistan after 2015. Finally, the religious parties may be seen as a useful instrument against the dominance of the PML-N especially in Punjab in the forthcoming electoral battles.30
Conclusion
The Af-Pak region will remain a centre of terrorism. But the real challenge for the region emanates from the variety of national and regional militant groups rather than from global terrorist groups like al-Qaida and Islamic State. The main center of the militant confrontation will be in Afghanistan, where the government and the international community are fighting not only against the Taliban but also against al-Qaida and IS. But it is important to keep in mind that these groups are also fighting amongst each other. Pakistan is facing new challenges with the sanctions of the FATF. This has put the focus on the supporting structures of terrorism whose elimination remains a persistent task for the international community.
It also remains a persistent challenge for the countries in the region to set up new initiatives for fighting the different forms of trans-national terrorism. This has not worked in the context of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) which had passed a convention against terrorism already in the late 1980s. India has expanded its security cooperation with its neighbors in recent years.31Moreover, the Indian government is promoting new regional formats like BIMSTEC which may be a more adequate institution for a regional approach against terrorism than SAARC.
The new wildcard in the regional equation will certainly be China. Massive Chinese investments in Pakistan and other South Asian countries will increase Chinese interest in a secure regional environment. China’s support for the FATF sanctions against Pakistan may be a first step towards a greater Chinese engagement in this regard. It will also be interesting to see how far this will affect the relationship with Pakistan.
References:
1 Mohammed Sinan Siyech, Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS): Renewing Efforts in India, Singapore (International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), Sep 19, 2017,
http://www.mei.edu/content/map/al-qaeda-indian-subcontinent-aqis-renewing-efforts-india
2 http://www.mei.edu/content/map/al-qaeda-indian-subcontinent-aqis-renewing-efforts-india
3 Hugh Tomlinson, Isis launches first strike on India with train attack, The Times, March 9 2017,
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/isis-launches-first-strike-on-india-with-train-attack-8kch9l06r
4 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/04/world/asia/isis-messaging-app-terror-plot.html
5 Stephen Tankel, Storming the World Stage.The Story of Lashkar-e-Taiba, London 2011.
6 http://globalterrorismindex.org/ 08.03.18
7 Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), Pakistan Security Report 2016, Islamabad 2016.
8 Naveed Siddiqui, “Govt confirms Pakistan will be placed on FATF terror financing watchlist in June”, dawn.com, 28.02.2018.
9 Pakistan supported, trained terror groups: Musharraf, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/south-asia/pakistan-supported-trained-terror-groups-like-lashkaretaiba-pervez-musharraf/article7813284.ece? homepage=true, 28.10.15; Musharraf’s balderdash, Editorial, https://www.dawn.com/news/1373914/musharrafs-balderdash, December 01, 2017.
10 http://www.un.org/press/en/2012/sc10578.doc.htm.
11 https://nacta.gov.pk/proscribed-organizations/ 08.03.18.
12 Roul, Animesh (2015), Jamaat-ud Daawa: Into the Mainstream, https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/jamaat-ud-daawa-into-the-mainstream, April 30, 2015, p.4 (accessed 22.11.16).
13 The Express Tribune (2017a), Protests expected after Hafiz Saeed placed under house arrest,
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1312278/protests-expected-hafiz-saeed-placed-house-arrest/, January 31, 2017
14 Yousaf, Kamran (2017), Hafiz Saeed’s arrest a policy decision: army, https://tribune.com.pk/story/1313508/civil-military-convergence-hafiz-saeeds-arrest-policy-decision-army/, February 1, 2017.
15 Chaudhry, Asif (2017), Names of Hafiz Saeed, aide added to ATA’s fourth schedule, Dawn 18.02.17,
http://www.dawn.com/news/1315473/names-of-hafiz-saeed-aide-added-to-atas-fourth-schedule, 18.2.17.
16 The Hindu (2017), Hafiz Saeed can pose a serious threat to Pakistan: Defence Minister, 21. Februar,
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/Hafiz-Saeed-can-pose-a-serious-threat-to-Pak-Defence-Minister/article17339021.ece (eingesehen 21.02.17).
17 Baqir Sajjad Syed, Anti-terror law amended to ban UN-listed groups, individuals, https://www.dawn.com/news/1389042/anti-terror-law-amended-to-ban-un-listed-groups-individuals, February 13, 2018.
18 Aamir Yasin, Government takes over JuD seminary, dispensaries in Rawalpindi, https://www.dawn.com/news/1389282/government-takes-over-jud-seminary-dispensaries-in-rawalpindi, February 14, 2018.
19 Qadeer Tanoli, FATF grey list: 148 properties of JuD, FIF confiscated in Punjab, https://tribune.com.pk/story/1654882/1-fatf-grey-list-148-properties-jud-fif-confiscated-punjab/, March 8, 2018.
20 Sirajuddin, KP government seals offices of Hafiz Saeed’s JuD, FIF; seizes mosques, seminaries,
https://www.dawn.com/news/1395851/kp-government-seals-offices-of-hafiz-saeeds-jud-fif-seizes-mosques-seminaries, March 17, 2018.
21 ‘Saeed still operating out of JuD head office’, http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/saeed-still-operating-out-of-jud-head-office/article22950543.ece, March 06, 2018.
22 Mohiuddin Aazim, Banks have mixed feelings on FATF move, https://www.dawn.com/news/1390297/banks-have-mixed-feelings-on-fatf-move, February 19, 2018.
23 Kamran Yousaf, After FATF fiasco, govt looks inwards, https://tribune.com.pk/story/1644771/1-fatf-fiasco-govt-looks-inwards/, February 26, 2018.
24 K.J.M. Varma, China blocks US, France, UK bid to list Masood Azhar as global terrorist by UN,
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/ABEmOW05luaAgJjaVcrfqI/China-says-no-consensus-over-listing-Masood-Azhar-as-global.html¸ 2.11.17.
25 Mubashir Zaidi, Pak. govt. against registration of Hafiz Saeed’s JuD’s political wing as political party,
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/pakistan-opposes-registration-of-milli-muslim-league-as-political-party/article19756502.ece, September 26, 2017.
26 Despite Pakistan govt’s opposition, Hafiz Saeed opens MML office in Lahore, http://www.business-standard.com/article/international/despite-pakistan-govt-s-opposition-hafiz-saeed-opens-mml-office-in-lahore-117122500197_1.html, December 25, 2017; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NA-120_by-election,_2017.
27 Iftikhar A. Khan, ECP’s decision not to register JuD-backed Milli Muslim League as political party set aside, https://www.dawn.com/news/1394052/ecps-decision-not-to-register-jud-backed-milli-muslim-league-as-political-party-set-aside, March 09, 2018.
28 Habib Khan Ghori, Maulana Fazl to head recently revived MMA, Dawn march 21, 2018,
https://www.dawn.com/news/1396614/maulana-fazl-to-head-recently-revived-mma.
29 Pervez Hoodbhoy, Mainstreaming jihad: why now? https://www.dawn.com/news/1376805/mainstreaming-jihad-why-now, December 16, 2017.
30 Pervez Hoodbhoy, Mainstreaming jihad: why now? https://www.dawn.com/news/1376805/mainstreaming-jihad-why-now, December 16, 2017.
31 Christian Wagner, India’s Bilateral Security Relationship in South Asia, Strategic Analysis, Volume 42, Issue 1, January-February 2018, pp. 15-28.
(This article is a summary of the remarks made by Habil. Christian Wagner, Senior Fellow, Stiftung Wissenschaft and Politik, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Germany at the Counter Terrorism Conference 2018 on 15th March, 2018 at Gurugram, Haryana.)
(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Two years back I was in New Delhi on my first State visit to India as Nepal’s Prime Minister. My country had then just accomplished the historic task of promulgating the Constitution through a democratic process of the elected Constituent Assembly. That was an important moment. We were leaving behind the long and costly period of political transition and uncertainties, anticipating a stable political course ahead. As the Prime Minister of the country, I had the huge responsibility to carry forth the tasks related to the implementation of the Constitution that was just born. The task was demanding; challenges colossal.
Thanks to the wisdom and perseverance of fellow Nepali leadership and the 28 million Nepali people as well as support and solidarity of friends from neighbourhood and around the world, we have achieved all major milestones in Constitution implementation in the past two years. And this time, I am visiting India as Nepal’s Prime Minister elected through the first ever polls held under the Constitution; as the leader of a country that looks to future with resounding optimism and abounding dreams.
The local, provincial and federal elections held in 2017 were historic in many ways. Following these, we were able to have elected representatives in all 753 local level bodies after a gap of nearly two decades. And provincial elections are entirely new. A major political transformation envisaged in the Constitution was the restructuring of the State into federal set up. For the first time in our history, we now have seven provincial assemblies and provincial governments. ‘Government at doorstep’ is our Constitutional spirit, which has now been structurally realised.
The elections were hugely participative and results were inclusive. Voters’ turnout was over 70 percent in average. Through the elections, we have been able to ensure over 41 percent of women representation in elected bodies. This is not a small achievement by any standard. And, our intention is to bridge the remaining 9 percent gap. With this political process completed, we now have embarked on the path of political stability. All provincial governments command support of two third majority in their respective assemblies and my government at the centre has robust mandate and overwhelming support.
I have deemed this as a mandate to work for the long-cherished socio-economic transformation of the country. Ours is a dream of a prosperous Nepal where people will have decent living and youth will have decent jobs; where our infrastructure will be better and our vast, untapped resources will be converted into economic benefits and wealth. It’s a dream of overcoming the vicious circle of poverty, underdevelopment and social backwardness.
We are mindful, however, that we alone cannot undertake this journey to prosperity. We will continue to count on support, solidarity and goodwill from friends all over the world, particularly our neighbours. I say neighbours as they, by virtue of geographic proximity and long historic associations, are the ones who understand us well and are cognizant of our development needs. I say neighbours as, fortunately for us, they have been able to register marvellous achievements when it comes to development and hence, they are our inspirations, our lessons and key source of support.
Nepal and India are connected by geography as well as history, by our religions as well as culture. Our relations are blessed by the wisdom of saints and sages. Our bonds are strengthened by both physical connectivity and people-to-people interactions in almost all spheres. Our relations began even before the history began to be recorded; they began in the dawn of human civilisation in this part of the world. Today, in this 21st century, our age-old relations have expanded to a more extensive, and multidimensional connection.
It is a neighbourhood reality that we often witness intermittent glitches in our relations. It is a fact that we have witnessed difficult times in our relations. We have gone through the cycles of ups and downs; highs and lows in our relations. I am sharing this frankly because open discussions help improve the thrust and course of relationship. We, leaders on both sides, are capable to review and introspect where things went wrong and how we could do better in future. And the history implores us to take our relations to newer vistas of opportunities, to newer heights of mutual benefits. In this mission, it is natural that we have certain expectations from India as a large neighbour and a country with rising global stature in many ways.
Relations between neighbours differ from that of others. Neighbourhood realities are distinct in many respects and accordingly dictate the terms of overall engagements. Good neighbourliness demands harmonious co-existence forever. And, trust is the key cementing factor. It derives its strength from the observance of such fundamental principles as equality, justice, mutual respect and benefit as well as non-interference.
As friendly neighbours, our two countries need to be aware of, and have respect for, each other’s concerns and sensitivities. Nepal has not allowed its land to be used against the sovereign interests of India. We are firm in our resolve to maintain this position. And it is natural that we expect similar assurance from India.
We are in the changed context both at home and abroad. Our domestic political realties dictate the values and course of our action both internally and externally. We have defined our goals, priorities, strategies and actions for nation-building. Likewise, we want to inject fresh perspectives into our relations with external world. Our foreign policy priority begins at our borders. Talking about India, our foreign policy objective is to strengthen the foundation of relations, but not to weaken it; objective is to expand and consolidate relations, but not to limit the scope or unravel it; and objective is to bring our relations to the next level, but not to slide back. Our objective is clear. Our intention is pure. Our determination is strong. And our efforts will be robust.
Stability and predictability in relationship is very important for us. Because we are two countries of different size, populations, and level of economic development. And our ambition is different, so is our strength. India is aspiring to be a global power, both politically and economically. Nepal’s ambition is to be a prosperous place.
We cherish India’s progress and prosperity. Its accomplishments in many spheres are notable. The wonderful journey of India as a major economic powerhouse is an inspiration for many people around the world and more so in our neighbourhood.
For Nepal, India remains the largest trading partner. However, the problem of bilateral trade deficit looms large. Our economy cannot sustain alarmingly high trade imbalance with India. Its continuance will pose a serious threat to our economy. We are not a competitor of India. We need a breathing space. I am sure many of you would agree when I say that helping Nepal to be economically strong serves India’s vital interest.
Therefore, we need to focus our attention to diversify our trade basket and scale up the volume of exports from Nepal to India. The provisions of the 1996 Trade Treaty were highly supportive for Nepal’s trade. The Treaty’s initial period was an encouraging period in our trade relationship. Measures such as removal of quantitative restrictions, tariff quota reduction and downward revision of value addition criteria, simplification and streamlining of procedures and easy access to quarantine and testing facilities could ease the difficult situation. To increase the flow of goods and augment trade, we need to invest in infrastructures and streamline the procedures as well.
India has extended generous assistance to finance development endeavours of Nepal. It has helped to diversify our economy, build up the infrastructure, and enhance our industrial base. However, there is much to do to scale up our economic cooperation and timely delivery of agreed projects. To further intensify the economic cooperation, we must create the stories of success; we must translate our pledges into performance. Nepal’s hydropower development is an important sector for bilateral partnership. It will benefit the people and industries of both of our countries. We need to generate a success story by sincerely implementing the projects agreed in the past such as Pancheshwor in its true spirit.
Nepal is a desired destination for Indian tourists. Attracted by the natural heritage as well as religious sites, Indian tourists can further contribute to Nepal’s economy. To enhance the flow of people, for enterprise as well as tourism – we need to further expand air connectivity and road and rail linkages. Cross-border connectivity is very important to unleash development potentials and to spur growth.
The importance of connectivity cannot be overemphasised for a landlocked country like ours. India has been providing overland transit facilities to Nepal for international trade. When I talk about connectivity I recall what Prime Minister Modiji eloquently highlighted the idea of HIT (Highways, Information ways and Transmission ways) while addressing the Legislature-Parliament of Nepal during his first visit to Nepal in August 2014. We need to realise this vision.
As connectivity is important for all of us, we underline the need for developing regional and sub-regional connectivity arrangements. We need to ensure that bilateral as well as regional connectivity and transit arrangements run smoothly without any interruption at all times. Recourse to obstacles in the movement of goods, services and people should not have any place in today’s interconnected world and in interconnected neighbourhood.
We are living in an interesting time in terms of the shifting power equation in the world and the transformed geopolitical orientation. Asia’s centrality in today’s world stage has been affirmed by the fascinating combination of economics, demography and its value system. Having possessed a third of the Earth’s landmass and almost two third of the world population, mostly young and energetic, Asia’s renaissance has become irresistible and irreversible.
I call it renaissance because Asia’s gain of supremacy is not a first time phenomenon. What we see today is rather the return of Asia to the glorious world podium of 200 years back. It’s a return to the time when Asia homed the world’s oldest and most affluent civilisations. Return to the time when it produced the world’s best artists and architect; best physics and metaphysics; most sophisticated education system and most enlightening writings on governance and statecraft.
When majority of the world was reeling in the darkness of superstition, this region, centuries back, produced Vedanta, the world’s most elaborate treatise of knowledge and wisdom as well as a most advanced philosophical system, and Buddhism, the most revered guiding principles on peace and nonviolence; and the notion of global fraternity and happiness. Ancient Asia gave the world the advanced idea of town planning and sophisticated architecture. It also offered the idea of industry and techniques of trade.
Past 200 years were rather an aberration in Asia’s prominence. Reasons may vary, but the reality is that in the past 200 years, poverty and backwardness became most of Asia’s identity. Today, Asia is already on the long march to success and prosperity. This journey may not be smooth and uninterrupted, but it is on. Natural to its size, Asia is the most diverse region in the world. People are diverse and so are cultures; geography is diverse and so is the level of development. Amidst this, how do we ensure that Asia gradually evolves into a closer, connected and a better-integrated society?
How do we ensure that those lagging behind in development are offered a helping hand and a level playing field to keep up with the required pace? How do we ensure that we all, big and small, grow together as fellow Asian nations? How do we ensure that we sort out our differences or at least not allow such differences to undermine the larger good that we need to pursue together? These turn out to be critical questions as we embark on the noble journey towards realisation of the Asian century.
As important as the tangible indicators of development are, we need to make sure that the core Asian values of universal fraternity, peaceful co-existence, respect for diversity and sense of equality guide our ways as these are the values that stand as fortress to ensure world’s peace and security and sustainability of its development.
Asian values have the potential not only to bring us, the Asians, closer but also contribute to the world’s better future. These were born out of our collective, civilisational conviction on harmony, discipline and primacy of the larger public good and interest over petty individual self-centredness. Asian values emphasise more on sharing, caring and co-existing than on individual race making. Collective thinking and serving humanity is the Asian way.
Asian values underscore, as the fundamental prerequisite to development, the need to build solid and well-functioning state institutions. While other actors are important components of modern day governance, state institutions must command due reverence and any ill-motivated attempt to undermine them must be discouraged. Our collective journey towards realisation of the Asian century can only be possible through due promotion and institutionalisation of the Asian values. Asia invented panchsheel that have not only become the core principles of the UN Charter but also provided the nations around the world the modus vivendi for living together peacefully despite differences and working together to serve mutual interest. Nepal’s adherence to panchsheel is unwavering.
Nepal’s engagement with the rest of the world, as stipulated in its Constitution, remains shaped by the principles of Panchasheel, non-alignment, UN Charter, international law, and norms of world peace. Nepal was among the few countries that remained independent throughout its history. In this very fact of history is rooted the abounding sense of national pride of today’s 28 million Nepalis. We, therefore, hold dearer than anything else the principles of sovereignty, independence and non-interference. We pursue an independent foreign policy and our conduct of external relations is based on a balanced outlook.
No one compromises on nationalism. For us, nationalism is the protection of our sovereignty, territorial integrity, national independence, and fulfilment of our national interest. We are a proud people of a country that always remained independent throughout its history. Our sense of nationalism does not harbour ill will against anyone. Our people have always demonstrated great degree of resilience in times of difficulties and their confidence was never shaken. Amity with all and enmity with none is our motto in foreign policy. We seek to foster relations with neighbours and all friendly countries around the world based on justice, sovereign equality, mutual respect and benefit.
When it comes to Nepal-India relations, the enablers for cordial friendship and rewarding relations partnership are already there. We must build on those enablers to boost our relations. We must seize the opportunities to make our relations fruitful to the lives of our peoples. As close neighbours, we share a common destiny which demands collective pursuit of prosperity.
I have come to India this time with a mission to explore ways and means to enhance our relations to newer heights, commensurate with the realities of the 21st century. We want to erect a strong edifice of trust so that our relations always remain harmonious. We want to create a model relationship which makes not only us but our posterity equally proud of our accomplishment. A relationship that is cherished forever. Everybody has a role to contribute towards realising this goal.
With this spirit in mind we have tasked the Eminent Persons Group on Nepal-India Relations (EPG-NIR) to come forward with concrete recommendations on making Nepal-India relations truly beneficial for both of our countries and peoples. Our intention is genuine and larger Indian intelligentsia have a duty to spread the message of the need for a positive transformation in our relationship. I hope this gathering could serve this useful purpose.
During the visit, I had frank, open and comprehensive talks with Prime Minister Modiji. Our conversation was focused on the same direction. You are already aware of the important agreements we reached on railway and inland waterways connectivity as well as cooperation in agriculture. I firmly believe, and hope you all would agree, a peaceful, stable, prosperous and democratic Nepal is in the interest of India as well as that of our larger neighbourhood. Let me, therefore, conclude by reiterating my determination for closer and mutually rewarding relations between our two countries in this 21st century.
(This article is a summary of the address delivered by Shri K.P. Sharma Oli,
Hon’ble Prime Minister of Nepal at the civic reception in his honour organised by
India Foundation in association with Nehru Memorial Museum and Library at
New Delhi on 7th April, 2018.
(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library is a place which enshrines the historic relics of the life and work of Jawaharlal Nehru – a great Indian leader whose entire life was devoted to India’s freedom and independence, and to peace and friendship among nations. To President Ho Chi Minh and the people of Vietnam he was a great and close friend. Vietnam and India have strong interest in deepening the relations between them and to join hearts and hands for peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific.
During the first two decades of the 21st century, the world has witnessed many rapid, profound, and comprehensive changes. One of the most dramatic and inspirational of them all is the rise of Asia. Just a hundred years ago, the vast majority of the continent, India and Vietnam included, lay engulfed in the long darkness of colonialism, wars, and backwardness. Few could have imagined that one century from those dark days, Asia would rise to become a geo-political, geo-economic, and cultural center of the world. Almost every global forecast today agrees on one thing: this century shall be the Asian Century. Within only a few decades the world has witnessed the miracles of India, China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the ASEAN countries. It is a fascinating coincidence that all of these miracles have converged around the Indian Ocean and the Asia-Pacific. Along with globalization and regionalisation, the trends of linkage and integration, and the impacts of the revolution in science and technology, our region in recent years has yielded a cornucopia of long-term ideas, initiatives, and strategies for cooperation that are both inter-regional and global in scope.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement between ASEAN and its six partners; India’s “Act East” Policy; China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”; Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy”; the United States’ “Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision”; and, most recently, the establishment of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, joined by eleven economies on both sides of the Pacific – all these undertakings are raising the status and attractiveness of our region to a new level never seen before in history. Should all of the afore mentioned come to fruition as per the statements of their founders, we will see the creation of a new space of security and development, comprising the Indian Ocean, Asia and the Pacific, hereafter called the Indo-Asia-Pacific. The ever-closer economic, political, and cultural ties between the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean will create a new driver for growth and help transform the Asian Century into the Indo-Asia-Pacific Century. Consequently, India and Vietnam shall both be part of a vast community accounting for 60% of the Earth’s land area, 50% of world population, and a greater share of global GDP, trade, investment, and capacity for innovation. ASEAN and India shall become an integration hub with an essential role in the region’s future development.
The achievements of the past decades in the Indo-Asia-Pacific provide a solid foundation to further strengthen and foster friendship and cooperation between countries both within and outside of the region, thus enabling us to make greater contributions to mankind. However, our region is also facing notable intertwined challenges. In addition to being the convergence point of many initiatives for integration and cooperation, the Indo-Asia-Pacific is also a core theatre in the competition for power and influence among major powers.
Furthermore, issues include regional hot-spots; armed conflicts; land, sea, and island sovereignty disputes; contested natural resources; international terrorism and transnational crime; and environmental pollution and climate change among others, all are evolving at an ever-greater scope, frequency, and level, with more serious characteristics. There remains a stark contrast between cooperation and competition, between moderation and extremism, between openness and isolation, between liberalism and protectionism, between development and stagnation, between independence and dependence, between unity and division. The desire for peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the Indo-Asia-Pacific has yet to be truly realized.
Shall this century become the Indo-Asia-Pacific Century? Shall this region truly become a hub connecting resources and harmonizing interests for continuous, more dynamic, and more sustainable development? This aspiration will only come true when all countries share a common vision for an open and rules-based region, and a common interest in the maintenance of peace, stability, and inclusive prosperity, wherein no country, no nation, and no group shall be left behind.
This aspiration will only come true when all countries join together in the effort to protect the freedom of navigation and unimpeded trade and not let the Indo-Asia-Pacific be balkanized into spheres of influence manipulated by power politics, hindered by protectionism, or divided by narrow nationalism. This aspiration will only come true when countries stand side by side to build a common space for co-existence and development in the belief that the Indo-Asia-Pacific is vast enough for every country to flourish and prosper. This aspiration will only come true when all countries make the effort to establish effective mechanisms to maintain peace, stability, and the rule of law, so as to ensure the common security, prevent conflict and war, and effectively address security challenges both traditional and non-traditional.
The Indian national hero Mahatma Gandhi once urged “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”. This could not be truer: the realization of this aspiration depends to a large extent on the capacity and the will of all countries in the region – India, Vietnam, and ASEAN included – to join hands in cooperation. Geographically, India and ASEAN lie at the heart of the Indo-Asia-Pacific. Historically, over the last twenty centuries the people of India and Southeast Asia have come together bound by the values of peace, humanism, and fraternity. Today, India is marked by rapid and sustainable development that makes an ever-greater contribution to peace, stability, and prosperity in the region. ASEAN is characterised by being resilient, united, cohesive, well-integrated, and open in its cooperation, playing an expanding role in the region. These work together as paramount components of peace, cooperation, and development in the region as a whole. Herein lies our common interests and shared vision, one in line with the path to development and the constantly-growing status and stature of both India and ASEAN in the international arena. For these reasons, ASEAN has strong faith and great expectations in the vigorous growth of India, a power that is deeply aware of her responsibilities and duties towards the international community.
India shall become a new pole of development, an important engine for peace, prosperity, and integration both in the Indo-Asia-Pacific and the world at large. We wish to express our gratitude for, and most highly appreciate, The Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement at the ASEAN—India Summit in November last year: that India’s “Act East” policy “is shaped around ASEAN, and its centrality in the regional security architecture of the Indo-Pacific region”. With this policy, India has been making efforts to forge substantive links, engage in deeper economic and political integration, and foster people-to-people ties with the ASEAN countries. It is obvious that only through ever-closer connectivity in infrastructure, trade and investment, culture, education and training, and science and technology, and many other fields can India and ASEAN amplify their strength, building together upon their roles and status so as to build a common development space for peace, stability, cooperation, and development, one that can more effectively respond to external shocks and challenges. The 25 years of ASEAN-India relations stand as a testimony to this. Over the next 25 years, given new opportunities and challenges, strengthening ASEAN-India ties must be both an objective necessity and a strategic choice for our two sides.
Vietnam-India diplomatic relations are about to celebrate their semi-centennial, yet the close ties between our two lands and people have existed for thousands of years. Such links stem not only from shared interests but also from the profound and enduring cultural values that we share. As early as the 1st century CE, the venerable monk Mahajivaka introduced Buddhism from India to Vietnam. The religion spread rapidly, for its cultural and spiritual values resonated well with Vietnam’s native beliefs. The ideas of equality, fraternity, anatta / anatman (non-self), and altruism that Buddhism represents have since taken root in the consciousness of the Vietnamese people and become in themselves inseparable parts of Vietnamese culture.
Since the 2nd century, Hinduism has also been present in Vietnam, its mark well-preserved in the Cham cultural relics in central Vietnam, the timeless epic of Ramayana, the character of Sita gifted with beauty and intellect, and the discipline of Yoga that is becoming ever-more popular in everyday Vietnamese life. Today the works of the renowned cultural personality, poet, and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore – the first Asian Nobel Laureate in Literature — still enchant the hearts of millions of Vietnamese with verses that hold within them profound philosophies about the universe, humanity, happiness, and love. During the early 20th century the paths of our two countries’ leaders converged in the struggle against colonialism for our two peoples’ independence and freedom. Rightly after the liberation of Ha-noi, Prime Minister Nehru at the cordial invitation of President Ho Chi Minh became the first foreign head of state to pay a visit to Vietnam on 17 October 1954. The image of our Indian brothers taking to the streets in support of the righteous resistance against American imperialism of the Vietnamese people, the slogan “Amar Nam, Tomar Nam, Vietnam, Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, Dien Bien Phu” on their lips, shall forever be etched in the consciousness of the Vietnamese people.
Vietnam expresses its deepest gratitude for the pure and sincere love, unfazed by hardship and unshaken by storm as it is, that the people of India have given to the people of Vietnam over the years. Today, in a rapidly changing world we are proud to witness the traditional, faithful friendship between our two countries and people not just remaining true but even flourishing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed that, Vietnam is a top priority in the effort to strengthen India’s relations with the Asia-Pacific. As seen from Vietnam’s foreign policy, India has always been one of the most important partners. Exactly sixty years ago during his visit to India, our beloved President Ho Chi Minh asserted that “India is an independent and mighty nation that has made many invaluable contributions to peace in Asia and the world”. This observation remains relevant today. We are glad to note that in recent years India’s rise has been closely linked with the prosperity and affluence of Asia as a whole.
India’s peaceful development has always worked as an important and constructive factor to regional peace and stability. With her vast potential and great contributions, India surely deserves a greater role in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region and the world. For this reason, Vietnam welcomes India continuing to play her important role in the region. We consistently support your active participation in regional linkages and cooperation mechanisms, including APEC, as well as India’s becoming a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council. Today, Vietnam and India have established a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, setting forth their similar interests and values as well as our understanding and position regarding regional and global issues. They are working towards implementing the 2017-2020 Action Plan, already recording significant results. Political, defense, and security cooperation has all been expanded and become strategic pillars in our bilateral relations. Economic and trade cooperation is growing dramatically as well. Development cooperation and joint efforts in education, training, culture, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges are deepening, creating an enduring social foundation for our bilateral ties. 2017 was the “Friendship Year” celebrating the 45th anniversary of Vietnam – India cooperation. Their relations have entered a new period of development, and this requires renewed efforts and determination from both sides in order to realize always-greater achievements and live up to the expectations of the two people. The goal of their Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is nothing other than a strong and prosperous Vietnam that develops sustainably; a powerful India with growing prestige and status in the international arena; and their joint contribution towards the maintenance of peace, stability, cooperation, and development in the region and the world.
Some of my thoughts on the future direction of Vietnam – India relations. First, we need to strengthen economic and trade connectivity as a pillar and driver of the Vietnam – India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. Accordingly, we need to overcome the mentality of protectionism, promote trade/investment liberalisation, and upgrade infrastructure, maritime and aviation connectivity in both the bilateral context and the framework of sub-regional and regional plans. Vietnam supports and will coordinate accordingly so that India will become an important element in the ASEAN Connectivity Master Plan, finalizing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2018. We should promote maritime connectivity as a key area, not just in bilateral relations but also in the context of peace, stability and development in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Vietnam – India need to engage in regular information exchanges, experience-sharing, and capacity-building in handling maritime security matters. We should work together to develop a “blue-sea economy” through maritime connectivity, port cooperation, and environmental protection and the sustainable use of maritime resources. We should also make efforts to foster the maritime order and settle disputes peacefully on the basis of international law, including the 1982 United Nations’ Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Furthermore, Vietnam and India should strengthen connectivity in realizing the SDGs in both countries, closely linking the United Nations’ 2030 Action Agenda to regional cooperation frameworks including the Mekong-Ganga mechanism.
Vietnam hopes to effectively and substantively work with India in such areas as green agriculture, green technology, clean and renewable energy, capacity enhancement in information technology, disaster prevention and relief, and climate change response. We should continue to work closely together in building a new and open regional architecture that is inclusive and shares the values and interests of peace. We should effectively implement all elements of the Vietnam—India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and the ASEAN—India Strategic Partnership with a new vision. Good strategic partnership at all levels will yield benefits not only for Vietnam and India but also for peace and development in the region. In addition, Vietnam and India need to work together more closely in multilateral forums, in particular in UN and ASEAN mechanisms. We should more actively take part in building and shaping of cooperation frameworks and norms, making substantive contributions to the common efforts of the international community to ensure peace, cooperation and development, thus bringing about a brighter future for the Indo-Asia-Pacific.
From the history spanning thousands of years of our two peoples’ enduring cultural ties, from the heartfelt friendship between us, from our shared vision for the future – and given the strong effort and determination of our two countries’ leaders and peoples – there is every reason to believe in an ever-flourishing Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between Vietnam and India. This indeed will become a pillar of regional integration and development, playing a key role in the 21st-century miracles of the Indo-Asia-Pacific and making significant contributions to peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world. May the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library continue to flourish, thus disseminating the values of humanism, fraternity, and peace that so characterize India to the region and to the world.
(This article is a summary of the Special Address made by Mr. Tran Dai Quang,
Hon’ble President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at a programme organised by
India Foundation in partnership with Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML) and
Embassy of Vietnam on 4th March, 2018 at NMML, New Delhi.)
(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)

Author: Alyssa Ayres
Publisher: OUP USA, 2018, pp 360
Price: Rs.1,850/-
Book Review by:
Aaditya Tiwari

Richard N Hass, an American diplomat and President of the Council of Foreign Relations in his conversation with Alyssa Ayres, author of the book ‘Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World’ refers to the phrase ‘Indo-Pacific’ and says, ‘…Indians like that’. To this Alyssa explains, ‘it is a very welcome phrase…a welcome phrase in Japan, Australia and India…that gives India a stake of being part in this larger region which it doesn’t have while talking of Asia-Pacific…India is core central geographic fact of the Indo-pacific’. ‘Our Time Has Come’, is a book on India’s rise in the past twenty-five years that the author Alyssa Ayres has witnessed as a Harvard junior, via her work at the Asia Society, at the U.S. Embassy in India, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for South Asia at the State department during U.S. President Obama’s administration.

The book is a practitioner-scholar’s account with deep insights for an American reader. It lists India’s achievements in this period and the distance it has marched ahead of the socialist regime and that of license raj. Alyssa speaks of an India that seeks to be a ‘leading power’ rather than a ‘balancing power’, the present government no longer talks of ‘strategic autonomy’, and ‘non-alignment’ is a thing of the past, with Prime Minister Modi even skipping the NAM summit. India, today is more demanding of its due in the world and less hesitant in asserting its interests. She has covered this trajectory in eight chapters, grouped under three parts, namely – ‘Looking Back’; ‘Transition’ and, ‘Looking Ahead’.

Alyssa looks at the rise of India from economic point of view and sees a very positive story there, with India being among the top ten economies and slated to be among top five this year. But looking from the lens of global governance, India is still not a prominent part of many institutions central to the global order. Also, domestic aspects like caste, communal clashes, rigid bureaucracy and inadequate infrastructure are pulling India behind. At the same time she credits Prime Minister Modi for giving a new impetus to the way in which India engages with the world. She points out that he is the first Indian leader to declare his support for reforms explicitly and unreservedly. On India-US relations, Alyssa thinks they are on an upswing. She points out that while there are a lot of commonalities, there are many areas of disagreement too. And the India-US relationship will more likely be a ‘joint-venture’ rather than an alliance as there are obligations inherent with an alliance. For example, India is very unlikely to become a part of a US led approach to restrict China. She has certain recommendations to improve the India-US relationship – backing Indian membership in multilateral bodies like the UN Security Council, APEC etc that set the global economic and security agenda; having stronger bilateral economic ties; supporting institutions of democracy; and pursuing stronger regional security cooperation with India.

In her interview to Richard Hass, she says, ‘India hedges its own bets as global governance reforms lag on in 20th century institutions and India has put some of its eggs in the new organizations/baskets that India has partnered in….’. While India wants it rightful place in the comity of nations, ‘it is not to supplant others, but rather…be one among many in a world order explicitly seen as multi-polar.’ Alyssa Ayres counsels United States to be better prepared to deal with India that would possibly be the ‘the workforce of the world’ in coming future. ‘Our Time Has Come’ is a delightful read and in the words of Ambassador Shyam Saran, ‘For a balanced and carefully researched analysis of India’s prospects, as seen from Washington, this is a book which will rank pretty high in the years to come.’

(Reviewer is a Senior Research Fellow at India Foundation.)

(This article is carried in the print edition of May-June 2018 issue of India Foundation Journal.)