In a long career fighting terrorism and political violence, one of the greatest impediments I have encountered to effective action was the absence of a comprehensive strategic perspective, a coordinated and well-informed state policy that could free the security forces to do their job, even while other arms of government, including the judiciary, the bureaucracy and the political executive, continued to do theirs. Decisions that eventually had great and unforeseen consequences were improvised from day to day at the highest policy making levels; and what passed off as “analysis” in bureaucratic and political circles was a self-serving fiction tailored to the career ambitions and political stratagems of specific individuals.
The fact is that the State’s response to internal security crises, though successful on occasion - as in the dramatic victory over terrorism in Punjab - has been random, inadequate and inconsistent. Confronted with subversive violence, administrations have vacillated between appeasement and over-reaction; governments and a variety of covert agencies have often preferred subterfuge and a policy of brinkmanship to constructive political solutions. Successes have been won, eventually, by force of arms and by an exhausting process of attrition at the end of which the insurrectionists withdraw into what subsequent events demonstrate to be essentially a state of hibernation. Since basic problems and grievances are almost never addressed, and since the same decaying institutional structures are simply permitted to perpetuate past inequities and distortions, the remnants of violent dissident movements eventually recover sufficient strength and support to regroup and relaunch their activities.
The absence, of a coherent institutional response to the cumulative crises of conflict in India is one of the most dangerous intellectual failures - no doubt among many others - of our constitutional democracy. Terrorist movements and collective civil strife in the West, in terms of loss of life and property, and in their geographical scope, have been relatively minor when compared to the violence that has afflicted the Indian sub-continent. But in every such case in the West, the intellectual response has been enormous. The body of empirical and analytic literature that exists even on minor
Western terrorist groups and movements is in dramatic contrast with the paucity and the poor quality of work on the most protracted of insurgencies in India. Nor have our jurisprudence, our legislation, or our administrative philosophies kept pace with the demands of the immensely inventive range of insurrections and the growing sphere of organised political and criminal violence that plague this region.
It is a remarkable and characteristic feature of our political and intellectual defalcation that there is, today, no single institution in this country that offers an adequate environment where these issues can be effectively addressed. Sporadic and uncoordinated research is certainly being carried out in a variety of academic and state institutions; but its quality and utility are suspect, and its impact on policy has remained negligible.
An enormous urgency attends the task of bringing individuals from a range of disciplines and backgrounds to focus their attention on the contemporary problems of burgeoning violence and the shrinking sphere of civilised and secure life. As we approach the 21st Century, perhaps the greatest challenge that confronts us is to define and implement effective instruments to cope with the ever increasing intensity and range of conflicts that plague this divided subcontinent. Weapon systems, information technologies and processes, and organisational and political responses will all play an important role in this task. But they will not suffice.
Small arms, today, proliferate; the implements of war are becoming more lethal, more difficult to detect, and more easily available; societies are becoming far more complex and less tolerant of intrusive policing methods. The critical differences, therefore, between success and failure will be the exploration of ideas, ideologies and strategies that provide concrete and effective alternatives to violence in conflict resolution; alternatives that must appeal, equally, to the establishment and to the alienated groupings that currently believe that violence is the only method to secure relief within the prevailing system.
This task becomes even more urgent in view of the unfortunately wide variety of reasons that make this region one of the most volatile in the world today. Radical shifts in the geopolitical architecture of Asia place the sub-continent in a unique position within the emerging international order. The most obvious and consequential of these changes is, of course, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and with it, the destabilisation of cold war equations, and the haphazard emergence of a variety of conflicting American ‘strategic interests’ that have exacerbated tensions between India and Pakistan, and have contributed enormously to destabilisation in Afghanistan as well. A devastated and destabilised Afghanistan is a source of great present and potential anxiety to both India and Pakistan. These factors have tended to compound influences emerging from the religious ferment and ethnic entanglements of Muslim Central Asia. And sporadic support, both moral and material, from the West as well as from hostile neighbours, to various brands of sub-nationalism in South Asia, has added strength to the rash of terrorist movements and insurgencies that plague the region.
China’s hegemonistic predilections are also an ever-present threat to peace in the sub-continent. China’s increasing belligerence in South East Asia; covert support to insurgencies, particularly in India’s North East; the backdrop of the 1962 War against India; the continued occupation of, and oppression in Tibet; and a systematically mischievous policy of arms sales and sensitive technology transfer give adequate grounds for concern to the countries of the sub-continent - though some of them may temporarily benefit from some of these policies.
This backdrop acquires particular significance in the context of fundamental changes that have taken place in the very nature of conflict between nations. Strategic configurations are no longer expressed in the traditional nomenclature of ‘external security threats’. While the nations of this region do have impressive conventional military capabilities arrayed against each other, and against their other neighbours, it is a fact that the danger of open warfare between nations has certainly diminished. The territorial and strategic ambitions, both of regional and extra-regional powers, are now translated into a range of ‘non-standard’, ‘irregular’ and ‘low-intensity’ wars that prey on domestic discontent.
Terrorism is at the very heart of this new paradigm of international conflict. It is, moreover, an increasingly popular ideology of conflict within nations, as discontented factions, disappointed with the attainments and impatient with the processes of democracy, obtain freer access to large arsenals of sophisticated small arms and explosives, as well as to the skills to use them, and the organisational techniques for their deployment. Indeed, the power, the weaponry, and the proficiency of terrorist groups appears to be accelerating at a rate much faster than the countermeasures available to civilised society.
The combined impact of these international and internal factors is the veritable rash of terrorist movements and separatist insurgencies that has swept across South Asia in the recent past, the most prominent of which are Sikh and Kashmiri separatism in India, and the persistent insurgencies in its North Eastern states; Sindhi, Mohajir and Baluchi movements in Pakistan; and the Tamils in Sri Lanka. The Gorkha question in Bhutan, the conflict between the Terai and Hill People in Nepal, and the Chakmas in Bangladesh are among the more obvious of the numerous other areas of potential strife within the sub-continent that could spawn terrorist movements in the foreseeable future.
Another extremely disturbing aspect of the Indian sub-continent is that two of the three largest drug growing areas of the world are located within 400 kilometres of its boundaries; as the region becomes an increasingly important transit route for the international drug trade, it is progressively drawn into the destabilising dynamics of organised crime and narco-terrorism, with hitherto unforeseen implications for peace and security far beyond the region.
These factors are superimposed, in India, on a society deeply fragmented by its obsession with caste and community; and with linguistic, regional and cultural differences. A society, moreover, that is enormously unequal and inequitable. Given the mixed administrative and political record of successive regimes since Independence, it is unsurprising that the manifestations of discontent in explicit conflict and violence have seen a continuous escalation over the last half-century.
The Institute for Conflict Management seeks to engage directly in the search for solutions to this widening sphere of strife. Its core objective is to create a non-doctrinaire and ideologically neutral institutional context for a co-ordinated inter-disciplinary effort to explore, define and implement concrete solutions to prevailing conflicts.
At the heart of this exercise is the collection, collation and analysis of information and data relating to terrorism, organised crime, social, ethnic and communal strife, and a variety of institutional and strategic issues connected with internal security.
By creating opportunities and a database for vigorous research and debate in these issues, ICM would help correct the prevailing informational imbalances and the political-bureaucratic make-believe that shapes present policies.
This is a time when the intelligentsia can also engage directly with large numbers of people through media that transcend even the hitherto insurmountable barrier of illiteracy. The great contest between competing ideologies and conflicting ideas can, and must, now be fought in the public arena as never before. The Institute would, therefore, attempt to explore all available mass media in order to widen the scope and impact of these debates.
The eventual objectives of the collective endeavour of those who would be associated with ICM’s activities are to discover and implement tangible strategies that would help preserve the unity of this nation in a way that does not diminish the essential diversity, ethnic identities, and religious, cultural and ideological pluralism that are the essence of India; as well as to help define an integrating vision for the entire sub-continent.
(Late) Shri K.P.S. Gill, IPS 1997
Since its creation in 1997, the Institute for Conflict Management has consolidated its position as the premier source of data, analysis and assessment on issues relating to terrorism and sub-conventional warfare in the South Asian region.
The Institute’s website, the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), its newsletter the South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR), and its quarterly journal, Faultlines: Writings on Conflict & Resolution (now Faultlines: The K.P.S. Gill Journal of Conflict & Resolution), have been the principal instruments of this consolidation.
The Institute has executed a number of crucial policy-oriented and field-based research projects on subjects relating to terrorism, insurgency, sub-conventional warfare, the impact and containment of political violence, strategic future-studies, policing, and other aspects of conflict and containment.
The Institute is consulted very regularly by a wide range of policy makers, officials, diplomats, think tanks, journalists and media organisations across the world.
The Institute’s resources have become the international first stop for concerned professionals, policy makers, scholars and journalists on the subject of terrorism and sub-conventional warfare in South Asia, and our work now substantially dominates the discourse on these subjects.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal was launched on March 11, 2000, and has since securely established itself internationally as the primary source of information and reliable assessments on terrorism in the South Asian region.
With well over 95,000 pages of data, research, analysis and assessments in its database by end-2020, SATP is the largest website on terrorism and low intensity warfare in South Asia, and creates the database and analytic context for research and analysis of all extremist movements in the region. SATP was set up to counter the progressive distortions regarding, and the international community’s neglect of, the wide range of terrorist movements within South Asia. SATP establishes a comprehensive, searchable and continuously updated database on all available information relating to terrorism, low intensity warfare and ethnic/communal/sectarian strife in South Asia. The website’s principal features include:
SATP has registered a continuous and dramatic increase in its reach and readership. From a total of under 525,000 hits in 2001, SATP secured a total of 56.3 million hits in 2020 – an average of nearly 4.6 million hits a month – from as many as 210 different countries.
SATP is a globally cited resource, and its data has been used by Governments across the world. The website is referred to repeatedly in the US Department of State’s annual Country Reports on Terrorism.
Based on the analytic content of SATP, the Executive Director, ICM, was called upon to submit written evidence to the UK House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs on “Islamic Terrorism in South Asia” (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmfaff/55/55we16.htm).
In 2003, SATP was included among just nine resources in the world, in the US Library of Congress’ Inventory and Assessment of Databases Relevant for Social Science Research on Terrorism (https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/203732.pdf).
The South Asia Intelligence Review (SAIR) is a weekly service that provides regular assessments, data and news briefs on terrorism, insurgencies and sub-conventional warfare, on counter-terrorism responses and policies, as well as on related economic, political, and social issues, in the South Asian region. SAIR is e-mailed directly to a list of influential policy and opinion makers across the world, and is also prominently uploaded on the Institute's Website each Monday. SAIR was launched in July 2002, and by end-2020 was being direct-mailed to over 5,767 subscribers. SAIR narrowly targets opinion leaders across the world, including policy makers, security professionals, media organisations, think tanks, diplomats, embassies, legislators and academicians, among others.
In over 18 years, SAIR has secured an immense penetration and awareness among target readers, and has become a trusted source of reliable and current assessments in influential quarters across the world. Assessments from SAIR have been reproduced in a large number of Indian and international publications. SAIR is also extensively cross-referenced on the Internet, and has established itself as a primary source of security risk assessments, analyses and data, globally.
A quarterly journal on Terrorism, Low Intensity Warfare, Internal security and various sources of existing and emerging collective violence in South Asia, launched in May 1999.
FAULTLINES has consistently emphasised areas of research that have remained largely neglected in the larger body of writings in conflict studies, including a particular focus on the evolution and resolution of insurgencies in India’s Northeast, as well as relatively undocumented movements in South Asia. Authors range from academics, security force officers, bureaucrats and media personnel. While papers written by government officials and security professionals bring a wide range of field experience to conflict studies, others have provided profound theoretical and analytical insights in the course, management and resolution of conflicts.
As of March 2021, 26 Volumes of FAULTLINES have been published.
Khalistan Extremism Monitor (KEM) is a non-partisan research and documentation web portal which intends to be a one stop resource for research on the Khalistani separatist movement in Punjab. KEM monitors day-to-day Khalistani activities around the world.
KEM has been set up under the aegis of the Institute for Conflict Management to play a key role in research and documentation of Khalistani extremism, to create a comprehensive database, produce qualitative analysis, and monitor the daily activities of Khalistan supporters and detractors, including hate speech and acts, as well as law-and-order issues created in Punjab and other parts of the world by Khalistani elements.
KEM is assembling an extensive database on Khalistani extremism and its support networks. It will establish a resource centre for the media, academics and governments concerned with trends and manifestations of Khalistani extremism.
The KEM Website, https://www.khalistanextremismmonitor.org/, was launched on December 27, 2019.
Average daily website traffic (Hits) varies between 2200-2800 per day. The number is growing month on month. In the month of December 2020, traffic touched 80,000, and increased to 84,000 hits in January 2021.
The North East Portal (www.neportal.org) was an independent Website focusing exclusively on conflict and development in India's northeast. NE Portal is a comprehensive electronic database and documentation resource that compiles, processes and stores all information, documents and data on crucial issues relating to socio-economic development and resolution of various existing and emerging conflicts in the region.
The Database and Documentation initiative focused on India’s Northeast to create a reliable and exhaustive database on a wide range of parameters, including conflict, public policy, development, governance, non-governmental activities, and social science research relating to this neglected region. The DADC and its affiliates tap existing sources of data and information on the Northeast, and create mechanisms that focus research and survey activities on priority areas relating to conflict and development. Specifically, the Centre and its affiliates document and compile data and information, monitor the print and electronic media, and execute research and survey projects in the region.
Impact is a series of V-logs, on the South Asia Terrorism Portal (www.satp.org). Impact provides assessments in video format, backed by graphics, on current issues relating to the principal themes of the Website. The first V-log in the series was published on December 28, 2018.
Second Sight, a series of occasional commentaries on security and strategy on the South Asia Terrorism Portal (www.satp.org), commenced in November 2018.
The Institute has also published three Books which received global coverage and acknowledgement
Ajai Sahni (Ed.): The Fragility of Order: Essays in Honour of K.P.S. Gill K.P.S. Gill, Punjab: The Knights of Falsehood KPS Gill and Ajai Sahni: The Global Threat of Terror: Ideological, Material and Political Linkages
The Institute has conducted several international, national and regional conferences, seminars and workshops and contact programmes to create awareness on terrorism, low intensity warfare and other patterns of internal conflict and resolution in South Asia. Specifically, the Institute has organised a number of programmes in areas afflicted by high-level insurgencies and terrorist movements in different parts of India.
The Institute has carried out a wide range of research projects, including several in areas afflicted by insurgent and terrorist violence
The Institute’s research, as well as projects by scholars at the Institute, have also been published in a large number of journals and books.
The Institute’s existing research, collaborative and dissemination programmes have also created significant linkages with individuals and institutions working in the field on related issues. The Institute has worked, or is working, in close co-ordination with a number of research organisations and other institutions, across the country, and particularly in areas of low intensity conflict
The Institute works in a fully computerised environment and is ideally suited to explore and exploit the benefits of emerging Information Technologies, and to extend these to target communities and institutions as a spin-off in its collaborative programmes.