India has since independence seen largely three manifestations of terrorism; ethno linguistic, left wing terrorism and religious. Of course, there have been other movements which can be classified into one or more of these boxes – most prominently the Dravidian movement in the 60s and the Shiv Sena inspired sons of the soil movement driven originally by the fear that the States Reorganization Committee would take away, Bombay, the capital of the then composite Bombay State at the time when Gujarat was carved out. Subsequently the Shiv Sena began to be driven by the slogan – Maharashtra for the Maharashtrians and it certainly had and has a violent edge but can never though be classified as a terrorist movement. However this classification is only indicative and no water tight. For instance the terrorism in Kashmir is as much inspired in part by Islamiyat as by Kashmiriyat – the essence of what it means to be a Kashmiri – in terms of language as well as ethnicity.
If you look at the association of religion with terrorism, the two major non Indic religions – Islam and Christianity stand indicted covertly or overtly. The church has been known to be involved or known to be sympathetic depending on how you choose your words in many places in the North East where it has influence. India’s northeast is one of Asia’s up-to-the-minute trouble spots, with as many as thirty armed insurgent organizations working and making extortionist demands as well as political demands ranging from autonomy to secession. Four of the seven northeastern Indian states, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Tripura, witness scales of conflict that can be categorized as low-intensity wars.
The north east of India has a chequered political history. For instance, the Nags had declared their independence from British rule on the 14th of August 1947, a day before the birth of independent India. In fact in 1947, Mahatma Gandhi had told a delegation of Naga leaders, that Nagas have every right to be independent.” But after Gandhiji was assassinated, his promises die ended with him as the new Indian government decline to accept Naga hope for independence. Naga protests and resistance to the incorporation of their land into the Indian union began to steadily grow. Then in 1955 the Indian army occupied the Naga areas and martial law was declared. Violence quickly escalated.
Although the churches of Nagaland initiated some efforts at peace building which led to the signing of the Shillong accord of 1975, it is a fact that the church has often tacitly or passively sided with militants and insurgents for two reasons: 1) in many instances, the church though nominally powerful was still a distant second in commanding loyalties compared to tribal and ethnic allegiance. Christianity is only 125 years old in Nagaland and about the age in Mizoram, the two main Christian states but tribal and linguistic identities go back centuries. 2) The church tried to be a moderating influence in a spiral of terrorism which might have otherwise completely spun out of control. In Mizoram, the church was actually successful in bringing Mizo National Front Terrorists to the negotiating table and getting them to sign a Mizo accord which has largely lasted to this day. Be that it may, the history of terrorism and insurgency in the North East cannot be written without reference to the church and its involvement though the interpretation of this role will always depend on which side of the fence once is on.
Islamic terrorism in an organized fashion in India is to be found in Kashmir and the movement is relatively new though the separatist movement led by Sheikh Abdullah’s National Conference is old and is another legacy of the unfinished British business as they left. If it has received and continues to receive more attention than similar movements in the North East, it is because it became internationalized with the involvement of Pakistan and later the United Nations. But the movement in Kashmir was in its initial stages a secular movement and it was a separatist movement yes, but a terrorist movement no. it turned that way some time later ….. generally considered to be in 1989. The Pakistani Military ruler Gen. Zia Ul Huq who deposed Z.A.Bhutto in 1977 rapidly started injecting religion into the largely hitherto largely secular military and body politic. In neighboring Afghanistan, the Soviet troops began withdrawing in 1987 leaving a virtually open field for Muslim jihadists who had been fighting the Soviets thus far to be shipped across the border into Kashmir and lunch a fresh Jihadi there. In fact, the All Party Hurriyat Conference which is the public face of the Muslim Separatists was formed as late as 1993 whereas the secular Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front was founded by Amanullah Khan in 1977. but with the rise of Islamic fundamentalists globally, the older secular and nationalist forces were marginalized and sidelined.
Sikh religious insurgency is also relatively new and was inspired by a small section of the Sikhs who wanted an independent Khalistan roughly in the same time in the 80s as when Kashmir was simmering as the geo political forces operating in the neighborhood were the same. Post independence, to a large measure, Sikhs were satisfied with the division of undivided Punjab in to Sikh dominated Punjab and the Hindu dominated Himachal Pradesh and Haryana and for a long time Khalistanis were no more than a few disgruntled elements writing extremist religious slogans outside Gurudwaras walls. But with the rise of Sant Bhindaranwale in the early 80s with political support from the ruling establishment in Delhi and supply of arms from across the border in Pakistan, the dormant movement gained life. But it was a short lived movement self programmed to self destruct. Sikh history has its very roots of its evolution, the cruelty and death the Sikh Gurus experienced during Mughal rule, so much so that the present day Khalsa identity of the large majority of the Sikhs was forged in the furnace of the battlefield. Such an unholy alliance could not and did not have any thing more than the shortest of shelf lives and this lack of public support which rapidly waned along with brutal police repression broke the back of the short lived Sikh insurgency which was fuelled more by NRI dollars, arms from across the border and the huffs and puffs of unemployed youth.