The objective of terrorists and extremists everywhere is to provoke the state to over-react, or to under-react. Either of these outcomes serves their purpose, and it is only measured and condign responses that defeat them. Such responses, however, cannot be achieved with the falsification of threat assessments.
There is a constant effort, alternately, to underplay or exaggerate the terrorist threat, to advance a partisan agenda, either of force reduction or supposed ‘rationalisation’, or of political polarisation and demonisation of the Muslim community in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). This is a discourse, moreover, that occurs in complete ignorance or with a conscious neglect of facts and data, both which are certainly available to policymakers as well as to those who promote falsehoods.
What the Data Says
The first thing that needs to be emphasised is that there is no dramatic escalation of terrorism in J&K. In the first six and a half months of the current year, there has been a total of 60 fatalities as against 52 fatalities in the corresponding period of 2023; there were 134 fatalities in the whole of 2023 – the lowest number since 2012 when there were 121 fatalities [all data from the South Asia Terrorism Portal].
Crucially, in the January to 16 July period, security force (SF) fatalities totalled 13 in 2024, while there were 12 such fatalities in the corresponding period in 2023. 30 terrorists were killed in this period, both in 2023 and 2024. The SF-Terrorist kill ratio for this period was 1:2.3 in 2024, as against 1:2.5 in 2023 – a not very significant variation. The total number of terrorism-related incidents in the current year is 91, as compared to 133 during the corresponding period of 2023. The whole of 2023 recorded 267 such incidents.
It is useful, also, to examine claims regarding the ‘shift’ in terrorism from the Valley to the Jammu division in light of the actual data. The Jammu division recorded a total of 59 fatalities in 2023, as against 75 in the Kashmir division. The totals for 2024 in the two divisions stand at 26 in Jammu and 34 in Kashmir (till 16 July).
There is cause for concern, of course, because the total in the Jammu division this year includes 11 SF fatalities, as against just two in the Kashmir division; while just four terrorists have been killed in the Jammu division, as against 26 in the Kashmir division. Clearly, the initiative appears to have passed into the hands of the terrorists in Jammu.
The cause for this is not difficult to locate. Right towards the end of 2023, the discourse at the Centre focused on the withdrawal of the army from the Jammu region, because the situation had purportedly ‘normalised’ there – despite clear data on continued infiltration and terrorist operations in the division.
The army’s presence had already been drastically reduced in the Jammu region, in dribbles over the years, but dramatically after the 2020-21 confrontations with China along the Line of Actual Control, destroying the integrity and effectiveness of the counter-terrorism grid, and also undermining flows of human intelligence – the latter tendency further augmented by a range of policies that have alienated large segments of the local population.
What Makes the Centre’s Repeated Pronouncements of ‘Zero Terrorism’ in J&k Absurd
Counter-terrorism operations are by their very nature manpower intensive, and this is disproportionately the case in the extraordinarily challenging terrain that is found in the higher reaches of the Jammu division. Ad hoc withdrawals of force, without due consideration to the strategic and tactical demands of the situation, can only impact negatively on security.
It is important to understand that the Jammu division has not been quiescent at any stage since the beginning of the insurgency; it was thought to be so essentially because of the much higher fatalities in the Valley, creating the illusion of relative control in Jammu. Crucially, moreover, through the period when terrorism remained at relatively high levels in the Valley, right to the present, the Jammu border has consistently been used as a major infiltration-exfiltration route for terrorists from Pakistan.
It is abundantly clear that the environment in the Valley has made the movement and operation of terrorists very difficult, and this has resulted in dramatic declines in terrorist operations there, even as Force dilution in the Jammu region has opened up large gaps in the security grid. These developments cannot have been missed by the terrorists' leadership, or by their sponsors across the border, and a necessary process of adaptation ensued. This is what we are witnessing in what is erroneously being described as a shift to, or surge in, terrorism, from the Valley to the Jammu region.
It must also be made clear that the Pakistani intent has not changed significantly, though capacities to sustain high levels of terrorism in J&K have been reduced by a variety of factors, including domestic conditions and an international focus on Pakistani mischief. As long as Pakistan continues to support terrorism, host terrorist leaders and cadres, maintain launch pads, training facilities and terrorist infrastructure, and look the other way while terrorist organisations openly engage in recruitment and funding activities, sustaining a minimal level of terrorism in J&K will always remain possible.
This, indeed, is what makes the Centre’s repeated pronouncements of ‘zero terrorism’ in J&K absurd. It is reasonable to speak of ‘zero tolerance of terrorism’, but to burden our security forces with the objective of ‘zero terrorism’, and then blame them when this ridiculous goal cannot be met, even as their presence is significantly reduced in a particular region, speaks poorly of the political sagacity of those who are framing policies and the discourse on terrorism in India.
Cycles of tactical adaptation are inevitable in any protracted conflict, and terrorist operations in Jammu will trigger a natural corrective response. The grid will be re-established, and the security forces will identify and address weaknesses. It is unfortunate that this knee-jerk pattern is necessitated by the natural orientation of those who define policy from their distant and secure sanctuaries in New Delhi. The price is paid in blood by our security forces.
(The writer is founding member and executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management. He can be reached @Ajai_Sahni. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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