Radicalization in India

Radicalisation is defined as the phenomenon of people embracing opinions, views and ideas which could lead to acts of terrorism. This is a process by which individuals or groups of people usually youths come to support terrorism and violent extremism and join terrorist groups. Multiple pathways, violent and non-violent are used to constitute the radicalization. One of the highlighted pathway is radicalization via internet.

The 1990s witnessed the process of radicalisation in India, especially after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, when few fundamentalist organisations of islam religion began to entreat Indian Muslims to say no to democracy, nationalism, secularism and polytheism and few members of these organisations began to trickle into terrorist training camps in Pakistan.[1]

The concept of radicalization in India further emerged on 3rd Oct, 2016 when National Investigation Agency of India arrested three youngster who were planning terrorist attack owing allegiance to Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi.[2] After that National Investigation Agency cracked a series of cases of radicalization of Indian youth which forces government of India to the stark threat to the national security of India.

Causes of Radicalization
Micro Level: Poverty, disease, illiteracy, misery, starvation, drugs, social, cultural inequality, etc. A culture of alienation and humiliation can act as a kind of growth medium in which the process of radicalization commences and virulent extremism comes to thrive.

Meso Level: Religious or racial ethnocentric senses, perceptions of injustice and discrimination, low personal and social esteem, historical memory and ideological indoctrination, sense of betrayal, breakdown of law and order, growing polarization of society, the decline of scientific temper, absence of sense of belonging to the human family, and other situations which lead to growing frustration, desperation and exasperation etc.

Macro Level: Political, social and economical oppression, injustices, unemployment and lack of hope, good offer by terrorists etc. role of national politics and governance and administration issues, geopolitical events around the world, national or international wars or conflicts of religious or ideological issues etc.

[1]India and the Challenge of Terrorism in the Hinterland by Sankaran Kalyanaraman.
[2]Thwarting Radicalization in India: Lacunae in Policy Initiatives Bajpai GS1* and Kaushik A2.