India — the land of
Gautam Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi — ranks 6th on the
Global Terrorism Index (GTI), ahead of even Yemen, Somalia, Russia and Egypt.
According to latest report of US-based think tank IEP (Institute for Economic & Peace), owing to 624 terror incidents and 404 killings in 2013, India's terror quotient is 7.86 on a scale of 10 and is only marginally below Syria that clocked 8.12 with 217 incidents and 1,078 casualties.
IEP describes GTI as a comprehensive study that accounts for direct and indirect impact of terrorism in 162 countries, comprising 99.6% of world's population, in terms of lives lost, injuries, property damage and the psychological after-effects of terrorism.
War-ravaged Iraq with the terror quotient of 10 remains the worst sufferer with 2,492 incidents and 6,362 killings and is followed by
Afghanistan (9.39), Pakistan (9.37) and Nigeria (8.58).
While the debate in India remains inconclusive whether to call Maoists insurgents or terrorists, the report says violence by CPI (Maoist) is the main reason behind India's high rank on GTI as it is responsible for 2.2% killings worldwide.
The report observes that terrorism increased in India by 70% from 2012 to 2013, with the number of deaths increasing from 238 to 404, while the number of attacks increasing with 55 more in 2013 than 2012.
Steve Killelea, executive chairman of IEP, has an advice for terror-hit countries. "Terrorism doesn't arise on its own. By identifying the factors associated with it, policies can be implemented to improve the underlying environment that nurtures terrorism. The most significant actions that can be taken are to reduce state-sponsored violence such as extra-judicial killings, reduce group grievances and hostilities, and improve effective and community-supported policing," he says.
The trend, according to the report, is more or less expected to continue. But the worrying factor is that the report indicates that India's neighbours Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar are likely to clock higher than their present status on the GTI in future. Currently
Bangladesh is ranked 23rd with GTI of 5.25, Myanmar 35th with GTI of 4.24 and Myanmar with GTI of 4.01.
The study makes an interesting observation that terrorist violence usually spirals up whenever there has been a coercive action by states like beginning of war against Iraq, killing of Osama bin Laden.
It observes that the countries with higher levels of terrorism perform signi?cantly worse on the Pillars of Peace, a framework developed by IEP to assess the positive peace factors that create peaceful societies.
The ten countries with most deaths from terrorism in 2013 (it includes India) performed 26% worse on the Pillars of Peace compared to the international average. These countries performed particularly poorly on three out of the eight Pillars of Peace.
The three pillars are – 1) free flow of information the extent to which citizens can gain access to information, whether the media is free and independent; 2) good relations with neighbours i.e. relations between individuals and between communities as well as to cross-border relations; and 3) acceptance of the rights of others, which includes both the formal laws that guarantee basic freedoms as well as the informal social and cultural norms that relate to behaviours of citizens.
The countries with the highest rates of terrorism also have certain commonalities in behaviours and attitudes such as corruption is generally higher in countries with the highest number of deaths from terrorism. These countries experience 11% more people facing a bribe situation than the international average.
Most of the public conversation about terrorism has focused on conventional
counter-terrorism e?orts - Intelligence gathering, policing, and military force. However, such e?orts are often ine?ective, and even counterproductive, the report notes.
RAND Corporation, which looked at terrorist groups over a forty-year period, found that the majority of terrorist groups ended by either joining the political process, meaning either the whole organisation, or via a political wing of the organisation and becoming became a legitimate political party, or were destroyed at high cost by policing and intelligence agencies breaking up the group and either arresting or killing key members.
Military force in itself was rarely responsible for ending terrorist groups. Of the 268 terrorists groups (1968-2006) only 7% ended through military action at a very high cost, while 43% got wrapped up through political engagement, the study says.
Global terror index: India scores 7.86 on a scale of 10 | Latest News & Updates at Daily News & Analysis
