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Regionalism and bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation: the case of India and Thailand

April 2021
Journal of Policing Intelligence and Counter Terrorism 16(3):245-266

DOI:10.1080/18335330.2021.1906933

Authors:

Kansai Gaidai University

After major terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, Bali, Indonesia in 2002, and Mumbai, India in 2008, India and Thailand responded in disparate ways. Thailand was slow to respond out of fear of alienating the large Muslim population in its restive south. India, after Mumbai, moved to create and strengthen domestic institutions that would hasten counter- terrorism measures, with limited success. In the years that followed these seminal events, both Bangkok and New Delhi have, like other South Asian and ASEAN states, moved toward bilateral and multilateral counter-terrorism partnerships. This paper surveys the history of terrorism in both countries and their domestic responses, persistent domestic and regional challenges, and documents a growing India-Thailand bilateral counter- terrorism partnership – particularly in the sectors of maritime security, intelligence sharing, extradition, and joint security cooperation. This paper contributes to a growing body of literature on emerging South-South partnerships by evaluating India-Thailand counter-terrorism cooperation and explores avenues for future bilateral exchanges and multilateral opportunities within institutional bodies, such as ASEAN and BIMSTEC.

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Regionalism and bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation: the

case of India and Thailand

Mark S. Cogan

and Vivek Mishra

b,c

College of Foreign Studies, Kansai Gaidai University, Hirakata-shi, Japan;

Kalinga Institute of Indo-Paciﬁc

Studies, Bhubaneswar, India;

Indian Council of World Aﬀairs, New Delhi, India

ABSTRACT

After major terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11,

2001, Bali, Indonesia in 2002, and Mumbai, India in 2008, India and

Thailand responded in disparate ways. Thailand was slow to

respond out of fear of alienating the large Muslim population in

its restive south. India, after Mumbai, moved to create and

strengthen domestic institutions that would hasten counter-

terrorism measures, with limited success. In the years that

followed these seminal events, both Bangkok and New Delhi

have, like other South Asian and ASEAN states, moved toward

bilateral and multilateral counter-terrorism partnerships. This

paper surveys the history of terrorism in both countries and their

domestic responses, persistent domestic and regional challenges,

and documents a growing India-Thailand bilateral counter-

terrorism partnership –particularly in the sectors of maritime

security, intelligence sharing, extradition, and joint security

cooperation. This paper contributes to a growing body of

literature on emerging South-South partnerships by evaluating

India-Thailand counter-terrorism cooperation and explores

avenues for future bilateral exchanges and multilateral

opportunities within institutional bodies, such as ASEAN and

BIMSTEC.

ARTICLE HISTORY

Received 29 August 2020

Accepted 14 February 2021

KEYWORDS

India; Thailand; counter-

terrorism; ASEAN; BIMSTEC;

regionalism

Introduction

In September 2006, when the United Nations General Assembly unanimously adopted the

UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, outlining a holistic approach to counterterrorism,

one of the primary underpinnings was cooperation of individual stakeholders along with

contributions of regional and subregional bodies (RSRs). While states remain principal

actors in countering terrorism, regional and international organisations play an important

role in counter-terrorism eﬀorts. The eﬃcacy of such associations may vary, depending on

whether such associations are legally bound, or could be bound by customary inter-

national laws, resolutions, codes of conduct, guidance, and jurisprudence.

The case of counter-terrorism cooperation between Thailand and India is deﬁned by

both individual and regional stakes. At the regional level, even though both the Associ-

ation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-

CONTACT Mark S. Cogan polisci03@gmail.com College of Foreign Studies, Kansai Gaidai University, 16–1

Nakamiyahigashino-cho, Hirakata-shi, Osaka 573–1001 Japan

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM

2021, VOL. 16, NO. 3, 245–266

https://doi.org/10.1080/18335330.2021.1906933

Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) provide two obvious paradigms

for assessing the need and progress of counterterrorism cooperation between India and

Thailand, they remain limited in their persuasion for the same, especially given the pro-

gress and institutional impediments that a large regional body like ASEAN can impose.

Besides, India’s approach to counter-terrorism has eschewed a regional perspective

hitherto and has relied on a unilateral approach. However, the emerging geopolitics of

the Indo-Paciﬁc has strengthened common assessment and resolve to counter security

threats. The security of the Indo-Paciﬁc matters to all countries in the region in both tra-

ditional and non-traditional security threats. For India especially, the region provides an

opportunity to emerge as a net-security-provider in the region, binding the country

with collective regional stakes. As the Indo-Paciﬁc ties both India and Thailand in one stra-

tegic continuum across the critical Strait of Malacca, there are growing convergences in

how security threats are perceived, assessed and responded to by both countries.

Transnational terrorism is a reality in the Indo-Paciﬁc today. As India and Thailand both

focus on Indo-Paciﬁc security, joint, multinational, intra-agency or an approach combining

all the three have become critical to bilateral interoperability between the two countries.

Bilateral as well as multilateral coordination between the two countries apropos security is

likely to be further boosted in the light of a renewed focus on BIMSTEC by India.

Terrorism has challenged the ways in which security has been traditionally perceived

and responded to. The dimensions of terrorism, most notably in the form of foreign ter-

rorism ﬁghters and various separatist and/or secessionist groups, bring into question

the capacity of states to counter it. Capacity complicates the methods by which

states respond to terrorism. In many ways, India and Thailand are at the epicentre of

this security dilemma. Bangkok and New Delhi have both commonalities and diﬀerences

in state response to terrorism within their boundaries and outside. However, the pres-

ence of groups and factions with links to terror organisations points to common chal-

lenges. While India is prone to terrorism in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir

bordering Pakistan, Thailand’s southern provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala and

Songkhla that border Malaysia are home to a persistent insurgency. These respective

regions also have a history of breeding discontent among their populaces. For India,

the 1947 partition by the British, which carved out the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

and hastily settled border issues between the two new nations, left discontent that con-

tinues to feed on religious identities on both sides of the border. Pakistan’s attempts to

incite separatism on the basis of religion in India’s Jammu and Kashmir has not only

bred terror-related activities in the province, but has found state patronage in Pakistan.

In Thailand’s case, the takeover of the Sultanate of Pattani in the late eighteenth Century

by the Kingdom of Siam remains historically contentious for the Muslim population in

the southern provinces, who continue to take umbrage at centralised decisions made

from Bangkok. Besides these similarities, India’s left-wing extremism in its central

regions and secessionism in its North-East compounds its own security dilemma and

marks a stark contrast between the two. India and Thailand acted diﬀerently in respond-

ing to terrorism before the October 2002 Bali bombings and eﬀorts to counter terrorism

multilaterally was missing until then. By the 1990s India took note of the changing dis-

courses on international terrorism and the need for states to collaborate. This was

backed by increasing evidence of transnational linkages to terrorism. (Sasikumar,

2010). In the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks and the Bali bombings,

246 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

emerging commonalities in counter-terrorism strategies between India and Thailand

can be distinguished. The Bali bombings and the Mumbai attacks underscored both

domestic deﬁcits and the need to combine counter-terrorism capabilities internationally

for Thailand and India respectively. While India started international cooperation on

counter-terrorism, on the domestic front shortcomings within agencies and their

implementation persisted. In the case of Thailand, the arrests of Jemaah Islamiya (JI) sus-

pects in June 2003 proved to be a watershed moment in linking international terrorism

to southern Thailand (Chongkittavorn, 2004). The emerging international dimension of

terrorism and the links of certain groups based in both India and Thailand provided

common grounds for counter-terrorism cooperation.

For example, the seas between India and Thailand have opened up as an area to be

explored for traditional and non-traditional aspects of security cooperation. Together,

they are increasingly being referred to as maritime security governance, a wider and

more diverse concept than the traditional notion of defense against military threats,

and the protection of national interests and territorial sovereignty at sea. The concept

now includes non-traditional security challenges, such as maritime terrorism, natural dis-

asters, climate change, illegal ﬁshing, marine pollution, maritime safety, and various forms

of traﬃcking (Bateman, 2016). The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) sits at the centre of global

maritime security and governance concerns with two-thirds of global oil trade and one-

third of global cargo trade passing through the area (Chaudhury, 2018, September 6). In

the maritime domain, the evolving Indo-Paciﬁc region opens both nations up to oppor-

tunities for further security cooperation, as open seas remain highly vulnerable to terror-

related activities.

As the two countries draw closer to bilateral arrangements to counter terrorism,

some of the mechanisms employed are institutional in nature. India’scloserelation-

ship with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states makes bilateral

and multilateral cooperation more convenient. Terrorism and maritime piracy are sig-

niﬁcant challenges for India and Thailand, as well as the international community.

Through open regionalism, many ASEAN states have participated in joint patrols

and have shared intelligence. This is intensiﬁed because of the scale of the

problem in Southeast Asia and in littoral states near the Malacca Strait. More than

95 piracy-related incidents have occurred between January and December 2020, com-

pared with 72 in 2019 (ReCAAP, 2020). Regional cooperation through institutional

mechanisms and bilateral relationships have deepened, which led to a number of

developments, such as the ASEAN Security Community. This open regionalism has

even allowed for cooperation where tensions persist between countries, such as

China’s proposal to establish a Security Policy Conference under the ASEAN Regional

Forum in 2003, although this has dimmed somewhat in light of Beijing’s aggression in

the South China Sea. Regional powers like India and Thailand have been convinced of

the need to utilise multiple mechanisms to address non-traditional security chal-

lenges. As a result, ASEAN and BIMSTEC remain attractive forums for counter-terror-

ism dialogue and joint security cooperation. However, large regional bodies like

ASEAN and BIMSTEC also present persistent challenges, such as the lack of consensus

on sensitive issues, which includes terrorism. Amidst these impediments, bilateral

mechanisms of cooperation provided a window of opportunity to both India and

Thailand.

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 247

This paper reﬂects upon the experiences of both countries in addressing the chal-

lenges of counter-terrorism and draws from their respective histories to explore areas

of cooperation at the bilateral and multilateral levels. In addition to contributing to a

sparse body of literature on joint security cooperation between India and Thailand, this

paper explores bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation, strengthens rationales for region-

alism in national strategies, and uncovers hidden potential for future cooperation within

the institutional conﬁnes of ASEAN and BIMSTEC. Finally, this article contributes further by

providing policy-oriented recommendations to solidify bilateral collaboration between

Bangkok and New Delhi.

Terrorism and state response in Thailand

While Buddhists comprise more than 94 percent of Thailand’s population, Muslim com-

munities are concentrated along the Malaysian border in the provinces of Narathiwat,

Yala, and Pattani, which continue to face a persistent insurgency. Separatism dates

back to the 1909 Anglo-Siamese Treaty, which outlined the border between Thailand

and Malaysia. Thailand later annexed the sultanate of Pattani and attempted to absorb

Malay Muslims into its dominant Buddhist culture. Years earlier, King Chulalongkorn

(Rama V) began Thai state-building eﬀorts, centralising Bangkok’s legal control over

several Malay towns and eventually transforming them into administrative subdivisions

and provinces (Jitpiromsri, 2019, p. 89). Consecutive Thai kings imposed a range of natio-

nalistic measures at promoting Thai and Buddhist culture in the Southern provinces,

which resulted in local animosity and religious tension. Education was used as a tool to

promote Thai language learning and eﬀorts to assimilate Malay Muslims were concen-

trated on displacing local pondok, or local religious schools which were central to the pro-

motion of local culture and traditions. The 1921 Compulsory Primary Education Act

required all children to learn Thai language (Melvin, 2007, p. 13). Thai nationalism

reached its zenith in the late 1930s under Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram, who

began a series of policies to integrate the Southern provinces under the new nation of

‘Thailand’including religious restrictions on sharia law and the emphasis of Buddhism

as the national religion. Hostilities increased through 1948, when hundreds of thousands

of Malay Muslims asked the United Nations to facilitate the handover of Pattani, Narathi-

wat, and Yala provinces to the Federation of Malaya. In the space between 1948 and the

present, separatist groups, many of them armed, have made consistent demands for

autonomy or independence, citing political and cultural grievances with multiple Thai

governments. In the 1980s, the government, under Prime Minister Prem Tinsulanonda,

aimed to contain discontent in the southern provinces through economic investment,

as well as some regional autonomy for some of the groups in the aﬀected areas. The

Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) was established in 1981 and

oﬀers of amnesty were accepted by a range of separatists (Melvin, 2007, p. 16).

Thailand’s response to terrorism, particularly under Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra,

was guarded, as concerns about domestic politics undermined joint counterterrorism

eﬀorts, and the prevailing concern among ASEAN member states that a regional approach

to cooperation within the bloc would create additional political instability. Thaksin,

pledged two days after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pen-

tagon that Thailand would stand with the United States, however his position was

248 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

precarious and ambivalent in nature. Vacillating between domestic concerns and regional

concerns, Thaksin ﬁrst wanted to wait for a joint ASEAN resolution on terrorism and

suggested that the use of Thai air bases by the American military should require the

approval of ASEAN member states (Simon, 2001).

The Thaksin government continued to act unilaterally, even as the conﬂict in the

restive south escalated in 2001 after the election of the Thai Rak Thai party, which over-

turned or reversed many of the existing government policies concerning the treatment of

Malay-Muslims in the region, including the dissolution of the SBPAC in mid-2002. Thak-

sin’s approach in southern Thailand intensiﬁed the conﬂict through ineﬀective policy,

but the increased presence of JI in the country (Chongkittavorn, 2004) and Thailand’s

involvement in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 did nothing to quash growing provin-

cial animosity. Insurgent activity began to increase in early January 2004, marking a dra-

matic intensiﬁcation of violence, with several attacks on military and police targets,

beginning with an attack on a Narathiwat army base by an estimated 100 attackers,

who raided the facility and took more than 400 assault riﬂes and other light weapons

(Liow & Pathan, 2010, p. 21). Thaksin’s hardline approach was noticeably diﬀerent from

his predecessors, although his leadership style did not depart too far from the past. Thai-

land viewed the insurgent violence –not in terms of religious ideology –but through the

lens of criminality. Thaksin ‘desecuritized’the insurgency in the South, suggesting it was a

‘law and order’problem –separatism in the southern provinces had been defeated and all

that was left was a simple problem of law and order (Liow & Pathan, 2010, p. 4). While

government oﬃcials, including the Supreme Commander of the Royal Thai Armed

Forces, General Chaisit Shinawatra, Thaksin’s cousin, continued to imply criminality

over ideological diﬀerences, privately some security oﬃcials were concerned that the

insurgency had resurfaced (Liow & Pathan, 2010, p. 5).

Emblematic of Thaksin’s heavy-handed approach to the conﬂict in the southern pro-

vinces was a galvanising April 28, 2004 siege at the Krue Se Mosque in Pattani province.

After militants launched a string of attacks against police and military units at outposts in

three southern provinces, they ﬂed into the mosque, which culminated in a nine-hour

standoﬀwith Thai security forces. The 32 militants were subsequently surrounded, but

in the skirmish between the two sides, everyone inside the mosque was killed, including

innocent worshippers who had come only to pray (Chalk, 2008, p. 10). Later that year,

several demonstrators were shot during a protest outside a police station in Tak Bai, in

Narathiwat province. The Royal Thai Army detained hundreds of men, rounding them

up onto trucks, where 78 suﬀocated on the way to military camps. The Tak Bai incident

became a watershed moment for the southern insurgency, solidifying public opinion

against Thaksin and providing additional fuel for future violence.

The Bush Administration drove speculation that Southeast Asia would become a

‘second front’on the war on terrorism. Part of that suspicion was based on intelligence,

some on ideological grounds, and the rest based on past history. Thailand had been a safe

ground for individuals planning operations oﬀThai soil. For example, Ho Chi Minh lived in

the northeast of Thailand while planning a guerrilla war against France. This was con-

sidered acceptable as long as they did not harm Thai citizens (Chongkittavorn, 2004,

p. 268). International terrorist groups have at times, operated inside Thailand’s borders,

using the country as a transit point and a staging area for planning attacks. For

example, JI has been reported to have planned the bombings in Bali from safe houses

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 249

in Bangkok. JI had also planned to attack ﬁve key embassies in Thailand in 2003, including

the Singaporean embassy (Bangkok Embassy Plot Foiled, 2003). In the recent past, militant

groups in the south have shown past interest in forming relationships with Islamic State

(ISIS) and al-Qaeda, although that link has been disputed by the Thai Government and

some independent experts, as insurgents in the south do not often share the transna-

tional ideology of ISIS (International Crisis Group, 2017). However, the April 2018 arrest

of Awae Wae-Eya, who pledged support to ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, has made

some oﬃcials raise questions about its future potential. While the Bali bombings strength-

ened Thailand’s resolve in counter-terrorist operations, Thaksin was still hesitant to make

any sudden moves and declared Thailand’s neutrality because of fears that anti-Muslim

sentiment would further upset more than six million Muslims living in the south

(Chambers, 2004, p. 467). As soon as this stance was reported in the international

press, he reversed his position (Chongkittavorn, 2004, p. 267). However, instead of

walking a ‘tightrope act’, he reversed and pledged Thailand’s full support for the American

war, noting Thailand’s special relationship with the United States and obligation under a

Thai-U.S. defense treaty. In the summer of 2003, Thailand dispatched troops to Iraq and

considered a proposal by the Americans to use Thai facilities to ﬁght Islamic terrorism

in Southeast Asia (Croissant, 2005, p. 34). Later, Thailand captured Nujraman Riduan bin

Isomuddin, a top JI leader with close ties to al-Qaeda as well as four men suspected of

being JI operatives.

Thailand also has a history of ﬁnding convenient scapegoats. In late December 2006

and January 2007, multiple bombs hit Bangkok, killing three people, and injuring 38. In

the aftermath, the Thai government blamed elements of society loyal to Thaksin,

suggesting that separatists in the Southern provinces did not have the capacity to

conduct attacks outside their home provinces (Storey, 2007, p. 4). Thaksin again

became the focal point for suspicion when in 2016, terrorist attacks struck the towns of

Phuket and Phang-nga. The military junta blamed Thaksin’s ties to the Red Shirt move-

ment for masterminding the attacks, in alleged retaliation for public approval of Thai-

land’s newest constitution. While careful not to mention Thaksin by name, Prime

Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said the bombings were the work of ‘bad people’whom he

claimed were opposed to a proposed referendum on Thailand’s new constitution

(Paddock, 2016).

While terrorist acts outside the south have been rare, they have become more fre-

quent. In August 2015, a bomb exploded inside the Erawan Shrine in central Bangkok,

killing 20 people and injuring 120. After the attacks, Prayut called it ‘the worst ever’on

Thai soil (Jenkins, 2015). However, Thai authorities mismanaged the investigation,

missed forensic clues, and locked up suspects without reason –and again blamed

groups linked to Thaksin (Kotani, 2016). Eventually, two Chinese nationals, Yusufu Meer-

ailee and Adem Karadag, both Uighur Muslims from Xinjiang Province in Western China

were accused of perpetrating the attack on the Shrine, which is considered sacred by Bud-

dhists and has become a major tourist attraction. In May 2017, an explosion occurred at

King Mongkut Hospital in Bangkok on the third anniversary of the 2014 coup d’état, injur-

ing 24 people (Bomb blast, 2017). In August 2019, while Bangkok was hosting top diplo-

mats at an ASEAN regional security meeting of foreign ministers which included U.S.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, six bombs exploded at three separate sites, wounding

four people (Wongcha-um & Thepgumpanat, 2019).

250 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

Broadly, Thailand’s post-September 11 response to domestic terrorism has been met

with condemnation and criticism. Thaksin’s approach, as seen in the two notorious inci-

dents at Krue Se and Tak Bai, were indicative of a militaristic and highly partisan approach

to the South. Within months of taking oﬃce, Thaksin attempted to dismantle some of the

institutions and political networks created or inﬂuenced by the notable royalist Prem, with

whom he had a political rivalry. In that process, the institutions that were responsible for

maintaining peace in the South, including SBPAC, which had oﬀered an important

channel of open communication between the Royal Thai Government and the Muslim

community were shuttered (McCargo, 2006, p. 50). Oﬃcials with experience in the

South were silenced because they had close personal and political relationships with

Prem. However, Thaksin became more cooperative after some pushing by the U.S. and

created the Counter Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC), which works in concert with

the Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarters, and coordinates counter-terrorism eﬀorts

between Thai agencies. After his ouster in a September 2006 coup d’état, responsibilities

shifted to Surayud Chulnont, who was more pragmatic (Hariraksapitak, 2006). Surayud

pledged to restore SBPAC –which earned him some praise from Muslim leaders –and

aimed to reconcile with southern insurgents, using Malaysia as a broker and considered

the enactment of some Sharia laws. However, his eﬀorts failed to improve both relations

in the south and counter-terrorism operations in any appreciable fashion, as poor intelli-

gence planning failed to create a network capable of identifying insurgents and security

forces continued to employ excessive violence.

Subsequent governments have had limited to moderate impacts. In 2007, the Thai

government created a 140 million baht programme to provide nursing scholarships for

Malay-Muslim women to address a lack of health practitioners in the three southern pro-

vinces, however this later caused a backlash among Buddhist nurses and public employee

unions (Abuza, 2011, p. 13). The Abhisit Vejjajiva-led government allocated 63 billion baht

in a ‘Development Plan for the Special Area –Five Southern Border Provinces’for 2009

through 2012, but with limited eﬀect (Abuza, 2011, p. 21). While the development per-

spective was hailed by the UN, Abhisit’s approach failed in other aspects, including intel-

ligence sharing between the military and the police. Yingluck Shinawatra had some

success in the South, admitting that the conﬂict had political and cultural roots, but

her administration was cut short by the May 22, 2014 military-backed coup. Counter-ter-

rorism eﬀorts of the ruling junta, led by Prayut, have been largely tarnished by human

rights abuses and suggestions that his military-backed regime is more concerned

about solidifying power in Bangkok than granting any degree of autonomy to the

south (Bodetti, 2020).

Terrorism and state response in India

Terrorism in India originates from the conﬂict in Kashmir, which embroils threats from

Islamic groups, the Naxalite Insurgency, multiple separatist factions seeking autonomy

or independence in the northeast, and the Sikh-based Khalistan Movement in the

Punjab region of India and Pakistan. While the latter three remain domestic concerns,

India’s primary focus has been on the problem of international terrorism emanating

from or exhorted by external sources. The November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai,

carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), an Islamist terrorist organisation based in Pakistan,

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 251

remains a globally identiﬁable incident and emblematic of India’s preoccupation with

foreign sources of terrorism. Nevertheless, terrorist attacks remain routine, occurring

almost every year since the early 1990s, with varying degrees of severity. Between 2000

and 2019, nearly 14,000 civilians were killed across the country, according to the South

Asia Terrorism Portal (Yearly Fatalities, 2020). This is indicative of a challenge that

covers a wide spectrum from a plethora of terrorist organisations, with Islamist, commu-

nist and separatist groups active across the Indian sub-continent. The diversity of threats

come from proxy ﬁghters who inﬁltrate from the Pakistani side of the border in Kashmir,

domestic groups based in the North-East, and left-wing extremism in India’s‘Red Corridor’

(Garge, 2019). Some of these vulnerabilities are related to India’s geographic proximity to

Pakistan, cross-border state-sponsored terrorism, and the proxy war being waged in the

Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Since the Kashmir insurgency began in 1988 until the

end of 2019, nearly 15,000 civilians, 6,530 security force personnel, and 23,779 terrorist

ﬁghters have lost their lives (Fatalities in Terrorist Violence, 2019). Over the past two

decades, India has been ranked among the most impacted countries by terrorism. Accord-

ing to the 2019 Global Terrorism Index, India ranked seventh, ahead of Yemen and just

below Somalia. In 2020, India’s rank improved slightly to rank eight. As of 2018, India

was named as one of the ten countries that accounted for 87 percent of all deaths

related to terrorism (2020 Global Terrorism Index). Although India’s position has improved

slightly in 2020 with India now accounting for lowest number of terrorism deaths among

the top ten countries most aﬀected by terrorism and lowest lethality in terror attacks.

Islamic terrorism has been a serious threat to India for the past several decades, emer-

ging in Kashmir during the 1980s, a consequence of a controversial election and water-

shed moment in Jammu and Kashmir, when Farooq Abdullah was reappointed as the

Chief Minister in what was widely considered to be a rigged vote. Three speciﬁc

groups have remained the most active in Kashmir, with bases in India, Pakistan, and

Afghanistan –LeT, JeM, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM), and the Students Islamic Movement

of India (SIMI). HM was formed under the aegis of the United Jihad Council for the separ-

ation and merger of India-controlled Kashmir with Pakistan. LeT also traces its roots to the

Kunar Province of Afghanistan in 1990, but refocused on Kashmir with a similar goal of

reintegration with Pakistan. JeM formed in 1998 with similar aims and has been desig-

nated by India, the U.S., and the United Kingdom as a terrorist organisation (Siyech,

2018, p. 235). SIMI has domestic roots, forming in Uttar Pradesh in the late 1970s to

mobilise support for a jihad against the state of India in part to seek redress for violence

against Indian Muslims and recourse for deprivation of socio-economic opportunities for

Indian Muslims (Fair, 2010, p. 102). Linked to prominent terror acts in Gaya, Bihar in 2017,

M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangaluru in 2014, and a jail break in Bhopal in 2014, the

organisation has been banned eight times since 2001 (Punwani, 2019).

Although the inﬂuence of other globally recognised terrorist organisations like ISIS in

Kashmir is almost non-existent, external support to local terrorists and extremist organis-

ations remains a threat. India’s primary challenge is the support and connections of the

terrorist organisations from across the border in Pakistan. In the case of JeM and HM,

links have been beyond doubt of support to these terrorist groups and their leaders

like Masood Azhar of the JeM and Sayeed Salahudeen of the HM. JeM’s primary

agenda, to separate Kashmir from India and merge it with Pakistan, along with

252 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

Salahudeen’s links to the United Jihad Council have clearly established Pakistan’s link to

its terrorist agendas in Kashmir.

In addition, there are several Marxist groups of varying sizes that have carried out ter-

rorist attacks in the northeast. The Maoist insurgencies in India are a byproduct of the

colonial period and concern problems of resource allocation, land rights, and forest

rights. Attacks carried out by Maoists are largely centred in India’s central provinces

and target paramilitary personnel and security forces (Ahlawat, 2018, p. 258). India’s pro-

blems in tackling terrorism are compounded due to terrorism blurring into guerrilla

warfare, especially in Naxal-aﬀected areas and the Northeast. The native inhabitants’

claims to their land have made resistance against the state complex. Combined, cross-

border and domestic sources of terrorism in India’s Northeast represent a unique chal-

lenge due to limited connection to the Indian mainland and a high border connectivity

with neighbouring states. The Northeast region shares roughly 98 percent of its

borders with Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, and Bhutan, which makes the task of establish-

ing cross-border linkages relatively simple (Upadhyay, 2006, p. 4996).

Several major terrorist attacks have added a sense of urgency on the part of consecu-

tive Indian governments. Major incidents have also prompted a dramatic response from

the public (Devlin, 2019), including the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, a

July 2006 attack on the Suburban Railway of Mumbai, and the infamous Mumbai attacks

of November 2008, where Islamist militants from Pakistan, in a series of attacks, struck

several targets. These events, according to Staniland (2009), brought into focus the

‘inability of the Indian security apparatus to anticipate and appropriately respond to

major terrorist incidents’. Mumbai raised India’s guard against sea-borne terrorism, as

the Pakistani-based attackers came through the sea for the second time since 1993. In

February 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared that seaborne terrorism

and marine piracy were threats to maritime security (Dheeraj, 2018, p. 1), raising security

concerns emanating from seamless connectivity that extended from the high seas to

coastal areas on the mainland.

Two strategic shifts in Indian counter-terrorism policy followed high-impact terrorist

attacks. After September 11, New Delhi immediately oﬀered to open its military spaces

and intelligence with American forces, a departure from its past alliance with the

Soviet Union and reﬂected concerns over a renewed partnership of pragmatism

between the U.S. and Pakistan, partly in hopes that an expanded American ‘war on

terror’would put pressure on Pakistan’s support of terrorist organisations making incur-

sions into Indian space (Chellaney, 2001, p. 100). The Mumbai attacks went a long way in

highlighting the need for a counter-terrorism strategy overhaul. A RAND study high-

lighted several ‘key weaknesses’in India’s general counter-terrorism and threat-mitigation

structure that became obvious in its immediate response to the Mumbai attacks (Rabasa

et al., 2009), suggesting intelligence failures, gaps in coastal surveillance, lacunae in

response protocols, lags in response times, inadequate counter-terrorism training at

the local police level, and a lack of planning and coordination between diﬀerent agencies.

Although deﬁciencies have been overcome, many remain. In areas like improving coastal

security and intra-agency coordination, there have been improvements, however the

ability of the local police to coordinate with higher agencies remains ham-handed. The

National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) was conceived as a single agency to deal

with incidents of terrorism and it was based on the U.S model, meant to handle the

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 253

functions of joint intelligence and joint operations. To complement the NCTC, a national

computerised information-sharing network, known as National Intelligence Grid

(NATGRID), was proposed as a national combined database which would collate intelli-

gence inputs. Inter-agency rivalry and distrust kept both NCTC and NATGRID from func-

tioning optimally, until Indian Home Minister Amit Shah announced its resurrection in

2019 (Singh, 2019). Multiple security agencies remain a hindrance to smooth coordination

in India. To rectify this, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks & System (CCTNS) was

envisaged to seamlessly link India’s police stations, however progress is dependent on the

establishment of a fully functional NATGRID. Since March 2020, NATGRID has linked

together more than 14,000 police stations in India (Singh, 2020). It also has been

diﬃcult for India to create an eﬀective national nodal agency for security and intelligence

because the Indian Constitution places security as a ‘State Subject’, which gives full auth-

ority to legislate or exercise administrative control over the police to provincial govern-

ments (Singh, 2019).

Since 2009, there have been some ﬂuctuations in national trends. The number of ter-

rorist attacks and deaths by terrorism have both dropped. While in 2018, there were 748

terrorist attacks and 350 deaths, there were 558 terrorist attacks and 277 deaths from ter-

rorism recorded in India in 2019. This marks a fall of over 20 percent since 2018 (Global

Terrorism Index, 2020, p. 26). Some of the challenges that complicate India’s counter-ter-

rorism response emanate from domestic sources. For example, India’s secessionists such

as the Sikh Khalistanis, as well as anti-state, separatist, ethnic, and sub-nationalist move-

ments in the Northeastern parts of India pose a diﬀerent challenge than those posed in

the northern parts of Kashmir, where the threat is largely external. Cultural, religious,

ethnic, and political sensitivities become a critical component of India’s state counter-ter-

rorism operations. India makes a nuanced distinction between counter-terrorism and

other facets of internal security challenges such as those emerging from the radical left

group of Maoists occupying much of the ‘Red Corridor’in Central India, or those

arising from the separatist and insurgent groups in the northeast. This complex set of

factors present terrorism as a challenge in India that ties the hinterland to border

areas, as well as into the maritime domain. India also faces threats from increasingly

polarised society, speciﬁcally from the emerging Hindu-Muslim binary and a counter

terror oﬀensive from Hindu extremist groups. A right-wing group Abhinav Bharat had

been named in the charge sheet for the September 2006 Malegaon bombings outside

a mosque that targeted Muslims (Bidwai, 2008, p.12). In March 2019, a special court

acquitted four Hindu men who were charged by the National Investigative Agency

(NIA) of bombing a train linking India and Pakistan 12 years ago, an attack that killed

68 people. The decision has been seen as biased towards Hindu majoritarianism. The

victims in the February 2007 blast in the Samjhauta Express train included 43 Pakistani

citizens and 10 Indians (Samjhauta Express, 2019). The threats as a result of polarisation

have been ampliﬁed by a series of decisions, such as the abrogation of Article 370 of

the Indian constitution.

An emerging partnership

During the Cold War, India and Thailand were on divergent paths. Thailand did not reg-

ister on India’s foreign policy agenda or strategic economic plans –partly because India

254 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

during this period had neglected Southeast Asia for a more neutral orientation. Further, as

an economic partner, Thailand was not an immediate choice because of the geography

separating the two countries. From Bangkok’s perspective, India was not a preferred

defence partner either, preferring to continue its historic relationship with the United

States. In fact, the dearth of high-level contact between New Delhi and Bangkok is evi-

denced by just two high-level ministerial visits before 1992. The September 11 terrorist

attacks and the subsequent bombings in Bali and Mumbai, began a ﬂurry of political

and diplomatic engagements –an indication that more cooperative security mechanisms,

particularly in the areas of counter-terrorism and counter-piracywere in development.

Thaksin was the ﬁrst to initiate a diplomatic mission to India in November 2001, followed

by another visit to India in 2002. These visits are worth mentioning because they were

precursors to a Joint Working Group, created in 2001, where Bangkok and New Delhi

discuss related security issues, including the dual challenges of combating terrorism in

both South and Southeast Asia.

The India-Thailand security partnership has since then evolved, as both are partners in

several Asian regional fora, including the India-ASEAN Summit, BIMSTEC, and the Indian

Ocean Rim Association (IORA). During the Yingluck Shinawatra era, India and Thailand

signed an extradition treaty, which provides a legal framework for the extradition of fugi-

tives from both countries, including individuals involved in acts of domestic or inter-

national terrorism, economic, and transnational crimes. This cooperation is essential

because both countries share mutual concerns over insurgent groups using Thailand as

a territory for the shipment of small arms, or staging areas for terrorism planning pur-

poses. For example, India was granted the extradition of ‘Willy’Naruenartwanich, who

attempted to negotiate a deal between Indian Naga rebels and Chinese ordinance com-

panies for a supply of weapons with an estimated value of $2 million. Later, Thai auth-

orities also handed over Gurmeet Singh, a Sikh militant convicted for the 1995

bombing in India that killed 18 people, including a chief minister in the northern

Indian state of Punjab. In addition, there have been increased exchanges between the

armed forces of both India and Thailand, culminating in coordinated patrols (CORPATs)

between the two navies in 2005, a sign of increased cooperation on issues of maritime

security, which includes anti-piracy cooperation and security of sea lanes of communi-

cation (SLOC). The Indian and Thai armies established Exercise Maitree in 2007, the

largest symbol of counter-terrorism operations in both jungle and urban scenarios.

At a June 2016 meeting between Prayut and Modi, the two countries also worked to

explore future areas of engagement –a meeting that included an unequivocal condem-

nation of international terrorism and a pledge to build ‘a new global resolve and strategy

for combating terrorism’(Joint Statement by India and Thailand, 2016). New Delhi and

Bangkok pledged cooperation in the ﬁelds of counter-terrorism, cyber security, and trans-

national crime, as well as a willingness for joint exercises between the Counter Terrorist

Operations Center (CTOC) and the National Securities Guard (NSG), as well as the training

of Thailand’soﬃcers by India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in cybercrime inves-

tigation and computer forensics.

India has used the issue of terrorism as a plank to reach out to other nations for

cooperation. India’s emphasis on a strong resolve against terrorism has emerged as a criti-

cal component in most of its recent engagements and partnerships with nations in the

areas of traditional and non-traditional security. India has consistently voiced its concerns

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 255

about terrorism on the global stage through various multilateral fora. In particular, BRICS

(Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO),

the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), ASEAN and the UNO

have been at the centre of India’s anti-terrorism pitch. As the Chair of BRICS in 2012,

India introduced security on the agenda as a part of the New Delhi summit, ‘BRICS Part-

nership for Global Stability, Security and Prosperity’. Terrorism has remained a key BRICS

agenda item, evidenced recently by the 2019 BRICS Summit in Brazil (Pant & Sharma,

2019). India raised the issue of terrorism at successive meetings of the SCO, where Exter-

nal Aﬀairs Minister Sushma Swaraj described terrorism as ‘an enemy of the basic human

rights: of life, peace and prosperity’(Terrorism an enemy, 2018). The 2019 Bishkek Declara-

tion brought members of the SCO together in condemning terrorism in all its forms and

manifestations. The issue of terrorism is also at the centre of the roadblock facing SAARC.

India’s continued emphasis on the problem of cross-border terrorism from Pakistan and

the latter’s inability to address the same has prevented SAARC from functioning eﬀec-

tively. Lastly, India has used the UN as a platform to raise the issue of terrorism. In

2017, India discussed the issue at every meeting attended on the sidelines of the 72nd

UN General Assembly Session in New York (Mohan, 2017). While India’s continued push

for a passage of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) has

been stalled in the UN since its creation in 1986, its recent eﬀorts to place Pakistan-

based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar on a UN list of global terrorists

found support major powers, although the process was delayed by China (Nichols &

Sayeed, 2019).

While cautious about domestic impacts, Thailand moved to adopt the ASEAN Declara-

tion on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism after the September 11 attacks. Furthermore,

the Thai-U.S. defense treaty acted as motivation to support U.S. decisions, even if it

meant domestic discontent. By 2003, Thailand realised that some international terrorists

had made inroads (Chongkittavorn, 2004). It was also the time when the Thai JI became a

security challenge. Based on external inputs, the Thai government arrested three JI sus-

pects including Maisuri Haji Abdullah and his son in 2003. Further probes led to the

identiﬁcation of other terrorist groups such as PULO (Pattani United Liberation Organiz-

ation) or Bersatu (Barisan Kemerdekaan Pattani, or United Front for the Independence

of Pattani). That year, the U.S. designated JI as a terrorist organisation. When Thailand

moved toward a more organised and institutional approach to counter-terrorism, it

used its memberships in multilateral organisations such as the Asia-Paciﬁc Economic

Cooperation (APEC), ASEAN, the East Asia Summit (EAS), and BIMSTEC to support anti-ter-

rorism agendas. Thailand became part of the 2012 APEC Counter-Terrorism Action Plan

which focused on the need to further cooperation between members in four main

areas: securing supply chains, travel, ﬁnance, and infrastructure. Among other multilateral

mechanisms, Thailand is also a member of the Combined Maritime Force, assuming

command of the Combined Task Force 151 in March 2012 and led operations against mar-

itime piracy (‘Royal Thai Navy’, 2012). Thailand also became a party to the International

Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism in May 2019 and became

a signatory to UN Security Council Resolutions 2178 and 2396, both directed at terrorism

prevention (Security Council Resolution 2396, 2018; United Nations Security Council Res-

olution 2178, 2014).

256 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

Thailand remains particularly vulnerable to terrorism, in part because of its status as a

facilitation and transit country, in terms of the number of passengers that ﬂow through

Bangkok’s airports and the availability of illegal goods, as well as weak banking oversight

(‘Country Reports on Terrorism’, 2017, p. 64). Most instances of domestic terrorism have

been linked to three restive southern Thai provinces, which have claimed the lives of

more than 7,000 people (Lefevre, Boonthanom, & Thepgumpanat, 2018). Thailand has

also taken a number of steps to ensure its domestic security. Thailand’s Internal Security

Operations Command (ISOC), initially formed to deal with Communist insurgencies in the

1960s, has been divided into two wings with military and socio-economic responsibilities

outlined by the 2007 Internal Security Act. Thailand also created the 15th Light Infantry

Division in 2008 which is dedicated to security in the south (Chalk, Rabasa, Rosenau, &

Piggott, 2009. p. 107). While down from its peak in 2007, violence in the Deep South

has not completely diminished (Abuza, 2017) and has witnessed the redeployment of

10,000 troops to monitor 188 speciﬁc southern villages (10,000 troops deployed, 2019).

Persistent challenges to India and Thailand in the maritime domain

SLOCs make attractive targets for terrorist groups. For example, commercial shipping in

Southeast Asia continues to grow, making the challenge of piracy and maritime terrorism

a growing concern. Southeast Asia is also home to four of the world’s busiest shipping

routes, including the Malacca Straits, a natural gateway between the Indian and Paciﬁc

Oceans. By 2017, more than 100,000 shipping vessels passed through the Strait of

Malacca or approximately 25 percent of the world’s traded goods (Calamur, 2017).

Cooperation between India and Thailand on counter-terrorism begins at the bilateral

level and through the prism of BIMSTEC and ASEAN. The protection of SLOCs in the

common maritime space linking the Indian coastline to the Gulf of Thailand is an increas-

ingly important consideration. Their common security vision is contextualised by mutually

complementing India’s‘Look East’Policy and Thailand’s‘Look West’Policy. Maritime

security concerns have become central to the corridor connecting the BIMSTEC countries,

not just for the safety and security of the SLOCs but also to ensure protection to the vast

Blue economy potential of the region. BIMSTEC has 14 sectors of cooperation which

include counter-terrorism and transnational crime (CTTC). The use of technology,

together with information sharing across the BIMSTEC corridor, could potentially be

one of the biggest opportunities for both countries in the monitoring and safety of

SLOCs connecting BIMSTEC nations. It is in this context that a case for the securitisation

of BIMSTEC is also being made (Gupta & Banerjee, 2018).

Today, safeguarding maritime security for India is intricately linked to growth in foreign

trade and investment. India gets 70 percent of its oil from Indian Ocean sea routes,

making the stretch from Aden to Malacca critical to energy imports. India’s counter-terror-

ism cooperation in Southeast Asia stems from the need to play a larger regional role. As

India’s energy needs have grown exponentially, it looks to Southeast Asia for energy

imports and other essential supply lines. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated

eﬀorts, even as India seeks to relocate supply concentration from China to Indonesia, Thai-

land, and Vietnam. India’s growing maritime stakes on the eastern side of the Strait of

Malacca has necessitated a rethinking of regional maritime security with the Indo-

Paciﬁc maritime corridor, connecting the Indian Ocean to the Paciﬁc Ocean. The recently

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 257

announced Chennai-Vladivostok connection between India and Russia through the

Paciﬁc Ocean (Srikrishna, 2019) is likely to further India’s footprints in the Paciﬁc side of

the Indo-Paciﬁc. Long-term dependence on energy and resources from Southeast Asia,

Russia and the Far East requires a secure maritime corridor. This drives India’s maritime

strategy for the larger Indian Ocean-South East Asian Region (Acharya, 2006, p. 310).

India’s recent focus on the developing Andaman and Nicobar Islands from a security

standpoint is likely to strengthen its security rationales for cooperation with ASEAN

countries. India’s recent announcement of the construction of a $100 billion transship-

ment hub at Andaman and Nicobar Island has placed the island at the centre of India’s

Act East strategy (India plans, 2020). From a counter-terrorism perspective, India’s increas-

ing stakes on the eastern side of the Strait of Malacca would be hinged on closer

cooperation with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Maldives in South Asia, and Indonesia, Thai-

land and the Philippines in Southeast Asia.

Multilateral cooperation and policy recommendations

ASEAN: ASEAN member states were not particularly concerned about the threat of terror-

ism prior to September 11. ASEAN countries tended to consider terrorism in the same cat-

egory as transnational organised crime, or the same category as sea piracy, arms

smuggling, and drug traﬃcking (Chow, 2005, p. 304). However, after the U.S. began

launching attacks against the Taliban in Afghanistan and fears of a ‘second front’in the

war on terrorism, ASEAN member states issued the November 2001 ASEAN Declaration

on Joint Action to Counter Terrorism, (2001 ASEAN Declaration on Joint Action to

Counter Terrorism, 2012) which assuaged some Western fears, but represented a depar-

ture from terrorism being viewed from the origination of any one religion. ASEAN’s

approach rejected the linkage between terrorism and any one religion or race, and

noted that counter-terrorism eﬀorts should be conducted in accordance with the UN

Charter. The catalyst for collective action between ASEAN states was also the 2002 Bali

bombings, which prompted states to make a more serious commitment, most notably

through the ASEAN Regional Forum Inter-Sessional Meeting on Counter-Terrorism and

Transnational Crime. In addition, the ASEAN Convention on Counter-Terrorism (ACCT)

was adopted in January 2007 as a regional framework for cooperation to prevent and sup-

press terrorism and deepen cooperation between agencies among member states.

However, the ACCT remained dormant for several years before its entry into force in

May 2011, when Brunei joined Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, and

Vietnam in ratiﬁcation (SG welcomes imminent entry, 2011). Surin Pitsuwan, the ASEAN

Secretary General, noted that the time of ratiﬁcation was a critical period for the

region, particularly after the death of Osama Bin Laden. India and Thailand are steady

partners on many aspects of counter-terrorism, although most of the partnership takes

place within the context of the ASEAN framework where India’s relationship has grown

considerably, becoming a full-dialogue partner in 1995.

The majority of responses to terrorism from ASEAN states are unilateral, as member

states carefully consider the potential ramiﬁcations of their responses. Therefore,

ASEAN responses are generally harmonised among member states. The ACCT again

avoids the linkage to any ‘religion, nationality, civilisation or ethnic group’, rather that

it presents a threat to ‘innocent lives, infrastructure and the environment, regional and

258 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

international peace and stability as well as to economic development’. Aside from the pol-

itical and economic aspects that an expanded partnership with ASEAN can bring, there

are some security interests that beneﬁt both sides as well. India and ASEAN have collabo-

rated on a number of security matters, such as the signing of the ASEAN-India Joint

Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism in Bali, Indonesia in

October of 2003. At the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum hosted by Thailand in 2009,

ASEAN states and India agreed to the ARF Work Plan on Counter-Terrorism and Transna-

tional Crime. India’s importance to ASEAN is growing, which is evident in the East Asia

Summit, the ASEAN Regional Forum as well as its emphasis on ‘ASEAN Centrality’in its

emerging Indo-Paciﬁc discourse.

ASEAN’s counter-terrorism eﬀorts seek mainly to supplement state eﬀorts, mostly

because of ASEAN’s long-standing principle of non-interference. A regional approach to

combatting terrorism across state borders had, unsurprisingly cast doubt among many

that actions would violate the sovereignty of ASEAN member states and cause domestic

political instability (Chow, 2005, p.303). However, there is unrealised potential for collab-

oration between ASEAN and India because of the mutual threats within India and ASEAN

states. As Acharya (2006) suggested, India has experience with cultural, linguistic, and reli-

gious minorities, while other states like Indonesia, could bridge the divide between India

and Islam (p. 315). The primary stumbling block for India and Thailand within the context

of ASEAN is that Bangkok has limited best practices to draw from and its heavy-handed

approach to its southern insurgency make another Southeast Asian state a more suitable

match. India’s maladroit approach in the state of Jammu and Kashmir has also been cri-

ticised internationally. In the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 and 35A of the

Indian constitution, New Delhi’s approach to containing terrorism in Kashmir has

banked on a strategy that has seen more autonomy given to the Army to gather intelli-

gence and interrogate suspects and terrorists; the strengthening of the controversial

Armed Forces Special Powers Act and excessive reliance on Cordon and Search Oper-

ations (CASO). Despite international criticism of a right-conservative government’s exces-

sive policies in Muslim-concentrated Kashmir, the Modi government has upped the ante

in counter-terrorism eﬀorts, especially after series of militant attacks in Gurdaspur,

Pathannkot and Uri (Sahoo, 2017, p. 122). Regionally, there is greater potential. The

ASEAN initiative, ‘Our Eyes’, proposed during the 11th ASEAN Defence Ministers

Meeting (ADMM) in October 2017, involves intelligence sharing between six countries:

Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, and the Philippines. Under Our Eyes,

each country is responsible for the creation of a new unit for sharing intelligence and

would be active in communication about the collection of relevant information. As the

initiative progresses, it could be beneﬁcial for ASEAN to open the doors to its eight full

dialogue partners, which include India, Australia, China, Japan, South Korea, New

Zealand, Russia, and the United States.

The recent Delhi Declaration is an indication of where counter-terrorism cooperation

between India and ASEAN and bilateral cooperation between Bangkok and New Delhi is

heading. The document pledged to ‘deepen cooperation in combating terrorism in all its

forms and manifestations, violent extremism and radicalisation through information

sharing, law enforcement cooperation and capacity building’through a variety of existing

mechanisms, including the ASEAN SOMTC + India Consultation, the ADMM-Plus Experts’

Working Group on Counter-Terrorism, and the 2003 ASEAN-India Joint Declaration for

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 259

Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism (Delhi Declaration, 2018). In this space, India

and Thailand have an entry point for further cooperation, as evidenced by bilateral moves

between India and other ASEAN states, such as assisting the Philippines with cyberterrorism

expertise (Chaudhury, 2018, July 13) and India’s recent endorsement of the Singaporean

model of deradicalization (Singh, 2018). There are a number of recent developments that

could facilitate future cooperation, such as the proliferation of ‘fake news’and the usage

of encrypted social media applications, which should proceed delicately as many ASEAN

states have used it as justiﬁcation for further authoritarian curbs on political speech.

Intelligence Sharing: It has become increasingly important for countries in South and

Southeast Asia to share intelligence and information, at the bilateral and multilateral

levels. However, India and Thailand have mixed histories of intelligence sharing with

other countries, with limited eﬀect. For example, India and Bangladesh have agreed to

share counter-terrorism information on terrorists on numerous occasions, sometimes in

real-time, however the eﬀectiveness of India’s intelligence institutions and their capacities

remain in doubt. In 1999, Pakistan intruded on the Indian side of the Kargil district of

Kashmir, which sparked the need for a multi-agency centre to coordinate intelligence

sharing, but since its creation, other agencies have struggled to keep it posted. Other

agencies like the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and NATGRID are woefully under-

staﬀed or underdeveloped (Kumawat & Kaura, 2018, p. 11). India’s ambition to set up

the NCTC to coordinate intelligence across state intuitions has stalled (Pant & Lidarev,

2018, p. 188). Since 2016, India and the U.S. have signed several agreements on

counter-terrorism information sharing, including an agreement that gives India access

to the Terrorist Screening Center, which has the names, nationalities, ﬁngerprints, pass-

port numbers and other information on terrorists and terror suspects (Pant & Lidarev,

2018, p. 195). While India has been quick to establish partnerships with other countries,

as it now includes France, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, it has been slow to build the necess-

ary infrastructure, ﬂexible bureaucracies, and technical capacities to allow it to utilise

information and disseminate information across agencies.

Cooperation between Southeast Asian countries and larger powers like the U.S., Aus-

tralia, and European countries are also worth mentioning. For example, cooperation

between Thailand and the U.S. led to the capture of Riduan Isamuddin, who was linked

to al-Qaeda. The U.S. in 2017 described Thailand as a ‘productive counterterrorism

partner’and has shared intelligence with the Thai military, although this was after Thai-

land’s reluctant admittance that it indeed had a terrorism problem. Thailand later

began cooperation with Australia on a memorandum of understanding to share infor-

mation and intelligence (Wilkinson, 2006). The partnership recently expanded on fears

that Thailand could be used as a transit hub for terrorist activities (Parameswaran,

2016). India has ample concerns about the growth of terrorism in the Indo-Paciﬁc, as

over the past decade, many terror groups have trained in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and

Afghanistan, with LeT working in nearby Pakistan (Acharya, 2006, p. 309). For India and

Thailand, this is highly relevant. LeT was directly responsible for the Mumbai attacks

and a Thai national was linked to a group of LeT members that were arrested in Spain

and Thailand in 2010 (Spain busts ‘al-Qaeda-linked group’,2010). These cases should

raise eyebrows region wide about international criminal enterprises supplying terrorist

elements with required travel documentation to expedite and facilitate regional move-

ment. India has long worried about both LeT and JI who have shared facilities in Pakistan.

260 M. S. COGAN AND V. MISHRA

A continued push into Southeast Asia by LeT could compromise some of New Delhi’s stra-

tegic interests. For Thailand, a revival of JI could complicate already challenging circum-

stances in the Southern Provinces. In January 2020, Thailand’s military signed an

agreement with Indonesia to share intelligence on insurgent and terrorist groups like JI

and Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN), the largest and most powerful of the southern

Thai rebel groups (Ahmad, Phaicharoen, & Syamsudin, 2020). Linkages between JI, LeT,

and BRN are currently light, but many have had connections with al-Qaeda in the past.

This should not deter future counter-terrorism intelligence sharing opportunities

between them.

BIMSTEC: India and Thailand often use regional mechanisms to collaborate on counter-

terrorism. Although India’s ASEAN focus is increasing, BIMSTEC has been the primary

mechanism for cooperation with ASEAN countries and represents a departure from its

failed approach with SAARC. A September 2016 terrorist attack in the town of Uri in

Jammu and Kashmir led to the cancellation of the 19th SAARC Summit, which was to

be held in Islamabad. India backed out, along with Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan.

SAARC, while it has a Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, cooperation

between member states has never resulted in concrete action. In the vacuum of the

SAARC’s failure, BIMSTEC cooperation emerged for India where cooperation within

SAARC could not. BIMSTEC, among its many sectors of cooperation, collaborates in the

areas of counter-terrorism and transnational crime, among which Thailand and India

are regional leaders. Through the Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism and Trans-

national Crimes (CTTC), there are six sub-groups, which report to the CTTC. India and Thai-

land are ‘lead shepherds’in law enforcement, counter-terrorism cooperation, and anti-

money laundering and combating ﬁnancing of terrorism. Thailand recently announced

that it was expanding its eﬀorts to combat money laundering through cooperation

with BIMSTEC at the 11th meeting of the BIMSTEC Sub-Group on Anti-Money Laundering

and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (Thailand Steps Up, 2019).

Through the lens of BIMSTEC, there are several opportunities for both India and Thai-

land. In 2009, member states signed the BIMSTEC Convention on Cooperation in Combat-

ing International Terrorism, Transnational Organized Crime and Illicit Drug Traﬃcking,

however many states have not ratiﬁed it. Second, the BIMSTEC secretariat is weak com-

pared to other regional organisations. New Delhi and Bangkok could play a leadership

role in ensuring the ratiﬁcation of important counter-terrorism treaties as well as giving

BIMSTEC the institutional capacity it needs to play a supporting role. The BIMSTEC Perma-

nent Secretariat was established in Dhaka in 2014, with India contributing 32 percent of

the cost (Brief on BIMSTEC, 2014). Recent developments have pointed to a stronger

impetus on BIMSTEC as a stronger counter-terrorism alternative for India to SAARC.

Aside from the avoidance of the soured India-Pakistan relationship, BIMSTEC has begun

to deliver progress. The Kathmandu Declaration, minted by the leaders of BIMSTEC

countries in August 2018, focuses heavily on counter-terrorism measures. The Declaration

called for the seven BIMSTEC members

to combat terrorism and call upon all countries to devise a comprehensive approach …which

should include preventing ﬁnancing of terrorists and terrorist actions from territories under

their control, blocking recruitment and cross-border movement of terrorists, countering radi-

calisation, countering misuse of the internet for purposes of terrorism and dismantling terror-

ist safe havens (Fourth BIMSTEC Summit, 2018).

JOURNAL OF POLICING, INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTER TERRORISM 261

Finally, counter-terrorism as an important tool for diplomacy and building strong inter-

state relations are areas that New Delhi can share with Bangkok. India has used

counter-terrorism to gain support in international forums like BRICS, SCO, ASEAN, and

BIMSTEC and it forms a crucial part of India’s common bilateral and multilateral pursuits.

Even as counter-terrorism has gained centre stage in India’s diplomatic outreach, it could

use the agenda with Thailand to strengthen common positions bilaterally and through

regional institutions.

Conclusion

The India-Thailand relationship has grown considerably over the past decade, creating a

distinct niche, while not becoming eclipsed by the overwhelming scope of India-ASEAN

relations. Their mutually-beneﬁcial cooperation, as this paper has demonstrated, has

expanded into a broader partnership that includes issues of non-traditional security in

the maritime domain, intelligence sharing, and counter-terrorism. For both, joint oper-

ations in the Indo-Paciﬁc, intra-agency cooperation and cooperation through multina-

tional forums are opportunities not just to boost bilateral ties but improve regional

security. Cooperation has increased as India’s ascendance as a regional power and sub-

sequent pitch against terrorism have prompted regional bodies like BIMSTEC to

respond. The bilateral movements of India and Thailand are potential signals to other

ASEAN countries that the development of regional security partnerships should be priori-

tised. India’s presence as a strategic ASEAN partner has led to counter-terrorism arrange-

ments with Cambodia in 2018 (Narendra Modi holds talks, 2018) and talks with Vietnam in

2019, as a part of a coordinated campaign to raise awareness about threats in the wider

Indo-Paciﬁc. The India-Thailand counter-terrorism partnership is worthy of closer atten-

tion, as it represents one of the ﬁrst and longest Indo-Paciﬁc regional partnerships, rival-

ling that of India’s robust partnership with Japan. As their military capacities increase,

however, it could trigger resistance. While Thailand maintains its close relationship with

the United States, military ties to China have also grown. Thailand’s vulnerabilities to

China are well documented, as well as its connectivity to the BRI. Given the ‘bamboo’

quality of Thai foreign policy (Kislenko, 2002), the partnership is always subject to change.

Disclosure statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

Mark S. Cogan http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3171-7587

Vivek Mishra http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9631-6207

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May 2018

Dalbir Ahlawat

The adivasi insurgency, an offshoot of the colonial period, continued in independent India. Post-independence, government assurances to redress the forest and land rights remained mostly unimplemented. As an alternative, the adivasis joined the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist, CPIML). However, after neutralisation of the CPIML and failure to regain forest and land rights, the adivasis joined the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Witnessing the expanding threat from the Maoists, the government adopted a dual strategy. This involved first amending the Forest Act to woo the adivasis and second placing the Maoists on the terrorist list. However, not getting the expected results, the current Bharatiya Janata Party government adopted an integrated and holistic approach to rooting out the insurgency by further amending the Forest Act, offering attractive surrender-cum-rehabilitation incentives and launching an offensive against the Maoist leadership. Although the insurgency is contained, the operational fault lines still remain. This paper attempts to trace the antecedents of the adivasi grievances, the challenges posed to India’s internal security and counter-strategies adopted by different governments to contain the Maoist insurgency.

The Deep South of Thailand: 15 Years in Fields of Open Conflict, Violence and Peace Narratives

Article

Jun 2019

Srisompob Jitpiromsri

Seaborne terrorism and counterintelligence in India: challenges and concerns

Article

Sep 2018

P. C. Dheeraj

The city of Bombay (later Mumbai) has witnessed two deadly seaborne terrorist attacks in 1993 and 2008, respectively. Recurring with a gap of 15 years, the latter had a similar nature and goal as that of the former. Apart from the seaborne character, there was state sponsorship from Pakistan, nexus with organized criminal groups and communal objectives. The only difference was that the 2008 attacks were carried out with greater sophistry as a result of the right lessons learnt from 1993, and a greater involvement of the Pakistani ‘deep state’. The central question approached in this article is how does a nation cope with such a triad threat perception? On examination of the intelligence prerogative for terrorist operations, the inevitability of counterintelligence responses is established. It is argued that the intelligence solution to the terrorist problem lies in ‘counterintelligence’ (CI), especially offensive CI, rather than traditional intelligence gathering.

A typology of insurgent, terrorist and extremist threats in India

Article

May 2018

Mohammed Sinan Siyech

India's threat landscape is dotted with various groups fighting for multiple causes. This article attempts to provide an overview of the most prominent groups that operate all over the nation. In this respect, it casts light on the Kashmiri Conflict, the Naxalite Insurgency, the North-East Separatist groups, Islamist threats and the Hindutva extremism. Key aspects of the groups covered here include their origin, membership, facilitating factors and government response among others. This article analyses the Kashmiri, Naxalite and North-East militancy as insurgent groups whereas it analyses the rise and fall of Islamist and Hindu extremism through the lens of identity theories.

Indian counterterrorism policy and the influence of the Global War on Terror

Article

Mar 2018

India has been a major victim of Islamist terrorism and has long fought against an array of Islamist terrorist groups. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, India's previously lonely struggle against terrorism has taken place against the background of the US-led Global War on Terror (GWOT). After outlining India's Islamist terrorist challenge, this article examines India's evolving approach to counterterrorism and how the GWOT has influenced it. It concludes that India has adopted a localized, defensive, law-and-order approach to counterterrorism which has evolved in response to various attacks over the years but still remains seriously underdeveloped. The GWOT has influenced Indian counterterrorism in important ways, although its influence has been subtle and indirect rather than transformative. The GWOT has enhanced Indo-American counterterror cooperation, shaped India's terror environment by launching the war in Afghanistan and enriched Indian counterterrorism with American experience. Just as important, it has also had an impact on India's debate on counterterrorism, civil liberties and human rights.

Bending with the Wind: The Continuity and Flexibility of Thai Foreign Policy

Article

Dec 2002

Arne Kislenko

Patients’ Responsibilities in Medical Ethics

Article

Sep 2016

Zhu Fengqing

India and Southeast Asia in the Age of Terror: Building Partnerships for Peace

Article

Aug 2006
Contemp Southeast Asia J Int Strat Aff

Arabinda Acharya

In his 2006 New Year message, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pledged to improve relations with neighbouring countries. Underlying this message is perhaps the understanding that its relations with its neighbours, particularly its near neighbours China and Korea have been less than ideal. However, Prime Minister Koizumi also made it clear that Japan s foreign relations would remain based on the Japan-US alliance. This perhaps reiterated what his Foreign Minister Mr Taro Azo said not long after he was appointed foreign minister that in Japan s foreign relations, it is US first, Asia second . No one doubts the importance of the Japan-US relationship, just as no one would underestimate the importance of getting Sino-US relations right if the stability of the region is to be assured. However, while China has been working hard to maintain a proactive and responsible regional policy in Asia, Japanese policy towards Asia has at best been unclear and uncertain, and at worst raised serious questions about Japan s perception of itself and its relations with the rest of Asia. One wonders if Japan, though geographically located in East Asia, considers itself politically and psychologically East Asian. This article focuses on Japan s relations with Southeast Asia and ASEAN, and examines how Japan s ambivalent attitude towards the East Asian region may impact the construction of an East Asian Community which ASEAN purports to be in the driving seat. With September 11, terrorism has come to dominate the security concerns of nation-states, especially in Asia, affecting both inter- and intra-regional relations significantly. Though for many Asian countries terrorism was nothing new, threats of transnational terrorism introduced new security challenges, which significantly changed the nature of domestic politics and state-society relations of the regional states and relations among them and with states in other regions. In the new dynamics, the traditional bilateral alliance systems that underpinned much of the security structure and relations in the past are found to be inadequate to deal with the challenge of transnational terrorism. There is thus a need for cooperation among the nations in the region and greater engagement with extra-regional partners through multilateral arrangements. Both India and Southeast Asia grapple with an array of security threats including those from transnational terrorism. Ironically, terrorism provides unique opportunities to both to work together. This article argues that the common desire to fight terrorism could be the imperative that would establish foundations for mutually beneficial partnerships both in their economic and security relations. India and Southeast Asia have substantial experience to deal with terrorism. Both could leverage their mutual expertise to deal with the threat decisively. Besides, economic cooperation between India and the countries in Southeast Asia has the potential to accelerate the pace of development, which in turn could help them to resolve both intra- and inter-regional tensions and to develop the quality of life.

Strengthening maritime security through cooperation

Book

Jan 2015

Seventy percent of our planet is covered by water, and even in today's world of instant communication the global community is still heavily reliant on sea-based transport. The maritime domain has always been one of NATO's key strengths, but concerns about maritime security have taken on renewed importance in recent years, and NATO has been forced to re-examine some of its fundamental assumptions about the post Cold War security environment. This book shares some of the research, debates and findings from a NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW); Building Trust to Enhance Maritime Security, held in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 2014. The chapters in the book deal extensively with lessons learned by NATO from a wide range of policies, operations and situations. This maritime experience has been amassed from the Atlantic and Mediterranean to the Baltic and the Black Sea, and even into the Indian Ocean, as well as from the four decades spent defending NATO allies on the high seas during the Cold War. The single most profound lesson learned over the years has concerned the importance of efficient coordination. Structures and mechanisms have been created, not least in recent counter piracy operations, which enable a vast array of actors to work together in an efficient way, and which could prove invaluable in future efforts to counter terrorism and aggression worldwide. The safety of the maritime domain is essential to the freedom and security of all nations, and this book will be of interest to all those whose work involves maintaining that freedom and security.

Regionalism and bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation: the case of India and Thailand

Abstract

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