We last met to discuss internal security issues in December 2007, a little over a year ago. The twelve months that have passed since then have been a difficult period for us. The security situation has, if anything, become even more complex. Many predictions made a year ago have unfortunately turned out to be true. In some cases the scale and magnitude of terrorist attacks appear to have been stepped up exponentially. In the prevailing circumstances we cannot afford to take a partial or segmented view. A holistic approach to our security concerns is definitely called for.

During the past year, we faced a severe challenge from terrorist groups operating from outside our country. Many of them act in association with hostile intelligence agencies in these countries. The attempt has been to exploit our vulnerabilities, and at times they do succeed, as is evident from the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Our problems are compounded by the fact that we have a highly unpredictable and uncertain security environment in our immediate neighbourhood. The governments in some of our neighbouring countries are very fragile in nature. The more fragile a government, the more it tends to act in an irresponsible fashion. Pakistan’s responses to our various demarches on terrorist attacks is an obvious example.

We face multi-dimensional challenges of different kinds, but the most serious threats are those posed by terrorism, left-wing extremism and insurgency in the north-east. Left-wing extremism is primarily indigenous and home-grown. Terrorism, on the other hand, is largely sponsored from outside our country, mainly Pakistan, which has utilised it as an instrument of state policy. Insurgency in the north-east exploits disparities in income and wealth but it is also sustained by the sanctuaries provided to the leaders of insurgent movements by neighbouring countries. There are, hence, fundamental differences in the way we need to view the internal security challenge and deal with these three threats.

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