Counter Terrorism and India s Foreign Policy

India has faced the challenge of active terrorism, in its present form, since late 1980s. However, even after close to three decades of experience in counter-terrorism efforts, the nation is yet to evolve an effective approach to deal with the menace in a comprehensive manner. The most significant reason, perhaps, is the trans-national support and international linkages that most of the terrorist groups may have. The paper argues that the international linkages and trans-national support that various terrorist groups get makes it imperative for the nation to have a counter-terrorism foreign policy in place. This is because counter-terrorism co-operation has come to occupy a central place in the diplomacy of major powers. The Pakistan-centric diplomatic endeavors can only produce limited results in terms of meeting the larger objectives of containment of terror. The problem, further, is linked to the lack of any agreed meaning of the term “counter-terrorism”, which gets different meanings in the diplomatic terminologies of various nations, and perhaps different meaning in the foreign policy approach of the same nation on two different occasions.