How India's response to terrorism changed under PM Modi? EAM S Jaishankar outlines five points

EAM Jaishankar

Elaborating on India's changed approach to deal with terrorism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Rajya Sabha said most importantly the global outlook towards India changed in the way New Delhi deals with terrorism post 2014.

Outlining five points that changed global outlook on how India deals with terrorism, Jaishankar said the fundamental modalities in dealing with terrorism underwent a sea change post 2014. The five factors that enabled it was:

1.  India successfully  put terrorism on global agenda.
2.  India successfully held a security council event at a spot where a massive terrorist strike took place - The Taj Hotel, Mumbai.
3.   Successfully ensured  bilateral agreements and completion of key extradition modalities to facilitate return of hardened terrorists.
4. Successfully ensured that TRF, a proxy group linked to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group, was named in the formal United Nations document.
5. Exerted pressure on Pakistan through the FATF process.

“When major terror incidents happened, the world saw how India responded and that set global perception. Within three months, we condemned terrorism but we resumed composite dialogue," added Jaishankar.

In a July 2009 meeting, we agreed that terrorism was affecting both countries and it must not affect composite dialogue, giving Balochistan as an example. We had concluded that more was to be gained by not attacking Pakistan than attacking it,” said Jaishankar, responding to accusation of India and Pakistan hyphenation.

He added, “You allowed terrorist attacks happen and then resumed talks. You self-hyphenated India and Pakistan. How will the world take you seriously?”

Comparing UPA to the Modi era, EAM S Jaishankar said, “We have brought terrorism in the global forums like BRICS, QUAD, UNSC. For the first time, the UN report mentions TRF which member states have noted. One member said that the Pahalgam attack could not have happened without Lashkar-e-Taiba’s help, one highlighted relation between LeT and TRF and another said that the attack was carried out by TRF. We have got on record in UN that TRF is LeT’s proxy and was responsible for Pahalgam”.