Countering Terror in South Asia: Beyong Statist Approaches

Abstract

While social and communal factors influence motivations, less attention is often paid to the environment in which individuals are either radicalized or deradicalized and the role that families and communities might play in this regard. The question of communities tends to come into the equation of strategies to counter terrorism, violent extremism and radicalization under two different lenses: One secrutiny, based on a negative narrative, focuses on how the community creates conditions for its members to become radicalized. These often happen in places where members of religious communities where unforgiving versions of religion is being taught including places like prisons which are notorious hotbeds of radicalization through exchanges among prisoners; and even within families which help recruit brothers, wives etc. into so-called Jihad, such as is often the case in Central Asia. This paper will focus on certain misconceptions of Islam.