ROOT CAUSE OF TERRORISM: A BRIEF SURVEY OF SOUTH ASIA (English version)

South Asian countries, the home to one fifth of the world humanity, are overpopulated, poverty stricken, underdeveloped and poorly governed. Except the two island nations, Sri Lanka and Maldives, rest of the South Asian countries viz. India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Iran have messy borders and a messier history of conflict. People in this region are an incendiary mix of strong ethnic identities and diverse religious communities, many of which are concentrated within exclusionary ghettoes making the region a potential breeding ground of terrorism. Religious sanction, state support and supportive societal infrastructure to terrorism along with hateful ideologies have made the region the victim as well as the accused of terrorism. Three factors are primarily responsible for the root causes of terrorism – a) support from the state, b) supportive societal infrastructure, and c) management of terrorist organization.