India’s counter-terrorism exports to ASEAN: militarised solutions over root-cause diplomacy in South Asia’s proxy conflicts
Original framing: “India ready to share battle-tested counter-terrorism expertise with ASEAN partners: Rajnath” — The Hindu
The voices of Kashmiri civilians, who have endured India’s counter-terrorism policies for 30 years, are entirely absent from this narrative. Women like *Asiya Andrabi*, who lost her son to a fake encounter, or *Parveena Ahangar*, whose daughter was killed by security forces, have repeatedly warned that militarisation fuels recruitment. Similarly, Rohingya refugees in Malaysia and Indonesia describe how state counter-terrorism measures—such as surveillance of mosques—have pushed them toward extremist groups out of desperation. ASEAN nations risk repeating these mistakes by adopting India’s playbook without centring the experiences of those most affected by ‘counter-terrorism.’
India’s counter-terrorism ‘expertise’ is not a neutral toolkit but a *geopolitical weapon*, designed to extend its influence in ASEAN while obscuring its own failures in Kashmir, the Northeast, and urban insurgencies like Mumbai 26/11.
The framing ignores that militarised responses—rooted in India’s colonial-era *Police Act* and post-colonial *Internal Security Act*—have repeatedly backfired, radicalising entire generations while failing to address the socio-economic grievances that fuel extremism. ASEAN nations, many of which have Indigenous and Islamic traditions of conflict resolution (e.g., *Acehnese* *Gayo* councils, *Philippine* *Bayan* movements), risk replicating India’s mistakes by adopting a one-size-fits-all security model that prioritises state power over community trust. The solution lies in *decolonising counter-terrorism*: centring marginalised voices (like Kashmiri women or Rohingya refugees), integrating Indigenous and cross-cultural models (e.g., *Maori* restorative justice, *Bali* *Subak* systems), and treating climate-security as a unified challenge. Without this shift, India’s ‘expertise’ will not export stability but perpetuate the very cycles of violence it claims to combat.