Terrorism in South Asia and Pakistan

This chapter recollects the pre–intra–post-partition history of terrorism in South Asia and Pakistan and the relevant literature covering the period up to the present day. The broaching of the advent of terrorism in South Asia, with a focus on territories constituting Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, is a uniquely addressed feature in this chapter. Pakistan’s conflict history traces the terrorism incidence within civil unrest and anti-state insurgencies in the early 1970s. The development of terrorism parlance is specifically discussed, followed by detailing the growth, typologies, and tenacity of terrorism and its management post-9/11 by various governments. Besides the episodes of political violence, the chapter locates and reviews notable literature published on terrorism during and in the postcolonial period, specifically post-9/11. Like the earlier chapter, it identifies potential explanations and themes of terrorism longevity from this literature. It reiterates the need for primary research due to some glaring shortcomings in the existing literature—the reliance on secondary sources, invariable adherence to predetermined frameworks, and overly variable specific research designs—which reduce the analytic value of this scholarship. The two chapters rationalise the central research questions and provide the grist for comparative analysis later in the book.