India calls for united action against terrorism

Asserting that a “terrorist is a terrorist”, India has called on the international community to work collectively to root out the “murderous ideology” without finding any grievance to justify terrorism.

“India has been a victim of cross-border terrorism for decades. Our people have paid the price of terrorism in lives lost, families scarred, and societies shattered. This experience has shaped India’s approach: there can be no justification for terrorism.”

“Irrespective of any grievance, political cause or strategic calculation, terrorism in all its forms and manifestations must be condemned unequivocally,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, has said. Assessing the UN General Assembly on the adoption of the Ninth Review of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy (GCTS), on Wednesday, Parvathaneni said the international community must reject double standards in counter-terrorism.

He emphasised that there is an obligation to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice.

Member states should ensure full cooperation in this regard, he said.

“A terrorist is a terrorist!!  We must work hand in hand to root out the murderous ideology without finding any grievance to justify terrorism,” he said. India said counter-terrorism should not be hollowed out by false equivalences or politicised narratives.

“We must address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, but we must never confuse context with justification. We must uphold human rights and the rule of law, but we must also recognise that the first human right is the right to life, and terrorism is the most direct assault on this human right.”

India also stressed that countering terror financing must remain central to the international community’s collective efforts.

“The international community must improve financial intelligence sharing, strengthen implementation of Financial Action Task Force standards, and ensure that no jurisdiction remains a safe conduit for terror financing.”

Noting that misuse of new and emerging technologies by terrorists demands urgent attention, India said it is “disheartening” that negotiations of this review of the GCTS were not able to reach an acceptable landing point on the crucial issue of ensuring that terrorists are denied the technological tools for their nefarious acts.

India said the adoption of this review comes at an important moment, as 20 years ago, Member States had come together to adopt the GCTS.

“In doing so, the international community affirmed that terrorism is a threat to humanity, and it can only be defeated through international cooperation,” he said.

India had called for the adoption of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) a decade before GCTS was first adopted in 2006.

Parvathaneni noted that the absence of a universally agreed legal framework continues to hobble collective action against terrorism.

This legal instrument is essential to close normative gaps, strengthen prosecution and extradition, and deny terrorists and their sponsors access to safe havens, funds and arms.

“Nearly three decades of delay have hindered our collective efforts to combat terrorism. The time has come to demonstrate political will to conclude the CCIT,” he said.

Underscoring that India has consistently contributed to global counter-terrorism efforts and hosted major international discussions, including the Delhi Declaration on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes and the No Money for Terror Conferences.

India voiced its criticism over the lack of mention of the landmark Delhi Declaration in the GCTS in 2023, saying this “reflects the unfortunate situation of how this Assembly is held hostage to petty bean counting! It is doubly unfortunate when the international community continues to tolerate this behaviour.”

India also reiterated its position that it condemns all acts motivated by prejudice directed against any faith or any other attribute, such as ethnicity, nationality, geography, or race.

“As this is the United Nations, a multilateral forum of universal membership, our lens too should be universal. While we condemn all acts motivated by Islamophobia, Christianophobia and antisemitism, this august body must acknowledge that such phobias extend to other faiths as well,” he said.

Parvathaneni stressed that there are great perils for lacking international cooperation in countering terrorism.

“Only if we have the political will to counter it in all its manifestations; Only if there are no double standards; Only if there is no distinction between good or bad terrorists.”

“Only if there is transparency and objectivity in the way sanctions regimes function to secure listings of genuine and evidence-based objective listing proposals; Only if exclusivist frameworks, new terminologies and false priorities are thwarted, could the menace of terrorism be successfully combatted by us together,” he said.