Radicalization in India is a national crisis that demands constitutional resolve

Illustration for representation. (© India Sentinels 2025–2026)

The Preamble to India’s Constitution binds the nation into a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic. It places immense responsibility on the political system to respect and follow these principles in letter and spirit. Those who sit in Parliament – on both the right and left of the Lok Sabha speaker and Rajya Sabha chairman – bear a huge responsibility to uphold the socialist and secular credentials of the Constitution for peace and harmony among communities, religions and faiths.

This responsibility weighs most heavily on the ruling parties, who must ensure that the secular fabric of the nation remains undisturbed lest it creates perceptions of injustice and discrimination among either majority or minority. The state needs to maintain equidistance from all religions and display equal respect for all communities, religions and faiths. Even a small tilt towards a particular community, followers of a religion or faith is enough to disturb the secular fabric of society.

Minor or perceived discrimination – or appeasement of a particular religion, community or faith for whatever reason – is the first step towards antagonization, followed by radicalization. If left unaddressed, this is exploited by fringe elements to indoctrinate innocent minds, which slowly turns into violence and terror, affecting societal peace and harmony whilst denting national integration.

Warning Signs Were There

During his United States visit in July 2005, the-then prime minister, Manmohan Singh, told Wolf Blitzer of CNN: “Not one of the 150 million strong Indian Muslim population has been part of al-Qaida or the Taliban. It is because we are a secular democracy and Muslims in India participate fully in the mainstream. India is a country where anyone is free to practise their religion without fear or favour.”

Yet Singh did not delve into aspects already troubling the security establishment. Radicalization and terrorism were already claiming their space. The Indian Mujahideen (IM), an offshoot of the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), had carried out violence and bombings in cities including Varanasi, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, and Patna. The radicalization of professionals was not a new phenomenon – it had started with the Indian Mujahideen. The Red Fort attack in 2024 represented a continuation of this phenomenon after a prolonged lull.

Old Narratives of Discontent

There must be strong narratives and themes that push professionals towards radicalization and terror. For those who joined the Indian Mujahideen, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the violence before and after it, along with the Gujarat riots of 2002, provided the spark. Those joining the radicalization brigade felt their community was being targeted unreasonably and chose a revenge narrative over peace and societal harmony.

All ruling parties bear guilt for mishandling and failures that created circumstances fuelling radicalization and terror. The Congress government of Rajiv Gandhi – by opening the locks at Ayodhya and overturning the Shah Bano judgment as part of Hindu and Muslim appeasement respectively – created a wedge between communities. These decisions not only led to the defeat of the Congress party in elections but also created an environment of conflict in which many lives were lost and communities were made to feel troubled and insecure.

The old narratives for majority and minority radicalization may centre on the opening of Ayodhya’s locks and the overturning of the Shah Bano judgment. Both decisions angered communities against each other and against the ruling establishment. Appeasement that ignores long-term ramifications impacts peace and societal harmony and carries serious national security implications.

New Narratives Post-2014

A new narrative for radicalization has emerged since 2014. It began with lynchings over rumours of suspects carrying beef or cow smuggling, wherein several people were allegedly killed. The narrative further evolved to encompass those accused of conspiracy to overthrow the democratically elected government. The situation grew more complex with “bulldozer justice”, wherein the Supreme Court had to intervene to stop the practice.

The feeling of injustice and discrimination festering over a long period created a new group of radicalised professionals who chose revenge and terror over reasoning, peace and harmony. In their vengeance, they forgot the holiness of their profession of medicine, which is meant to save lives, not take them.

There is also institutional failure here – that they could carry on with their planning and execution to inflict violence, spread terror and kill innocent citizens without any oversight from the institutions where they were employed. It represents an intelligence and security failure that, despite inputs and seizures, the Red Fort blast could not be prevented, though a wider catastrophe was averted with the seizure of explosive material.

A Two-Step Solution

Radicalization must stop. The approach requires a two-step process, with both steps proceeding hand in hand to tame and crush the radicalization of youth.

Step One: Constitutional Resolve

The first step involves political parties showing constitutional resolve to uphold secularism enshrined in the Preamble and Part III of the Constitution – the chapter on fundamental rights. The political executive must give a loud and clear message that the state believes in secularism, has no religion of its own and maintains equidistance from religions and faiths.

This clear message from the political executive will help instil a feeling of trust and confidence in minorities and help them integrate better into the national mainstream. All political parties must stop their leaders from giving hate statements laced with majority and minority bashing and questioning the nationalistic and patriotic credentials of communities and faiths. We must remember that the freedom movement was a consolidated effort of both majority and minority communities, who worked together to defeat British hegemony and attain freedom.

The Union government also needs to fulfil its promised commitment to the Supreme Court regarding statehood for Jammu & Kashmir. Popular governments are better placed to control terror – Punjab is an example of this.

Step Two: Institutional Oversight

The second stage requires institutional oversight involving communities, parents, educational institutions – including schools, colleges and universities – and the intelligence and security establishment. All these need to function on one grid to check the radicalization of youth. They need to focus on all, with special emphasis on those being exploited and indoctrinated from across the border.

The police, through community-oriented policing, can play a very positive role in arresting the radicalization of youth by being an integral stakeholder along with the community and educational institutions. For this, they need to shed their overbearing, frightening image, which leads to a disdaining attitude among youth towards them, and instead cultivate a youth-friendly image.

Preventive Measures at the Grassroots

There is a need for preventive steps at the basic level to check radicalization of youth and professionals. Joint efforts of parents, teachers, educational institutions, society and police are needed to monitor the activities of children, students, young professionals, and the employed and self-employed to prevent them from going astray on the wrong path of radicalization and terror.

Social media has become a source of misinformation. The need of the hour is to curb the spread of false narratives in society, which can go a long way in preventing the radicalization of youth. Media outlets should engage in responsible journalism – both print, TV, and digital – with regulators such as the Press Council of India and intermediary platforms following due diligence and procedures to curb misinformation and false narratives.

There is a need to control the spread of content wherein faiths and religions are castigated and platforms are used to spread hatred and incite communal and casteist passions. To identify radical elements and tendencies, especially in community-living situations like hostels and housing societies, formal and informal interactions should identify those who have perceived feelings of injustice and discrimination – perhaps due to regional, political and economic factors – and counsel them to address these perceived feelings.

Resident welfare committees and mohalla committees can play a very positive role in this. At school and college level, similar exercises can be carried out with teachers becoming nodal points for the issue. At university level, there is a need to decipher negative inclinations, and surveillance is needed to identify such tendencies. Police and volunteers can play a positive role in identifying such elements and counselling them to address their perceived concerns of discrimination and injustice, which motivate them to indulge in violence and revenge against society and the nation.

Additional Measures

Authorities must keep tabs on like-minded groups preaching hatred, violence and revenge. Artificial intelligence should be used to prevent social media misuse by such groups to spread the tentacles of hate, revenge and violence.

Special courts should be formed to dispose of cases of hate speech, violence and revenge against particular faiths or religions by anyone, including public representatives, on the pattern of military courts. Those found guilty should be barred from electoral democracy for life.

Youth are the actual dividend of the nation. Curbing unemployment can go a long way in preventing radicalization. Unemployment and poverty are also causative factors behind radicalization – desperate, marginalized young people are more vulnerable to extremist ideologies that offer purpose, identity and a sense of belonging.

National Problem, Not Communal

The political system needs to recognise that radicalization is not a majority or minority problem but a national problem, requiring a statesman-like approach from the political system to prevent and control it. The political system, political parties and the state need to maintain equidistance from all religions and faiths.

Public displays of faith – which is a private and personal matter – by political leaders need to be avoided in consonance with and keeping with the true spirit of secularism enshrined in the Constitution. These small but serious steps will go a long way in preventing radicalization and cementing national integration.

The question is: will someone listen?

^Disclaimer:^{The views expressed in the article are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect the views of India Sentinels.}

_{Follow us on social media for quick updates, new photos, videos, and more.}

_{X: https://twitter.com/indiasentinels}_{Facebook: https://facebook.com/indiasentinels
Instagram: https://instagram.com/indiasentinels
YouTube:}_{https://youtube.com/indiasentinels}