Earlier this month, the Quad took an unprecedented stand on the issue of terrorism at the foreign ministers’ meeting in Washington. The joint statement condemned “all acts of terrorism and violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross-border terrorism” and renewed its commitment to focus on counterterrorism cooperation, a pillar of the grouping that has not received much attention in recent years. For India, the host of the 2025 Quad leaders’ summit later this year, this statement was a diplomatic win on two counts—first, New Delhi was able to convince the other members to issue a strong condemnation of the recent terror attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir; and second, the statement called for UN member states to cooperate under international law and relevant UN Security Council resolutions against the “perpetrators, organizers, and financiers” of the attack, purportedly a reference to Pakistan. However, this symbolic gesture of calling out terrorism as a shared challenge is only the beginning. If India and the Quad are serious about counterterrorism cooperation, the member states will have to take concrete steps to further their engagement on the issue in the region.

Pahalgam and India’s Continuing Terrorism Concerns

The April 22 attack in Pahalgam and the ensuing India-Pakistan kinetic crisis has once again brought to the fore the threats from terrorism in the region and the bandwidth required to address them, even as New Delhi engages with partners on a broader strategic agenda.

While terrorist incidents in Indian-administered Kashmir have declined in recent years, Indian experts have raised the crucial point that local terrorism has gone up considerably and claim that there are comparatively more attacks linked to or supported by Pakistan-based groups in recent years. The Pahalgam attack was especially heinous since it targeted civilians and segregated victims based on gender and religion. And while Pakistani leadership steadfastly denies any involvement of their country in the attack, The Resistance Front (TRF)—which India considers a proxy of the Pakistan-based terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba—

© South Asian Voices