Fighting Terrorism Demands Partnership, Not Primacy

Whatever one may think of former Indian foreign secretary Nirupama Rao’s proposal for a new T20: Twenty Against Terrorism platform emerging from India’s diplomatic and military response to the Pahalgam attack, it is clear that the idea reflects India’s clear and long-simmering frustration. Global South countries, the argument goes, suffer terrorism’s daily toll but remain peripheral to how counter-terror policy is shaped. 

Rao’s pitch – a nimble, India-led alliance of like minded Southern states to fill the void left by the West’s episodic, often politicised frameworks – may be a bold one. But if the goal is to empower the Global South with new tools and new voices, then its architecture must resist the very habits of exclusion and strategic overreach that have hobbled the institutions it seeks to complement.

Leadership cannot substitute for consensus

The proposal champions India’s experience and credibility as the natural foundation for T20. True, India’s engagement with terrorism is long and layered, from cross-border violence in Kashmir to Maoist insurgencies in Chhattisgarh, to targeted attacks in cities like Mumbai and Hyderabad. Yet the very breadth of this experience reveals why leadership must be earned through deliberation, not declared in advance.

Take India’s internal challenges in defining terrorism. Naxalite insurgents in central India and ethno-nationalist militants in the northeast often straddle ambiguous legal categories: rebels to some, terrorists to others, criminals to most. In Kashmir, decades of counterinsurgency have seen terrorism interwoven with cycles of alienation, religious radicalism and heavy-handed state responses. These complexities mean that even within India, the term “terrorist” is applied selectively, often politically. How, then, will India persuade others to align behind its definitions internationally?

The issue becomes even sharper when we consider the proposed members of T20. The protracted insurgency in Thailand’s southern provinces illustrates how terrorism, separatism and state response can become structurally entangled. Despite alternating strategies of military suppression and localised engagement, the conflict endures, anchored in long standing disputes over identity, autonomy and political recognition. As in other parts of the Global South, the application of terms like “terrorist” or “militant” often obscures more than it clarifies, complicating both diagnosis and resolution.

Indonesia faces sporadic jihadist violence in Java but also wrestles with violent separatism in Papua, where accusations of excessive force by the state complicate any unilateral narratives. Kenya contends with attacks by Al-Shabaab across its Somali border, yet it has also been criticised for extrajudicial killings in its own counterterrorism policing. Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram has endured for over a decade, but so too has public distrust in a state security apparatus marred by corruption and abuse. For each of these countries, cooperation on terrorism cannot be divorced from questions of legitimacy, governance and human rights.

The most problematic feature of the T20 proposal is its call for joint diplomatic statements to "name and shame" state sponsors of terrorism. For a platform claiming to fix the failures of global diplomacy, this tactic invites the same kind of paralysis and polarisation that plagues the institutions it critiques. Few of the proposed member states, many of whom navigate volatile regional dynamics, are likely to risk alienating neighbours or major powers through public condemnations, especially in the absence of shared evidentiary standards.

To centre such a coalition on a singular doctrine – particularly one that includes publicly naming and shaming “state sponsors” – risks turning T20 into a performative stage, not a platform for credible, hard-nosed collaboration. That risk is especially acute if it remains built around a single country’s definitions, timelines and diplomatic priorities.

Filling the right gaps

If the T20 is to succeed, it cannot simply invert the geopolitical biases of existing institutions. It must offer a structurally different model, more attuned to local realities, and less invested in symbolic positioning. The T20 proposal rightly identifies a gap in global counterterrorism institutions: too slow, too Northern, too disconnected from ground realities in regions that suffer most. But the answer is not to replicate their coercive posture in a different register. The Global South needs a different kind of architecture, one that moves at the speed of trust, not just intelligence.

If reimagined, the T20 could address the often neglected intersections between terrorism and the fragility of institutions, the erosion of civil liberties and the pressures of youth unemployment and political exclusion. In Kenya’s coastal regions, for example, local disillusionment has proved fertile ground for Al-Shabaab recruitment. Yet counterterrorism efforts there have shown greater success when paired with community-driven interventions rather than hard policing alone.

In Sri Lanka, the scars of civil war and the 2019 Easter bombings remain raw, but so do the dangers of securitising minority populations in the name of prevention. A truly inclusive platform could help policymakers share approaches that preserve rights while enhancing security, especially in fragile post-conflict contexts.

Likewise, in Nigeria, tackling Boko Haram has revealed the limits of military solutions alone. Counter-radicalisation efforts in Borno State, where Boko Haram once held entire towns, have found more traction through local reconciliation, education and trauma care than through central command-and-control strategies.

Effective approaches begin where diplomacy still works best: quiet, sustained coordination. Here, the Philippines offers a compelling model. Faced with ISIS-linked violence in Mindanao and extremist movements like Abu Sayyaf and the Maute Group, the country has not only engaged in community-based deradicalisation programs but has also coordinated trilateral maritime patrols with Indonesia and Malaysia. These low-profile, high-impact efforts show how regional actors can collaborate with trust and urgency, without seeking headlines.

A well-calibrated T20 would privilege these lessons, not as side notes but as centrepieces. It would facilitate horizontal exchanges of context-sensitive solutions: how to manage de-radicalisation without alienation, how to protect soft targets without militarising public space, how to address online extremism without replicating state surveillance overreach; and most importantly, how to respond to terrorism in a way that strengthens democratic accountability rather than undermining it.

The case for stewardship, not supremacy

India can still play a vital role. Its diplomatic reach, digital capabilities and long exposure to terrorism position it as a valuable convener. But leadership must be reframed as stewardship, hosting initial dialogues, seeding resources for secure communication hubs, and supporting multilingual, practitioner-driven knowledge platforms. That form of leadership invites rather than imposes.

Crucially, such a shift in posture would signal to countries like Egypt, the Philippines or Mali that this is not an initiative built on hierarchy, but on shared vulnerability. Many Global South countries face not just terrorism, but the dangers of anti-terror laws being used against dissenters, minorities, and journalists. If T20 is to offer moral legitimacy, it must first protect the space to critique those same moral risks.

Conclusion: A coalition that hears before it speaks

Terrorism is not a singular war, and the Global South is not a single front. It is a patchwork of griefs, grievances, and social fragmentation. The current T20 concept mistakes coordination for consensus and urgency for unanimity. But there is still time to reimagine it, not as a declaration of leadership, but as a patient architecture of collaboration.

The Global South needs a platform that reflects its own fractured experiences with terrorism, not one that mirrors the political or procedural limitations of the Global North. If T20 is to become more than a branding exercise, it must begin by listening to the very partners it seeks to mobilise.

India has a pivotal role to play. But true leadership will mean asking: what do others need from a counterterror platform, not just what India wants to offer? That means listening across difference, collaborating across complexity and resisting the temptation to name enemies before confronting its own assumptions. That shift, from voice to ear, from direction to deliberation, is what will make the T20 something worth building.

Shyam Tekwani is a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies

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