Counter-radicalisation programmes
Counter-radicalisation programmes · de-radicalisation cells
12 min read · Updated 2026-05-25
What is Counter-radicalisation?
Counter-radicalisation is preventive work to stop people adopting violent extremist ideas, distinct from de-radicalisation, which reverses it in those already radicalised, and from counter-terrorism, which is the reactive police and military response. India combines federal investigation by the NIA, intelligence sharing through the Multi-Agency Centre and NATGRID, and community-led work such as Kerala's Operation Pigeon and the Maharashtra ATS programme.
The story
It is May 2018, NIA office in Mumbai. Officers question a 22-year-old engineering graduate from Mumbai's Mira Road. He holds a B.Tech in computer science, scored 8.4 CGPA, was placed with a top IT firm. Over the past eight months, he consumed Telegram channels linked to ISKP (Islamic State Khorasan Province) — over 4,000 messages, 312 videos, 17 conversations with handlers in Afghanistan and Syria. He had begun saving travel money to "hijrat" — migrate to ISIS territory.
He is not poor. He is not unemployed. He is not from a "ghetto". He is exactly the kind of profile that doesn't fit the old "poverty causes terrorism" story.
This story repeats — Bengaluru's 14 ISIS-linked arrests (2014-16), Kerala's 21 missing youth (2016-17) who went to Afghanistan, Hyderabad cell (2017), Coimbatore car bomb (2022). The Indian radicalisation profile: educated, urban, middle-class, online.
In response, India built a multi-layered counter-radicalisation architecture: NIA cells, state CT setups (ATS Maharashtra, NSG cells, NATGRID), community-led "Operation Pigeon" (Kerala Police 2017), and soft-power programmes like Madrasa modernisation (Maulana Azad Education Foundation) and CTC deradicalisation huts (Maharashtra ATS, 2017+).
For UPSC, counter-radicalisation is the softer + harder twin of GS-III internal security — it sits beside counter-terror operations but uses persuasion, psychology, theology. Examiners want you to narrate both the drivers of radicalisation and the state's response toolkit.
Why this matters for UPSC
This is a frequent Mains topic — asked in 2016, 2019, 2022, 2024. Prelims tests factual anchors (NATGRID year, NIA Act, NIA HQ, specific cells). Interview boards probe community-engagement ethics, online radicalisation, and lone-wolf attacks.