By  Barry Gardiner

Tomorrow I will be speaking alongside other members of Labour Friends of India in a debate in Parliament on “human rights in the Indian sub-continent”. We want to take the opportunity of this debate to remind the world of how India, the world’s most populous democracy, continues to be a beacon of tolerance, peace and democracy in the face of some of the most serious security threats faced by any country in the world.

Originally published by Left Foot Forward

The Indian sub-continent is one of the most dangerous and unstable regions in the world. The 2011 Failed State Index from the respected ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine lists six of India’s neighbours as being amongst ’the most failed states in the world’.

Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Bhutan all featured on the list of 60 countries.

To India’s west lies Pakistan with whom conflict has repeatedly erupted over the disputed region of Kashmir, while regional tensions in Myanmar and the horrendous civil war in Sri Lanka mean India is a unique democracy without civil repression in an area of dictatorship and state atrocities.

India suffers regular terrorist attacks on its major cities, at a frequency which should terrify the west. This year alone has seen major bombs in Mumbai, killing 26 people, and more recently in New Delhi, which killed 13 people, not to mention the smaller but more regular bombings, kidnappings and murders which kill dozens each year.

These attacks, which are a daily threat to Indians trying to go about their lives, are carried out by Islamist extremists, Kashmiri separatists and Marxist Nexalites amongst others.

The Indian Centre for Conflict Management indentifies 168 terrorist, insurgent and extremist groups currently active in India; it states: “310 of the country’s 636 Districts are currently afflicted by varying intensities of chronic activity, including subversion, by insurgent and terrorist groupings.”

What is most staggering when you realise the full extent of the threat of terror in India is that she continues to be an intensely democratic and peaceful nation. Many other countries have been quick to limit freedoms and democracy in the face of far less demonstrable threats.

Barry Gardiner MP (Labour, Brent North) is the chair of Labour Friends of India