Over five years after ISIS declared itself a caliphate and al-Qaeda announced a South Asian branch, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), the Indian Jihadist landscape has not progressed in a major way. At best, there have been some failed plots and recruitment drives, such as in 2019 where security agencies arrested ten ISIS-inspired individuals in Maharashtra who were planning a bombing.
Given the number of Muslims in India — nearly 200 million — this is surprising for many reasons. There have been waves of homegrown attacks in India, especially after the Babri Masjid demolition and the 2002 Godhra riots. Indeed attacks were witnessed upto 2014 with one of the most significant attack being the accidental bombing by members of the Jamaat ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) in West Bengal in 2014. As such, India was no stranger to Jihadist networks or waves.