Terrorism (Indian scenario)

-Satish Chandra .y

f2005101@bits-pilani.ac.in Terrorism, the modern definition: Terrorism is a method of violence for a major political change or a major reform aiming at harming civilians or a group of individuals by a community or a group of individuals. Not going too deep in to classification let me just touch the different type of terrorism in Indian scenario.

1. Islamic terrorism2. nationalist terrorism3. limited political terrorism

There are of course many other forms of terrorism, in the world which I am not going to touch.

Islamic terrorism: This kind of terrorism influenced the modern definition of terrorism. The above definition holds, just the group of individuals or community who organize this are inspired by the other edge of Islam. They arrive at this stance by logically correlating issues from preaching’s of prophet and quran, they say they are god driven, and they are defending Islam. This is a kind of cross-border terrorism trying to seek vengeance upon some nation. Al-qaeda and lashkar-e-toiba are major terrorist organizations that carry out their activities in India. Al-qaeda is a terrorist organization led by Osama bin laden which is against to Christianity and Zionism. It is anti U.S.A and is operating in more than 60 countries. Lashkar-e-toiba is a terrorist organization who wants to posses Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. They have organized massive militant actions against Indian military and Hindus in Jammu and Kashmir.

Nationalist terrorism: Nationalist terrorism is a kind of terrorism aiming at formation of a new state which has predefined qualities of rights of a group by taking control over certain province of the mother nation. The mother nation which is against to this activity will call this an act of terrorism. But the community who undertake this activity will showcase their insecurity feeling towards the mother nation or call this as love towards their mother land and call them selves as “freedom fighters”.

LTTE ( liberation tigers of Tamil Eelam) is the most successful nationalist terrorist organization which under the leader ship of prabhakaran led arms revolt against Sri Lankan government. It is operating for the past 20 years in the northern province of Sri Lanka. There are many nationalist terrorist organizations in India but the most prominent and threatening is ULFA (united liberation front of asom) aiming at liberation of Assam, ULFA says that historically Assam is never a part of India. Their activities involve assassinations, disturbing economic infrastructure, collecting fund by bank robberies, threatening non-assamees and many other. Let us assume, if Assam emerged as an independent state by the activities of ULFA, in the independent Assam ULFA will no longer be treated as a terrorist group. They will be treated as freedom fighters, responsible for the formation of their great nation.They will be treated just like we are treating Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and others in independent India. The early 40’s Subash Chandra Bose the founder of INA (Indian national army) is cited as a terrorist by east India Company and even assassination attempts were also made upon him by CBI, but he is no longer a terrorist in the view of government of India He is a strong patriot. So doer calls this patriotism. Receiver calls this terrorism, but let us calls this nationalist terrorism for our own convenience.

Limited political terrorism: Some say this is a bit deviated terrorism, while some say this is not at all terrorism. It aims for a revolution resulting in major political reform in the government system, But not for a new state. There won’t be any occupation of province of mother nation. The violence activity will be against those groups of individuals who are worsening the political system in their view. They are patriotic in nature. They are cases in which the mother nation won’t consider them as terrorist but just as extremists. In India naxalites, Maoists and many other groups are undergoing these extremist activities. In India most of the extremist groups are communist in nature. They focus upon the present plight of poor in the nation. They are flanked by their supporters in the public who won’t go for arms but will convey the objectives of the group to civilians. They can do so because we have right to express in India. In India CPI and CPI [M] are the two political parties who are communist in nature and supportive to communist activities. The extremist activities in India have been on a down trend for the past twenty years. That is because of the following reasons.

1. lack of unity among the leaders

2. Combing operations conducted by the grey hound and other anti extremist forces.

3. Dissatisfaction among the comrades, resulting in surrender to the police.

4. Advancement in technology and tracking systems. 5. And improved network of covert agent and informers.

Almost every state or central government tried for peace talks with the extremists. But the demands are so high that government can’t agree with them, they mainly focus upon improving the present status of the poor. Their demands would focus upon

1. Providing government land for housing of the poor.2. Special subsidies for families below poverty line.3. Creating more job opportunities by increasing job span rather

than diminishing jobs by introducing recent advancements, and many others.

Causes or roots of terrorism: Coming to the roots of terrorism, let me touch patriotism. Just because I feel that terrorism has its main root in patriotism. Patriotism can be defined as loving or supportive feeling of oneself towards his mother land. This is nothing but love towards country or mother nation. Suppose you do love your nation and so you are a patriot. What if this love develops a feeling of extreme hate towards other nations who are enemies historically or strategically to your mother nation? And you feel that the existence of your mother nation is threatened by the enemy nation whatsoever may be the actual fact. This case results in insecurity feeling in you towards your mother nation, you will lose you broad mindedness, and you want to harm whatever belonging to the enemy nation, its’ citizen’s, economy, infrastructure and whatever. This is the case of cross border terrorism. Majority of the world countries are suffering from this kind of terrorism. Even prominent nations sign treaties among themselves for co-operation to curb this kind of terrorism. Coming to Islamic terrorism instead of excess patriotism they have excess love towards their religion i.e. Islam. They feel that Islam is under threat by other religions.Their motives are the same as cross border terrorism. Coming back to the definition of patriotism, suppose you are a patriot and u are enough broad minded to have a great understand upon the nation’s political and economical state, if u believe that the status need to be improved by reforming the laws and bringing consistent change in the political policy. Choosing a path of violence for partial or complete achievement of better society is limited political terrorism.

Civilians won’t be targeted in this kind of terrorism. Let me repeat the definition of patriotism. Patriotism can be defined as loving or supportive feeling of oneself towards his mother land. Now, what is this mother land? Suppose you are from some state which is part of a country. What do you think is your mother land the state or the country? If, the answer of this question is state, it mean’s that you are more supportive to your state, than the country, and the benefits of the state are more important to you than the benefits of the country, your answer reflects to which you are more patriotic to, state or the country. This means you are bounding the feeling of mother land to the state. You will no longer assume the country as your mother land. If the political and economical state makes you feel the need of new nation. This kind of feeling might lead a separatist feeling in you. And if you choose a path of violence to achieve what you desire. that it is nationalist terrorism.

Patriotism and its back bone: You might be a present day patriot, but you are not a born patriot, because patriotism is not genetic. If you could realize, situations and social interactions made you a patriot, but not your self thinking and self motivation. You feel great and proud of your nation, just because ‘some one’ inspired you to that extend and made you feel so. The earliest record of that ‘someone’ would be your grandpa, grandma or your social teacher or someone else. Let us call them amateur historians. They might have spoken very less about the future of the nation, but they stress upon the past of the nation, the way it came through various hurdles, the eminent personalities who helped the nation in due course, and many more things, which fascinate and inspire us to be a true patriot in our child hood days. Unfortunately, those amateur historians while focusing good they plot the bad very much more than how much actually it is. This results in hatred towards a community in the receiver, mostly a feeling of superiority or thirst for vengeance History is just like a knife, a knife is used by a doctor and also a murderer. It is the same way we have to use history to incur good rather than the bad. The misguided terrorists use this same history to inspire youth and make them join their path. Only historians who are humanist in nature only can depict and present the plot correctly, and they can only inspire the youth in positive direction. All you need is common sense and better understanding upon the history to be humanistic historian we have to

incur the feeling that enemies are humans before our enemies. It is just like love your people, but don’t hate the rest

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