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 terrorism
2. nationalist terrorism
3. 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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