Is India The Target Of Terrorists? – OpEd

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Democratic countries are the easy prey for the terrorists all over the world. Given the personal liberty, freedom of speech enjoyed by the people  in these free countries, it appears that, by and large, anyone can do anything and say anything and often get away with it.   

Unfortunately, in spite of several countries like USA, number of countries in Europe, India , Sri Lanka and others, suffering from terrorist attacks in recent times,  a strong global movement against terrorism is yet to take place. UN, which has now become a mere debating forum and looks like an impotent organization,  is totally ineffective in curbing terrorist acts or even in building strong world movement against the terrorists.

Apart from the September 11 attack in the USA killing thousands of people, many terrorist attacks have taken place in European countries and India.  In Sri Lanka, a number of christian devotees were killed when terrorists launched an  attack in a church on Easter Day.

Obviously, such terrorist attacks cannot take place in China and similarly placed totalitarian countries, as the terrorists would be put down with an iron hand, without being bogged down by judicial process and these countries do not care for world opinion.

Terrorists now have different types of people with varying backgrounds. They can be described as active terrorists and passive terrorists. Passive terrorists are those who justify terrorism under one pretext or the other.  

These  are people who may not be terrorists themselves but unwittingly or thoughtlessly without being conscious about the overall negative impact on the society, encourage terrorism subtly or indirectly. They may belong to the profession of lawyers, professors, so called activists and even farmers apart from religious extremists. They operate under the veil of their professional image and often go to the extent of encouraging the terrorist acts in one form or the other, calling it as revolution or “fighting for a cause” etc. etc.  Amongst those, there are several politicians too, who mostly belong to opposition parties and many times having the target of attracting the vote bank.

India is now becoming a big target for the terrorists of all sorts (both active and passive terrorists), who adopt a  variety of methods using technology and who are suspected to be getting international funds from the so called voluntary organisations and others abroad, who are said to fund the terrorist acts. It is difficult to catch the passive terrorists, as they interpret it as curbing the freedom and term it as  dictatorial methods.

In India, a few months back, on the day US President Trump visited, there were violent terrorist acts in Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, obviously to damage the reputation of India in the eyes of the world. The culprits have been caught but are yet to be punished due to democratic procedure in India.

Now, an agitation by so called farmers are taking place near New Delhi, protesting against the recently enacted farm laws in parliament and it has been going on for more than 72 days, blocking highways, disrupting traffic and inconveniencing public and further the protesters marched to the Red Fort and damaged the historical monument on the Republic Day. There are politicians, so-called activists supporting these  agitators. Inspite of the fact that Government of India has agreed to suspend the implementation of farm laws for eighteen months so that an amicable solution can be found,  the agitators are persisting with their acts for whatever reasons.

Not a day passes without terrorist attacks in Kashmir.

The terrorists often use clever methods to conceal their intentions. For example, after indulging in violent acts  and damaging the Red fort, the same protestors observed fast on Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary. Mahatma Gandhi was an apostle of  peace and non violence. Is it not a sort of irony  that violent prone protesters observe fast, pledging themselves to the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi?

The problem is that while number of countries are victims of terrorism, the same countries encourage terrorism elsewhere. One recent example is the statement of the Prime Minister of Canada expressing support for agitation by the so-called farmers in India, where some separatists are shouting slogans for establishing Khalistan as an independent state by splitting India. It is very well known that Khalistan movement operates from Canada and some ministers in Canadian government are committed to Khalistan separatist movement.

Similarly, the LTTE, a separatist group in Sri Lanka , are sitting pretty in countries like Canada, Britain, France and operating from there. While permitting the terrorists to operate from their soil, how can these countries complain when they are themselves attacked by terrorists? This is the problem.

N. S. Venkataraman

N. S. Venkataraman is a trustee with the "Nandini Voice for the Deprived," a not-for-profit organization that aims to highlight the problems of downtrodden and deprived people and support their cause. To promote probity and ethical values in private and public life and to deliberate on socio-economic issues in a dispassionate and objective manner.

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