Monday, December 1

Terrorism And Indian Politics .....

Terrorism, a horrifying situation is a state, which impresses an organized system of using of violence or threats to influence the conduct or urge to comply of another.
The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington DC, the Parliament House in New Delhi, the Bali bombings and attacks in London shook up the world and indeed made terrorism, its gruesome presence felt and highlighted the shocks that terrorism can unleash on humanity. Many parts of the world had been facing terrorism and urging for international action for facing the dreadful menace. Minor wakeup calls were coming up time and again, but the world did not do much beyond paying lip service to its cause of fighting terrorism. After such horrendous acts if terrorism comes to an end, it will be the most fortunate moment when the hopes and dreams of the people all over the world will be materialized. The world will be free of corruption, hatred, jealousy and with unity and integrity among the people. But, the euphoria will be soon marked by the tensions followed. On the other hand, if terrorism wins, then the world should be doomed to be doomed at the hands of terrorists for all the time to come.
Now one of the most important questions that come to our mind is how to control and overcome this menace. It’s very difficult to tell, because even after lots and lots of efforts that have been taken to overcome it, it shows its might in some or the other way. So it’s doubtful to say whether, it can ever be overcome or not. In fact, it feels very sad in saying this, but I have come to a conclusion that it will never end and will continue for years until some strict action is not taken by the world leaders against the dreadful acts of terrorists. It will never result in bringing and establishing peace anywhere in the world. The beautiful and spiritual places in the world will be battered, coupled with polarization of masses on religious grounds and petrified and helpless citizens of the world.

India in particular, is facing the problem since many years. Many actions have been tried and tested which can tackle this threat to some extent, but the results have never been on our side as our neighboring countries are the hub of all these activities. Terrorism has become a menace for India. No part of the country is unaffected by terrorism. Every time an attack takes place, the government puts the blame on `failed' intelligence and even after years, the cases remain unsolved. INDIA has been a soft target for the Pakistan and Bangladesh based terror-outfits for quite some time. While jihad against India has been the focus and main agenda of the Islamic terrorists, Kashmir issue, Babri demolition and Gujarat riots have become convenient reasons for the so-called liberals, secularists and rights activists to justify the actions of the terrorists. The bogus - worldly politicians, who fight with one another for acquiring the Muslim vote-bank, do not show the resolve and honesty to put an end to this briskly increasing menace. After our country got independence,, congress came out as one of the most strong party. Since then their presence has been more or less similar, until some 10–12 years ago, their position has started facing tough competition from other parties. As the Congress Party lost its foothold in many states over a period of time since Independence, the regional parties, which gained and captured power, have also been not far behind the Congress in appeasing the minority community. This vote-begging attitude of these fake parties lined the way for the rise of the fundamentalists to carry on with their holy plan through their priests, who have been continuously triumphant in their pacts with political factions. The officials, in their hunger for power, adopted troublesome course of action to divide the masses along social group and class lines, as at the same time, they paid special on capturing votes of minority class people by persuading their spiritual heads, whose directions are followed and obeyed by the people. The successive governments started curbing the privileges of the majority community, while giving undue privileges to the minorities. These governments allowed the minority communities to have separate personal and civil laws instead of ensuring a Uniform Civil Code despite directions from the Apex Court based on Article 44 of the Constitution. The official machinery remained as mute spectator when the minority community took the law into its hands. Lack of will to curtail the mushrooming of madrasas, lack of control over the growing fundamentalist organizations like the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), Al-Umma etc have emboldened the local ’jihadi’ elements to connive with foreign terror outfits, resulting in frequent terror attacks on our soil. In 2004 the Congress government with the help of some other parties came to power again. It has been quite a long period of 4 years now that they are in power. In these 4 years there has been an opportunistic alliance of minority appeasing pseudo-secular parties and Islamic terrorism has increased manifold. The situation has gone beyond control to such an extent that the ’jihadis’ have started striking at will in trains, buses, markets, malls, temples, mosques, theatres and even courts. The only places, which are left untouched, are police stations! Some of the terror attacks which took place since the UPA government came to power shed some light on the hopeless sutuation of internal security in our country


July 5, 2005: Terrorists attacked Ram Janmabhoomi, Ayodhya.
July 28, 2005: Around 15 killed and 52 injured in an explosion on board Shramjivi Express at Jaunpur, in UP
March 7, 2006: 28 people killed and 62 injured when 3 bombs went off through the sacred town of Varanasi, including the famous Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple and the railway station.
July 11, 2006: Seven bomb blasts within eleven minutes on the suburban trains in Mumbai, killing 186 people and injuring more than 800.
February 19 2007: 68 people killed and dozens injured after four explosions on board the Lahore bound Samjhauta Express.

May 18, 2007: Ten killed and more than a dozen injured in a blast at Mecca Mosque in Hyderabad. Five more killed when police fired at an unruly Muslim mob when it tried to attack the police.
May 13, 2008: 60 killed and 150 wounded in a series of bomb blasts in Jaipur, Rajasthan. Apart from the above mentioned terror attacks, the country has also been facing consistent assaults by the Naxalites in and Maoists in states like Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.

The alliance government scrapped the most essential law like POTA, on the first day it took office. The prime minister loses sleep on the plight of the family of terrorists and terror suspects. The home minister doesn’t even have a clue on what, when, where, why and how such attacks are happening, one minister of state for home, ceremoniously visits the places of attacks and makes repeated statements condemning the attacks. The whereabouts of another minister of state for home, appointed just to satisfy an alliance partner, is not known at all. The national security advisor, every now and then, lists the susceptible targets of terror attacks and fund raising avenues of terror outfits, creating panic in the minds of the people. The extra constitutional authority remote controls the government and official machinery and makes them subservient and ineffective just to keep the nation divided on communal lines. The annual report of the Union home ministry has confirmed the involvement of Pakistan in most of the terror attacks, which have happened on our soil. It is reported that the Pak based terror organizations like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) have been active from across the border and have been involved in major attacks. Also, the Bangladesh based organization Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami’s (HuJI) involvement has been on the increase, it is said. All these organizations have been sending well-trained militants to set up ’sleeper cells’ and to ensure connectivity with one another by forming a network of sorts. The home ministry’s report claims that the government has banned 32 groups as terrorist organizations under the provisions of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, as part of its counter measures. It claims that the Centre has increased strengthening of coastal security network, deployed para-military forces in sensitive areas, heightened the vigil in and around vital installations and enhanced the communication network of intelligence agencies and sharing of intelligence between Centre and states through well coordinated efforts. But the ground reality is totally contradicting the claims made by the ministry. In fact, the terrorists are active and effectively executing their attacks in Congress and Left ruled states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal and Kerala, which goes to prove that the areas of appeasement are more prone to attack. . In reality, the coordination and sharing of intelligence by the terrorists seem to be better than the intelligence agencies and security forces! Every time an attack takes place, the government puts the blame on ’failed’ intelligence and even after years, the cases remain unsolved and the perpetrators remain at large planning their next attack. The long and snail paced investigation process, lack of courage to get into the Muslim dominated areas and make them cooperate with the investigation, unnecessarily yielding to the pressure tactics and secular threats of the so called intellectuals, liberals and rights activists, who interfere and block the process of investigations and execution of judicial orders, the long delay in judicial processes and the absence of a stringent law like POTA, have all weakened the police forces, intelligence agencies and law enforcers.

A total wiping out of terrorism may not be practically possible, but, to make concentrated efforts to finish terrorism with an iron hand should be order of the day in the present day situation. In a country like India, it is very difficult as its neighboring countries are the hub of all these activities. For this, there should be collective action. Terrorism is not only brutal, but also a crime against the whole of humanity. Leave aside people, now the outlook is scarier, because, virtually, all the countries will have to be on guard against enthusiasts driven by religion bigotry, who think nothing of killing themselves in the aid of their dubious cause. They are so blinded by their religious frenzy that they seem to be devoid of all the normal human agitations of mind. The insane killings of blameless people including women and children like in Godhra Riots are no concern for them. The world powers will have to take a lead hand is this matter not only because they have equipped resources and useful tactics to tackle this menace if all. If unchallenged, these elements will ring the death knell of modern civilization. If they can dare to take on powerful nations like US, India, UK, one can imagine how vulnerable other countries would be. Our country, however should take appropriate stand to be effectively involved in the worldly fight against terrorism without giving up friendship of any nation. It is necessary to tell them that the clock cannot be turned back to the dark ages.
I think I should stop here saying that, there is no point in thinking whether terrorism can be overcome or not and whether it will bring to effect the calmness and peace, as it is the crying need of hour. The destructive acts of the mercenaries involved in terrorist groups, has forced all peace loving nations to come together. But then also these unprovoked acts of terrorists will only end in leading to evil and deadly as it is said by noted thinker Barry Farber;

"Crime expands according to our willingness to put up with it."

Terrorism will come to an end only by itself, when terrorists get tired or run out of resources.

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