Sample Materials of SSC CGL (Tier -3) Study Kit

Subject: Essay

Topic: Terrorism and World peace

All the world’s religions preach the virtues of mercy and compassion, advocate numerous values of non-violence and peace-building, respect and preserve human life, and call for peace. Tragically, however, most major religions can also justify violence since their canons contain martial metaphors, and have long been associated with terrorism. Whole books of the Hebrew Bible are devoted to the conquests of great kings. In Hinduism, warfare is the basis of great religious epics such as the Mahabharata. Warfare, however, is not just confined to mythic legends. It has split over into history, with conflicts such as the Crusades, the Muslim conquests and the religious wars of the sixteenth century.

The word terrorism is a big trauma which the whole world is facing. It seems to have become a world - wide phenomenon. It has made this world a dangerous place to live in. The terrorists aim at creating fear and panic whenever they strike. Of late their activities have ruthlessly destroyed all possible chances of peace in the world. The unforgettable attack of terrorists on the world trade center shook the world for ever. No one can think of living in the peace in the awful situation.

In fact India is also not untouched by the terrorists attacks like the bomb blasts in the Mumbai and at that time when terrorists attacked the Taj Hotel and captured all innocent people and shot many tourists and also Indians shows how difficult it is to curb terrorism. there have been intensive efforts in India and in the world to fight against the terrorism but no great success so far has been achieved towards peace. But, after such a long time when the news came that Osama - bin - laden the major head of the terrorists had been shot dead by the american soldiers in Pakistan, all over the world there was happiness enjoyed by the people. at that time people were really excited and were recalling the memories of their relatives who died in that 9/11 attack and there eyes were wet at that moment.

So, at last the terrorist, somehow, have to be made aware that terrorism and violence serve no purpose. We shouldn’t stop trying to work for world peace. Historically, three of the most famous examples of warring religious groups are the Hindu thugs, the Jewish zealots, and the Islamic assassins. Because the conversion of “unbelievers” was an important motivator behind the Crusades, they are regarded by some as the first example of large-scale religiously motivated terrorist acts. In reality, within every religion, there have always existed radical elements exploiting the faith to preach hatred and violence, intolerance and exclusiveness. Religious terrorists seek to use violence to further their purportedly ‘divinely commanded’ purposes.

In modern times, historical moments of global transformation have provided an occasion for religion — with all its images and ideas — to be reasserted as a public force. Modern religious terrorism surfaced around 1980, a time when the ideologies were in decline. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed a failure of the secular gods, and a profound void was left for religion to fill. Modern religious terrorism very effectively married ideology to religion. In addition, during this period, many countries began to experience a great social transformation. Social and economic pressures frustrated political aspirations and, combining with bitter personal experiences, contributed to the rise of religious terrorism on the world arena. Religious violence provided a sense of empowerment to alienated individuals, marginalized groups, and visionary ideologues.

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In addition, globalization creates a tremendous amount of confusion for human beings in terms of identity. In order to seek a clear identity, sometimes, some people can be drawn to religious extremist movements, including those who promote violence. In a religious terrorist group, an enjoyment of faith, a pleasure in belief, being in touch with God are clearly manifested, based on the idea that the self is at the center of religion. Hence the individual is at the core of identity.

Nowadays, religiously motivated terrorism has superseded other forms of terrorism and leads to more intense forms of violence and bloodshed. Religious terrorist groups include the Al Qaeda network, various American white supremacist militias (including the Christian Patriot movement), the Jewish Kach/Kahane Chai, the Sikh Dal Khals and Dashmesh, and Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo, among others.

Currently, the term “religious terrorist” is most often applied to Islamic groups. In actual fact, however, white supremacists also pose a threat that cannot be underestimated. For instance, 760 hate groups exist in the USA with about 100,000 members. America needs to be more vigilant about the domestic white supremacists, neo-Nazis and militia members. In 2003, for example, a Texan in a militia, William Krar, was caught with 25 machine guns and other weapons, a quarter-million rounds of ammunition, 60 pipe bombs, and enough sodium cyanide to kill hundreds of people. Before September 11, America was too complacent about Al Qaeda and foreign terrorists; now, it is too unwary of homegrown threats.

In Britain too, anti-Muslim attacks supported by the white supremacist British National Party have increased. They have served to strengthen hostility against Muslims as well as “Islamophobia” among the general public. Without a doubt, religious terrorism presents a grave challenge to national, regional and international security today, and needs to be understood to be addressed. In this regard, it is useful to be aware of the unique features that set religious terrorism apart from other forms of terrorism:

(1) Religious terrorism has its own radically different value systems, mechanisms of legitimization and justification, concepts of morality, and worldviews, according to Dr. Bruce Hoffman. For the religious terrorist, violence is first and foremost a sacramental act or divine duty executed in response to some theological demand or imperative. Terrorism thus assumes a transcendental dimension, and its perpetrators are undeterred by political, moral, or practical constraints. They seek to appeal to no other constituency than themselves. They see themselves not as components of a system worth preserving but as ‘outsiders’ seeking fundamental changes in the existing order. This perception enables the religious terrorist to contemplate far more destructive types of terrorist operations than secular terrorists and reinforces the tendency that anybody is a fair target.

The most extreme religious terrorists can sanction “almost limitless violence against anyone.” This distortion of the teachings of religions has been most brutal and fanatical where the blood of the faith community is made sacred “by the fanatical utterances of the religiously and racially intoxicated.” In the ethos of radical Islamic terrorism, for example, individuals believe in martyrdom or self-sacrifice in the service of Allah, and have no moral ‘red lines’ in terms of numbers of casualties and the extent of destruction they were willing to inflict. They carry out violence because the jihad must go on: “in a jihad, there are no red lines,” and the extent of damage and the number of casualties are of primary importance.

Cults headed by charismatic leaders, where the leaders dominate the followers spiritually and emotionally, are usually very dangerous.

(2) The terror inflicted by the religious terrorist is not an end in itself, but a means towards a larger goal. Nor is this goal a conventional one. As the US National Commission on Terrorism put it: “Today’s terrorists don’t want a seat at the table, they want to destroy the table and everyone sitting at it.”

Terrorists of a religious nature or motivation see themselves as answerable only to God or their idea of God. Their ultimate constituency is God. However, the pure intention of desiring to serve God becomes contaminated by the needs of the ego that arise from despair and helplessness. So, religious terrorists can be quite devout in relation to wanting to serve God but quite violent in their behavior towards others. This mixture of darkness and light, of falseness and truth, of love and hatred, and of purity of devotion combined with extreme desecration of what purity is really about, can occur within individuals who are quite spiritually focused. It is present among many who advance the cause of terrorism in the name of God.

(3) Religions mandate acts of terror as a sacred duty in an endless, cosmic struggle for the best way to please God. It is the religious worldview that the entire universe is locked in an eternal struggle. Religious terrorism has no military objective. A holy war, or jihad, is endless because it has a spiritual objective; no one ever knows when God is pleased enough, or when the situation in heaven matches the situation on earth. For this reason, religious terrorism is also most dedicated and unpredictable. Most religious terrorists are devout, fundamentalist, ‘true’ believers in their mainstream religion. The divine mandate for destruction is regarded as the ‘neglected duty’ within the mainstream religion. Religious terrorists also do not consider themselves terrorists, since they say they do not enjoy violence for the sake of violence. They regard themselves as religious activists or militants.

(4) A mindset based on binary thinking exists in many religious terror groups. Religious terrorists among Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Christians believe in a simplistic, Manichean division of people into two groups: “the righteous” and “the unrighteous.” In this dualistic world, all reality is divided into two camps: good gods and bad gods, angels and demons, good nations and evil nations, good humans and evil ones. Terrorist groups employ various forms of conceptual and emotional manipulation, such as oversimplification, deception, and mass suggestion, which routinely precede physical forms of terror. With their extensive indoctrination infrastructure, through private and isolated gatherings among members, they build strength, laying the groundwork for decades of struggle. Moreover, in today’s globalized world, religion no longer has a relationship with a territory or given society, which is what we call deterritorialization. It means that religion has to define itself solely in terms of religion. It has to define itself in comparison with all “others” – other religions, other values, other environments. This further consolidates religious extremist binary thinking.

(5) Religious terrorists tend to fight with determination and spirit. They stick to their aims with persistence. Religious agendas can inspire deep emotional responses and therefore result in dedicated actions. Such agendas can create anger and a readiness to sacrifice the self in the fight against enemies, who are seen to have been transformed into devils. Religious terrorism is about belief. It needs very little in the way of financing to accomplish its individual missions. The religious zealots appear to be quite happy to sacrifice their own lives.

(6) Religious terrorism encourages extra-territorial loyalty, holding that loyalty to religious solidarity among followers overrides loyalty due to the nation-state of which the followers are citizens. Religious terrorism does not recognize national borders. There is no territory followers must protect. Such terrorism is thus subversive to the traditional concept of loyalty to the state.

(7) A traditional network exists outside of law-enforcement services’ surveillance. It is an informal network of person-to-person relationship. The recruitment process is predominantly a casual or informal process. Members generally know their recruiter prior to recruitment. In many cases, it is a friend or acquaintance in the group who recruits a new member. For some, the recruiter is a family member, and for others, someone from the community they know casually. A small percent of members are introduced to recruiters through a third party. In fact, little actual recruitment needs to be carried out, as most members volunteer. The network grows organically, rather like the Internet.

(8) Religious terrorists have internalized their values. They are ‘true believers’ who subordinate their individuality to the group. They uncritically accept the direction of the destructive charismatic leader of the organization: to them, what he declares as moral is moral, and indeed a sacred obligation.

(9) Many religious terrorists have received higher education, such as graduate training at the technological universities of the West. Most come from financially comfortable middle class families. For instance, three-quarters of Al Qaeda members belong to the upper or middle class of their societies and six-three percent have attended college; in many aspects, they are the best and brightest of their societies. Three-quarters of them are professionals or semi-professionals, including engineers, architects, and civil engineers, and mostly scientists. In their education, the natural sciences predominate. They are skilled in computer technology. They speak three to six languages. Most of us don’t know Arabic: these men know two or three Western languages, including German, French, and English.

(10) Religious terrorism uses intimidation and ideological and physical terror as weapons to make its will prevail. For the terrorists, religion is a weapon of coercion and intimidation with which to subjugate the ‘infidels and the non-practicing persons.’ In March 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo attacked Tokyo’s subways with sarin, killing 12 and injuring more than 5,000 with the lethal gas. The incident was the world’s first mass-scale chemical terrorist attack. The group had built a vast arsenal of biochemical and conventional arms, including mustard gas, anthrax, botulism, Q-fever, sarin and TNT. It also experimented with seismic weapons designed to trigger cataclysmic earthquakes in Japan.

(11) Religious terrorists never have to win a battle and can instead profit in the realm of public opinion through the glory that their martyrdom confers on them even in their defeat. We think the struggle is fought on the ground, but they know the struggle is really fought on satellite TV, and they are far more sophisticated than we are in using it.

(12) Youth are the prime recruiting target of religious terror groups, because such vulnerable sincerity, fervor, hunger for action, and commitment enough to live or die for a cause is usually found only among young people. They are more readily swayed by indoctrination and propaganda. Youthfulness is an attribute that stands out among indoctrinated men and women, whether they are Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Catholic or Protestant, or belong to new religious groups such as the People’s Temple in the US and in Guyana.

(13) Terrorism today is fueled by three broad forces: the openness of free societies; the easy access to technologies of violence; and a radical and global ideology of hatred. It can be stopped only by responses at each level.

What the world is now confronting is asymmetric warfare. The key challenges entailed in this war are outlined below:

Religious terrorism, in one form or another, has been around for centuries and will be around for many more. A challenge in countering religious terrorism is that the threat and the problems that fuel it can never be completely eradicated. The complexity, diversity, and often idiosyncratic characteristics of modern religious terrorism imply that there is no “magic bullet” — no single, superior solution — that can be applied to all cases. As mentioned above, religious terrorists have religious fervor, confidence, knowledge, discipline and expertise to embark on terrorist attacks. They have also learned to find the vulnerabilities in civil society. Hence, there is a need for multiple creative solutions, if not to resolve, then, at least, to ameliorate the underlying causes of religious terrorism as well as its violent manifestations.

In the past, ideological movements were fought to take control of states. Now the world is faced with a belief system that is inimical to the state system, and aims at the theological rule. This system will not be countered by the same means that worked against other forms of terrorism. Neither military nor political solutions seem to be effective. Ceasefires, political concessions, financial rewards, amnesties and other personal inducements would be futile. A new set of institutions will be needed to grapple with this reality, and new training methods developed to understand a people who are uninterested in national self-interest as traditionally defined. The fact should be faced that a long struggle lies ahead. Roaming in nature, they are more globalized than the worldwide law enforcements. Members of terrorist groups come from every corner of the world, while states cannot realize this diversity. Actually, the jihadist movement, initially based locally, has become international in nature, in terms of both its members and the diversified objectives that it pursues. Religious terrorist groups, like other global movements, its diverse membership is not united by way of commonality about class, ethnicity or personal background. Indeed it functions as a network by disrupting and disregarding old-fashioned forms of political and territorial allegiance. These globalized terrorist groups have realized their effective composition of manpower and resources worldwide, while the law enforcements cannot reach this level because of existing national interests, territorial borders, and barriers of law.

Religious terrorist groups operate in “horizontal network” and in a traditional, non-technical world of family and tribe and decentralized, socially based authority, while the states work in “vertical system” and in a technical, centralized bureaucratic world. In this respect, the state has only limited ability to affect these social relationships as well as to understand or influence traditional communication.

Winning the war is dependent on knowing the secrets of religious terror groups, and therefore espionage and information gathering are extremely important. So far, all we have been able to do, mainly, is to gauge what has happened in the past. While governments are in the open, their terrorist foes are hidden. The foes have open access to information about governments, through sources such as the mass media, but their own activities cannot be watched so easily. Because of their unique behavior, close and religious nature, and reliance on individual relationships, terrorist groups are extremely difficult for law enforcement agencies to infiltrate; it is therefore hard to preempt their attacks. Usually, law enforcement agencies cannot identify culprits until the first attack has been perpetrated. Thus, after investigating the Arm attack, a US Senate investigative report asked, “How does a fanatic intent on creating Armageddon, with relatively unlimited funds and a world-wide network of operatives, escape notice of Western intelligence and law-enforcement agencies outside of Japan?” The answer was alarming: “They simply were not on anybody’s radar screen.” The intense dedication of religious terrorists and their unpredictability create yet more difficulties for governments to counter their attacks.

Religious terrorists are very hard to identify as individuals. Mostly, they melt into local society and may be quietly installed in any metropolitan city. Appearing normal, socially well-adjusted, and without any crime records, they easily escape the suspicions and surveillance of security services. Finding suspects is the top priority for law enforcement services, but the dilemma, as acknowledged by Canadian Deputy Prime Minister John Manley in an interview, is: “You can’t know what you don’t know. You can only hope you catch what you need to catch.” Pierre de Bousquet, the head of France’s counterintelligence service, says, “They do not seem suspicious. They work. They have kids. They have fixed addresses. They pay the rent.” According to Dr. Bruce Hoffman, “The members of these groups are not full-time, professional terrorists…but consider themselves minutemen: ordinary citizens and patriots ready to take up arms at a moment’s notice to defend their inalienable rights.”

The greatest fear for most analysts is that weapons of mass destruction might fall into the hands of religious terrorists — who have no fear of destroying themselves and everybody else in the process. Regrettably, the threat is only too real. As Dr. Bruce Hoffman stated — as far back as in 1995 — following the Aum gas attack in Tokyo, “We’ve definitely crossed a threshold. This is the cutting edge of hi-tech terrorism for the year 2000 and beyond.”

Additional Essays on Terrorism The Problem of Terrorism in India

Increasingly, in the last decade or so, violence has pervaded Indian politics. It has found various forms-from shrill and abusive language and character assassination of opponents to casteist and communal violence and from booth capturing to physical attacks on the oppressed (agricultural labourers, dalits, tribal’s and women) who try to raise themselves and actualize the promises of equality and equal opportunity embodied in our Constitution. But, above all, violence has taken the form of organized and large-scale terrorism.

Terrorism has become endemic in India since early 1980s. We have not been able to check it or contain it. What is worse, we have failed to make it politically illegitimate. When a major assassination occurs, we use words such as brutal, barbaric and heinous to describe the act, but in more normal times, we treat it as if it is business as usual.

In our approach to terrorism we fail to distinguish it from the use of vio­lence or armed struggle in a revolutionary situation. There is a vast difference between violence in a democratic society, where venues of peaceful protest as also political change through electoral processes exist, and an authoritarian­ dictatorial society where the people have no choice but to overthrow the political regime through use of weapons. But even in the latter society, violence takes the form of mass upsurge or armed struggle based on massive political support and mobilization.

Terrorism at a serious and dangerous level arises in a democratic society when an organized group is convinced of its own political righteousness and yet finds itself unable to acquire political power democratically because it is unable to persuade the majority to back it either in terms of mass mobilization or ultimately, in terms of electoral support.

In 1946-47, the communal riots and the partition had funneled communal­ism from Pakistan. The Muslim communalists had risen to power. In northern India Hindu Communalism had grown in geometrical proportions. But the national leadership and. above all. Gandhiji had rolled back the tide. The frustrated communal forces had hit back through the agency of Nathuram Godse. The atmosphere of hatred and violence was sufficient explanation of the dastardly act.

Similarly, in the late I 970s, the Akalis found themselves at the end of their tether. All their communal demands, including the most unreasonable ones. had been satisfied. The population ratios and therefore electoral logic in Punjab- 40 percent being Hindus and 38 per cent or so of the Sikhs being scheduled caste agricultural labourers and therefore in class conflict with the landed jats - did not favour Akalis. The Akalis were not able to even once capture state power in Punjab unless they allied with Hindu communalists. The Akali leadership faced three choices: one, abandonment of communal politics, two, an effort to unite all the Sikhs by raising the cry of Sikh religion and identity in danger and three, recourse to violence to capture state power.

The first choice was never considered. Sant Longowal and G.S.Tohra adopted the second course. Bhindramvala went in for the third course. But for a violent mass movement and armed struggle not only arms-readily available from Pa­kistan-were needed but also the masses. The latter were not forthcoming. And so the separatist movement degenerated into or rather remained stuck at the level of terrorism, that is, individual killings of their political opponents and thus the terrorisation of the people of Punjab and of the Indian State.

The fact is that terrorism of every type and of every origin must be stamped out at its origin and stopped in its tracks. If it continues to exist, not to speak of succeeding in a place. it is bound to spread to other places. Whosoever finds it impossible to achieve his/her objective through normal democratic/peaceful processes will take recourse to it. Today it is the terrorists in Punjab or Assam or the LTTE in Tantil Nadu. Tomorrow, when stymied in their designs in Ayodhya. the votaries of the Bajrang Dal could ape their Punjabi fascist communal coun­terparts. Day after tomorrow it could be the turn of the casteist fanatics, whether of the forward or backward variety. So long as we don’t say, “It shall not pass” and “It shall not pass’, terrorism will go on claiming victims, till it tears India apart. But the default has not been only of the political leaders. Intellectuals have been equally involved.

For one, by and large and with some exceptions, most of the vocal intellec­tuals, especially those with access to the media, have consistently refused to recognise the seriousness of the problem posed by violence and terrorism. Re­garding Punjab, the common stance has been to find alibis for terrorism. For example, that Bhindranwala was a creation of Indira Gandhi and Zail Singh. Ergo, the problem was not Bhindranwala and terrorism but Indira Gandhi. Or, the youth in Punjab are unemployed and feeling deprived, and the answer must be found in solving their basic socio-economic problems-as if the Hindu youth or Scheduled Caste Sikh youth in Punjab are having full employment. Or, the problem is created by November1984 riots-as if Bhindranwala had nothing to do with terrorism in Punjab. Or, the real terrorism in Punjab was not perpetrated by Khalistanis but by the state, i e., the police, CRPF and other state organs.

The same disregard for reality and refusal to face up to the challenges of terrorism have been there regarding the LITE in Tamil Nadu and the ULFA in Assam which are declared to be ‘ethnic’ problems. Similarly, there is complete silence and sometimes even support for the activities of the People’s War Group in Andhra, because it is supposed to be fighting for revolution and has taken up the cause of the tribal people. Most of the civil liberty groups have revealed complete bankruptcy by keeping quiet regarding PWG’s activities even when the cadre and leaders of the CPI, CPI-M and the Congress have been kidnapped, maimed, mutilated and killed in Andhra and the neighbouring areas. Those who capture booths are condemned but those who use violence to prevent people from voting are quietly ignored if not praised.

Narco-terrorism-using drug money to finance terrorist activity is also becoming a problem in India.

Mutual co-operation among terrorist movements-as in Punjab and Kash­mir and in the North Eastern states is also a matter of grave concern. The March 12th, 1993 serial bombings in Bombay have added another complex mosaic to terrorism in India the growing collaboration between various terrorist move­ments in different parts of the world with crime syndicates operating within a country.

Inspite of the magnitude of the problem there has been no international consensus on a solution of the problem of terrorism, as it has often been per­ceived that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. In India the attempts to control terrorism has been mainly through the deployment of police, military and para-military forces. At the same time efforts have been made to redress the socio-economic grievances which were the causes of terrorism. In this regard the government has met with some success in Punjab and the North East but the battle continues in Kashmir.

Ultimately it is only by improving social, economic and political conditions and by fostering the forces of democracy and secularism, peace and stability that the battle against violence, fratricidal conflict and terrorism can be won.

Transition of Terrorism in India

Terrorism in India is undergoing an acute transition, both in the operational and the ideological aspects. Terrorism in India has been acquiring a new degree of lethality characterized by meticulous planning, intelligence collection, sophisticated training, and exploiting local population for creating support networks, Most importantly, it is expanding beyond the ‘cycle of anonymous’ remotely detonated blasts towards ex­ploiting sea and air channels (latest source inputs are indicative of these develop­ments) and fiyadeen attacks (suicide assaults by well armed and trained terror cells), a trend that was till now not witnessed in India outside of Kashmir.

In this, the forces of polity, social dynamics and international support net­works continue to play a major role. The transition process however has been increasingly driven by the adoption of modern technology, better communication and information networks, and the unique phenomena of the globalization of terror. As a result, the terrorists in India are improving their technological sophistication in many areas of operational planning, communications, targeting and propaganda.

The motives of the terrorists now incorporate hurting the business senti­ments and the international image of India rather than terror attacks as symbolic acts of Islamic Jihad. The objective is increasingly to cause pan-India terror, one impact of which is to damage the confidence in India’s image of a stable emerging economy and business environment. The ‘new breed’ of terrorism in India is confident, bold in actions and increas­ingly sophisticated. The bellwether currents that define the new breed of terrorism are:

(a) Enhanced Operational Capabilities and Support Networks: For the first time ever, the (Islamic) terrorism has a pan-India network of operatives and logistics support. 1-his has radically evolved over the past 18-24 months and enabled the successful execution of large scale attacks in multiple cities. This is father indica­tive of the fact that there are several front line terror operations supported by an underlying network of communication infrastructure and covert support machin­es: all functioning like a single well-coordinated entity. Before the ‘defining’ year 2008 terror attacks mostly included only sporadic blasts in the target cities.

The frequency of major terror attacks was also comparatively moderate- four terror attacks in 2007, three in 2006, and one attack in 2005. But 2008 was different - there were at least 12 highly synchronized mass terror attacks since the beginning of the year.] lie size and scale of organizational resources needed to carry out terror attacks that happened in Indian cities between May and November 2008 indicate the requirement for at least 80 to 120 terrorist operatives not including sleeper cells and those involved in logistic support. This is a very large number.

(b) Home grown Terror: The ideological underpinning of the movement is undergoing a change as reflected by the operatives increasingly becoming indig­enous and having a local urban face. Increasingly, indigenous organizations such as SIMI have been created on the lines of the Deobandi ideology of extreme funda­mentalism. Moreover, the Muslim Diaspora of Indian origin has been largely influ­enced by the Gujarat riots and has increased the funding for extremist activities. Another domino effect is the surfacing of Indian-origin tech savvy terrorists working in prominent IT companies (indicative of the diluting definition of infrailtra­tors). A case in point is the arrest of Yahya Kanmnakutty, a graduate of the Regional engineering College, Calicut, and a former employee of Tata InfoTech and GF The vast illegal immigrant population of Bangladeshis (spread all across India) has emerged as a readily available target group for creating logistical support networks for terror organizations. In fact the Islamic militant organizations, to avoid unnecessary suspicion and glitches, prefer Muslim youths from all Indian states, except those from Jammu and Kashmir. For similar reasons, the Bangladeshi grants are used only for support and logistics. There is this uncomfortable development that international jihad is fording its place in the weak pockets of India’s huge minority Muslim community that leaves an ambiguous evidence chain.

(c) Trams-border Linkages: One of the key definers of the present trend in terrorism is the re-routing of tenor activities to Bangladesh, shifting the focus from Pakistan. The 2001 Indian Parliament attack orchestrated certain events which forced the terror groups to rethink about changing their base of operations. l’ here is an increasing evidence of how Bangladeshi immigrants are willingly or unwillingly becoming the means of pros ding logistical support to the terror outfits across India Notably HuJI also operates from Bangladesh and its involvement of provid­ing logistical support to the mister terror groups (from Pakistan) has been brought into light in the recent attacks.

(d) Use of Newer Forms of Explosives: Shifting away from the foreign-origin RDX to a typical home brew of explosives comprising mix of ammonium nitrate. Potassium chlorate and sulphuric acid further indicates the terrorists’ enhanced operational capabilities.

(e) Excessive Nature of Attacks: India is ranked second, right behind Iraq in the number of terrorist activities (excluding Jammu and Kashmir) despite the fact that we are not a country in conflict. The dozens of bombs exploding in the same target city in a span of a few hours spells out a deadly scale of planning. Capabili­ties, operational confidence and sinister motives. ‘The high degree of planning and existence of large all-India terror network is exuded by the very fact that the terror outfits did not feel the need to even give a day’s break between the large scale serial blasts in two Indian cities (Bangalore and Ahmadabad).

(f) Destruction of India’s Global Image: For the first time as seen in the November Mumbai attacks. Britons and Americans who were staying in tong city hotels were singled out and Jews were also targeted at Nariman point. All the terror targets have been cities with economic or social importance that places India in a favorable spot on the global map - Jaipur (the tourist capital of India). Bangalore (India’s Silicon Valley), Ahmadabad (the third fastest growing Indian city), Surat (attempted extensive serial blasts in the diamond hub of India), Mumbai (the finan­cial and the international face of India). The terror groups have realised that large-scale attacks in critical business hubs of India helps them realise their objectives much faster than sustaining insur­gency in the border states of the country.

(g) Copy Cat Attacks: The changed pattern of attacks indicate that, like elsewhere, western interests are now a high-visibility terror target in India too and that terrorists have successfully employed new tactics such as hostage-taking and random shootings at high profile places (the Mumbai attacks). This can further trigger a wave of copycat terror incidents with a change in the tactics and targets of. While suicide bombings and vehicle-borne explosive attacks are as yet not a mode of attack, we are likely to see more fiyadeen attacks on high profile targets.

For years various measures has been put forward in response to terrorism. Some are of opinion of legal punishment, some suggested that intelligence should he modernized and more co-operation is needed among them to avoid any terrorist activity. Some security analyst blame the Government of India for engaging in a peace process with Pakistan whose military regimes has clearly not lived up to its promises of preventing terrorist organizations from operating from its territory. These critics also find fault with the repeal of POTA, claiming the police has been demoralized. Some also sought to communalize the debate by linking the “soft on Terror” charge to “vote bank politics” some equally problematic, argument revolves around the need to solve the so called “root cause” of terrorism. PM emphasized. “Do not be provoked by rumors. Do not let anyone divide us. Our strength lies in our unity.”

UN is concerned with international terrorism. It has defined 103 types of act which come under ambit of terrorism. Further. UN has suggested 5D to tackle the problem- to disvade people from resorting to terrorism by proper education, by proper briefing to deny them resources financially. technology, protection, moral support, to deter the state who are encouraging terrorism must be deter by other state - to develop capacity to prevent occurrence defend HR’s.

Response to terrorism sought to be based on a holistic and inter-related understanding of human security, nights and developments. The domestic and international legal framework being put in place as a response to terrorism is describable. Use of force should not be the sole response as is believed in the “War on Terror”

Above all, civil society is a victim of terrorism. But nowhere any measures regarding civil society is being put forward. There is inequalities frustration unemployment in India civil society. Youth has no direction in their life. Youth is raw material for recruitment. Today, Terrorism is a giant fish which comes from depth of society and vanishes. It is a problem of world society. Role of civil society is equally important as far as national policy. There is a tendency in society to look to state for all problems. But it should be remembered that whatever role civil society can play to avoid any such type of activity couldn’t be done by any enforcement of law. Civil society has to play a role of vigilance.

Terrorism as a world phenomenon emerged in late 20th century and is going to be a major problem in the 21st century. The fact that young people in different parts of world who are assets of their county are ready to die for a cause; however illegitimate it may be shows there is something fundamentally wrong.

Under these circumstances, there is a more urgent need for the international community to help in building civil societies based on principles of democracy, good governance, human rights, and development so that they could not serve as recruiting grounds for Terrorist.

The Changing Face of Terrorism

TERRORISM is not a new phenomenon. It has been with us for aeons. Even in the very first century there was the Sicarji, a terrorist group based on religion, operating in Palestine. The ‘Assassins’, fed on hashish, terrorised the population in the eleventh century. But over the years the face of terrorism has changed. It has become more lethal, more widespread more difficult to control.

A CIA publication defines terrorism as the “threat or use of violence for political purposes when such action is intended to influence the attitude and behaviour of a target group other than the immediate victim and its ramifications transcend national boundaries”. Contemporary terrorist groups are less organized than their fore bearers and their depredations are unorganized acts with political motivation. At the same time they are more implacable, less structured and more difficult to predict and penetrate. The unpredictability magnifies the effect of violence and makes it difficult to combat.

Example of terrorist-narcotics-smuggling link. The nexus is more covert, but certainly exists, in India. That the country is placed between two drug-producing regions-the golden triangle of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, and the golden crescent of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran is a cause of concern to the authorities. It has been pertinently observed that the route for passage of drugs worldwide is full of violence. India, being a passage country offering a narcotics exit in Mumbai, lays itself open to the terrorist-smuggler nexus. An ideology is grafted on to give the trade a certain legitimacy. Narcotics dealers have enough funds to finance the terrorists who require ready cash to procure weapons. These weapons are also easily brought in with the help of the infrastructure set up by the drug smugglers. Interna­tional banks are there to launder the drug money.

Terrorists are today adopting mafia tactics. They extort protection money from businessmen to fund their activities. Sometimes, ethnopolitical terrorist groups get succour from foreign governments which exploit the genuine or imaginary grievances of the terrorists. It is alleged that India capitalises on the fact that LTTE is a Tamil terrorist outfit and helps it covertly to keep its small neighbour Sri Lanka under control. However, hostile governments cannot create the necessary grievances or potential terrorists where they do not exist. It is unfortunate, perhaps, that the conditions­political and socio-economic-that encourage the growth of terrorism are now in existence in several regions. Religious revival grows out of dissatisfaction rising out of corruption and consumerism. It soon grows into a rigid mould of what is termed “fundamentalism”. Political infighting and insta­bility again provide a suitable ground for the growth of terrorist groups., Socio-economic conditions of rising unem­ployment, lack of opportunity to earn a living, growing awareness of inequality in distribution of wealth and well­being, exploitation at the hands of powers that be-these factors create a situation which encourages youth to join terrorist groups, and others to support them. In the North­eastern part of India, militancy is widespread on this very ground. A growing number of people of this region believe that successive Indian governments have deliberately neglected the economy of this region with a view to denying them the economic rights which by virtue of being Indians they rightly deserve. That the cadre strength of some of the local terrorist outfits such as ULFA is growing in this hostile region due to this very fact cannot be denied. With the proliferation of such conditions, there is a spread and growth of terrorist groups in several regions of the world. It needs to be emphasized that these groups lack the ideological and moral fervour that prompted the terrorists of an earlier era. The idealism is superficial now; beneath the veneer is the lust for power. This explains the mush­rooming of many terrorist groups espousing the same cause-witness Afghanistan or our own Kashmir.

Democratic states find it difficult to deal with terrorist groups. Because of freedom of movement in a democracy, more targets are exposed to terrorist attacks. The terrorists take full advantage of the rights and freedoms granted in such a system and cynically exploit them. The media, too, publicises terrorist attacks and gives the groups the pub­licity they desire. The terrorists of today find it smooth going with human rights groups speaking up for them and with modern means of communications and transport within their easy reach. There have been numerous in­stances when some of the human rights groups and activists in India are known to jealously safeguard the supposed violations of the human rights of the terrorists. But when it comes to speaking for the rights of the common citizens or the security personnel, they are seldom known to rise to the occasion.

The terrorist groups are now decentralised and can spread their tentacles anywhere and everywhere. The modern face of terrorism can be combated only by a superior intelligence network. Indeed, intelligence is the key to decide the tactics to be employed to deal with the actual threat. The law enforcing machinery has to gear up - think faster and anticipate the moves of the terrorists - if it wants to meet the challenge. But ultimately, whatever short-term tactics are employed, the conditions that give rise to terrorism should be tackled and that can be done only on a political plane.

Terrorism can never lead to democracy
Down with Oppression!
Long Live Oppression!!
The two slogans are, indeed, contradictory, and yet how often we see that yesterday’s freedom fighter is today’s dictator! The terrorist groups that operate on a worldwide stage today are imbued with this contradiction; not one of them is free of it. Whether it is the LTTE, the ULFA, the Naxalites of various hues and shades, or the so-called ‘Islamic’ fundamentalists fighting in our own Kashmir or in other parts of the world, not one of these groups can tolerate the flexibility and tolerance for a different view that is the hallmark of democracy. Yet each one ‘of them will claim laud and clear that they fight for democracy and freedom of the oppressed. Their most inhuman arts-kidnapping, torture and murder of innocent people- are done in the name of winning ‘human rights’ for certain groups of people. They claim they are forced into these acts because they have no other way of calling attention to the plight of the oppressed or getting justice for them. Some of them, like the Naxalites who represent the extreme Left radicals, advocate the use of violence and bloodshed to achieve the goal of social change. The presumption is that social and economic change would follow once the established power is destroyed by force and replaced by an ideological system that will usher in a new era of classless society. Unfortunately, there is no evidence yet anywhere in the world of this classless society or complete equity in prosperity coming in the wake of revolutions, however bloody they have been. A new class structure grows, and as Orwell said in Animal Farm, there are always some pigs more equal than other animals. And the promised freedom and unrestricted flow of milk and honey remains as distant as they were before the new dispensation.

The ideology of use of violence to correct the ills of society does, however, appeal to many who are frustrated at their lot, crushed by poverty and waiting endlessly for the fruits of development to ‘trickle’ down. And the ideology combined with the promise of a Utopia appeals specially to the young. The voting hate to wait, they are impatient to go ahead and achieve something, and hitting out at those they see and are made to see as their oppressors comes easily to them. The promise of utopia appeals to their innate idealism, for most young people loves to dream of something great. And when their dreams of achieving something meets with obstacles in the form of corrupt officials, lack of educational/job opportunities, callous contempt from the ‘elite’, they are easily swayed by the firm voice of radical action to fight these ills. It is not surprising that the naxalite movement is mainly concentrated in the rural and backward areas of various states. Poor peasants, usually landless, form the rank and file of these organizations.

Any research done to find the root causes of the growth of terrorism points out that there are genuine political and socio-economic conditions which help terrorist groups to originate and flourish. The authorities are oppressive, the rule of law is subverted to favour the rich and influential or particular classes, and there is no redressal forthcoming from those whose business it is to look into the grievances of the people. The political leaders, more often than not, have lost touch with the needs of the masses, or have grown callous to their basic needs, or have developed fiefdoms of their own that work on loyalty to particular personalities and not on the democratic basis of justice for all. Corruption rules the roost in all fields, and ordinary individuals cannot get their business with government done without huge bribes. The funds allocated for development, as is well known, are shared by ‘middlemen’ -the officials and politicians; and the poor remain where they were if not worse off than before. In such circumstances, a promise of radical change seems welcome. Indeed, many of the naxalite and other militants show a readiness to work for the welfare of the local communities and get things done. Quick justice is meted out, with more than a degree of fairness. The Robin Flood image cannot but appeal to the poor who have borne the brunt of violence at the hands of the rich and powerfid. The hatred one feels for the corrupt and callous makes one readily overcome one’s conscience over the right and wrong of violence and bloodshed, and in any case it is only revenge for what one has been made to suffer. In the beginning, the idea of hurting those who hurt one comes as sweet revenge; later, killing the innocent is smoothed over by the ideologues as necessary for the cause-the small sacrifices essential on the way to achieving the cherished goal of well being of all.

Unfortunately, the militants are themselves no subscribers to the basic tenets of democracy. At the first sign of resentment at their high handedness or rigid implementation of their ‘rules’, they show their inability to tolerate any difference of opinion. They cannot abide the growth of other power centres, or another leader The ‘subjects’ are brought into line with a show of violence and no one is allowed to stray. Once again, it is just a power game, hiding under the guise of benevolence and concern for people’s welfare

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