Terrorism and militancy

Today's The Hindu carries a leading news item about an obscure outfit that carried out bomb blast that derailed some coaches of Guwahati-Puri Express in Assam. The derailment as a result of the blast injured 93 passengers. Looking at the picture, it was pleasantly surprising that no one died. The outfit known as Adivasi People's Army is reported to have claimed responsibility for the blast.

Of the many Underground groups in India, not all of them terrorized civilians to achieve their political objective. The bombing of a train that carried civilian passengers like this cannot but be termed as terrorist act. Since the group is an obscure one, it is not known what their political objective is. But irrespective of whether their demand is legitimate or otherwise, carrying out an attack on civilians like this is immoral and outrageous.

Sometimes, some people termed all Underground groups as a terrorist group. But that is not a correct way to read the matter. Some groups demand are not legitimate; some deserve better treatment. Some use guns judiciously; some indiscriminately. I would label a group as terrorist only when it deliberately employs violence towards civilians or non-combatants as part of its policy for reasonably long period of time to achieve its objective. The definition is not without problem, but that's the best one could arrive at.

It is also important to note that terrorist activities are not only employed by underground groups. Even government can deliberately use violence against civilians to achieve its objective. Such violence by state also has to be termed as terrorism. Thus, it is not only non-state actors that must be called as terrorists; even state must be called terrorist whenever it terrorizes people. And whenever leaders of a nation-state employs terrorism, they need to be brought to court for trial.