The judiciary has been unequivocally guilty of a great deal of populist posturing and of what can only be described as criminal irresponsibility on this issue. It is time to put an end to this self-defeating charade, and to create a system where the guilty are punished, are punished within reasonable time, and are seen to be justly punished in proportion to the enormity of their crimes. Our management of the media and the projection of terrorism also leave much to be desired. A critical aspect is the misreading of public opinion, and a tendency to see events through communally coloured glasses. The idiom of discourse on terrorism should not be clouded by the animus of Partition for, if it is, we are inadvertently but inescapably trapped in the two-nation theory that created that disaster.
Terrorism is employment of merciless violence for a variety of ends.
There are no Islamic, Hindu, Christian or atheistic terrorists. There are, simply, terrorists. There is also an unfortunate tendency to panic reactions in government such as the ill-advised decision to put commandos on commercial flights. What we need are not emergency measures including special forces, special courts and special laws. These only create an illusion of security.