Who is Terrorist?

Terrorism sometimes can inflict rather strange casualties. One such recent casualty was a nice little romantic relationship that had been brewing between my friend Karan and the girl he had been dating for the past two months — Shruti. Karan and Shruti had had some interesting discussions on varied topics and even though their opinion would invariably differ, they made for some rather absorbing conversation between them. However, what eventually led to Karan and Shruti’s estrangement is something that continues to interest me even now. On Saturday, the 13th of September, Karan had planned to drive Shruti out of the city for dinner. He had planned to surprise her with a proposal in the duration of the date. That evening, destiny however had other plans. Delhi was rocked by a series of blasts, which led to increased security checks in Mumbai too. And even as Karan and Shruti were driving out of the city, their car was intercepted and checked by police officials. As they finally reached the venue, a perturbed Karan lashed out, “Bloody hell! How many more terrorist strikes are we going to have? It’s become a weekly affair now.” Shruti’s reaction was rather cold, “Well, communal riots and persecutions do have long-drawn repercussions.” Shruti’s sentence, though, contained sufficient fodder to trigger off a debate. Here is how it went: “What do you mean by that?” Karan asked her, surprised. “Are you trying to justify these terrorist strikes?” “No, I’m not. I’m trying to make you understand why people take to terrorism. We attack the symptoms without getting into the diagnosis.” The debate got more contentious. For a moment, Karan thought about this thing of diagnosis and symptom, before he responded. “Isn’t there the law of the land to book the culprits responsible for communal killings?” “Ha!” she laughed almost derisively. “Can you tell me just how many culprits have been convicted for 1984 Delhi, 1992 Mumbai or the 2002 Gujarat riots? They all go scot-free.” “Well, so do a lot many terrorists who are behind these recent blasts. Don’t they?” “But then we’ve had biased laws which were simply meant to trap scapegoats.” Karan got miffed. “Shruti, listen, don’t mix issues, alright? I know one thing — every time a terrorist strike occurs, it rattles me. It makes me fear that tomorrow someone from my family could be the victim. We need far, far stricter laws to end this menace.” “Karan trust me, it hurts me as well... My point is just that communalism and terrorism are interlinked and for me — both are terrorist acts.” Karan seemed to be hoping Shruti would share his anguish and blast the terrorists in as many words. Since that didn’t seem like it was happening, the debate got progressively shriller. “Tell me something, do you have faith in our judiciary, in our legal process? Isn’t a legal trial on for all communal riots cases?” he roared. “Ha! You must be kidding, Karan.” She went on unfazed. Karan, by this time, seemed to lose his cool completely. A brief moment of lull preceded his terse final retort. “Then leave this country.” Shruti was just stunned. He seemed all agitated and in the sheer heat of the moment, repeated his last sentence. “Yes, you must leave this country if you feel so.” Well, it was beyond Karan’s prerogative to tell Shruti whether or not to stay in the country. But yes, the fervour evoked by this debate made both realise that personal fondness cannot overcome the rifts that innate ideological convictions create. It led to them drifting apart conclusively. When this incident was narrated to me, I thought it was a classic case of ideological conflict impacting personal bonds. Terrorism, this time around, had succeeded in inflicting a rather peculiar, unsuspecting casualty.