Terrorism and Politics of Violence

Is terrorism just ostensible display of violence? Is it just indiscriminate violence perpetrated by some groups of 'wayward people' against the state and its citizens as we are most often led to believe? But is it not a state-sponsored idea that groups of wayward people commonly known as extremists only are reponsible for all those massacres and indiscriminate acts of violence?

In simple terms, it is waging violence on the people and against the people. The objective is to reinforce the status quo or to found a new base of status quo by taking recourse to violence creating fear psychosis by the way among different sections of the people. The terrorists, whoever they may be, are status quoists in some way. Then there are two lines of status quoism, one is diamerically opposite to the other and they are mutually exclusiveand destructive.

One is always trying to reinforce its power base which is already there. And the other tries to subvert the already-there power base to enforce and to build an alternative of its own, be radical or parochial or otherwise. What can be said with a fair amount of certainty is that it is a war of violence between two warring factions with their own respective vested interests and by the way one is always terrorising the other. It is a perpetual war, a powermongering business that finds no end to the length of the tunnel.

This tunnel vision takes us to the points of asking a few questions that demand immediate and forthright answers. Who perpetrates and can perpetrate violence at will? Those who have power at their immediate authority. Who enjoys power? Those only who have the established political authority and thus they have all the powers to do whatever they want to do to garner more power for themselves and to be more powerful in the process. They refuse to accept any reason to whatever they do to perpetuate their undue authority.

Now, who is or what is the most powerful of all. The state and its executives. The people or for that matter 'the wayward people' can never be so to wield so much power. They have not that much authority to to wield power over the power-that-be of the state or its executives. They are always at their mercy and they are always at the receiving end. In difficult times the people take to the street to tear apart the authority of the state. But they hardly succeed. And as they hardly succeed, the reins are grabbed from the people by those socalled 'wayward people' and it seems to appear that they are acting as the supposed saviours of 'the wretched of the earth' by waging a war of violence against the state and its establishment.

Whether they are true-blue messiah of the wretched people or not, it will not be far from the social reality that acts of terrorism and sporadic activities of extremism is a glaring manifestation of popular grievances against all kinds of exploitation and repression. Popular unrests start with much fanfare but they beat a hasty retreat when faced with the state's repressive machinery. And where they end up, the proponents of violent means of political war or acts of terrorism take up the cudgel even if they do not enjoy the massive popular support. But the state has its own brand of political stratagems to combat the subsequent situations.

So, being the supremely powerful, the state only can perpetrate violence and terror to maintain the status quo of its power base and its superstructure. If anyone or anything does come to challenge its exclusive authority, it never stops short of anything by way of crushing the challenge with power and vengeance. It simply is wont to terrorise to maintain its seat of power. It maintains state of terror to create fear psychosis in the minds of its detractors so that they never dare to bare their swords of rebellion.

And one more thing is that the state does not always bare its fangs in ostensible display of violence against the people as it has its many other options to wait and see. As the concept of the state is based on vested interest, power and violence, the state always creates an ambience of violence with its propaganda machinery. That 'ambient violence' of fear psychosis acts like a mass-destructive weapon which deters the people from upstaging an uprising and always keeps them subdued and which in normal times forbids the power-that-be to use direct violence. In times of peace, the sleeping lion generally does not get up on its feet to bare its ugly fangs.

But when that peace is disturbed? The footsoldiers are called to take guard and all hell let loose. And the state-sponsored brand of SS or 'Salwa Judum' takes the law unto themselves to maintain the sacred laws and order of the land and to combat the anti-national anti-people forces of the land. They say that it is not violence or terrorism. They never say that violence breeds violence. Violence breeds violence only when the people strike back and then only the peace is disturbed!