The Internet – Laws and Censorship

One of the early nicknames for the Internet was the "information superhighway" because it was supposed to provide the average person with fast access to a practically limitless amount of data. For many users, that's exactly what accessing the Internet is like. For others, it's as if the information superhighway has some major roadblocks in the form of Internet censorship. The motivations for censorship range from well-intentioned desires to protect children from unsuitable content to authoritarian attempts to control a nation's access to information. No matter what the censors' reasons are, the end result is the same: They block access to the Web pages they identify as undesirable.

WE DON'T NEED NO THOUGHT CONTROL

In 2007, AT&T came under fire when music fans discovered that the company had edited out political comments in a Webcast performance by the band Pearl Jam. The band covered Pink Floyd's song "Another Brick in the Wall" and added lyrics criticizing United States President George W. Bush. AT&T cut the new lyrics out of the song before Webcasting it. After an outcry from fans, the company eventually admitted that it wasn't an isolated incident, though AT&T spokeswoman Tiffany Nels claimed that it was never AT&T's intent to remove political statements from Webcasts [source: MTV].

HUMAN RIGHTS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN NEGLECTED AND BLATANTLY VIOLATED ALL OVER THE WORLD. THESE HUMAN RIGHTS (HR) AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS (FR) HAVE NOW TAKEN AN ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT SHAPE IN THE INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) DRIVEN WORLD. THE NATIONS ARE INCREASINGLY BECOMING “POLICE STATES” AND “ENDEMIC SURVEILLANCE SOCIETIES”. THE VICES OF ILLEGAL E-SURVEILLANCE, PRIVACY VIOLATIONS, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, ETC ARE BECOMING COMMON AND WIDELY SPREAD ALL OVER THE WORLD. THIS PLATFORM IS TRYING TO PROVIDE “TECHNO-LEGAL REMEDIES” TO NETIZENS SO THAT THEY MAY PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM THE “OVER ZEALOUS AND OVER CAUTIOUS STATE ACTIONS” THAT ARE BY THEIR VERY NATURE ILLEGAL, UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND INHUMAN. 

We have no dedicated privacy laws, data protection laws, data privacy and security laws, etc in India. On the contrary, the Cyber Law of India, incorporated in the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act 2000), facilitates E-Surveillance, Internet Censorship, etc “Without any Procedural Safeguards”.

Legally speaking:

In June 2000 the Indian Parliament created the Information Technology (IT) Act to provide a legal framework to regulate Internet use and commerce, including digital signatures, security, and hacking. The act criminalizes the publishing of obscene information electronically and grants police powers to search any premises without a warrant and arrest individuals in violation of the act. A 2008 amendment to the IT Act reinforced the government's power to block Internet sites and content and criminalized sending messages deemed inflammatory or offensive. How effective this mechanism is, is yet to be tested to the fullest.

Internet filtering can also be mandated through licensing requirements. For example, ISPs seeking licenses to provide Internet services with the Department of Telecommunications (DOT) “shall block Internet sites and/or individual subscribers, as identified and directed by the Telecom Authority from time to time” in the interests of “national security”. License agreements also require ISPs to prevent the transmission of obscene or otherwise objectionable material. This would of course include pornographic material as well as material objectionable in the interest of national security.  

In 2003 the Government of India established the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) to ensure Internet security. Its stated mission is "to enhance the security of India's Communications and Information Infrastructure through proactive action and effective collaboration". CERT-IN is the agency that accepts and reviews requests to block access to specific websites. All licensed Indian ISPs must comply with CERT-IN decisions. There is no review or appeals process (which means that their decision is FINAL and there is no way in which the alleged violating party can get their say or explain themselves.) Many institutions, including the Ministry of Home Affairs, courts, the intelligence services, the police and the National Human Rights Commission, may call on it for specialist expertise and provide reports whenever called on in particular matters of probe and violation as per the Act. By stretching the prohibition against publishing obscene content to include the filtering of Web sites, CERT-IN was empowered to review complaints and act as the sole authority for issuing blocking instructions to the Department of Telecommunications (DOT). Many have argued that giving CERT-IN this power through executive order violates constitutional jurisprudence holding that specific legislation must be passed before the government can encroach on individual rights.

Following the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, which killed 171 people, the Indian Parliament passed amendments to the Information Technology Act (ITA) that expanded the government’s censorship and monitoring capabilities. Internet users have sporadically faced prosecution for online postings, and private companies hosting the content are obliged by law to hand over user information to the authorities. Both bloggers and moderators can face libel suits and even criminal prosecution for comments posted by other users on their websites. Prior judicial approval for communications interception is not required and both central and state governments have the power to issue directives on interception, monitoring, and decryption. All licensed ISPs are obliged by law to sign an agreement that allows Indian government authorities to access user data.

India is classified as engaged in "selective" Internet filtering in the conflict/security and Internet tools areas and as showing "no evidence" of filtering in the political and social areas by the Open Net Initiative in May 2007. ONI states that:

As a stable democracy with strong protections for press freedom, India’s experiments with Internet filtering have been brought into the fold of public discourse. The selective censorship of Web sites and blogs since 2003, made even more disjointed by the non-uniform responses of Internet service providers (ISPs), has inspired a clamor of opposition. Clearly government regulation and implementation of filtering are still evolving. … Amidst widespread speculation in the media and blogosphere about the state of filtering in India, the sites actually blocked indicate that while the filtering system in place yields inconsistent results, it nevertheless continues to be aligned with and driven by government efforts. Government attempts at filtering have not been entirely effective, as blocked content has quickly migrated to other Web sites and users have found ways to circumvent filtering. The government has also been criticized for a poor understanding of the technical feasibility of censorship and for haphazardly choosing which Web sites to block. The amended IT Act, absolving intermediaries from being responsible for third-party created content, could signal stronger government monitoring in the future.

OpenNet Initiative reports

Through 2010 the OpenNet Initiative had documented Internet filtering by governments in over forty countries worldwide. The level of filtering in 26 countries in 2007 and in 25 countries in 2009 was classified in the political, social, and security areas. Of the 41 separate countries classified, seven were found to show no evidence of filtering in all three areas (Egypt, France, Germany, India, the Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States), while one was found to engage in pervasive filtering in all three areas (China), 13 were found to engage in pervasive filtering in one or more areas, and 34 were found to engage in some level of filtering in one or more areas. Of the 10 countries classified in both 2007 and 2009, one reduced its level of filtering (Pakistan), five increased their level of filtering (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Korea, and Uzbekistan), and four maintained the same level of filtering (China, Iran, Myanmar, and Tajikistan).

Instances of Web Censorship in India in the recent past:

·         1999 — Website of Dawn, a Pakistani daily newspaper, blocked following Kargil War

Towards the end of the Kargil War in 1999 and for sometime thereafter, the website of the Pakistani daily newspaper Dawn was blocked from access within India by Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited, a government-owned telecommunications company which at the time had monopoly control of the international internet gateways in India. Rediff, a media news website, claimed that the ban was instigated by the Indian government, and then published detailed instructions as to how one could bypass the filter and view the site

·         2003 — Yahoo Groups banned

In September 2003, Kynhun, a Yahoo group linked to the "Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council" (an illegal, minor separatist group from Meghalaya), which discussed the case of the Khasi tribe was banned. The Department of Telecommunications asked Indian ISPs to block the group, but difficulties led to all Yahoo! groups being banned for approximately two weeks.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/09/24/india_blocks_yahoo_groups/

·         IRC Undernet banned

IRC Undernet (www.undernet.org) was banned without any media coverage in 2008. There are not many details available on this however, the discussion panel in the link provided shows the angst of the people against such arbitrary bans.

http://gastly.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/undernet-irc-network-blocked-in-india/

http://in.rediff.com/news/2006/jul/19blogs.htm

  

On a bare perusal of the links provided above and the instances given it is evident that Censorship has been in effect present since 2006.

When the "Enemies of the Internet" list was introduced in 2006, it listed 13 countries. By 2011 the number of countries listed had fallen to 10 with the move of Belarus, Egypt, and Tunisia to the "Countries under surveillance." Belarus was moved to surveillance status in 2009 and Egypt and Tunisia were moved after their revolutions in 2011. No new countries have been added to the list since it was established.

When the "Countries under surveillance" list was introduced in 2008, it listed 10 countries. By 2011 the number of countries listed had grown to 16 after Jordan in 2009, Tajikistan in 2009, and Yemen in 2010 were dropped from the list; Australia in 2009, France in 2011, Russia in 2010, South Korea in 2009, Turkey in 2010, and Venezuela in 2011 were added; and with the three moves from the "Enemies of the Internet" list noted earlier. Bahrain, Eritrea, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka dropped from the list in 2010, but were added again in 2011. Libya dropped from the list in 2009, but was added again in 2011.

There are three primary motives or rationales for Internet censorship: politics and power, social norms and morals, and security concerns. Protecting intellectual property rights and existing economic interests are two additional motives for Internet censorship. In addition, networking tools and applications that allow the sharing of information related to these motives are often targeted. And while there is considerable variation from country to country, the blocking of Web sites in a local language is roughly twice that of Web sites available only in English or other international languages.

Politics and power

Censorship directed at political opposition to the ruling government is common in authoritarian and repressive regimes. Some countries block Web sites related to religion and minority groups, often when these movements represent a threat to the ruling regimes.

Any government that respects human rights and civil liberties must maintain a balance between human rights, civil liberties and national security requirements. Further, a sound and constitutional e-surveillance policy also required that clearly demarcates the nature, extent, procedure, etc of using e-surveillance for national security purposes. This attitude and mentality must be adopted by all the law enforcement agencies of the world, including India. Till human rights in cyberspace are not respected and protected, the fight against cyber crimes would always remain biased and incomplete.

SIbal and the Face Block :-

Communications and IT minister Kapil Sibal's move to regulate online content is inviting a barrage of barbs on the very social media sites -- Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus -- which he aims to muzzle.

Amid a raging controversy over policing of the internet, the government on has initiated a dialogue with leading social networking firms Google, Facebook and Twitter and sought suggestions on effective usage of these platforms. The government has called for an open dialogue with the social media firms and asked for opinions on how social media and e-governance can empower individuals and citizens of this country, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said after meeting representatives of these firms. "... This discussion and this dialogue is about how the social media can empower government, because under the normal processes of government, there is always a limited dialogue with representatives of society because the means are limited," he said. The government is asking leading Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to screen alleged derogatory, defamatory and inflammatory content about religious figures and Indian leaders.

The New York Times reported that six weeks ago, Mr Sibal met with representatives from companies like Yahoo and Microsoft. The report claimed, "At the meeting, Mr. Sibal showed attendees a Facebook page that maligned the Congress Party's president, Sonia Gandhi. "This is unacceptable," he told attendees.

The reaction to this move was varied some of course in favour a large majority against this move labeling it as a violation of the individuals constitutional rights namely A14: freedom of speech.

 J&K CM Omar Abdullah tweeted saying, "I hate the idea of censorship. But have seen for myself how dangerous inflammatory content on Facebook and You-Tube can be." Hashtag #Kapilsibal and #Censorship were the hot trending topic on Twitter globally. Noted filmmaker Pritish Nandy tweeted saying "This is my country. Freedom of speech is my birthright. You can go to hell sir." Stock broker Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was upset too. "If Sibal wants to jail us for speaking our mind on the Internet, go ahead! We'll just go ahead and get bail like Kanimozhi," tweeted Jhunjhunwala. "The Internet is the only truly democratic medium. Can see why Sibal wants to gag it." said B.J.P MP Varun Gandhi.

Some others such as Shashi Tharoor sat on the fence. "Spoke to Kapil Sibal, he assured me he opposes political censorship. Concern is regarding communally inflammatory images and language which he described," Tharoor tweeted. Sibal was, however, supported by his colleague Milind Deora who tweeted: "Just as principle of free speech is sacrosanct , incendiary content must also be avoided." About 73 'hate' pages against Sibal have erupted on Facebook.

Under fire from netizens, the Union telecoms and Information Minister Kapil Sibal has earned support from the valley's separatist-turned-mainstream politician Sajad Lone, who heads his faction of the Peoples Conference. Lone, who faces unparliamentary language from Twitter and Facebook users over issues he rakes up, sees a point in having censorship on certain contents on the Internet. Lone, the son of slain separatist leader Abdul Ghani Lone, contested parliamentary polls in 2008, first separatist to contest polls arguing that he did so, to use democratic spaces to explore a solution to the Kashmir problem. His move attracted severe criticism from hardline separatists like Syed Ali Shah Geelani. "Blasphemous and obscene contents certainly need to be censored....problem in India is the obsession to imitate the west. Wake up. This is not west. different values, cultures, responses, interpretations," wrote Lone. Lone says India readers have different sensibilities thus needs a sieved content. "Not everyone understands or interprets garbage in the spirit of garbage. Some tend to take it seriously. Garbage published can mean trouble," he said.

Sibal who came under a lot of flak decided to take a comfort zone by saying he is against censorship but the contents on the net should be screened. Does he take us to be idiots? Screened and then do what? Prepare yourself for a counter attack. Counter article by the government for every article written against it or pictures mocking them?? What is the purpose of screening, if the intention is not to get rid of the material which is thought to be against them?

I myself hate some of the stuff written on the Internet, but I'd hate it even more if they were not allowed to write it. That is my plain and simple view. For a nation that has close to 121 million users, of which 43 million users are on Facebook, 3.6 million on Google plus and 3.5 million on Twitter, the move to muzzle social content understably invited ire. Besides in legal terms this is a total violation of the basic principles of freedom of speech enshrined in the Constitution of India.

For all this Facebook and Google have stuck to their guns.

Facebook's response to Sibal's 'censorship' efforts:
"We want Facebook to be a place where people can discuss things freely, while respecting the rights and feelings of others, which is why we have already have policies and on-site features in place that enable people to report abusive content. We will remove any content that violates our terms, which are designed to keep material that is hateful, threatening, incites violence or contains nudity off the service. We recognise the government's interest in minimizing the amount of abusive content that is available online and will continue to engage with the Indian authorities as they debate this important issue."

Google on this matter has also said that:

"When content is legal and does not violate our policies, we will not remove it just because it is controversial, as we believe that people's differing views, so long as they are legal, should be respected and protected."

According to reports Google has received government requests for removal of 358 items from its services, including YouTube and Orkut, during the January-June 2011 period, according to a report by the internet search giant. As many as 255 item removal requests cited the government criticism as the reason, said the Google Transparency Report. The government had asked Google to remove 236 items from Orkut and 19 items from YouTube for the same reason.  

Free speech has long been a hallmark of a healthy democracy and a free society. The Internet and new communications technologies have become unprecedented tools for expanding the ability for individuals to speak and receive information, participate in political and democratic processes, and share knowledge and ideas. Recognizing the potential of these technologies, courts have extended the highest level of First Amendment protection to the Internet medium. Online free expression also requires that private online service providers be protected from legal liability for content posted by users, so they will be willing to host that speech.

In a healthy democracy, politicians are very much the target of jest and joke. World over such pictorial humour is on and allowed. Most of the time the leaders, if they are democratic enough, join the laughter. It is only in a dictatorship that the leader is only hailed and not riled. If they choose to be in public life, they have to be willing to be exposed too. This also follows from my November 15 blog on “private lives of public figures is public property”.

This is a general perspective on the censorship debate as sparked off by Kapil Sibal. The legal aspects on internet censorship will follow in the next blog.

Does Terror have a Religion??

Does Terror have a religion??

Just a random thought with all the stereotypes doing the rounds post 9/11 – Does terror have a face and religion? Is it based on any ideology?
That got me reading on a whole load of stuff which, honestly took me quite sometime to digest and writing my thoughts down on this subject was the most difficult as this topic is closest to my heart and I feel so strongly on this subject.

Does the bomb have a religion? Does the blast discriminate among victims?
In the July 2011 serial blasts in Mumbai, a Muslim family lost a son who was in his early twenties and had gotten married just a couple of months ago. Is the pain of this family any less acute than that of many others who lost their loved ones but, belonging to a different religion or community? Terror has victims not a religion. The merchants of terror know no religion. 

How is it justified to give a religious tag to terror?
Had terror had a religious affiliation, then Muslims in Pakistan should not have lost their lives at the hands of various terror groups. In the last six years according to various available statistics more than 35,000 Pakistanis have been killed in incidents of terror. No doubt terrorism has found a safe haven in Pakistan, due to several political reasons, and this is a threat not only to the host country, but the entire region.

“Religious terrorism is terrorism by those whose motivations and aims have a predominant religious character or influence” This is a definition as provided by Wikipedia.


Bruce Hoffman has characterized modern religious terrorism as having three traits:
 The perpetrators must use religious scriptures to justify or explain their violent acts or to gain recruits.
 Clerical figures must be involved in leadership roles. 
 Apocalyptic images of destruction are seen by the perpetrators as a     necessity.

In the wake of recent terror attacks, Western society has jumped to an easy and, it might seem, obvious conclusion. Seeking to eradicate terrorism means discovering the motivations of the terrorists. Not a difficult task, many would say. The perpetrators of the attacks on Glasgow, London, Bali, Madrid, New York, Mumbai, Delhi and other places have all claimed inspiration from their religion. Osama bin Laden justified the World Trade Center attacks by quoting the Qur’an, while Jim Walker of NoBeliefs.com rejects all subtleties in declaring that “belief causes terrorism.” If religion is the cause, many argue, then surely eradicating all forms of belief would remove terror from our world. I wonder how much this statement will hold water when put to its acidic test.

“Terror was practised during the last century on a scale unequalled at any other time in history, but unlike the terror that is most feared today much of it was done in the service of secular hopes.” —John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. He further goes on to state that Saddam Hussein led an Iraqi nation that “was thoroughly secular, [ruled] by a western-style legal code,” according to Gray. Yet that did not prevent untold oppression and brutality. The Human Rights Watch estimates that Hussein’s government “murdered or ‘disappeared’ some quarter of a million Iraqis, if not more.” 
The cause for terror and violence lies somewhere within our inner nature. The apostle James explained this in his epistle, the earliest of the apostolic letters: “Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way. . . . You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it” (James 4:1–2, The Message Bible).
In effect, blaming terror and violence on religion, as many today are too eager to do, is both dangerously reductive and shirks responsibility for the world. What many forget is that religion, as most of us know it, is a man-made construct, far divorced from the principles and values that God originally intended for humanity. Under this light, religion and atheism are both human designs and are therefore very similar in character. That both can act in aggressive and cruel ways is no surprise, as each emanates from the same source: religion, atheism and terrorism are all products of humanity’s primary and at times violent nature.

When we respond to attacks upon places of worship with the question "Is nothing sacred?” we misunderstand the connection between religion and violence. The point is that places of worship are attacked not in spite of their holy character but because of it. It is no accident that sacred buildings are seldom attacked when they are empty. The point is to attack and kill the worshippers in the very act of worship and in the place most sacred to their faith. This violation of the holy place as a refuge arouses terror, because it shows that the holy is attacked in the name of the holy. Terror acknowledges no sanctuary least of all that offered by the secret heart of that which is the object of its hatred. Other attacks are directed against symbolic centres of power, such as the World Trade Center, or against representative buildings such as embassies or against places which symbolise the crossroads or the nerve centres of modern society such as supermarkets, air terminals, railway stations and of course airplanes. These attacks are not utilitarian in the sense that they are intended to paralyse or disrupt; rather, they are symbolic in the sense that they are intended to reveal the essential vulnerability of secular power.

It is possible to observe some general features. Terrorists almost never act alone. They are seldom psychopaths or crazy individuals, twisted by hatred. The people who commit these actions are almost invariably members of movements dedicated to certain objectives. The terrorists themselves, and this includes the so-called suicide bombers in Israel, are often rational, articulate, well educated and pleasant enough as people. Indeed, we misunderstand these actions if we regard them as merely maniacal – they are not irrational but are the products of a rational view of the world – a view which is if anything exaggerated in its rationality to the point where the perfect coherence which rationality demands is no longer available. Terrorist actions represent the rational mind at the end of its tether, the desperation of the attempt to retain reason in a mad world. This is the point at which religion, the outstanding example of the human need for a complete world view, makes its contribution. The rationality of religion produces the irrationality of terror by setting desperation in a frame of cosmic meaning.

The shock of the 9/11 attacks was so great, and the personal losses so deep, that many people understandably sought simple answers for such overwhelming malevolence. What, they asked, would cause someone to hijack a plane of innocent civilians and fly it into a building? Since Osama bin Laden's holy warriors carried out the attacks, some decided that Islam was clearly to blame, case closed. Others  didn't stop at Islam and instead said that all religions are bad because they all inspire senseless violence. In the decade since 9/11, however, experts in religion and terrorism have elaborated more complex theories for the role religion plays in global violence.

Jessica Stern, author of "Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill," has come at it a different way. Stern argues that for many Muslim youths, the idea of terrorism under the guise of "jihad" became a "global fad" akin to gangsta rap. In short, it's less a religious phenomenon than "a cool way of expressing dissatisfaction with a power elite." "Jihad has become a millenarian movement with mass appeal, similar, in many ways, to earlier global movements such as the anarchists of the 19th century or even the peace movement of the 1960s and '70s," Stern wrote in 2006. "But today's radical youth are expressing their dissatisfaction with the status quo by making war, not love." Viewing terrorists as a kind of inverted hippie or as a victim of "Prozac piety" might seem to some to be a distraction, but the research is less an intellectual exercise than an attempt to better understand the roots of faith-based terrorism in hopes of preventing it.

Mark Juergensmeyer an American scholar and writer best known for his studies of religious violence and global religion and also advises the Obama administration on fighting terrorism, echoes the prevailing consensus when he says that a military-only approach to counterterrorism only gives religious fanatics the martyrdom and affirmation they seek. More effective, he says, are "counter-radicalization" tactics that engage and thwart extremism before it metastasizes. Religion is not THE problem," agrees Mark Juergensmeyer, author of "Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence." "But it then becomes problematic because religion brings a whole host of absolutistic symbols and images and justifications" that act as an accelerant to terrorism.

Terrorism in India is primarily attributable to religious communities and Naxalite radical movements. In India one can safely say it is Politics that use religion to guide terror group’s right from Partition to now all acts of terror are communal though stoked by selfish Political agenda. Here I ask myself how justified is it to stoke the danger of Islamic terror in India and incite the majority Hindu population to make Muslims second class citizens?

After the July 2011 attacks Subramaniam Swamy, of the BJP, and an undeclared spokesperson of the Hindu rightist groups, wrote a piece in which he hurled accusations at the Muslim community for killing Hindus in “halal fashion” and asked Hindus to retaliate. In a time when people are getting increasingly frustrated and paranoid with continuous terror attacks in different parts of India, particularly Mumbai, Swamy is trying to exploit the raw sentiments of the people to create divisions in the society, in the name of religion. And by doing this Hindu Swamy and his patrons are pandering to the design of those so called Islamic forces who want to turn India’s diversity into divisiveness, who want to keep the country’s religious fault-lines wide open thereby attacking the very idea of India.

If Islamist militant groups abhor India’s cosmopolitanism, its socialism of religious traditions and existence, so do the Hindu rightist groups, who have for long been trying to turn the country into a theocratic state. Hindu rightists have been thriving by exploiting religion and by polarising democracy in the name of religion.

Narendra Modi a by-product of this kind of politics, violating his duties as chief minister of Gujarat, did as no other ruler in modern India had done before – he allegedly allowed the genocide against Muslims in 2002, thereby creating a deep wedge among the two faiths who have been coexisting together for ages. Then there were the alleged terror attacks perpetrated by the Hindutva brigades in the last few years -the terror attacks in Malegaon in Maharashtra (2006, 2008), the Samjhauta Express bombings (2007), a bomb blast at the Sufi shrine in Ajmer Sharif (2007), the Mecca Masjid bombing, and an attack in Modasa in Gujarat (2008).

It is to the credit of the Indian state that the fundamentalist groups do not get the kind of patronage they enjoy elsewhere. They have always been at the margin in India and people understand the design of the Hindu rightist groups. That’s the reason why a person like Narendra Modi is a persona non grata in some of the states in his own country; he is at the receiving end of an enquiry constituted by the country’s highest court and people like him are always exposed by the media and masses. People of India have understood the designs of internal and external terrorists. This is the reason that no matter how grave the provocation is, they stand up to the terrorists by remaining united; they know that this is an attack not on a particular religion but on the sovereignty of the country.
Again coming back to 9/11 - Globally, the understanding of terror, particularly Islamic terror, has undergone a massive change during the decade after 9/11. It’s increasingly clear now that the actors involved in terror activities may belong to a particular religion but they in no way represent the cause of the religion, neither are they authorised by anybody to do so.

A whopping percentage of respondents across religions in a CNN-IBN & CNBC-TV18 state of the nation survey believed terror had no religion and a terrorist can belong to any faith. However, between 2009 and 2011, there has been a slight dip in the number of people thinking that way. In 2009, 53 percent of respondents did not believe terror had any link with religion; the number was down to 47 percent in 2011. Interestingly, 52 percent of urban Hindus and 59 percent of all Muslim respondents did not believe religion and terror were closely linked. Only 30 percent of Hindus and 17 of Muslims believed there was a link. As the numbers suggest, a big majority of Muslims are not convinced that the terrorists had anything to with their religion.

Similarly in the US CNN recently published an article entitled Study: Threat of Muslim-American terrorism in U.S. exaggerated; according to a study released by Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “the terrorist threat posed by radicalized Muslim-Americans has been exaggerated.” Yet, Americans continue to live in mortal fear of radical Islam, a fear propagated and inflamed by right wing Islamophobes.  It has become axiomatic in some circles to chant: “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but nearly all terrorists are Muslims.” But perception is not reality.

There is no end to this debate except a hope that may wisdom prevail over the radicalists whichever side of the fence they are on and may there be peace all around.