Farmers' protest: Excessive democracy allows export of 'terrorism' from foreign lands

By NS Venkataraman* 
Democratic countries are the easy prey for terrorists all over the world. Given the personal liberty, freedom of speech enjoyed by the people in these free countries, it appears that, by and large, anyone can do anything and say anything and often get away with it.
Unfortunately, in spite of several countries like USA, number of countries in Europe, India , Sri Lanka and others, suffering from terrorist attacks in recent times, a strong global movement against terrorism is yet to take place. UNO, which has now become a mere debating forum and looks like an impotent organization, is totally ineffective in curbing terrorist acts or even in building strong world movement against the terrorists.
Apart from the September 11 attack in the USA killing thousands of people, many terrorist attacks have taken place in European countries and India. In Sri Lanka, a number of Christian devotees were killed when terrorists launched an attack in a church on Easter day.
Obviously, such terrorist attacks cannot take place in China and similarly placed totalitarian countries, as the terrorists would be put down with an iron hand, without being bogged down by judicial process and these countries do not care for world opinion.
Terrorists now have different types of people with varying backgrounds. They can be described as active terrorists and passive terrorists. Passive terrorists are those who justify terrorism under one pretext or the other.
These are people who may not be terrorists themselves but unwittingly or thoughtlessly without being conscious about the overall negative impact on the society , encourage terrorism subtly or indirectly. They may belong to the profession of lawyers, professors, so called activists and even farmers apart from religious extremists.
They operate under the veil of their professional image and often go to the extent of encouraging the terrorist acts in one form or the other , calling it as revolution or “fighting for a cause” etc. etc. Amongst those, there are several politicians too, who mostly belong to opposition parties and many times having the target of attracting the vote bank.
India is now becoming a big target for the terrorists of all sorts (both active and passive), who adopt a variety of methods using technology and who are suspected to be getting international funds from the so called voluntary organisations and others abroad, who are said to fund the terrorist acts . It is difficult to catch the passive terrorists, as they interpret it as curbing the freedom and term it as dictatorial methods.
In India, a few months back, on the day US President Trump visited, there were protests in Shaheen Bagh in Delhi, interpreted as meant to damage the reputation of India in the eyes of the world. The “culprits”, whom circles close to the government describe as terrorists, have been caught but are yet to be punished due to democratic procedure in India.
Now, an agitation by those considered by many as non-farmers is taking place near New Delhi , protesting against the recently enacted farm laws in Parliament, and it has been going, blocking highways, disrupting traffic and inconveniencing public and further the protesters marched to the Red Fort and damaged the historical monument on the Republic Day.
There are politicians and activists supporting these agitators. The Government of India has agreed to suspend the implementation of farm laws for 18 months to arrive at what it considers as amicable solution. However, agitators are persisting with their acts for whatever reasons. A section of farmer-agitators indulged in violence, damaging the Red Fort. Ironically, some of them observed fast on Mahatma Gandhi’s death anniversary.
Meanwhile, it is strange that the Prime Minister of Canada expressed support for farmers’ agitation, where some separatists shouted slogans for establishing Khalistan as an independent state by splitting India. It is very well known that the Khalistan movement operates from Canada and some ministers in Canadian government are committed to Khalistan separatist movement.
Supporters of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist group in Sri Lanka , are sitting pretty in countries like Canada, Britain, France and operating from there. While permitting the terrorists to operate from their soil, how can these countries complain when they are themselves attacked by terrorists?
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*Trustee, Nandini Voice for The Deprived