Panaji: Only nationalism and the nation-state can ideologically combat terrorism, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar said on Friday.
Speaking at the inaugural session of the India Ideas Conclave, which got underway here on Friday, he also contended that faith-based terrorism challenges the concept of a nation-state and presents an existential challenge.
"And that is why I have always argued, that if you think that there is no intellectual answer to terrorism, that there is no ideological answer to terrorism, then you are wrong. The real ideological answer to terrorism is nationalism. And this is true everywhere. It is only the forces and power of nationalism, which will recognise the danger and push and drive and repel these elements away," Akbar said.
Holding terrorism "is just not a law and order problem" or "a problem of somebody introducing violence", he said that the two things that make terrorism or faith-based terrorism into an existential challenge included that firstly, it "challenges the whole concept of the nation-state. It doesn`t believe in the nation state".
"What they believe in, is faith-based space, not in the nation-state. And this faith-based state then becomes redeveloped or re-imagined itself into shibboleths and into short-hand terms like Caliphate and so and so forth," he added.
Akbar also said that terrorism strikes at the roots of pluralism, which is fundamental to Indian philosophy.
"The most important element, not only of modernity, but of any philosophy going back to the beginning of humanity and that is the co-existence of all human beings as equals. The living together, plural societies, in which we all live together as one, irrespective of what our personal differences might have been.
"Terrorists do not believe in a fundamental aspect of our Indian philosophy `Sarva Dharma Samabhav`... What they believe is `faith supremacy`. The supremacy of one faith at the cost of another," he said.
"The moment you inject fear into a society, you create invisible walls, you create distance... you create imagined horrors. And therefore the 21st century is going to be a struggle and to end this challenge of those who sell fear and those who challenge the nation-state," he added.
Dec 16 gangrape: Two death row convicts file review plea in SC
New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI) Two of the four death row convicts in the December 16, 2012 gangrape and murder case today moved the Supreme Court for review of its verdict upholding the capital punishment awarded to them.
The review petition by convicts Vinay Sharma and Pawan Kumar Gupta came after the apex court on December 12 completed the hearing on the review plea filed by another death row convict Mukesh.
A 23-year-old paramedic student was gangraped on the intervening night of December 16-17, 2012 inside a moving bus in South Delhi by a gang of six persons and severely assaulted before being thrown out naked. She succumbed to her injuries on December 29, 2012 at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
The review plea, filed through advocate A P Singh for two of the convicts, claimed that death penalty was a premeditated and "cold blooded killing" of a human being by the state in the name of justice.
It said the investigation in the matter was not only flawed but also unreliable as many facts of the investigation pertain to recording of the dying declaration of the victim.
The apex court had on December 12 allowed the counsel to file review petition for another convict Akshay Singh and listed the matter for hearing on January 22.
The apex court had on May 5 upheld the death penalty to the four convicts - Mukesh (29), Pawan (22), Vinay Sharma (23) and Akshay Kumar Singh (31), saying the "brutal, barbaric and diabolic nature" of the crime could create a "tsunami of shock" to destroy a civilised society.
Another accused in the case, Ram Singh, had allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail, while a convicted juvenile has come out of the reformation home after serving a three- year term.
