Delivering his key note address during an international seminar organised by country's premier counter-terror force NSG here, Minister of State for External Affairs M J Akbar said India was surprised as to why the United Nations and its member countries have been held back by "some limited tactical" reason to define the precise meaning of terrorism.
"... We protect human rights when we eliminate terrorism. This is a debate which goes on and on and on that we, those who seek to eliminate terrorism, are somehow infringing human rights, when the greatest threat to human rights is the terrorist. Is there anybody, who is sane, and who can challenge this? Is there anybody, who is sane, who can argue with this?
He said while the country was not witnessing a flood of Indian Muslims going towards radicalisation, the government does recognise the need to "take urgent measures to counter and protect the spread of terrorism and radicalisation."
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"And, we hope that we will be able to hold an international conference on radicalisation very soon. We have, therefore, called upon all countries to work together to expedite the adoption of a draft comprehensive convention on international terrorism in UNGA (United Nations General Assembly) without any further delay," Akbar said.
The minister also expressed India's disappointment over the UN not coining a definition on what exactly terrorism means to the globe.
Akbar said at forums like the UN "some limited tactical
reason consistently seems to prevent the nations, or some important nations who are in the body, to take the necessary important and vital step to define what precisely is this enemy."
"It is extremely important to remember that the true costs of terrorism has nothing to do with dollars, with rupees or it has nothing to do with finances except of course in terms of the fact that terrorism remains perhaps the biggest threat to all economies.
"But the true cost of terrorism lies in two terms...It is very naive to believe that a terrorist organisation like DAESH (ISIS) or Lashker-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed do not have a political objective. They are not simply random militia groups of the kind that we have seen. They have very important political objectives," he said.
"In my faith Islam, conflicts over politics arose from the very beginning after the death of the Prophet and that's why we have the Shia-Sunni conflict. If religion was sufficient as the basis of nationalism then why would there be 22 Arab states? Yet the dream keeps on renewing itself (and) particularly at the time when other alternative models for political mobilisation seem to have failed," Akbar said.
The minister added that the objective of terrorism is to "create fear in plural societies so that walls can be created between different ethnic groups, different religions who have lived as equals and who continue to do so under Constitutions and under philosophies that believe in equality as the basis of civilisation," he said.
"India is strongly committed to combat this menace in all its forms and manifestations. We strongly believe that those who provide safe havens and training to terrorists are no less guilty. Complacency, hypocrisy or duplicity towards the godfathers of terrorism is an invitation to disaster.
"We have therefore ascertained that our fight against terrorism should not only seek to eliminate terrorists and disrupt their organisations and their networks but should also identify and take strong measures against states who encourage, support and finance terrorism and provide sanctuary to terrorists and terror groups and falsely extol their virtues. There should be no glorification of terrorists as martyrs," he said.