Ask any person about their thoughts on terrorism, and they will tell you their reasons for not supporting this heinous practise. No person in their sane mind will defend something that provokes violence and leads to bloodshed and oppression in society. And yet, it baffles me how most ‘terrorist’ groups are able to recruit young people routinely and keep their operations active to this day.

In Assam, there are reports indicating several new recruits (read youths) have joined the extremist group - United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Concerns have been raised by Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma over the trend of youths joining these insurgency groups. However, the reasons for joining aren’t clearly known, they say.

Assam along with other parts of Northeast India has long suffered the threats of several insurgency organisations, both small and large. However, ULFA’s operations in Assam have perhaps gained the most notability over several decades. Ironically, the majority of the ‘insurgent groups’ we know of today originate from past communal oppressions, and misguided religious convictions, however, insurgency in the northeast was largely influenced by ethnic discrimination faced at the hands of people in the supposed majority. 

ULFA’s formation back in 1979 in the want of a sovereign socialist Assam was initially championed by the people of Assam who voiced similar sentiments against the rise of immigrant settlement in the land. However, the violent acts of killings and kidnapping in the state that followed due to rebellion by the outfit created unrest for the people and led to it being banned in India. Several members have since surrendered from the organisation, as have many individuals who were formerly associated with similar insurgent groups in Northeast India. However, ULFA continues to remain ‘active’ and many youths are still being lured down a dark path.

This brings me to the commemoration of Anti-terrorism Day which is marked annually on 21st May on the death anniversary of India’s former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi. The whole point of observing this occasion is to ensure peace and discourage violent acts where the commoner gets caught in the cross-fire.

It is noteworthy that the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was led by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which emerged in Sri Lanka to fight the Sri Lankan Govt. in the want of an independent state called Tamil Eelam in the Northeast part of the island. The outfit was an outcome of the oppression and discrimination faced by the Sri Lankan Tamils in the island country, which also led to a prolonged civil war from 1983 to 2009. It was the intervention of the Indian Govt. through the introduction of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in Sri Lanka that resulted in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

However, be it in the Northeastern state of Assam or the island nation of Sri Lanka, or elsewhere, the formation of these insurgent organisations and the carrying out of violent acts of terrorism have similar results - loss of lives, property, and alienation from civilization. In other words, the underlying cause of such organisations is the demand to rise to power in the want of ‘independence’, and ‘cultural preservation. However, irrespective of the ‘vision’ or ‘reason’ cited by such groups, no good has ever come out of it for the masses.

Admitted, no major violence has been reported in Assam lately linked to these extremist organisations. However, there is a need for active intervention by both Govt and peace volunteers to understand the root causes leading to the recruitment of youths to these organisations and curb the trend before it's too late.