'Those advocating terrorist causes are in a minority'

Vice President Hamid Ansari has said that it is important to remember that those advocating extremist, fundamentalist and terrorist causes constitute a tiny minority. "They neither have the religious nor political mandate for their abhorrent actions and ideologies," Ansari said. 

Delivering inaugural address at the Second International Conference titled 'Terrorism - National and International' organised by the Jama Masjid United Forum in New Delhi on Tuesday, Ansari said that a majority of humanity is too poor and is focused on trying to survive. "Their vulnerability lies in their poverty; it is this that provides an opportunity to peddlers of extremism. This opportunity gets fructified only because those tasked with political governance and religious and moral leadership have failed," he added. 

Ansari said that the pedigree of terrorism in modern times could be traced to the policies of the colonialists. "The label of 'terrorist' was liberally used by the British against Indians, Burmese and Malays and by the French against the Algerians. More or less every movement in the modern era had been labeled 'terrorist' by different parties --whether it was the Jewish Underground in Mandate Palestine, the African National Congress in South Africa or various Palestinian groups," he said.

The Vice-President expressed his concern that it is not thus of recent origin but globalization and technology has now made it trans-national in reach and devastating in its impact. "It has surfaced in most parts of the world and is not country, region or community specific. It has been resorted to by the oppressed as well as the oppressors. It is disruptive of normal life and its principal targets are innocent bystanders," he added. For this reason alone, Ansari said, it is cowardly, unethical and immoral. It cannot be, and has not been, condoned in any belief system and yet at different points of time, adherents of various religions have been labeled as terrorists. "Those trying to locate the origin of terrorism in Islam or in any other faith display ignorance of history or downright prejudice," the Vice President added.