Yesterday was a very eventful day for me; meeting new people, making progress on newer ventures and attending marriage functions. It was during the course of this hectic day that I was egged on by somebody to write something. I was even told that my writing was being missed. This made my mind wander to seek out an apt topic on which I could write. After scanning the entire gambit of topics to write upon, my thoughts zeroed in on the happenings that occurred in January, the first month of the New Year 2013.

The month has seen some reshuffling in the political scene of India and the future, though blurry right now, seems to indicate a direct contest between the scion of the Congress party, Rahul Gandhi and the Gujarat BJP strongman Narendra Modi in the coming 2014 general elections.

January 2013 also saw escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan as the two countries were involved in border skirmishes along the LoC, in Jammu & Kashmir. The immediate heightening of tension was the alleged dastardly attack that Pakistani troops carried out inside Indian territory which resulted in the beheading of an Indian soldier and mutilation of another. These acts of “terror” and Pakistan’s unabashed support to “terrorism” held centre stage in the Indian media during the month along with the tragic death of the Brave Heart, the fighter victim of the Delhi rape case.

The usual acts of terror by terrorists also hogged the limelight. Naxalites and Maosits killed many in Chattisgarh and Jharkhand but one glaring form of “terrorism” that is becoming more and more aggravated is the “Cultural Terrorism” as aptly pointed out by Kamal Haasan, the Tamil movie superstar, whose film “Vishwaroopam” became a victim of this form of terrorism. The film which was cleared by the film censor board landed into trouble with certain groups. While one group claimed the film had blasphemous content, another claimed that a Tamil movie should not have a Sanskrit name. The result, the screening of the film was banned in even Kamal Hassan’s home state of Tamil Nadu.

You cannot please all of the people all of the time, even God cannot do so. So, an opinion, advice, a piece of work, writing, film or even cuisine cannot have all takers; some would like, some would not. But a minority of people with radical views, can they take a multi lingual, diverse, secular country like India for a ride??? Can they spread fear in this way?? A fear which percolates to every layer of the society, a fear which prevents people from writing freely, a fear which prevents people from liking posts on social media, a fear which might lead to exodus of literary and cultural talents from the country??

A minority of people spreading fear amongst the majority, are they are not terrorists?? And the fear they are spreading is it not “Terrorism”???