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Comment by ptero | Hacker News Reader

The problem with this approach is that a vague "because terrorism" can justify a heavy handed approach to a very large set of policies which have nothing to do with terrorism. And "because terrorism", "because covid", "because child abuse" become convenient tools for the government to force this or that policy on its citizens. It is a lot easier to claim "because terrorism" than to argue a policy on merits and respond to counter arguments.

The upstream question is harder to answer, though: if the majority of the governed support this approach, is it democracy in action or an autocratic overreach?

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Well, unlike west in India the impact of the said terrorism are much more visible. In the 90s and 2000s, all the major cities were having routine attacks by the said terrorists, so you can see why it is easier to gain sympathy on anything that can be seen to act on it. It is quite a big issue in the country.

I am not saying that the terrorism (covid, child abuse, etc.) is not a big problem. It must be a big, highly visible problem to be used by politicians to justify their policies. But that justification is often lacking, as claiming that this is a fight against a highly visible, important problem suffices.

If terrorists attack Americans, they are called 'terrorists'.

If terrorists attack Indians, they are called 'militants' or simply 'fighters'.

Most people outside of India would be completely ignorant as to terrorism in India, so I wouldn't give their opinion much weight. I was pretty shocked that it was apparently common to have metal detectors at movie theatres, for example, at least in some cities - there's no real awareness of that outside of India/Indian diaspora as far as I know.

I’m old enough to remember when Indian terrorists used to call up journalists and editors and demand that they be referred to as militants.

I would like to remind you that ever since the current government came into power, the number of terrorist attacks in the major cities has drastically dropped.

At one point of time, it used to be regular news to hear about the jihadists bombing places.

I was about 8 or 9 when there was a bomb blast quite close to my house in Hyderabad. That was about 10 years ago.

Folks in the west appear to condemn others but not themselves, leaving a rather poor taste in the mouth.

But that reduction in foreign terror attacks happened all over the world.

The Mumbai terror attack was followed by similar attacks in Paris where civilians going about their day were targeted.

That wave of terror is over, probably because ISIS and AQ are no longer the force they used to be.

Now it’s domestic terror and social polarization.

Don’t think these laws are the reason why foreign terror attacks reduced.

The groups you mentioned have little to do with India. Some of the groups responsible in India were dealt with and some are still active mostly outside now.

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