We need a calm and mature decision on terror

(The article was originally published in Indian Express on December 13, 2025 as a part of Dr Madhav’s column titled ‘Ram Rajya’. Views expressed are personal.)

A month has passed since the deadly car bomb explosion in Delhi. Coming after more than a decade of terror-free life in the national capital, and the first after the Modi Government came to power, this incident, that led to the killing of 13 people and injuring scores of others, woke us up to the fact that the challenge of terrorism is not yet over. At 6.52 PM on November 10, a high-intensity bomb blast occurred in a Hyundai i20 car at a traffic signal near the busy Red Fort – Chandni Chowk intersection damaging several cars and auto rickshaws. The incident sent shockwaves across especially after the news came out that the Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir Police led a joint operation just a day before on the residence of Dr. Mujjabal, a Kashmiri doctor working at the Al Falah University in Faridabad, and recovered 2990 KG of explosives, 20 timers, two dozen remote controls, a rifle and dozens of live rounds of ammunition, sufficient enough to cause a series of blasts across the country.

Prime minister Narendra Modi, who was on a 2-day visit to the neighbouring Bhutan when the incident happened, held a cabinet meeting upon return, which condemned the blast as a “heinous terror incident, perpetrated by anti-national forces”. The National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is investigating the case, too suggested that the incident could be a car-borne suicide attack perpetrated by a “white-collar” module, which allegedly has links with Pakistan-based terror outfits like  Jaish-e-Mohammed.

In the aftermath of the incident animated discussions ensued with allegations and counter-allegations. There were vociferous denunciations of Islamic theology on one hand and victimhood complaints about religious profiling of people as terrorists on the other. But public memory is short. Additionally, there is an element of cynicism in people’s minds when it came to terrorism. Many assume it as a part of Indian reality, grudgingly pointing fingers at the recalcitrant Western neighbour. However, a month later, it is time to calmly dissect and introspect.

In a refreshingly introspective article in Milli Chronicle, Mumbai-based author Osama Rawal made some profound arguments about the lessons that one should learn from the Delhi terror incident rather than continuing with the “deep intellectual dishonesty that is rampant in our public life”. Rawal sought to highlight the fact that the perpetrator was an educated and economically well-to-do individual and his motivation was a religious ideology. The wider narrative “sidesteps the central truth – that the perpetrator acted in the name of an ideology, a self-declared inspiration that many refuse to confront”, he rued.

Two important lessons must be drawn from the latest incident. Firstly, the mythical belief that education and economic development are the panacea for terrorism need to be discarded. Umar Nabi, the principal accused in this case, was a doctor by profession. So were his other collaborators in several other states. Of the seven arrested, three were doctors and one was a technical expert in usage and modification of drones. Globally, studies reveal that several high-profile terrorists were highly educated. Osama bin Laden was an engineer; his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri was a surgeon; Mohammad Atta, the lead hijacker in 9/11 attacks in the US, was also an engineer who studied urban planning in Germany. Among the Indian terrorists too, Riyaz Bhatkal was an engineer; Mohammed Peerbhoy of Ahmedabad blasts (2008) fame was a software engineer; Ahmed Abbasi, convicted for the Gorakhnath temple attack in 2022 was an IITian. List is long but the important lesson to be learnt is, to quote Rawal again, “radicalisation is not the child of poverty, it is the child of conviction”.

That brings us to the second unsettling fact that this conviction stems largely from religious ideologies. The old cliché that “terrorism has no religion” needs a serious revision. Umar Nabi, the human bomb in Delhi blasts, recorded a video in which he claimed that what the world calls as “suicide bombing” is in fact an “act of martyrdom”. He insisted that such acts are rooted in Islamic tradition and have been religiously validated. It is as clear as daylight that religion has been used as an inspiration by many terrorists across the world so much so that loaded expressions like “Jihad” became a common parlance today.

It is certainly unfair to profile people of an entire religion as terrorists, but the uncomfortable reality that a majority of terrorists have religion as the motivation cannot be brushed under the carpet either. It is here that the Muslim intelligentsia has a greater role to play. For a change, there are growing voices within the Muslim community that no longer fall for the deceptive propaganda of “Islam in danger” as an indirect justification of terror, and come out openly decrying such acts. In the recent instance, Citizens for Fraternity (CFF), led by eminent citizens like Najeeb Jung, SY Qureshi and Lt Gen Zaheeruddin Shah issued a statement calling the terror incident as an “assault on our nation”. Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Asaduddin Owaisi, Jamaat-e-Islam leadership, Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind leadership and many others too came forward to decry Umar Nabi’s contentions about Islam.

Globally, such efforts are being spearheaded by leaders like Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa, director general of the Muslim World League in Saudi Arabia and Yahya Cholil Staquf, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) in Indonesia. Incidentally, while Saudi Arabia is the mothership of Islam, Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. Both leaders strongly condemned Delhi blasts. While Al-Issa called them as “heinous acts” and reaffirmed Islam’s firm stance against all acts of terrorism, NU leadership emphasised on the shared common values between India and Indonesia and called for “shared counter-terrorism strategies”.

Mature debate over terrorism should be free from “I am the victim” versus “I said so” narratives and focus on reforming religious doctrines itself.