Editorial
A fresh approach to combating extremism
Involving people is the right way to go about it
THE government's decision to fight religious extremism on the social and political fronts, instead of relying solely on the law and order approach, has a lot in it that we concur in. The realisation that extremism is but a product of a number of socio-political shortcomings or failures, and as such not easy to uproot through application of force alone, is necessary to combat the evil effectively.
We fully endorse the launching of a social campaign, with 14 agencies onboard, to eliminate extremism, the religious kind in this particular instance. The Ansar and VDP have also been included to support the campaign. In other words, the government has formulated a counter-terrorism strategy based on a much wider participation of people in general, law enforcers and all others concerned.
Now the decision makers will have to identify the roots of the evil and concentrate on removing them, involving society at large in the process. Religious extremism has assumed menacing proportions because the fanatics' misinterpretation of Islam, a religion which takes a strong position against violence, always went unchallenged in the past. It is also true that these extremist groups take advantage of poverty and vulnerability of madrasa students whose scope for employment is very limited, if not totally non-existent. The Imams or religious leaders, who have a great potential to exert a sobering influence on the extremists, need to be trained in light of our present-day priorities, so that they can play their due role in checking proliferation of extremism.
The most important part of the mission is to ensure people's direct participation. Likewise, society as a whole will have to set the goal of banishing religious extremism through creating equal opportunities for the less-privileged. So, the plan to involve the unemployed youths in development programmes should pay rich dividends. The government has to attach great importance to this aspect of the drive against extremism.
The die is cast in the right direction, but there is still no room for slackening the vigilance against outbursts of religious extremism that can be ghastly at times. There is no way we can lower our guard against the elements exploiting the religious sentiments of the masses often unable to see through their sinister designs.
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