India is no stranger to terror attacks

India is no stranger to terror attacks. Our history is replete with instances of invaders and marauders attacking our country and terrorising our people: from the (controversial) Aryan Invasion to the Greeks, the Sakas, the Huns, the Pathans, the Moghuls, the Portuguese, the British... and now the Pakistanis.

Regrettably, not all terror attacks have been from foreign invaders. Some of it has been internal. I remember growing up in Calcutta during the late sixties and early seventies when anti-establishment Marxists and Maoists killed many policemen, government officials, teachers and innocent people over ideological differences with the government.

Then there were terrors of the separatist movements – the Sikhs, the ULFA, the GNLF, the Bodos, the Mizos – and retribution by the Indian government thereafter.

Since Independence, we’ve lost three national leaders to assassinations by fellow countrymen – Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi – and thousands of others from terror attacks by insurgents like the recent Maoist attacks to disrupt elections, or violent civil riots under State supervision like the infamous Gujarat riots in 2002.