Terrorism, State Terrorism and Democratic Rights

Democratic Rights Randhir Singh In a class-divided, exploitative society like ours, on all important issues in philosophy as in real life, neutrality is an illusion. And so it is with terrorism and democratic rights. It is our explanation or understanding of social reality, which indicates the prescription as well. An explanation thus always has a 'value slope'. And if it is this 'value slope' which is decisive in suggesting the purposeful human intervention on our part, then obviously it matters how we generally go about explaining and/or understanding things. In other words we need to be selfconsciously aware of our philosophical or methodological orientation in coming to terms with the reality around us. How does the dominant mode of thinking deal with the issues of terrorism, state terrorism and democratic rights? And how do we need to think about them?