The Other Side of Terror

Description

Post-9-11, ‘terrorism’ is perhaps the most prominent political phenomenon on the world stage, making its presence felt in increasingly darker and starker forms. While the need to understand terrorism is urgently vocalized, the often inordinate focus on bare facts rather than on socio-political conditions defeats the purpose of the whole exercise. Literature, on the other hand, by historicizing and humanizing the phenomenon, helps in our understanding of terrorism. The Other Side of Terror brings together writings based on terrorism from India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Including short stories, essays, poems, and excerpts from novels, both original writings in English as well as translations, the volume addresses issues of wide interest. The Maoist insurgency in Nepal and the Tamil militancy in Sri Lanka, the Indian manifestations ranging from the militant wing of the Independence movement to the various post-Independence terrorist movements, such as separatism in Kashmir, the insurgency in Assam, and the Naxalite movement in Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh, are all represented. The range of authors—including Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, to Bhagat Singh, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Aurobindo Ghose, Khushwant Singh, Pankaj Mishra, Mahashweta Devi, Anita Agnihotri, Jean Arasanayagam, and Tenzin Tsundue, represents a gamut of writing covering this terrain. In a detailed Introduction Nivedita Majumdar traces terrorism across South Asia, explores important aspects of the phenomenon from its definition to its psychological and sociological effects, and reflects on moral and ethical issues and counter-terrorism. Contributors Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Aurobindo Ghose, Bhagat Singh, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Rabindranath Tagore, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Edmund Candler, Mahashweta Devi, Tarit Kumar, Saroj Dutta, Bani Basu, Ashim Ray, Samrat Upadhyay, Li Onesto, Sushma Joshi, Pankaj Mishra, Tenzin Tsundue, Jean Arasanayagam, A. Sivanandan, Jesurasa, Cheran, Pash, Anita Agnihotri, Mohan Bhandari, Khushwant Singh, Kartar Singh Duggal, Robin S. Ngangom, Niranjan Chakma, Bimal Singha, Mitra Phukan, Mamang Dai, Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, Sanjib Baruah, Neerja Mattoo, Sheba Chhachhi, Somnath Zutshi, Anees Hamadani