Anti-Terrorism Day is observed on May 21 in India with an aim to mitigate terrorism; promote national harmony, and unity among people of all caste, creed and sex. Historically speaking, this particular day (May 21) holds paramount importance when it comes to ‘terrorism’.
It was on this day in the year 1991 that former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated; a brutal act of terror that left the entire country shocked and aggrieved. Hence, May 21 was the choice to mark the Anti-Terrorism Day as a constant reminder to every generation about the heinous consequences of terrorist activities.
2021 commemorates Rajiv Gandhi’s 30th death anniversary as India observes Anti-Terrorism Day. The Congress leader was killed during his election campaign in Sriperumbudur, Chennai, by a suicide bomber. The woman who carried out the terrifying terror attack belonged to Liberation of Tamil Tiger Eelam (LTTE), a terrorist organization. The explosion took around 16 innocent lives apart from Gandhi’s. It was a sad, dark day in Indian history that witnessed an abominable act of terrorism.
Anti Terrorism Day: History
The official announcement of National Anti Terrorism Day was made after the assassination of India’s seventh Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991. He was killed in Tamil Nadu in a campaign by a terrorist. Then, under the V.P. Singh government, the center has decided to observe 21st May as Anti Terrorism Day. On this day Anti Terrorism pledge is taken in all the government offices, public sector undertakings, and other public institutions, etc.
Anti Terrorism Day: Objective
Terrorism in all its forms and manifestations poses a direct threat to the security of the citizens of countries, and to international stability and prosperity. It is a persistent global threat that knows no border, nationality, or religion and is a challenge that the international community must tackle together.
The pledge that is said on Anti-Terrorism Day:
“We, the people of India, having abiding faith in our country’s tradition of non-violence and tolerance, hereby solemnly affirm to oppose with our strength, all forms of terrorism and violence. We pledge to uphold and promote peace, social harmony and understand among all fellow human beings and fight the forces of disruption threatening human lives and values.”
Anti-Terrorism Day Pledge in Hindi
National Anti-Terrorism Day quotes , Images, Slogans, Drawings.
We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Terrorism is the tactic of demanding the impossible, and demanding it at gunpoint.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.
NOAM CHOMSKY
Fighting terrorism is like being a goalkeeper. You can make a hundred brilliant saves but the only shot that people remember is the one that gets past you.
Like slavery and piracy, terrorism has no place in the modern world.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Terrorism has become the systematic weapon of a war that knows no borders or seldom has a face.
JACQUES CHIRAC
Terrorism is the price of empire. If you do not wish to pay the price, you must give up the empire.
PAT BUCHANAN
The big threat to America is the way we react to terrorism by throwing away what everybody values about our country–a commitment to human rights. America is a great nation because we are a good nation. When we stop being a good nation, we stop being great.
BOBBY KENNEDY
A “war against terrorism” is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
JOHN MORTIMER
It’s much, much harder to terrorise a population into submission than official and unofficial purveyors of mass violence always think it is. Normality isn’t a fixed state but a spectrum with a remarkably wide range. Terrorists are contemptible for many reasons, but one of them is the stupidity of not knowing this. They try to magnify themselves with epic acts of cruelty. In the end they are diminished and defeated by the strange ability of human beings to step around the pools of blood, keep going and forget.
FINTAN O’TOOLE
Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.
PETER USTINOV
Terrorism [takes] us back to ages we thought were long gone if we allow it a free hand to corrupt democratic societies and destroy the basic rules of international life.
JACQUES CHIRAC
The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation — the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism — the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They’re successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be: This war will be difficult; this war will be long; and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists and totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty.
GEORGE W. BUSHSource
We live in a time of terror, and contrary to what we see on television and allow ourselves to believe, the real goal of terror is not to kill people but to kill thought; to so demoralize a society that it implodes from within.
JOHN LAHR
Every leader, and every regime, and every movement, and every organization that steps across the line to terrorism must be banished from the discourse of civilized human life.
ALAN KEYES
When I say that terrorism is war against civilization, I may be met by the objection that terrorists are often idealists pursuing worthy ultimate aims — national or regional independence, and so forth. I do not accept this argument. I cannot agree that a terrorist can ever be an idealist, or that the objects sought can ever justify terrorism. The impact of terrorism, not merely on individual nations, but on humanity as a whole, is intrinsically evil, necessarily evil and wholly evil.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU
The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
