​Are people without avenues for democratic expression justified in resorting to terrorism?

Answer Podcast

Some people argue that if people can’t express themselves democratically, for example if they can’t vote to change the government they are justified in carrying out terrorism what is your opinion? yeah there is the impulse to destroy that which we cannot change so all revolutions ultimately come when people feel frustrated with the existing systems so much so that they feel that the existing system itself has to be destroyed however destruction is something far easier to do than reconstruction so quite often there might be some insurgent groups who destroy buildings destroy government offices destroy bridges and things like that and if somehow or the other later they grab power they may be in power for years and very little very little positive construction happens so when we give in to the tamasic impulse to destroy because we can’t change then it is not just that we are destroying things we are actually increasing the influence of tamoguna on ourselves and that tamoguna will not allow us the later on the freedom to act in higher modes so that’s why it is not that violence itself has to be ruled out but violence also has to be regulated irrational indiscriminate violence even against people who are not to be blamed people who have done nothing wrong at a specific individual level that is what terrorists do that is completely tamasic so yes change requires so change requires asverative action and sometimes it may require violence also but if we give in to the impulse for violence indiscriminately then we get caught in tamoguna which traps us and which leads to leads to a trap where people can easily destroy but they don’t construct they can’t construct and that’s why wherever there are revolutions there is an upsurge of expectation after the revolution but quite often things don’t change much because the revolutionaries they get caught in the rejection mentality and rejection destruction mentality and when construction or rejuvenation comes up they are not able to do that because tamoguna has trapped them tamoguna as a practical measure can be used we have to sleep so we also have to destroy certain things but that has to be done very much under regulation so that later on there can be reconstruction.