Roots of Terror

The 23-minute film was a challenge,says Ojha,riddled as it was with contentious issues. “A documentary filmmaker in India enjoys wide choices and subjects to play with but when working with the government,one has to be careful of what is being portrayed. While you have the freedom to research,the visuals and language go as per the government diktat and has to comply with their line of thought,” he says. Commissioned in 2009,the film’s aim was to expose Pakistan as a country which is perpetuating terrorist activity in India. “It also talks of US and other countries and international agencies who,in spite of knowing the magnitude of the problem,are not aiding in controlling it as promised,” he adds. “The military in Pakistan is all powerful and do not allow bonhomie between the two sides to grow,” says Ojha. The lack of political will and laidback attitude of law enforcement agencies in India makes it worse. “The law enforcement agencies do not have a progessive mindset on how to keep up with changes,absorbing modern technology,upgrading strategy and weapons. To add to this is the rampant poverty and illiteracy in both countries,” he points out. According to him,the root cause lies in pyramidical structure of power. “It trickles from the top; if the topmost is corrupt,the rest will rot.”

Controlling the world is an expensive venture,so the US has decided to control the governments instead,he says. Ojha’s focus is on how the world is thinking,how it feels about terrorism,how it is initiated and supported by countries like Pakistan,what has led to the growth of terrorism and how can it be brought to an end. The film ropes in famous thinkers like Prof. Theda Skocpol,a political scientist from Harvard University,takes cue from the quotes of thinkers of yore like Dr. James Parkinson,Prince Kropotkin,Mikhail Bakunin,Karl Heinzen,Frantz Fanon and Jean Paul Satre. “If you employ terrorism,you only earn the opposition,hatred and rejection of those whom you need in order to win the war’.”