Terrorism at Home and Abroad

In 1914, a young man of Sarajevo shot dead Archduke Ferdinand and his wife which started the First World War. In 1945, the United States of America launched nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing instantly more than two lac Japanese civilians that ended the Second World War. Which of these two was an act of terrorism— the assassination of two individuals by an odd person or the horrible act of genocide committed by a powerful state?

The question has remained unanswered even after lapse of many decades. Arguments have piled up for and against the proposition without leading to a verdict. Meanwhile innumerable incidents of death and destruction have taken place all over the world, each being branded as terrorist activity by some and justified as freedom struggle by many others. The perpetrators of violence are condemned as terrorists at one time and hailed as benefactors of humanity at the other. Brutus who stabs Ceaser is held in high esteem in Rome as a champion of democracy but is later labeled as an assassin by the same Romans in the wake of a brilliant piece of oratory rendered by Mark Anthony.