Even those who witnessed 9/11 often forget threat of terrorism: MJ Akbar

"I wonder why they seem to be waiting for it to happen," Akbar said about terrorism.

Union Minister M J Akbar on Saturday said he wonders how the threat of terrorism is often forgotten even by those who lived through the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

"The 9/11 terror attacks was one of the events that shaped the conscience of the 21st century and "opened the eyes of those who insisted on keeping their eyes closed to the danger of terrorism," he said.

The Minister of State for External Affairs was delivering a talk on 'India's Foreign Policy for the 21st Century' at Mapusa near Panaji.

"It often surprises me that those eyes which were open on that day (9/11), so often relapse into sleep again, as if it has never happened. I wonder why they seem to be waiting for it to happen," the journalist-turned-politician said.

"It (terrorism) is not an act of random barbarism. There are serious political objectives to the terrorism," he said.

"They (terrorists) believe that nations are not created for people but nations are created for religion and for them the latest danger lies when (there is a) nation such as ours which gives equality to every citizen, which gives freedom of faith to every citizen, which treats every faith as an equal not only in law but also in a social way," he said.

India's foreign policy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is based on the message that the whole world is one family, he said.

"But more important is the fact that world is a family of equals," Akbar said.

India does not believe in the distinction between "big nations and small nations", and this is fundamental to the philosophy of the prime minister, he said.