The protest rallies have begun. This is good .It keep the adrenalin levels
high. The question is for how long? As we say colloquially: Kiska baap ka kya
jaata hai?.
As we find time to protest and give vent to our pent up anger , we will , in
the coming months and years continue to pay a heavy price with the lives of our
citizens because of the selfishness and apathy of our politicians. And the
reason is simple. There is pent up anger that has been simmering amongst our
own citizens for years. And Pakistan has not always been responsible for it.
Remember Babri Masjid and the glee on the faces of the Hindu zealots when it
came crashing down and the many lives that were snuffed out post that debacle.
I have seen the monument and would not have given it a second glance. And the
leader of it all: Advani is referred to as "PM in waiting".
Remember the Godhra massacre in Gujarat.The man who fuelled it all is currently
CM of the state. Should we forgive him because he runs a very prosperous state.?
Remember the massacre of the Sikhs post Indira´s assassination .The
perpetrators of the crime are in the ruling party today. It is strange that the
whole country venerates the Congress Party as the secular messiah but it was
that party that presided over the riots in 1984 in which over 3,500 Sikhs died:
thrice the number killed in Gujarat.
Remember the many thousands who have died in Kashmir over the last few decades.
Remember the most recent Malegaon blasts. An army officer has been arrested for
his role in it.
Remember all the Christians who have been killed harassed, raped and burnt,
their churches razed to the ground.
And we say that Indians are not capable of killing their own in cold blood!!!
Public memory is short. How many more city attacks, train and market blasts
will India and its citizens endure until we acknowledge the past wrongdoings
.We must remember that a prime motivator of a terrorist is the historical
injustices against his or her own peoples. It is by the same reasoning that the
Israel-Palestinian problem will not end.
And then a quick look at the government in power and the absence of crisis
management considering our perpetual sceanrios of terrorist attacks:
Imagine the commandos having to take 9 hours to move from Delhi to
Mumbai-having to wait for a Ilyushin aircraft-and an appropriate pilot, having
then to wait for a bus to drive them from Mumbai´s airport to the Taj-a
distance of 20 kms in Mumbai´s traffic, having to use guns with no telescopic
features to distinguish terrorist from hostage. Imagine Mumbais top 3 cops
dying as their bullet proof vests were ripped apart by blazing AK-47 !!!!This
is not the first time that Mumbai has been attacked. And this will not be the
last. The government now acknowledges that there were “lapses”. All because
all warning signs are ignored and every ordinary Indian citizen that dies in a
hail of bullets becomes an addition to the “chalta hai” mode of management.
>From 2004 to 2008 the sum of 4000 deaths from terrorist activities puts India
>next to Iraq in terms of citizen deaths-What a dubious distinction for a
>country aiming to be a super-power. Can we learn from our tiny neighbor called
>Bhutan that Gross National Happiness must co-exist with GDP?
Who cares, ...who suffers most...who dies a "martyr less" death.... only the
ordinary Indian citizen. India´s aam admi. And who does this ordinary citizen
elect at the next elections?
By contrast, India's leaders -- who invariably float around with armed guards
paid for by the taxpayer -- can't even agree on a legal framework to keep the
country safe. On taking office in 2004, one of the first acts of the ruling
Congress Party was to scrap a federal antiterrorism law that strengthened
witness protection and enhanced police powers. The Congress Party has stalled
similar state-level legislation in Gujarat, which is ruled by the opposition
Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. More recently, the BJP, driven by
tribal religious solidarity and a penchant for conspiracy theories, has failed
to demand the same tough treatment for alleged Hindu terrorists as it does for
Muslims. Minor parties, especially those dependent on the Muslim vote, compete
to earn fundamentalists' favor.
Enough of the blame game. We need to look within our own country and address
its many challenges and problems and only then look across the border.Pakistan
bashing ( even though they export terrorism and have nurtured this ten man army
who brought Mumbai down to its knees!!) has never given us any gains. The
reflexive Indian response to most every act of terrorism is to apportion blame
rather than to seek a solution that will prevent, or at least minimize, its
recurrence. Even Indonesia -- a still-poor Muslim-majority nation where
sympathy for militants runs deeper than it does in India -- has done an
infinitely better job of recognizing that the protection of citizens' lives is
any government's first responsibility. A superbly trained, federal
antiterrorism force called Detachment 88 has ensured that country has not
suffered a terrorist attack in more than three years. And look at us. How we so
very comfortably ignore intelligence warnings. Kiska baap ka kya jata hai?
In only a matter of days , Indians will forget about the Taj/Oberoi/Chabad
House massacre. Until the next time that we let ourselves be easy targets for
Hindu or Islamic terrorists!!! And let us not be surprised if the next time
they use biological means.And nuclear blasts should not be out of consideration.
In sum, the Indian approach to terrorism ( not to be always linked with the
"foreign hand")has been consistently haphazard and weak-kneed. When faced with
fundamentalist demands -both Hindu and Muslim , India's democratically elected
leaders have regularly preferred caving to confrontation on a point of
principle. The country's institutions and culture have abetted a widespread
sense of Muslim separateness from the national mainstream. Can 150million
citizens only be valuable as a vote bank? The country's diplomats have failed
to stabilize the neighborhood. The ongoing drama in Mumbai underscores the
price both Indians and non-Indians caught unawares must now pay.
I remember Tagore´s verse -so apt for all of us Indians today
Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been
broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls; ...
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit; ...
Into that heaven of freedom,
my Father, let my country awake.
It is up to all of us to take a deep , painful look and correct our course. May
our adrenalin rushes be put to constructive use , may our blog sites bring
about public debate and the eviction of selfish “netas” .Only then will we
COLLECTIVELY help extract this nation from the deep abyss it has got itself
into and then transform it to what India has always given the world: Peace,
Love, Non violence and above all Tolerance.
Hubert Rau
