It took more than 60 hours to get over the mayhem caused by fidayeen attack in Mumbai on 26th November, popularly termed as India’s “9/11”. Nearly two hundred innocents lost their lives, two luxury hotels, including the iconic Taj Mahal Palace, identified by many as the very essence of India, have suffered such destruction that it will take billions of dollars to restore them.
The wanton killing and destruction, from all available evidences exported from Pakistan, the universally acknowledged “epicentre of terror”, had no credible cause. Yet none, including even the United States, has been able to stop the periodical carnage inflicted from there. Quite beyond its capability to stop them, India has to treat such attacks as something which it has to live with. The country had set much store by Pakistan’s democratically elected government. Predictably, however, it has drawn a blank. No help will ever be forthcoming from it as the formidable terror outfits in Pakistan are, virtually, integral to its polity. Even the US acknowledges them. CIA, reportedly, channellises funds to them through the ISI.
Hence, the talk of having a resolution passed by the Security Council against Pakistan for harbouring terror outfits along with their training camps is futile. The same would seem to be true of a proposal to bring collective pressure of the international community on Pakistan. Terror attacks on India are India’s problems. No country is going to come to its help. It is a jungle out there in the arena of international politics where everyone looks after one’s own interests. It is, therefore, the government and the people of the country who will have to rise as one man to forestall such attacks in the future.
The country has to put its act together, which, unfortunately, it has failed to do during the past sixty years. Its land borders continue to remain porous. The government has failed to seal them to make them impenetrable. The maritime security around the extensive coastline has gaping holes. Over the years the land and sea borders have been facilely breached and yet no lessons were learnt. In 1993 RDX was landed via the sea route as a prelude to the serial blasts in Mumbai. And, yet, in 2006 the investigative staff of an English language news channel, out to test the route the terrorists had taken in 1993, came across none of the checks and controls that were claimed to have been installed. In the pervasive indifference “26/11” was just waiting to happen.
Besides, percolating from the top, the endemic corruption has made the administration moth-eaten and listless. People in the government and its agencies suffer from a severe lack of commitment to the country and its interests. While the primary goal of politicians is capturing and retaining power, generally, to plunder public resources, the huge creaky and corrupt bureaucracy, collectively and individually, is committed to none but itself. Public institutions are politicised vitiating the entire administrative machinery. There is hardly any governance and the elaborate systems designed for delivery of public good have been oriented mostly to benefit the politicians, their lackeys and hangers-on. The anger that “26/11” has aroused among the people against the politicians is, therefore, nothing but welling up of their long-simmering discontent.
In such a situation the need is not of new institutions which the government is thinking of establishing. The country is already suffering from surfeit of them – mostly politicised and rendered ineffective. The need, apparently, is of giving a new direction to the existing ones and to make them functional for public good and not for the good of the politicians and political parties in power. The need is also of infusing into them a sense of purpose and commitment and of achieving among them an ambience of harmony with the singular objective of jointly making the country strong, secure and prosperous. It is needless to emphasise the imperative to develop economic and military muscles.
For all this to happen, however, the initiative has to come from the very top – the politicians at various levels, who are the rulers in our kind of democracy. Shunning political chicanery, corruption and nepotism, it is they who will have to be seen to be working for the country. Giving up the politics of “vote banks”, they will have to work up to the slogan of “Country first” that was so prominently visible during the recent American Presidential primaries. They will have to rework the approach to their job and devote themselves, as during the freedom struggle, to the good of the country and its people. With enemies lurking in the neighbourhood, they will have to inspire the security and other establishments as also the people to eternal vigilance against saboteurs within and marauders from abroad. Only then, perhaps, an impression will filter out that the country cannot be messed around with.
6 comments:
I agree that it is almost impossible to prevent this type of attack. I also agree that there were obvious lapses among politicians, who are indeed far more concerned with the next victory, and security authorities who obviously do not exchange information sufficiently, or co-operate as they should. Britain (and probably other countries) have had some added success by enlisting the assistance of the public. There have been major efforts to educate the public and to encourage them to report even the smallest suspicion or anomaly. This of course does mean that authorities must take seriously anything brought to their attention, and treat the report with courtesy and attention. India has had some success using such public education for safe sex and family planning, and could use similar approaches to educate the public to security anomalies. Which brings us back to politicians, police, security personnel etc., who must then treat the public's reports properly.
Thanks. Your input about success in Britain of public participation in attempts to prevent terror attacks is very useful. I am going to make use of it in my next piece
Subject: Invitation to Jago Bhopal Inaugural Online Blogger Symposium (2008).
Proloy Ji,
Hello.
The Mumbai Terror Attack evoked the same emotions in all of us, we all tried to do something for our country, someone SMSed, the other joined a Candle Vigil, even some people sulked that nothing can be done in this country, for this country, by its people.
The Blogging Community is an exception to this, because each person’s ideas and solutions are there for all of us to read and discuss, and then we can convert these into reality. The problem is simply by writing a blog article we cannot change our country, the problem is apart from a few famous ones all the bloggers stay at the margins of internet getting frustrated why their wonderful idea is not being listened to and put to action.
The problem is that we all don’t connect with each other even in the same city, even on the internet. The problem is our intentions should be reflected in our actions, to clean the politics of this country, we must at least participate in political discussions (not like that shown on NDTV, but like all of talking together through blogs)
In this context, I invite you to connect with other bloggers from Bhopal and make an initial contribution to a new kind of politics in Bhopal and in our country.
I invite you to the Jago Bhopal Blogger Symposium (2008).
I request you to write an article (write a sentence, a long article, a full-fledged criticism, a couplet, a poem, anything) on any one of the following topics:
1. India of My Dreams.
2. Is Jago Party a better option than other political parties of India.
ENTRY SUBMISSION:
1. Publish the entry on your blog and mail it to latent.dissent@gmail.com or post the link on the symposium notice form on jagobhopal.blogspot.com as a comment.
2. Send the entry directly to latent.dissent@gmail.com or jagobhopal@gmail.com along with your name.
3. The date of entry is from 22 december to 28 december 2008.
Sincerely,
Latent Dissent.
(latentdissent.blogspot.com)
Thanks for the invitation to join the Jago Party. I am afraid, it is too late in the day for me to join an active political outfit. I write only when I am provoked to do so by events. If my readers empathise with me the purpose of my efforts would be amply served. That, I suppose, would help in fostering creation of the intended opinion among the people
Thank you Sir for responding. We need help and guidance of our elders in this mission.
I wrote a small thanks note for all the bloggers who responded, I am pasting it here along with its link
Sincerely,
Latent Dissent.
http://jagobhopal.blogspot.com/2008/12/vote-of-thanks-jago-bhopal-blogger.html
A Vote of Thanks: Jago Bhopal Blogger Symposium 2008
Thank you all for making this event the most successful one I have ever organized in my life. You will laugh at this statement but this is the truth.
These four responses* to my words from people I don't even know, I haven't even met, are more precious to me than those from people I know. It fills you with pride that such people are there in our society who are ready to listen to strangers, it fills you with responsibility that people are listening to you, watching you, talking to you.
Since this was an unadvertised (and random) event by an unknown representative of an unknown party , I was hoping for just one response this year to continue this mission, but got four instead. Apart from the above, it also signifies that how grim the situation is, how fed people are with the system, how they are willing to change it, even run it. It hurts all of us that our country is not going in the right direction and we are unable to do anything about it. As said in 'A Wednesday', we are a part of this rot not by choice but by force.
I want to stress again the point that this problem stemmed from democracy and democracy alone can solve it. The secret ballot is the most powerful weapon in this war, nobody can tell whom have you voted, that's a power par excellence.
The main problem today however is the Crisis of Leadership, we don't have right people at the right places, I think most our problems will be solved if we can ensure this. For this people, the common citizens have to come forward to contest elections and participate actively in our polity. Nobody has probed the pulse of the citizens, Jago Party can and should be that platform, why should people be afraid or ashamed of doing something right.
The job that requires the least qualifications but has maximum impact on our lives has no takers of good people, why do we fear this job, we just have to order the bureaucracy and the government machinery that people want this get this done. They have to do it, its their job to do it and the job of people's representatives is to ensure and supervise this work and change the leaders of the teams if found inefficient. Is it a very hard job? Why don't people come forward to accept this simple fact and their responsibilities?
These four people are thus worthy of respect and a hearty thanks, because they came forward when nobody else did.
Leaving you with this video hoping that you may awaken (pay attention to what Gehlot has to say):
Do you remember the lines,
Shame on you if you fool me once,
Shame on me if you fool me twice!
Keep thinking over these lines, think about what's going wrong,
Jai Hind.
Latent Dissent.
* Mr. D K Sachdeva too has responded with an article, so the number goes to five. The other Bloggers who have responded are: Ms. Shehla Masood, Ms. Aadya, Mr. R D Saxena and Ms. Gurleen Kaur. (02/01/2009)
* Make it Six, Mr. Proloy Bagchi too has responded. (02/01/2009).
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