It’s been more than ten days now ever since Mumbai blasts, or shall I say, ever since the latest, most recent Mumbai bomb blasts. (It’s imperative to give reference when we have so many of them!) I have been keeping quiet, acting like a sponge, observing and absorbing everything that people have to say about the issue of terrorism that has been plaguing our country since time immemorial. So right from facebook/twitter updates to news channels to radio stations to blogs, I have watched/read/heard them all. It was almost like preparing for a debate competition back in school or preparing a long literature answer in college. You refer to different books and notes and put all the best points together to come up with the best piece. I wanted to hear everyone and sundry so that I could find solutions, some concrete solutions that would enable us to combat terrorism.
Alas! There aren’t too many.
While the facebook updates either lash angst at the neighbouring country or squeak a lame ‘how long’ post for the sake of ‘being with it’, the TV channels are on a different tangent altogether! From shamelessly reporting the heart wrenching sights of a dying Mumbai, to mercilessly zooming into helpless faces, asking them the lamest, the most inhuman question, how they felt at a loss of a young family member to morally judging a politician for his presence at a fashion show or a Bollywood star for throwing a birthday party for a fellow star, they have titillated enough for petty TRPs.
What disgusts and amuses me at the same time is the lavish usage of the new word- resilience! Resilience is the ability to recover from misfortune. My only question – does a middle class man who earns a few hundred everyday have the luxury to be resilient?? Paradoxical! Painfully paradoxical. Dear Politician, try earning five thousand a month and then dare spell helplessness as r-e-s-i-l-i-e-n-c-e!
I wanted to have some solutions so badly that I struck a conversation with a couple of my colleagues this morning. One fumed with anger and the other shrugged shoulders in a –nobody-cares-dude vibe..ofcourse...coz bomb blasts always happen to other people, not us!
Some thoughts that I still ponder on after absorbing it all-
# 10 people die every day in Mumbai local trains that makes an average of 300 every month, almost thrice the number of deaths in the last bomb blast. Terrorism comes much later, get your trains system right first.
# Can our political parties be ever human? Would we ever see our Prime Minister and the leader of the Opposition call a press conference and take a stand TOGETHER against terrorism?
# Why don’t we hike our police personnel’s salaries? Almost one third of the State Intelligence department’s seats are lying vacant. Have you ever wondered why parents never say- “humara beta toh police join karega?” (After all a DJ spins for a night and earns five times a police officer’s monthly income!)
# Should we have an autonomous apolitical party that’s accountable for terrorist attacks?
# Would some kind of training be of any help?
# How much can we as citizens contribute? Be more receptive to the security checks?
It's high time we found concrete solutions to this problem and stopped taking pot-shots at one another. If you have any more thoughts, feel free to contribute.
They have attacked our malls, markets, parks, pubs, hell the iconic Taj in Mumbai. They have not even spared our Parliament House and we still sign mercy petitions for the likes of Kasab and Afzal Guru and continue giving a fillip to the terrorist morale.
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3 comments:
As far as my understanding goes in.. all it will take is 'Involvement'. Often I realized, be it any job/profession/level/role/position/purpose/mission or even any relationship, we can turn around the things only if we are involved, with the bottom of our heart-mind-soul and definitely in the complete hierarchy.
'Involvement' goes on a stake the moment 'Commercialization' word comes in picture.
hey Lokesh,well written,sensitive post here.but the problem itself is like a Pandora's box.frnkly speaking in a country with a population like ours and not enough infrastructure to support,add to it the shameful levels of corruption and greed,it definitely ain't an easy task.the onus of security and preventing or limiting terrorism cannot be entrusted to any security agency or police or politicians alone.it has to be an integrated overall effort most importantly each citizen accepting resposibility for himself and his country.the policemen are ordinary people like us,with no super powers,so they cannot always know in advance where a bomb is gonna go off or who in the crowd is a terrorist.it requires a general alertness and awareness to our surroundings.we as citizens often get irritated when we are frisked and our bags checked and wanna hurry up with it whether at the cinema halls or airports.
but i don't buy the arguement that police get paid less so the inefficiency though it may very well be true.when they join they know what their work invoves and what they will get paid.it does not give them a right to abuse their uniform and perpetrate corruption further.there are people who earn lesser than them but have more integrity and strength of character.
there is no one shot solution to ending terrorism,except tht the punishment be stringent and immediate and puts such a fear in people.fanatics would still be around and but they are lesser in number.
we are a nation too involved in non-issues and a selfish lot.we learn lessons the hard way and talk about cure rather than prevention and take pride in bouncing back after we are torn apart........
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