Just like most people around me, I’m still reeling from the shock of what is claimed to be India’s very own 9/11.
In the aftermath of the most gruesome act of terror that our country has fallen victim to, we, its people are now subject to and subjects of an outpouring of grief, anguish, helplessness and anger. No, not just anger…it’s that chest-tightening, throat-constricting rage that makes one want to reach out and shake someone by the scruff of the neck with a shout of “Accountability”. The question I ask myself is “who” is that someone? The Indian people are caught up in a fervor of “Enough is enough”, but who is going to put an end to the undefined, all encompassing, mono syllabic, double lettered IT? We scream ineptitude and corruption at the government and inertia at our local police force, but aren’t we the ones who give them the power to be?
Why has the 26th of Nov emblazoned itself on our minds and ignited our conscience? We, after all, are in a country whose affliction with terror has many prior instances, from the ’93 blasts, to J&K, to the North East and to bomb blasts in every metro. But this time it was an attack on private territory, at places that were supposed to be our comfort zones, this time it was a personal attack on each of our lives .It wasn’t just an attack on India or on Mumbai, it was a grenade through the window of each of our homes, an attack on our front porch. And so we react. And because we react the government reacts, its members falling over themselves making grand gestures of resignation and a 10 step plan is proposed to get a hold on terrorism. Really???
We salve our conscience by lighting a candle and wearing a ribbon, but what do we hope to achieve from that? We can pray for the dead and hope that our country will heal, but will it? Not until each one of us claims responsibility for making this mess…
Tolerance and acceptance are two words always associated with any description of the Indian people, and which lend themselves to a very nice picture when painted against a multi-cultural background. But tolerance and acceptance to the point of not caring is not something to be proud of.
Is it tolerance that allows an ex-convict to be voted into parliament? Or tolerance that allows one to drive through the main-gate of Hi-Tech city unchecked, when the security guard who was supposed to have checked the car inside out is more concerned with his cup of tea? Is it acceptance that lets one be ok with a metal detector at the entrance to the city’s railway station, standing like a metal island in a sea of humanity with no-one caring to pass through it and no-one caring to do anything about that? And what is it that allows us to bribe a cop knowing that that’s all it requires to get out of a sticky situation? Or obtain authentic documents like passports, licenses, certificates by greasing the palm of the right person? It is we, who play the game at its most basic and dangerous level that are the kinks in the system. “Attitude reflects Leadership” and in my opinion it’s true the other way around as well. We give our leaders reason to believe that they can take us for granted. We give them reason to believe they’re above the system, because inmost cases we’re oiling its machinery.
Last week’s attack was a highly publicized instance of what happens, in one form or another, everyday in our country. Dalit murders and woman abuse, the self acclaimed right to the “purification” of a state by the MNS and the caste massacres by the Ranvir Sena in Bihar, all of these befit the definition of terrorism; none of these have generated quite the same public response. There may be many attributable reasons to this, not the least of which is the plain and simple fact that we just don’t care enough for something that is not in our face and not in our back yard. However, if we choose to unify against repeated threats to our supposedly integrated country, then we have to accept the fact that to fight a foreign enemy, the in-bred varmints that dis-integrate our internal system need to be dealt with first.
It is true that our government needs to centralize a well-oiled, anti-terrorism system that will spring into action as soon as the need arises, and that our local police forces be better equipped to handle a situation until our commandoes and NSG forces arrive and that better support be given to these forces so that there be no delay in their operations, but these were truths long known. With the elections around the corner it is the responsibility of every Indian, more so the one who felt the slightest lump in the throat and chill up the spine, to remember Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Bihar, Manipur, Varanasi, and know that this is our chance to take a stand. We are the life and breath of this country, what makes her a force to reckon with and so the people we choose have to work for us. And if they don’t, accepting and tolerant we will not be.
As those 60 tormenting hours drew to a close, as the debris was cleared and morale lay beaten, India strove to come together through angry outbursts and candle-lit vigils. I, too, lit my candle in my window and wore white, and then black and then whatever was the day’s colour code that stood for peace. I did it, not to achieve anything, but to feel one with the grieving soul of my country, to mark a moment I would always remember as the point where I decided that I would stop being a reason, however small and insignificant, that contributes to her state of malfunction.
