Deja vu?

And here we go again. After the frantic and desperate attempt to salvage whatever pride is remaining in the organizations in charge of internal security, we start the process of forgetting all over again. Of course we have taken a hit, and we have repeatedly shown that we are capable of taking some. And we are good at forgetting everything, and moving on, almost mocking the lives lost and the mourning families. Except, in this case, one would expect ruffled feathers as the "elite" have been hit. All of a sudden, it has become "a war on India" and not just Mumbai, or Delhi, or Bangalore,and so on. Agreed that this was more of an in-your-face attack, but still, it shouldn't diminish the seriousness of the previous acts of terrorism. Sarcasm aside, I feel sad that we have become so immune to violence and bloodshed that it takes such an act of barbaric proportions to shake us off our insouciance, assuming that it has. I, like many other citizens of India, am just angry at the whole sequence of events that have taken place over the past 4 days. Two things strike me immediately: firstly, there is no doubt that these antisocial elements have local support, either out of fear or out of brethren propaganda. Either way, it is unacceptable, and calls for better protection laws. Even after suspecting something fishy with the men alighting boats with big bags, the local fisherman did not immediately inform the local security. It is a whole different question as to whether the security personnel would have taken any action, but one has to do his duty before assuming the other person will not. There is also the angle of poor fishermen not wanting to mess with suspicious activities of powerful people, and thats exactly why there is a need for better protection laws for eyewitnesses/ citizens.  

Secondly, what on earth were the ATS head/ ACP doing: 1) being in the hospital without proper protection 2) being in the line of fire in the first place? Didn't their experience teach them that their minds were more valuable than their bodies? I am not implying that they were not brave or their martyrdom has been of no consequence, but they could have done much more by standing back and directing operations. This happened so early in the fight that, everything that followed looked ill-planned and disorganized. I still feel that the NSG did a fantastic job when called upon, and the Israeli intelligence agency's remark about them was uneducated. Even then, the handling of this counter operation begs two important questions: 1) why did it take so long for the NSG to be called for? Was it ignorance on the part of Maharashtra govt. about the gravity of the situation? 2) Doesn't the state govt have a special branch/squad of its own to tackle such situations? Swifter action could have surprised the terrorists and they could not have carried out the operation for so long. Of course, all this is hindsight, and just shows that we repeatedly fail to learn our lesson.  

What was more saddening was the defeatist attitude of citizens of Mumbai being misinterpreted as their resilience. From what I could gather by watching debates on CNN-IBN was that Mumbaikars get on with their lives because they don't have any hopes of the government doing anything about anything. This probably is the biggest threat to our democracy and a victory for terrorists. If we loose faith in our own government, in the people we choose to represent us, then the concept of we as a nation is a total failure. It is the citizen's foremost duty to point out any inadequacies in the government. We need to instill a sense of fear in our elected representatives that, we , the people of India, reserve the right to take away the power that we ourselves have bestowed upon them. The common man needs to get out of his/her subservient mentality and show his disapproval of the governmental policies. I am not suggesting that we resort to violence, as has been the norm nowadays, but to utilize more peaceful, yet more powerful means of expression. On the other hand, we, as citizens of India, have the responsibility to not fall prey to the appeasement policies, vote bank politics that the parties resort to. After this incident, we owe it to ourselves to vote for a particular person for the right reasons. 

Another thing that riles me is that we take solace in blaming one community/ country for such incidents. It becomes of prime importance to establish the nationality/religion of the person responsible for such attacks. I don't know if it helps in the investigation or the postmortem, but it is seen as an achievement by the investigating agencies to ascertain and declare the nationalities of the terrorists. Why can't we accept the fact that some people, both within and without the country, are finding ways to create havoc and look for measures to stop them. Cant we have a more robust/global (like Homeland security) internal security system setup, which can be called upon irrespective of the form of violence faced in a situation? I concede that monitoring each and every individual is impossible in India, but can't we monitor people crossing our borders? It is just plain ridiculous that we let people enter the country illegally through our borders, no matter how trained they are for such jobs. 

Another thing that is funny is the clear politicizing of the issue. It is so obvious that politicians are trying to get some political brownie points by giving sound bytes, that it becomes mildly amusing. From a security point of view, it was totally ill-advised for them to even come to Mumbai, let alone visit the injured. I think the chief of Police should have shown some spine and forbidden any politician to come to Mumbai. As if this was not enough to anger Mumbaikars, they come out with ridiculous confessions that they knew this was going to happen, but just didn't know when and where! And another saying that such "small" incidents happen in big cities! Words fail me when I think of these remarks, I don't know whether to inappropriately laugh or be enraged by it. I was actually happy when the ATS chief's family refused money from one of the politicians. Another interesting remark I read in an IBN blog (Darain Shahidi): Where was Raj Thackeray and his MNS when Mumbai was burning? Were the commandos in NSG Marathi/Bihari/North Indian? I would like to hear somebody put this question to him and his response to it. 

I know that none of this solves or helps to solve or even help to address the problems that we as a country face in light of recent events. Also, I am sure many people in far greater capacities than myself are asking similar and more thought out questions. I just hope that these questions fall on the right ears, not through any blog or any video, but by self realization. And I am optimistic that this time, the reaction will be different.  

Here are some pics to chill you to the bones ...

http://boston.com/bigpicture/2008/11/mumbai_under_attack.html