what WE CAN...

Beep bee bee beepp….. Beep bee bee beepp rings the morning alarm, and then starts the ordeal; rush through the usual actions and suffer the journey to reach office. An attempt to do the assigned duty while enjoying chit chats & coffee breaks and poking in the inbox every now and then is the usual stuff. Wait eagerly for the clock to strike the freedom bell, later suffer the second half of the round trip and finally end the day sitting in front of the bigger screen engrossed in all kinds of nonsense stuff. This is a normal day of a normal life. Bump in the ride comes when suddenly all the news channels and newspapers devote all their efforts to cover up the single thing. More often than not, that single thing is some bad news. All of us have faced such bumps especially in the recent past. Blasts and terror strikes have haunted us too frequently in last six months. Latest addition to the list or should I say latest edition of what probably now is a monthly event, is terrorist’s attack in Mumbai. Intensity and impact of the heinous act is unprecedented. All news reports in the last 6-7 days have something or the other to do with it. Experts have come out with the appropriate criticism of the government and the shown the road ahead. By now we all know that lax in security and intelligence on our part and high grade motivation & training on the terrorists’ part played crucial role. Our inability to handle crisis situation quickly and effectively has been clearly proved. Thanks to all the analysts we now also the basic corrective measures for government which include decentralizing NSG i.e. creating more base points rather than only one in Manesar, setting up a single federal agency to tackle such crimes and ensure co-ordination and flow of information between the intelligence agencies IB and RAW. Widespread criticism of home minister, CM and deputy CM is completely justifiable. While Home minister was unable to show any intentions, through his actions, to prevent terror, the deputy CM uttered the most idiotic and irresponsible words he or anyone in politics would have ever said. If such attacks would have been common occurrences in big cities either the PM would have been given a daily prime time slot to address the nation or he would not have bothered to show up at all. One thing here on which I don’t agree with the experts is their criticism of timing of PM’s address to the nation i.e. only 18 hours after the attack. It’s easy to criticize it in the hindsight but there are lot many things which consume time in such situations. First difficult thing would have been to gauge the kind of impact a dozen of terrorists could cause. Initial thought process would have been that the local police along with ATS will take control soon. Who would have imagined that terrorists had enough explosives to keep all forces at bay for more than 60 hours. In any case prompt action rather than verbal assurances help in such situations.

This is all what can be done by the government or the officials. It’s interesting to ponder over what we individuals can do to improve the situation. Anger and frustration is quite natural and are also touted as the reasons behind more than 60% electorate turnout in the Delhi assembly polls. The terror strike may prove fruitful for BJP as it encourages the anti incumbent nature of people. The anti-congress campaign of BJP looks misdirected to me. The problems which it highlights can be best associated with the shortcomings of central government not the state government atleast incase of Delhi. High inflation, one of the highlighted cons of congress is quite strange considering that not only the whole India but also the whole world was feeling pain of high oil and commodity prices in past few quarters. To the best of my knowledge the current state government tried to heal the pain by subsidizing LPG and allowing only Rs.10 rise to percolate to common man instead of Rs. 50 rise decided by the center.
There are other points as well both in favor and against but let’s not loose the main plot which is to direct anger and frustration in the right direction.
At least the educated lot of people should use open mind, free of any predilection and use polls to everyone’s benefit. It is easy to say that all politicians are equally sick but it is better keep testing the bench strength and hence keep all officeholders on their toes.
Other responsibility we individual can handle is to be more vigilant. A very basic example of vigilant action is to do police verification of tenants and servants. If we are playing the role of tenants, then initiating such action will be taken positively and will encourage the landlords to follow the process thereafter. Many a times terrorists/anti- social elements/partners in crime plan their activities by spending time at the targetted location. They will obiviously rent rooms/flats. Even if they can overcome this difficulty by fraud identity proofs but verifications give us more chances of prevention.
After bomb blasts in Ahmedabad, several bombs were found and defused in Surat and other cities of Gujrat. Success in defusing those bombs within appropriate time can be attributed, if not fully atleast partly, to vigilance by citizens. General vigilance always increases after an attack but we must not let that flame die down with time.

One thing which disturbs me after such incidents is the act burning of the country’s flag(you know which country am refering to) by people to express their anger. Why we should insult the whole nation when only factions of it are responsible. Majority of citizens of any country are common people who want peace, who are more bothered in earning their daily bread than in disturbing anyone else.
I have a strong belief that, that majority of citizens is good and cannot even think of committing such atrocities simply because they have several other goals in life. Any nation’s flag represents that majority too. So why should insult and condemn those are not involved. In fact burning flags will even provoke the innocents to do something wrong. Viewpoints for others are critical in the fight with terror; unnecessary negative mindset can only make things worse. One can easily recall the famous dialogues by the audacious Sunny paaji in Gadar:

“Aapka Pakistan zindabad hai us se hummein koi aitraz nahi lekin humara Hindustan zindabad hai aur humesha rahega”

It is true vice-versa.