Government's response to India's own "9/11"

MUM...BHAI!

By Murli

Is 26/11, India's 9/11? The scorecard is bloodied enough (over 130 killed, and counting at the time of going to press), the alleged perpetrators have a global reach from Manhattan to Mumbai, and Ground Zero, Mumbai, the financial capital of the world's largest democracy, is an ideal target to get the critical mass of media space and mind space.

India's foremost terrorism expert, B. Raman, describes this as more deadly than 9/11. That one shook the world, and significantly changed the way of life of the victim country. America, the freest country on earth, became touchy about its own identity, and clammed up its freedoms.

Some noted writers like Thomas Friedman bemoaned this unlikely and very un-American change. They are right. The spectacle of Americans suspecting every Asian or coloured emplaning in their airports with an Asian passport is not what we have grown accustomed to.

Uncle Sam did not win much brownie points in the media, but one thing is indisputable. The attacks have stopped. The attacks stopped after the very first terrorist attack on their country. Terror (at least up to now) has been stopped on its tracks, and stopped from entering the US. There is a lesson in this for India, the most victimized country on earth.

How many 26/11s, does our government need to ACT? Until the entire country becomes a Ground Zero? Until the Hindu majority, the primary target - let us not start a silly, diversionary debate here - are bullied, bloodied, and bluffed into obscene submission - with a very telling nudge and wink, wink from their secular biradari - and India Shining soon morphs into India Dying?

When the twin towers of US fell to the fire and frenzy of furious and reckless terrorists, Americans - the media, the governments, the intelligentsia, and the ordinary citizen, white, black, brown or whatever - stood up to be counted. They did not pick up an ugly, horribly divisive and unthinkably uncultured quarrel about who did it (Al Qaeda? Pakistan? Hindu terrorists? &*%$#@&*?), they went after the aggressors who had declared war on the US. Within days the White House had a Plan B in place, with their guns and gunpowder, warships and tanks, in combat readiness. Within days, the Government had firmed up its resolve to "shock and awe" the enemy, whoever and wherever it was. Osama bin Laden is still the lord (sic) of his turf, but has not dared to black out the White House, or deliver death to the "infidels".

They did not have a domestic constituency to worry. Uncle Sam did not have to look back to worry about what his people thought.

India has, India has always had, a domestic constituency to worry about. The truth is we don't, but the fact is we have. If we don't admit to this - after Aamchi Mumbai Terror Version 10.0 - we are never likely to do so even when our land of bread and butter becomes a heap of history.

Read it again. In truth, we don't have a domestic constituency to worry about, but in fact we have. Are we ready to face up to this?

Are we ready to join the battle and conclude it irreversibly with our rogue neighbour and principal instigator, Pakistan?

Are we ready to identify the "enemy" within and take the battle to their camp? Yeah, I can hear the seculars decode this as saffron &*^%$*#$% but truth is whistling in the air.

Let us face up to some facts, once and for all: The "enemy" within is not necessarily Indian Muslims, even though they (may) happen to be Muslims. The enemy within is anyone who is out to destroy this country, our culture, civilizational ethos, our way of life, our customs and practices, our economy.

We have no quarrel with the "enemy's" religion, we have a problem with their bullets, their AK47s, their mindsets, and their attitudes. In India, the land of a thousand religions, cultures, customs and languages, religion cannot be an issue that divides the aggressor from the victim, the right from the wrong, the good from the bad, the virtuous from the evil. The issue, to borrow the unfortunate words of the American President, George W. Bush, is, 'You are either with us or against us'. Despite our different gods, different holy scriptures, our different customs and cultures.

Whoever seeks peace in and with us is with India. All the rest are against us, our enemies whom we have to annihilate.

For this we need not so much political resolve at the highest level, but a civilian resolve at the lowest level. Starting from our homes, to our neighbours, mohallas, villages, towns, and cities. From the ordinary coolie to the flashy crorepati. From the elected to the electors. From the President to a peon. And most importantly, from the mainstream media to the tabloid broadsheet, from "life-style journalists" to "citizen journalists".
It makes no sense to shed blood senselessly, without a fight, without lifting a finger, without even an epitaph. Do all the hundred-odd people who died in the blasts go to the grave with a 21-gun salute? They go with a miserly - and disgustingly insensitive - paycheck in their wallet thrown as crumbs from a spineless government. They go with a pleading, helpless SMS on their cellphones that are tuned out, immobile and equally helpless. They go with a silent question on their unspeaking lips: "Why pick on us?? What did we to do to deserve this? What will happen to our families, our country?"

When blood is shed, it has no color. When innocents are killed, justice is buried. When you lose your loved one, life loses its center of gravity. Where does ideology - any ideology - fit in here?

India has the unfortunate reputation of being one of the softest countries in the world. This is the price we are paying at the altar of secularism. There is no point quibbling about this. We have to confront the truth individually, we have to face up to it, individually, but we have to accept it collectively. No more ifs and buts.
America's so-called war on terror led to a regime change, but it is the price the country had to pay for the safety and security of its citizens.

India's very real, war on terror, is waiting to be launched, planned, executed, and declared - decades after the war crossed our doorsteps. They attacked our Parliament, our temples, mosques, mohallas, they attacked our Silicon Cities, commercial capitals - and we have been busy attacking one another.
No terrorist leaves his calling card for the government to pick up and dial M for his murder. It's ridiculous and self-defeating to wait for irrefutable evidence in war crimes and terror activities.