How We Can Defeat The Terrorists

By Kishore Joseph

Ancient history reveals that India was the richest country in the world. In 1947, India became a free country winning independence from the British, and soon, we "developed" in a wholly unexpected way. We are now one of the most corrupt nations in the world!
British India robbed us of our riches, but at least, there was no corruption. Anyone indulging in corruption was punished on the spot. Today, we have untold freedom to make money illegally, indulge in adultery, rape, daylight murders, and what not. We are free to start our own political parties, charities, organizations loot money, while the poor remain poor and the rich become richer. Democracy has been a boon for thousands of our netas and that is perhaps why they fought for our freedom!
Today, we have more political parties than supporters, thousands of religious organizations, and outfits, and at the root of every organization is selfishness. Nobody is serious about unity of the country, because we can make money only if we are divided.
We have repeatedly suffered at the hands of Pakistan right from the time when we became a free country. In almost every terrorist act, the hand of Pakistanis is evident. But have we ever wondered why there has not been one incident of an Indian suicide attack on Pakistan? Not that there has to be, but if there have been hundreds of such terrorist acts against us, the time to ask the question has come: Why have we not retaliated, not just in similar measure, but not retaliated at all?
The obvious answer is we have always had weak, spineless governments. But that is only one half of the answer. The other half is, deep down, we do not think like one nation, one people, we are always busy quarreling among ourselves, in the name of religion, language, politics, state, etc etc.
There have been exceptions like during the Kargil war, when our soldiers fought shoulder to shoulder, as Indians. But this precisely shows that we need a catastrophic situation for us to act in a united manner, to speak in one voice. And each time there is a terrorist attack, the benchmark for what constitutes a catastrophe keeps going up!
We have to seriously introspect not only about taking a tough stand against terror attacks against the sovereignty of our country, but also about why we have such a high tolerance level, when our tolerance level internally is breaking. We have to rebuild our bridges internally, at the citizen level, with our neighbours, at the ward level, city, State, and country, cutting across all barriers like religion, caste, community, language, state, etc.
There is much that is disastrously wrong with our system. For instance, we took 15 years to nab Veerappan. Fifteen years to catch one criminal! The only reason for this was the political patronage he enjoyed. Whereas, an ordinary defaulter of a bank loan is promptly put behind bars, a rapist and murderer is granted bail, contests elections and becomes a law minister who decides the law of the land! Do we need such a democratic setup? Is it not time to adopt a Presidential model irrespective of political parties, is it not time for a benevolent kind of military rule? In the backdrop of the global crisis and the economy looking bleak, the situation could take an even more unexpected twist. Are we moving towards a day when the poor will loot the rich? A communist kind of revolution that has failed the world over, but might just be reborn here?

If we have to make a meaningful beginning, we have to respond ruthlessly to the terror attacks, with a single minded unity. The attacks were aimed at our people, our prosperity and our peace. But their real target was something else - our unity. If these attacks cause us to turn on each other in hatred and conflict, the terrorists will have won. They know that hatred and chaos feed on division. As radical extremists, their only hope of winning is by turning the rest of us against each other
Let's deny them that victory, let us all spread the message to extremists on all sides and all our political leaders, The message is that these tactics have failed, that we're more united than ever, united in our love and support to each other, determined to work together against terror and call on our leaders to do the same.