I don’t live in Jammu & Kashmir. Not in the North-east either. For me, bomb blasts and terror threats are not a way of life.
I live in Mumbai, where incidents like last evening’s serial train blasts are sporadic, sudden shocks that jolt our collective consciousness only once in a while. Besides, the city is the business nerve centre of India and its resilience is outstanding. It recovers fast and builds back faster – not just the physical damage but the hope and the confidence as well. No bunch of godforsaken terrorists can change that.
So, Mumbai locals, the world’s most effectively managed commuter rails, are already back on track and people have gone back to work.
But, what about the reality that some others face every single day of their lives? For those in the North and North-east, there is no respite – they’ve been haunted day in, day out for decades. Unlike us, they don’t get a chance to recover from incessant terrorism. They’ve been crippled economically and emotionally all along and there’s no end to it in sight. How long can the human spirit stand against such continuous onslaught? And why should it? What cause, what reasons justify such heinous acts? NONE.
My heart goes out to those who suffered grave losses. But sympathy is a useless thing. It achieves nothing.
People who are caught in such situations may not have the strength or the resources to fight back. So, who keeps their fights going for them? The media does and NGOs do. But both can do only so much. At the end of the day, social and political inertia can bring the best of efforts to naught. It’s not like there are no solutions other than out and out war or submission. Terrorism and defence experts have offered strategies in the past, some of which were known in the public domain. But there’s very little awareness among the junta as to what is done about them. Some we know were not implemented for reasons of political inconvenience. There’s no point in mentioning them here – a news archive and discussion forum search can yield them.
What is more useful in this space is whether we are demanding a platform for those strategies in a proactive, sustained way or whether we’re getting too caught up in our own lives instead. Understandably, not all aspects of these solutions or strategies can be brought out on a public platform because of their sensitive nature. But that’s not required either. All we need is a stubborn insistence on a reasonable amount of transparency and sustained concrete action. We pay taxes, we give votes. So we have a right to demand action that is in our best interests. To do that, we have a very citizen friendly media and other means of communication – we have all the resources to ask compelling questions and seek definite answers. The only requirement is to demand consistently and persistently. That’s possibly the only way we as individuals can come together to exert concerted pressure on the political machinery.
So, if you’ve cared to read so far, I’ll leave you with a thought and a question: As far as terrorists are concerned, their cause gets weaker and weaker with every blow they strike. Their lives become more and more wasted with every spirit they try to break. But, how about us? Hollow jingoism doesn’t work. In an effort to get on with normalcy, will we forget the endless trauma and the personal tragedies of victims elsewhere, whose homes and happiness have been destroyed by jokers who think they can terrorise us into giving away our land and our people – that too after killing and crippling these very people for decades? Does it take too much effort to persistently voice your demand and not get satisfied by sub standard responses?
I live in Mumbai, where incidents like last evening’s serial train blasts are sporadic, sudden shocks that jolt our collective consciousness only once in a while. Besides, the city is the business nerve centre of India and its resilience is outstanding. It recovers fast and builds back faster – not just the physical damage but the hope and the confidence as well. No bunch of godforsaken terrorists can change that.
So, Mumbai locals, the world’s most effectively managed commuter rails, are already back on track and people have gone back to work.
But, what about the reality that some others face every single day of their lives? For those in the North and North-east, there is no respite – they’ve been haunted day in, day out for decades. Unlike us, they don’t get a chance to recover from incessant terrorism. They’ve been crippled economically and emotionally all along and there’s no end to it in sight. How long can the human spirit stand against such continuous onslaught? And why should it? What cause, what reasons justify such heinous acts? NONE.
My heart goes out to those who suffered grave losses. But sympathy is a useless thing. It achieves nothing.
People who are caught in such situations may not have the strength or the resources to fight back. So, who keeps their fights going for them? The media does and NGOs do. But both can do only so much. At the end of the day, social and political inertia can bring the best of efforts to naught. It’s not like there are no solutions other than out and out war or submission. Terrorism and defence experts have offered strategies in the past, some of which were known in the public domain. But there’s very little awareness among the junta as to what is done about them. Some we know were not implemented for reasons of political inconvenience. There’s no point in mentioning them here – a news archive and discussion forum search can yield them.
What is more useful in this space is whether we are demanding a platform for those strategies in a proactive, sustained way or whether we’re getting too caught up in our own lives instead. Understandably, not all aspects of these solutions or strategies can be brought out on a public platform because of their sensitive nature. But that’s not required either. All we need is a stubborn insistence on a reasonable amount of transparency and sustained concrete action. We pay taxes, we give votes. So we have a right to demand action that is in our best interests. To do that, we have a very citizen friendly media and other means of communication – we have all the resources to ask compelling questions and seek definite answers. The only requirement is to demand consistently and persistently. That’s possibly the only way we as individuals can come together to exert concerted pressure on the political machinery.
So, if you’ve cared to read so far, I’ll leave you with a thought and a question: As far as terrorists are concerned, their cause gets weaker and weaker with every blow they strike. Their lives become more and more wasted with every spirit they try to break. But, how about us? Hollow jingoism doesn’t work. In an effort to get on with normalcy, will we forget the endless trauma and the personal tragedies of victims elsewhere, whose homes and happiness have been destroyed by jokers who think they can terrorise us into giving away our land and our people – that too after killing and crippling these very people for decades? Does it take too much effort to persistently voice your demand and not get satisfied by sub standard responses?
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