Nov 27, 2008

Mumbai under Fire

It is devastating.A country of billion+ has been glued to their tv sets, watching a handful of mercenaries taking the city under siege. Enough has been talked about it over the last couple of days..
Anger, frustration, shock are common responses to the situation. But the agony and pain of affected families can only be understood by some one who has lost a dear one in an un-natural fashion. The only way to console oneself is to blame it on destiny - wrong place wrong time.
The security agencies, - army , police, NSG have done a great job at handling the situation, and lost the best people too. I salute them.
While most news channels are battling it out for being the first one to break a news or get an exclusive piece of information before or after taking gaps to run ads - so out of place. There were some who had eminent personalities speaking their minds about how they felt - Suhel Seth for one was quite angry, visibly.
Then there are opportunists, Mr Advani was quick to jump and comment that the Government is not doing it's job, Mr Vajpayee was swift enough to write/sign an ad published in the newspapers urging voters of Delhi to vote for the BJP (Sic !)
I don't know much about politics, but what I do know is that at times like these, all people ought to come together, brave the situation, and find ways to disallow such incidents pro-actively for the future. Governments have come and gone.. Assam, Punjab, Kashmir .. terrorists, naxals, mujaheddin.. whatever you call them, these people have been hitting this country time and again .. there have been people like Mr. Rebeiro and Mr. Gill who have found means to suppress /regulate and even eradicate such evil ideologies.
They must have done a lot of things right.This is a wake-up call for the country and there is no snooze button no more.
I am trying to think hard about how civilians like me can help in getting the house in order.. it's difficult for the law-enforcement agencies when people are not happy even with a security gaurd outside a mall frisking them (the rigor of frisking is questionable alright). When we are insisting to get our way by bribing - be it a traffic offense or anything else.
For starters, we should :

respect the law and be more sincere in abiding by it
stop giving bribes
be more watchful of activities around (not being snoopy in people's personal lives also)
report inapt security / measures in public places we visit
Am thinking of more concrete and radical steps that could start off some sort of a revolution driven by the people to take things that matter - in their control, if not in control then have a strong viewpoint in unison and make the governments and the bureaucrats and politicians, etc bow down to it and work towards them.
It's time to REBOOT INDIA.

1 comment:

Anshum said...

Very rightly written and said...thats the good part...
the bad part is... It reflects what the majority of junta thinks.. action.. though is not to be found...
Wonder how/when 'we' act!
Hoping everyone starts DOing before we have to write such a blog again... :)