Yet again, but who cares!

What transpired on the evening of 13-July-2011 in three of the most buzzing parts of the Maximum City was grossly heinous and totally unacceptable but it was certainly nothing new or unexpected. The act of terror claimed 18 lives, injured over a hundred and yet again disheartened over a billion countrymen. But on doing a stern reality check one can easily ascertain that not much has changed over the last few years, neither the lackadaisical intelligence setup, nor the ever so vulnerable security system and more importantly nor the attitude of the government and the media on such terror attacks. The last pointer interestingly being the most worrisome of all.

So when ideally the honorable Home Minister (HM) was expected to take the full responsibility of the lapse, the lungi-man blatantly defended the government saying that they didn’t had any intelligence inputs on the blast.So were we expecting a courtesy call or a detailed time table on the blast with all the pointers including the time, location and modus operandi of the act explicitly delivered to the government well in advance? Logic anyone? And over that the HM tops this up by saying that this has been the first act of its kind in 31 months and the government has in a way done a splendid job in tackling terror. But Sir, how about the Pune's German Bakery blast, regular acts of terror claiming hundreds of lives in the north east or countless innocent losing their lives by the naxal threat in the interiors of Chhattisgarh? Are we in a sense saying that these are not the part of India or is it that the value of 17 people dying in Mumbai is much more than hundreds losing their lives in the other not so buzzing parts of the nation? If no, then why is it that every Neta descends in Mumbai within hours of the act and not even a single such Neta visits places like Guwahati or Bastar?

If the attitude and justification delivered by the HM was ridiculously illogical, the ever so helpless and docile Prime Minister of the country delivered his age old rhetoric that 'We are committed to fighting terror'. But didn’t he run the same tape after the last blast? Hapless! India certainly deserves a better leadership but more importantly at this juncture our ailing PM deserves a better speech writer!

But the biggest shocker came from the heartthrob of the Congress and the unanimously chosen PM in waiting, Mr. Rahul Gandhi or more fondly known as Rahul Baba. Baba defends the government saying that 99% of the attacks have been stopped and remaining 1% attacks will happen and it is impossible to stop them all the time. Moreover, Baba even tried to instill confidence among the countrymen by saying that we shouldn't get bogged down by such acts of terrors as our condition is still better than Karachi's and Kabul's of the world. Ridiculous! Are we taking these cities (countries) as our benchmark? If yes, then even the facts are not quite supporting the analogy given by Baba, as after 2005 if the cities of Karachi and Kabul have respectively lost 500 and 520 innocent lives due to terror attacks, Mumbai isn't far behind with 390 casualties. And professing a 99% theory in a world where the likes of US and UK are still to see a semblance of such lapse post 9/11 is nothing but stupidity and shamelessness personified. Everybody understands that every square inch of land can't be guarded 24*7 but then there is something called as intelligence to tackle such threats. But that quality per say is not only missing in our system but has also eluded our beloved leaders.

Media (esp. electronic media) whose role has become extremely crucial in the last few years has once again disappointed with its more or less sensationalism based approach in handling such sensitive issues. On one hand where media is expected to adopt a far more responsible role in keeping the public emotions in check, unfortunately most of the news channel are busy in running speculative stories (majority of them being a figment of their imagination) to garner more eye balls. And a constant that remains after every such debacle is the Spirit of Mumbai report, essaying how fast the people of Mumbai get back to their normal routine. I fail to understand do they (mumbaikars) have any other option? After all what else is expected out of a helpless citizen post such a nerve wrecking incident, should he stay put at his home for six months or should he come out on the streets and protest against the lack of security? Probably the easiest and the most pragmatic option left with him is to get back to his routine. And unfortunately not even a single news channel runs a story or report educating the common man about the Do's and Don'ts to be followed in such situations. But since such educational documentaries won't create that high dose of sensationalism, will never find a slot in the already packed schedules of the TRP craving news channels. Sad but true!

Terror attacks, casualties, injuries, devastation, fake promises, candle March, forgotten! Sadly the cycle keeps on repeating every few months so much so that people have started taking it as routine with no hopes of a permanent solution from the government. And nothing can be more embarrassing for the government than this state of helplessness and lack of trust among the masses. But do they really care? Certainly not!

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