More on the terror attacks

A few of the barrage of thoughts storming me.

The most tragic scene of the entire saga was that of our poor lathi wielding havaldars bravely going inside CST to fight the AK47 and Kalashnikov wielding terrorists. Its indeed such a shame that inspite of Mumbai being repeatedly attacked by terrorists, our police force is not equipped with the latest weaponry which is at least at par with what the terrorists have, if not better. The best we had were the .303s and the ill fitting bullet proof vests wearing which Karkare and the rest laid down their lives. A bullet had even penetrated his helmet!! No helicopters, no infrareds, no night vision, no stun grenades, World War II guns, no bullet proof vests for the fire brigade (couldn’t they have at least flown those in from somewhere else, aren’t their lives important too?); forget protecting us, how the hell can one expect them to protect even themselves with this. Just like in med, the time when the maximum innocent lives can be saved is the first few hours, and it is the local police and the ATS alone which can do that. By the time the NSG is flown in, precious little can be done beyond flushing the terrorists without more collateral damage. Its too late for the innocents. Hopefully, modernization of the police force will be undertaken on an urgent basis now.

I didn’t find the news coverage irresponsible (of course I watched only NDTV and CN IBN) except for the CST rumors thing. Especially NDTV was brilliant, with Barkha and Srinivasan Jain doing a fantastic job. What I really liked was that they were channelising the people’s anger somewhat fruitfully. So Raj Thackeray was derided, with NDTV actually flashing that sms on TV. (In fact, when Bachhi Karkaria remarked that it was frightening was that a dozen terrorists could hold the city to ransom, Srinivasan remarked that if a dozen MNS hoodlums could do that, a dozen armed terrorists could do it as well!!). The North Indian-Mumbaiker divide was palpably broken. The public anger against the politicians, the gimmickry of BJP and Modi, the ineptitude of Shivraj Patil, were all given vent to. People’s minds are extremely mouldable at such a stage. It was good to see the channels acting responsibly and giving some positive energy and direction to the public anger. If the attacks manage to break the barriers of regional and religious divide which were growing exponentially, it might be a silver lining at the edge of a very very dark cloud.

And now, the politicians..sigh. Simply put, we got attacked because the will of the terrorists to damage our country was stronger than the will of the politicians to protect it.

One question keeps harrowing me. When will they learn? What, if not this, will it take for them to rise above narrow politics? Can’t they see that we have had enough? Do we really need to lynch a few of them before they come to their senses? Their response ranged from lackadaisical (read Shivraj Patil) to appallingly casual (RR Patils DDLJ dialogue of bade bade shahro mein chhoti chhoti baatein and Vilasrao’s Taj stroll with Riteish and RGV in toto) to downright hypocritical (BJP and Shiv Sena adulating Karkare).

Yes, I really feel we need to lynch a few of them.

As far as those blaming Pakistan for everything, the people in glasshouses thing applies. First lets set our own home in order. And just look at Thapar’s interview of Zardari. If there is one politician who sounded sincere amongst all the gamut of them, it was him. I believe no knee jerk reactions against Pakistan are needed. He and the common man in Pakistan are now as much a victim of terror as we are. He may not be able to deliver on all that he promises because of domestic compulsions and the hold of the Pak army, but his intentions sound genuine, which is more than can be said of our politicians. Lets give him a chance at least.