Yet another time we live to tell the tale

This is not the first time and surely not the last! What we are seeing in Mumbai has virtually sent around a wave of helplessness across the entire country, much more than any previous bomb attacks could have done. In a way, this situation is unprecedented. This is for the first time, at least in recent history, that there have been hostages in any such terror attack. But in many more ways, this attack bears an uncanny resemblance to what has been happening over the last 15 years in India.
Let's face it, terror has become a way of life with us. It just doesn't bother us the way it used to, and more importantly, the way it should!! Every story of a bomb attack is followed by 'Oh-no-not-again' like statements and then soon forgotten about as we get back to the push and pull of our life. There is some blame game played by the authorities for some days but as the story fades away from Page 1 of the newspapers, so it does from our consciousness. And this is where the problem lies!!
Every terror attack whether it happens in local trains or in crowded marketplaces or on the citadel of Indian democracy, is preceded by public callousness and inadvertently followed by indifference.
Before every attack, the public goes about their lives as though we live in a completely immune world with no sense of responsibility towards the society at large. This includes giving our houses on rent to people without verification, not reporting suspicious movements to the police for the fear of legal hassles, not looking around hard enough to notice the subtle hints that the prospective culprits provide and turning a blind eye to the not-so-subtle ones. All as long as we are not affected directly. Reading today's newspapers, I came across a report where a Taj Hotel employee witnessed some suspicious movement near the Gateway of India, where the terrorists responsible for Mumbai attacks came from, just a few minutes before the carnage started. Looking at their huge back packs and general demeanour, he even stopped and asked them who they were. In reply, they said that they were students. The employee was not satisfied with the response but let it go. (Atleast he bothered to ask) The fate of those killed might have been very different if he had not let them go but reported the matter to the local police which is present in the area in large numbers. I am not blaming the gentleman for lack of action, atleast he bothered to ask them who they were while most of us would have just ignored them as long as we were safe. I am just pointing at the larger public consciousness or the lack of thereof. While he lived to tell the tale, many were not as lucky. It is a mere if-but situation, but had the gentleman alerted the police, many many lives could have been saved.

What happens after every attack is even more heart breaking. For a few hours/days after the attack, we find it occupying the place of prominence in all conversation circles. But soon it dies a natural death. With it, also dies the thought for those who have been impacted for life through the attacks, either through physical injury that will leave its scars for a long time or through the loss of dear ones or loss of property etc. Here, is when we also become indifferent to what happens around us. We refuse to learn from our mistakes and will never do till we are affected directly. We never raise fingers at laxity of the authorities when the time is right. We do it only when something has gone miserably wrong. We do it only when the next attack happens (and again for a few days only). At that time, we should infact be asking ourselves if we could have done something to stop the killings, the attacks.
It is always easy to blame the government machinery for not being able to provide security to its citizens. But what we need to understand are a few things:

• We can't have a billion member strong police and security forces to match the country's population. We can't have a security personnel attached with every citizen. We need to be more aware of our responsibilities as citizens. We need to stop looking around for someone else to pin the blame on and need to start looking at ourselves to shoulder it.
• Criminals will not stop being criminals. We need to stop being passive. We need to stop being indifferent. We can't pretend that we are back on our two feet when a deadly blow has been dealt to our backbone. Else, sooner than later, this pretence will cost us very dear. Let us not show them that we are not scared therefore we will let them be. Let us instead show them that we are not scared therefore, we will hunt them down and flush them out of our system. We will not let them maim us. Not this time. Not anytime again.
• We need to understand that terrorism is not a thing of the past. Uptil now, we have been victimised by external forces. In the future, that is not an area which should bother us much since we will be faced with enough difficulty from within our borders. And this will prove to be a far graver challenge because this time we just can't dust our hands of the responsibility that we have by passing the buck to another country. It is the country of those very people who will cause terror and will kill their brothers and sisters in the country. This is a problem that needs more a pro-active approach rather than a reactive one. We need to know how to suppress the problem before it raises its ugly head. We need to identify the problems that will cause another 26/11. We should learn from our mistakes what we didn't learn at the time of Kashmir. Regionalism needs an active approach. It has torn our country and it will only become worse if it is not nipped now. And at that time, let us not look amazed.

Today, I would like to make another point. We really need to make people realise what is right and what merely is their perception of it. In a time that an attack of such magnitude has injured the city, not just for the present but for many days and many months to come, we have surprisingly not seen Mr. Raj Thackrey, the biggest advocate of the 'Mumbaikars cause'. While he sits in the safe confines of his house, hundreds are dying. And in an effort to save to them, we have the national army commandos going out there and risking their lives to save those who are trapped but more importantly, to salvage the reputation of the city. Those commandos who have not thought about even once if they belong to Maharashtra or Bihar or Punjab or Karnataka!! I would really like to ask Mr. Thackrey if we should now leave it to the Mumbaikars alone to handle the mess and also clean it up!!!

When I set out to write this post, I didn't know myself that I had so much to say. But then like I said above, this attack is unprecedented in some ways. For once our politicians are not gunning for each other and are focussing on finding a solution to this menace. But then, we don't know for how long this show of maturity will last.

Just like we don't know if we will live another time to tell the tale....