Are Indians Safe?
By Manuwant Choudhary
Serial bomb blasts rock India's capital New Delhi...from Greater Kailash 1...to Karol bagh..to Cannaught Place...all markets attacked killing more than a dozen and many people injured.
Out of breath top anchors take to reporting from the streets and blood and glass stain Delhi's streets.
The initial shock turns shrill as more reporters join in their shouting match...and within minutes politicians also being given precious airtime...Arun Jailtley and Kapil Sibal...whose elequence is best served in the courts of law.
In exactly, a week you will see this story buried and forgotten.
No journalist will probe deeper...no reporter will try and investigate.
In two days Singur and the Tata's and Mittal's will take the airtime on prime TV, and some TV quiz and glitzy dances will make you forget about this as well.
In two days, politicians will be back grabbing farmers lands.
In two days policemen will be back to collecting hafta alongside the local dadas.
In two days Raj Thackeray will be back attacking some `bhaiya'.
But that person who sends e-mails from Mumbai is not scared of the Thackerays.
And no they are not scared of Narendra Modi or L.K. Advani either. Not even of Dr. Manmohan Singh, India's Prime Minister.
And I'm not surprised.
They've done it in Bangalore, done it in Gujarat and now Delhi.
Are Indians safe?
Two years ago indiavikalp wrote to the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar that CCTVs should be installed at all major road crossings and public places.
There was no action ..not even a customary acknowledgement of my letter.
Last week the TOI reported the Bihar government finally plans to instal CCTVs...but guess who is got the contract....a defunt Bihar public sector electronic company called Belron.
Do you buy Beltron TVs anymore?
But the Bihar government thinks their CCTVs are the best in the world.
Thats how safe you are.
Yes, in New Delhi..I am not sure whether the markets had CCTVs but I recall visiting the GK market once and it seemed crowded and worse than the Patna market.
Law and order is not on the agenda of the current political parties and that is why a liberal alternative is so very critical to Indians.
Besides, India and Indians can never be safe under a corrupt political system.
1 comment:
I don't usually comment on Bollywood movies but I wonder if you have seen Dhaoka.
http://www.apunkachoice.com/scoop/bollywood/20070901-3.html
The movie seemed to justify terrorism. It portrayed the terrorists as acting out of some personal extreme injustice done to them by the Indian Government.
The female suicide bomber had been raped by Indian Police Officers after they killed her father. The other terrorist in the movie was her bother.
I am certainly not saying that people don't suffer such extreme personal injustices but I do believe that it doesn't really reflect the profile of most terrorists.
If the villains who did this bombing are caught I am almost positive that you would not find any extreme unjustice in their background. Sure they would feel some general sense of "unjustice" done to "their people" but as for something personal happening to them or a family member like in Dhoka, you most likely will not find that. That has been the case in Israel with the suicide bombers there. Usually there was no personal injustice done to them except for a more general sense of victimhood. It wasn't because the bomber was raped or father killed or child was killed, etc, etc.
What bothers me is as long as terrorists are falsely portrayed as victims as they were in this movie, Indians will not have the necessary focus needed to defeat this evil.
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