The recent serial bomb blasts in Delhi, Ahmadabad, Bangalore and Jaipur have only reinforced India's position of being one of the worst terrorism-hit countries in the world. Barring trouble-torn nations like Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, terrorist violence claims more lives in India than in any other nation. According to the data collected by a US government agency called National Counter-terrorism Centre, 1,093 people were killed in terrorist incidents in India last year. Of course these also included the killings of Hindi speaking people in Assam by the ULFA activists and the deaths caused in Naxalite violence in Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Bihar. The report also listed 13 high-casualty incidents of terrorist violence in the country, including the serial blasts in UP, Hyderabad and the Samjhauta Express blast.
Worldwide, 22,685 people were killed by terrorists in about 14,000 terrorist strikes. Iraq alone accounted for 13,606 of those deaths. Afghanistan with 1,966 casualties and Pakistan with 1,335 deaths were the other countries to have witnessed large number of killings by terrorist organisations, the report says.
I am sure the ranking of this year’s victim countries will dramatically change with Iraq reaching to almost normalcy level, Pakistan having an explosion almost everyday and India becoming more vulnerable to the terrorist attacks. There is a very good chance that we rank third this time. And I do not see that day far away when India will be sitting on top.
The way human life is treated in India is utterly shameful. We are among one of the rudest people in the world when it comes to value human life. Death of 20 or 50 in terrorist attacks does not matter too much to us anymore. We go on living our normal life right from the next minute and claim proudly that we did not let terrorists succeed in creating panic. How senseless, how pathetic and how inhuman pride this one is? Hah…America experiences one 9/11 and lives in panic for years. For months life in America remains on complete halt. They spared some time to think over it, declared national emergency and went on even to attacking countries to punish the culprits…
But what we do to punish those who keep attacking us everyday, everywhere…whether it is Islamic Jihadi, Bajarang Dal, Shiv Sena or Nexalite? Almost nothing…In fact more likely we go on protecting them or making them face of our religion and thoughts. We are a country who enjoys being led by the psychics and love blaming politicians for every bad happenings. We are irritatingly irresponsible citizens in every walk of life and live with most possible myopic vision. And until we change our attitude towards life and society, it is going to be extremely difficult to curb any unwanted happenings. One of my American friends who recently visited India was saying,’’ Indians in India are worse. But put the same Indians in New York and they become the best behaved human on earth.” And I find it very true. We have to change our attitude and approach towards fellow Indians. We are Indian first and then any regional or religious entity. This is most basic and urgent change India requires first.
Second thing is the ‘technology’. Today’s world is all about technology. Even terrorists understand the importance of it and that’s why they employ IT graduate Touquir into their brigade. But we expect our above fifty policemen to fight terrorists with 1947’s batons. How is it possible? And isn’t it ironic? We need to induce young blood and mind into our security system and give them enough freedom and technology to deal with this menace.
Third is ‘Accountability’. Authorities should be answerable to people. Last year my parents applied for a new passport. It took more than 13 months for police to send their report back to passport office. In the beginning they sent a hawaldar for some ransom. when my father refused to pay any bribe they laughed at his honesty and put the file into some back drawer. In the meantime we went to every possible authorities and complained for the atrocities of local police. Instead of taking some action, they suggested that we should just pay some amount and get our file cleared. That shows the level of corruption in our country. Nobody is accountable to anybody. It’s damn frustrating there…We have got worst judiciary system in the world Its the biggest bluff of our society. Every judge in our country is sitting on the pile of cases. It takes years to just getting open a case... leave alone the judgment. As per law nobody can even question our judiciary. Judges are not accountable to anyone for their laziness and inefficiency. In fact they are the one who are producing maximum number of nexalites and terrorists by misusing their power and becoming the most corrupt part of the system. We have to make them answerable to media and people. We need to put up thousands of fast track courts and finish our pending cases as soon as possible. Later on we have got to decentralize the judiciary also. There should be courts in villages and panchayat level itself. If necessary let the hearing happen through video conferencing.
Fourth is introduction of ‘objective work pattern’. In our country, a teacher is helping conduct elections, arranging and distributing midday meals for children, conducting educational programmes for village elders, doing plenty of state research work and collecting thousands of datas for government besides teaching in school. After shouldering all these extra burden how do you expect that teacher to excel in his main job i.e teaching. He simply can not…and same goes for other government departments including Police. This is a peculiar and invented Indian system. In a civilised world this kind of work load will be considered harassment of an employee and will very much come under human rights scanner.We will have to change our mindset.
Fifth is hitting hard on terrorism. In the current scenario we are one of the easiest targets for terrorists. Reason is our very soft and politically malign approach towards it. In the name of human rights our politicians don't even hesitate to favour terrorists. This can not go worse than this. I agree that with tough laws and more freedom to police force there are chances to victimise few innocents also in some cases. But that will avoid hundreds of civilians getting exploded in marketplace for sure. We will be able to make our country a safer place. Even US has Guantanmo Bay...all the other europian countries has very tough law against terrorism. Don't forget that they are the biggest advocate of human rights.
Very shamelessly government says that there were terrorist attacks even when POTA was in effect. That shows the ineffectiveness of POTA. What a headless thought! There are laws to punish murderer, but does it mean that there will be no murder happening because of that law? and if a murder happends you go on to scrap that law. NO, you never do that. POTA should be treated in the same way.
Last, but most importantly we need to set up some educational standard for our politics and politicians. There must be some essential educational qualification required to join politics. In a parliamentary democracy politicians are the one who take all the decisions on behalf of the people of that country. How can we let our fortune decided by some illitrates. Today, half of our parliamentarians are either illiterate or semi-literate. How to expect anything worthwhile from them? We desperately need plenty of young and educated brains among those magical 540, who can take tough decision if required to combat the menace like terrorism in our country…and who can think beyond the vote bank (although democracy and numbers will always be the main huddle here).
Its already too late. We need to come out of that pseudoeconomic euphoria created mainly for the sensex and its beneficiaries (which sadly are just 3% of country's population). Lets live in reality...lets make it a real world.
