Anatomy of Terrorism

When somebody commits a rape, or a murder in cold blood, do we ponder about the reasons why he did that ? Do we worry about the socio-political reasons, or economic reasons behind the crime ? No.

Then, why is it that people break their heads over the reasons behind terrorist acts ? Several intelligent and well-meaning people are linking the Mumbai murders with the Kashmir issue, Muslim subjugation in India and so on.

This is all nonsense. The reason is simple and plain. A person who killed innocent civilians in cold blood did that because he found pleasure in doing that. There are some people like that twisted in the brain; we should accept this fact. There will always be paedophiles on this planet. Likewise, there will always be serial killers and rapists. And there will always be terrorists.

We can sure try to understand what motivated them for their crimes. At the core of their beliefs, all criminals feel they are victims. "Oh poor little me. The world is out against me.", is how any criminal thinks. This thinking is an elaborate ploy to erase their conscience - if it exists, before they proceed with the pleasure of murdering other people.

No, the question that we need to ask is not "What is the motivation behind a terrorist act ?", but "How come murderous people like these get the guns, money and political backing to carry their games ? ". Let me answer this question in this post. When treated on an individual by individual basis, human society will never accept the pleasure of murdering, raping and pillaging other human beings as the right of a person. However, these acts get a social acceptance when it is thought that

• 1. There is a group that is entirely pure, virtuous and shining.
• 2. This group is being oppressed and violently being subjugated.

A chillingly vast majority of people actually subscribe to these simplistic black-and-white combo of (1) and (2). Not all of them will do murders, obviously. The actual acts will only be commited by a special few - who actually take pleasure in the murder of other human beings. But by believing in (1) and (2), an enormous section of people are willing to turn a blind eye on their consciences. This mixture of (1) and (2) is a poisonous addictive drug that consumes the soul of a human being. I will give you a few examples to justify my theory.

• In Nazi germany, it was thought that (1) the Nordic race is pure and shining (2) this race is being humiliated in the world in various forms. This heady mixture of ideas soon consumed an entire country, and precipitated the second world war, and the holocaust of Jews. Not every German person did murder obviously, these acts were only commited by a select few individuals - which are present in all human societies. But the rest of the population gave power, guns and political backing to them.
• In the Bolshevik revolution (or during the French revolution), people are led to believe that (1) only the working class is pure and honest, the rest are a bunch of thieves and cronies (2) the working class is being oppressed. This led people to actually murder the royals and feudal lords, including women and children. Again, the actual murders were commited by a select few people. The rest gave them power and guns.

In most of the independence movements (or separatist movements, depending on how you think) around the world, violent agitators subscribe that (1) their country is pure and virtuous, and that the occupiers are filthy and (2) their country is being oppressed.

Neither (1) or (2) are sufficient by themselves to provide social justification for murder, but taken together they do a very good job. For example,

• During the civil rights movement, the Black people acknowledged that (2) they were oppressed. But they did not necessarily think that (1) they are pure and virtuous, to the exclusion of other people. This is the reason the civil rights movement maintained a dignity and proceded by non-violent means.
• A lot of people still harbour racist feelings thinking (1) that their community is the best and most influential. But they don't necessarily think that (2) that community is being oppressed.A lot of scientists think that they are (1) an elite class, at a level above the others. But they don't think (2) they are being oppressed as a community.
• Indian independence movement was a hugely non-violent effort because even though (2) people thought they were being oppressed by the British, they did not think that (1) Indian culture was the best and the purest in the world. In fact, most of the freedom fighters were very open and welcoming to western culture. (A few groups did hate western influences, and these groups used violent means).
• The Tibetan movement (atleast the majority headed under Dalai Lama) thinks that (2) they are being oppressed by the Chinese but they do not think that (1) their religion is the only truth or that their people are superior to the Chinese people.

Now coming down to specifics, I am quite terrified of two ideas that are increasingly gaining mainstream acceptance in India.

• There is a large section of Muslims who believe that (1) Islam is the only path to God, and that every other religion is a falsehood (2) Muslims are being oppressed in the world. I don't find fault with either (1) or (2) - though both of these appear quite simplistic and silly to any intelligent person. But put together, they are as lethal as RDX.
• There is a growing section of Hindus who think that (1) Hindu land is the fountain of all culture and civilization in the world - atom bombs, space ships etc were all invented by ancient Indians (2) Hindus were slaughtered throughout history by Muslims and continue to be oppressed. Either (1) or (2) is an intellectually shallow argument. But put together, they can result in the rape of Christian nuns, or in the murder of Muslim shopkeepers.

Of course, these are not the only set of dangerous ideas in India. Often, there are racist idealogues who think the Thakur-race/Kashmiri-race/Naga-race is superior to the Harijan-race/Hindu-race/Indian-race. Whatever be the idealogy, there are huge media networks which publicize this type of information. Often, they put graphic images and videos to show how brutal the oppression is. They evoke images of young innocent girls getting raped, or pregnant mothers getting their bellies torn open. At the same vein, these people propagandize about how glorious and pure their religion/race is.

These media networks are not illegal. In fact, they are free to publicise in mosques, temples and even schools. In today's internet era, there are a huge number of blogs / youtube channels which do this propaganda. None of the people who do this propaganda are poor or uneducated. They are all talented and successful people, who are just addicted to a drug of black-and-white.

This type of propaganda is nothing short of an indictment to murder. So the next time I hear the dual propaganda of Muslims as a community being oppressed and Muslims being the purest religion, I will face the propagandist with my complaint. I will act similarly if I hear the same from a Hindutva propagandist.

Though rare, some of these rich and educated people who do propaganda might even be itching for some real blood. A high ranking professional working for Yahoo in Bangalore became a key planner for the Indian Mujahideen terrorist group. Ayman al Jawahari was working as a qualified doctor in Egypt, before he became an Al Qaeda chief. Any successful terrorist operation (the recent Mumbai carnage included) has several extremely intelligent , rich and qualified individuals behind the operations table.

However, the actual foot soldiers who murder people (and usually get killed by police) do not come from rich families. A rich person would never waste his precious life away for a minor thing - killing a dozen people that he hates. The actual terrorists come from poor families, with limited education opportunities. They usually have personal problems - like a failed love affair.

But most importantly, both rich and poor, these guys take pleasure in murder. Their brains are twisted. Under normal circumstances, such a twisted brain is not dangerous. But under these special circumstances of propaganda drugs, such a person has no barriers of conscience to overcome. Such a person readily finds guns, money, political backing and social acceptance to carry out his secret games of pleasure. And these games of pleasure will shatter families, will break the hearts of several loved ones, and will make us lose several caring, pious or creative human beings.

What can we do ?

• We can never eradicate such people. So it is always good to be prepared.
• We can reduce the pool of suicidal recruits, by removing poverty and illiteracy (though this is a huge task)
• We can actively look for hate speech of the (1)+(2) mixture that I talked about. We can try making this type of propaganda illegal. Or if we do not want to sacrifice free speech, make this hate speech conditional to continuous police surveillance of the person who makes this speech.
• We can try to have democratic governments - which act as a nice filter to eliminate these kind of twisted people from capturing political power.
• We make the army and police swear total alleigance to the people of the nation, and never should they think they are superior to the civilian citizens. We monitor for people of the "twisted brain" syndrome before we present them with any weapons.

Irrespective of our individual differences or ideologies (whether one is a fundamentalist Hindu or a fundamentalist Muslim, whether one is a patriotic Indian or a patriotic Pakistani, whether one is a Communist or a Libertarian), we should make a commitment to all these 5 steps. Otherwise there is no future for any ideology, because the future of our very humanity is at stake.

Hinduism & Philosohy a reconcile.

Questions of philosophy vs religion are as old as the human ability to question. Today people wonder about the balance of power and reconciliation between science & religion. It’s a valid issue to think about...but to get a better handle on the subject...it might help to look at the relationship between religion and science’s great-grandfather...philosophy.

My friend always puts interesting questions to me. After tackling truth...this time we were having a conversation about how I reconcile religion and philosophy from an Indian or Hindu perspective. Some interesting points came up...which I have not seen expressed often...so I thought I should share my thoughts here. Indians take much of our own way of thinking for granted...but the fact is...the relationship between religion and philosophy in India has always been quite unique when compared to the West.

The question of reconciling philosophy with Hinduism is a tricky concept to communicate...but I will try. If you have any Hindu friends of the kind who will not look at you strangely if you asked them about religion and philosophy in their culture...they will likely tell you that connecting with philosophy is easier to deal with in Hinduism. But...that “easier” is their particular understanding of their faith. As far as my personal understanding is concerned...in Hinduism...there is no reconciling to be done with philosophy at all. The thing about Hinduism is that at its core it can barely qualify as a faith or religion in the same mould as the other major faiths...especially the Abrahamic religions.

In some forgotten past...Hinduism might have started as simple nature worship but it soon grew into much more...and ultimately into a complex philosophical system. The strange and slightly unique aspect here is that it didn’t do so by discarding its more colourful naturalistic and mythological aspects...but rather by simply building upon them. The idea of philosophy and logic as being this sterile discipline separated from belief...parable...and faith was a Greek concept and not an Indian one.

The term Hindu is actually a descriptive label coined by the Arabs for the people who lived beyond the River Indus. So the very concept of the “religion” of Hinduism is an external imposition which has eventually become accepted by even the “Hindus” themselves. The original name for this philosophy or belief system or whatever you wish to call it...was Sanatana Dharma. Dharma is the same concept as...and the source of...the Buddhist idea of duty...but really that word just does not have an adequate translation in English. It means duty...belief...life...and in its broadest meaning simply “the way”. So Sanatana Dharma would translate to something like “The Ancient Way” or “The Eternal Way”...and even those are gross simplifications.

The Indian culture has always been pluralistically monolithic...if that makes any sense. Let me explain. In India before the coming of the Islamic invasions and Catholicism...we don’t really seem to have had a very strict idea of Religion-A...Religion-B etc. Rather we just had one large body of belief we simply called “Dharma”...which encompassed the vast variety of supporting and conflicting belief systems. They were still all part of the greater Dharma...and the concept of there being many valid paths was one that held great importance.

You can see a similar phenomenon in the sciences. Today the common wisdom is that Yoga is a bunch of bendy exercises from India that are good for you. In the original Sanskrit...it was simply Yog which translates to science or knowledge. This encompassed all scientific knowledge...specifically to do with human beings. One of the multitude of sub-topics in Yog was Hatah Yog meaning the Science of Discipline. That in turn comprised of various systems...one of which were the Asanas...the body positions and exercises that have today become popular as Yoga.

I hope you’re beginning to see what I mean. To try to understand Indian knowledge systems through the lens of Western faiths and philosophies is futile and only leads to misinformation. Sanatana Dharma became “Hinduism” over the millennia...possibly because the Indians kept getting asked by visitors what their religion was...their dharma. They probably didn’t quite understand the question because there was only one Dharma. So the concept of Hinduism took root. Then the Abrahamic religions came and asked them what their religious book was...and they didn’t quite understand that question either. To the ancient Indian...all books were “dharmic”...from the medical volumes of Charak to the love manuals of Vatsayana. So in later times...the Bhagavat Geeta was shoe-horned into the proceedings as our one true book. It is not.

The main thing to understand about Hinduism is that there is no minimum entry requirement...and you can forget what a few extremist zealots might say on the subject today. You don’t have to do anything in particular to be a Hindu. No specific prayers...no rituals...no mandatory temple visits. You cannot really be made a Hindu ala baptism (although in the last 2 centuries a Hindu “conversion” was invented as a counter balance to all the missionaries that went on a converting spree through the length and breadth of the land)...nor can you be excommunicated (other than on a purely social level). At its core it is a highly evolved philosophical construct with an almost relativistic...quantum mechanical view of the universe...but at its surface level...you can satisfy yourself by simply paying homage to the Sun and the God of Rain. You can subscribe to either of those belief structures...or the vast range of mediums in between...and you’re still a Hindu...and no one can say otherwise.

Some ancient Indian literature actually tackles this subject. It mentions how some people only have the capacity to worship the creative force as humanized idols...all the way up to understanding the entirety of creation as one singular and differentiated entity...which is beyond the comprehension all but the most adept. The recommendation is to let each one worship...believe...and understand as per their own capacity...and using their own models and metaphors. An elegant system...I think...and one that has resulted in one of the longest continuous and unbroken systems of knowledge and faith in existence. The reason it never broke was because it was always adapting.

I don’t know if I’ve actually answered the original question about reconciling religion and philosophy...but I hope I have created a vague summary of the landscape of traditional Indian thought...a landscape where that question is simply irrelevant. India and everything to do with India is commonly misread and misunderstood by many...because unlike many other cultures you cannot grasp what makes it tick by scrutinizing the details. Once you train yourself to see the forest for the trees...while also admiring that line of ants on the earth at your feet...simultaneously...you might begin to start seeing the world through Indian-coloured glasses.

Bad Things are So Cyclic..

Things are so cyclic...what you do is what you get..."jo durson ke liye gaddha khodta hai woh khud hi usme gir jata hai..." almost all bad things make a cycle to reinforce it, and almost all good things lead you high but have never a "backpush" from any cycle. Why?

Life of a kid is so much like an observer...he finds bad things in family, he learns good things from family, he is determined to overcome difficulties, he always assumes to have seen the future, but Why do things turn up so badly in adulthood?

When you were graduating you had only family in my mind, well we all have it...when you talk about a job then you mention "for my family"... when you get a good news you disclose it first to your family... but all this mechanically scheduled job life leaves you little to think about any thing...or rather, it leaves you with the only thing as your salary and nothing else.. of course, your resume, your networking, all those bullshit which are track backing you...haunting you...

But then even if i knew how badly you had fared, i made it a point that i wont do the same... i would be different, i would really do any thing for my family... i would spend everything on them, after all its their hard work and sacrifices which has lead me to this peak of my career, i wont get defeated by this life like you did... but nothing, i was just dreaming...

And this is the reality... when you grow up, when you get the job, it detaches you from family more than it attaches you... they never ask you for any thing, you see they have everything... you reduce their needs to mere gifts, and meetings to mere yearly visits...guys make plans for great career, for shifting to US, for doing an MBA or a PhD.. and girls start saving for their going-to-be, the tough unknown life they haven't seen, parents seldom even accept gifts from them (a girl?!?), they live a life as if they have already passed their duragavan...well sooner or later it has to happen...

Detachment is inevitable...and this slow-poison, killing work life makes it worse...the distance is reduced by cheap telecom services but that also becomes a series of formalities of set of questions, which u ask everyday and on every phone call... all the smiling dreams you had turns to be gloomy, the sweat on the head makes u feel tired...but who asked for this all?

Is making money so hard in the world?...that it makes you leave your past behind like it never existed...school friends and college friends become your close pals.. you tend to forget your past rivalry and greet even your college foes with a pleasant smile...you tend to make shallow friendship because you never know when you would need them in future...you may still sit together, laugh, eat on the same table with one whom you just back-stabbed a while ago...you form fake goodwill around because you want to hide your ill ambitions...

No i don't mean I'm not loving my parents, I also don't mean I'm avoiding my responsibilities, but where is the passion I used to feel when I was kid? Why was it there when I didn't own a pocket, and why is it disappearing when i have all full-four pockets?

Things have changed so much in this short span job life...the respectful attitude for people, the sweet love for girls you've crush upon, the non-stop to-be-on-the-top spirit...all of these seem to fade out..to materialize..and person in me is getting hard...more and more oblivious to the nature...to the people...may be, to myself too.

Spot the match between the ads

I have come to the conclusion that watching a cricket match is the ultimate test of a person’s patience. By that reasoning we might as well be a nation of a billion monks. But I am not referring to the highs and lows of a cricket match that goes down to the wire. It’s those wretched advertisements that raise my BP.

Seriously, the number of advertisements during a cricket match may actually be the reason behind the increasing number of bald men in the country, who tear out their hair in frustration every time an over is interrupted by an ill-timed ad, usually of a cricketer selling us a pen or something.

Imagine Yuvraj just getting out to a yorker. As you wait with bated breath for the replay to vent frustration at the batsman, you are suddenly assaulted by the same Yuvraj exhorting you to consume health supplement capsules. The channel then jumps to live action just as the bowler is approaching the crease. Whatever happened between those precious few minutes is lost forever, relegated to the hard-drives of sports channels, not considered important enough for us dim-witted viewers.

Advertisers are now coming up with new and innovative ways to seek our attention. Gone are the days when the camera would pan during the change of ends to show the fielder digging his nose or the batsman indulging in some barely legal ‘excavations’ into his groin area. Now, even the single being taken is shown in a smaller window, with the rest of the TV showing a ‘mini ad’.

Even the radio is not immune to the vagaries of the ad world. Tune into a live broadcast and after every boundary you’ll hear something on the lines of “yeh laga ‘idiot cream’ chauka!” It’s as if the boundary wouldn’t have come if the cream company hadn’t paid for it. What’s next? Soon we’ll have companies queuing up to sponsor every single moment on the screen. If a player sneezes on screen, an inhaler ad could pop up and when a player does an itchy and scratchy display, the relevant ointment could make an appearance.

In the midst of all this madness, it’s the viewer who suffers (unless he has an itchy groin). Take Sachin’s Hyderabad epic. He spent hours on the field during that breathtaking knock but we may have ended up seeing more of Dhoni, Yuvraj and Shah Rukh Khan selling us everything from mobile phones to chyawanprash.

I know that ads are not something we can do away with. But my question to the broadcasters is, do you really have to ruin the match experience for us? Not that they are listening. But since cribbing is a national pastime, it’s not going to stop me from complaining. I think the only option now is to run an ad to protest the deluge of ads during a cricket match. It’ll need to have some cricketers though, to grab viewer attention.

India and Terrorism

As happened scores of time before once again the demon of terrorism has unleashed its heinous and merciless fangs on the innocent, helpless people of Mumbai. Terrorist strikes, bomb blast etc are nothing new to India, over last 15 years they have been a routine and every lull giving hope for peace has always been shattered with much greater impunity than the previous one. The latest carnage of 26/11 in Mumbai is unprecedented in every way, this was one of the most ferocious and devilish attempt by terrorist, who for the first time not only declared an open war against the state but also tried to make mockery of a state’s might. For them it seems that Indian state is completely impotent and as such nothing can stand against them. This was one the most frightening and chilling exhibition of ruthless and remorseless destruction of humanity, for more than two days it appeared that the ordeal would never come to an end.

It was no hit and run ghostly affair where a hidden bomb blows up some where in a crowded place generally swarmed by the middle and lower middle class families. For the first time elites of the society have been exposed to the brutalities of extremes, the places that were supposed to be secured and the aura that they will not have to bear the burnt of a commoner was totally shattered. Despite all their connections and prowess they were as helpless as an ordinary street guy. Perhaps this was the reason why this incident has aroused anxiety and curiosity around the world. Other wise in train blast and other carnages we have suffered similar losses but it never created that much international ripples.

This in many ways was a watershed event which may decide the future course of India. It has fully exposed our vulnerabilities; every citizen cutting across religion, economic and social strata has been shaken up. It is so frightening to visualize what could happen in future when just a dozen goons coming by boat can put 18 million people to ransom. It fully shattered the already hollow myth of Mumbai being dubbed as Shanghai. There was utter confusion, no leadership visible, no co-ordination among the forces seen. It was most appalling state of affair ever displayed, there was utter chaos and no one knew what to do. In past these shortcomings were often not known to people but now with 24x7 media presence every thing was stripped. The local police force, the intelligence system and disaster management all proved to be self disaster.

It also exposed the glee and greed of media to shore up their TRP at the expense of bodies and trauma, it kept entire nation glued to TV set by just showing elites places where only super rich and who is who matters and sensationalizing half baked stories about the perpetuator of crime. Even in tragedy of this magnitude they knew which side to butter, there was insignificant coverage of commoner dying at railway station and as such making the Indians to believe that in those 60 hours there was no other incidents worthy of reporting happened where people have suffered or any other thing worth noticing happened in a country like India

Though the magnitude of the event demanded extensive coverage but it was absolutely bizarre to keep showing day and night few goons hiding in the building and battling. This only added fear and sense of helplessness and insecurity, particularly for the feeble minds. It appeared as if media was hell bent in inciting the people to react and revolt, if it was against the political system it can be understood but who could guarantee that the same would not go against communities, it always acts as two edge sword. For an ordinary citizen how does it matter to see the uninterrupted live coverage for three days and making the rowdies more than equal to the elite forces? In the bargain the terrorist achieved more than what they might have ever thought, whole nation was paralyzed by a dozen goons.

The consequences of this event are far reaching, now serious questions are posed to intelligence agencies, the elected representatives, the media and every one who matters. It appears that this time the usual out side hand story will not work, masses are oozing with anger for them enough is enough and they need a creditable response. As usual media particularly Hindi channels tried to prove that they are far better equipped than RAW or FBI as every minute they came out with stories and blame game theories rather waiting to get to the bottom of actual conspiracies. Most of the channels kept beating the Jihadi’s and Pak role and tried to create impression that only the majority community has been targeted and as if the attack on India affects only to them. No one tried to high light that one third who died in the carnage are from the same community to whom they are pointing fingers. For the terrorist there is no religion no cast, their ultimate objective is to create fear and panic at all expense and prove that despite being insignificant in numbers they can pose serious challenge to the best of the states in the world.

For the politicians as usual it is gods send opportunity to settle scores with opponents, to them events like these are tools through which they can maneuver their political fortunes. Rather than looking to score points and narrow gains, time has come to critically analyze the entire issue of terrorism Indian perspective. There has been regular rhetoric particularly from BJP on India being soft state, inducting new laws like home land security act of USA, emphasizing that post 9/11 the stringent law in USA has not allowed any attack etc. but no one bothers to relate the event in Indian context. Can by just being hard state, by introducing draconian laws like TADA, POTA etc we can ensure the security and protect our citizens. We had these laws in place for years and saw such activities repeatedly happened. For the records over many thousands were arrested under TADA and the conviction rate was abysmal one to two percent, the law was mostly used to target people for political gain rather using it as a tool to save India.

Forget terrorist, despite having every possible law, can we say a normal citizen is safe, in India every day there are numerous murder, rape, kidnapping, looting and violence taking place in the name of region, religion, language and caste. Have we been able to tackle them, they are not sponsored through any out side rogue state, their roots and origin are our own. We being an absolutely fragmented society, with multiple fractures and fault lines in our social system have never worked as an Indian. Despite being claimants of spirituality, follower of peace and mercy if we see in last few decades there have been dozens of incidents where all these myth have been shredded to pieces.

For the millenniums for us our self interest has always been paramount, these was hardly a moment went we acted as a nation or as an Indian. Barely for few patchy periods, no one has really bothered for the country or community at large. At the moment when it seems India has progressed to the moon, one third of our people have no means to maintain their most basic need of food and shelter, how disgusting it is to see a women sitting on a road side pavement for the natures call in a country whose many people are in the list of top ten richest people in the world. Social disparity is so rampant that every nooks and corner of a city projects many India within India. Right from independence our own leaders, administrations or for that matter any one who has power is day and night exploiting the people, looting the exchequer, indulging in violence, dividing the society in the name of caste, region, language and religion, responsible for killing of thousands per year and getting away than why so much fuss on these sudden deaths.

India should not enter in the same folly as was done by USA as they had different agenda on terror rather than addressing and fighting the root cause. Their objective was purely expansion of their territorial presence and extending their might on possible energy routes. We all know by killing over a million of innocent Iraqis how many hundred new terrorist they have created for the world. Also, has any one forgotten entire Taliban was their creation and paid soldiers? If they have been honest in solving the long dispute of Palestine which is the original breeding ground of all terror, event of 9/11 would never have happened. The argument that post 9/11 there was no attack on them has very little to do with the law and increase in security apparatus, rather they are fortunate that they have no hostile borders, no regional, no separatist movements not having scores of ethnic community and above all not having people who live life of animals, confined to place equal to their grave with no guarantee about next meal. It is a known fact inmates in jail in USA have larger area to live compare to a person living in Indian city. Need is the mother of every deed, a hungry stomach can force a person to sell his body, forget the border.

We must know that we have thousands of kilometers of unguarded coast and land area and with poverty, illiteracy, inadequacies and social disparity running so high that a amount of few thousand rupees we can get people killed or buy over the law enforcer, than how can we prevent external infiltration?. Justice delayed is justice denied, we have hundreds of incidents where thousands of innocent people have been killed, tortured and time and again commission after commission it was proved that state being partisan, administration acting with clear bias, rather than punishing the guilty we saw them becoming more powerful and respectful. No one has ever been made accountable and given a punishment worth their crime. They always came back with Newton’s theory of reaction against action, by this logic every one is right, even a terrorist too as he too is reacting to some thing happened to him or his folk.

When we live in such an incoherent social system it automatically creates disenchantment and disillusions in people. At the moment we have a sharp communal divide that has marginalized over 200 million of minority communities. we have more than 100 million in North West acting as separatist and another 100 millions waging war on social engineering by propagating Mao’s philosophy. More than 50% of Indian district are affected by these plague in one way or other. Unless there is absolute solidarity between various sections of society how they can fight external menace.

These are frightening numbers, how a country can a country project a single dedicated face to fight such highly motivated destructive forces when more than the population of USA and Europe is made passive about the country. If one makes an honest attempt to find the genesis of external forces getting easy access in India it will be no rocket science to know that the shear corruption, disillusionment with state and vast majority of citizen having indifferent attitude has resulted in most of this mess. It is a joke and disgrace to keep hearing from media that a dozen people came through boat and hijacked a city which was suppose to have best policing and infrastructure among all Indian cities. For a country that goes to moon it takes more than 12 hours to send forces to the site, they had no plane and no plan in place for such disaster. Rather than searching their own house for them it was easier to declare other country’s hand within one hour of the attack and start revealing various important classifieds on the way and means through which terrorist carried out this carnage. This must have vastly helped the terror group to wipe out all the vital clues, how careless and headless we work. The various encounters and other stories in past have never resulted in any concrete policy or frame for tackling future events rather most of them proved to be just eye wash, hope this too does not met the similar fate.

This time the government must work with courage and conviction, if they have clear proof about Pak than hit them by all means, socially, economically even militarily. At the same time they must unearth the real perpetuators of all the recent bomb blast, now when there is lead on new group emerging from majority community, the hunt should lead to its rather conclusion as there are seeds of suspicion the way entire ATS team has been eliminated. Also, its time to go in for honest social engineering no nation can afford half of its population as being passive and disenchanted due to state policies, their atrocities and selective treatments.

It has proved time and again that the people are the best and most effective tool in passing the leads to agencies and calming the tempers in the event of heat, no equipment or technology can ever replace them. Efforts should be made to draw a line between terrorist and community; some stray bad elements are bad irrespective to which sect they belong; they must be identified and put to trial in full public glare. The entire community should not be marginalized or punished for the sake of few people wrong agenda. The state must induct people from minority communities in the key administration like local intelligence, law and order and empower them with a feeling the they too are part of the system rather than systematically cornering them as happened in states like Gujarat or Orissa. We must stop playing minority or majority appeasement policy, honest assessment must be made and genuine attempts should be done to ensure that justice is done and visible to every one.

The state should act firmly with every one irrespective of religion and political affiliation who is found indulging in creating wedge among people in the name of religion, region, caste, forward, backward etc. It must ensure that the gap between rich and poor is reduced. Every citizen must have the basic necessities of life and a share in India’s prosperity. India will continue to suffer as long as it applies different set of laws to powerful and weak, keep playing vote bank politics. May be the hard posture of the government will be able to reduce the external terror act but country will never be fully secured and safe unless all the citizen are treated equally and start taking pride in being Indian first.