Sorry Mumbai ! India Defeats Terror

“India Defeats Terror” screamed a news channel seeking to be ‘refreshingly different’. Apart from the poor English, what struck me was the empty rhetoric. Could the attack have ended any differently? What else could the terrorists have achieved? Take over India?! Is it not sufficient victory for them to have stormed into the prestige symbols of Mumbai right under the nose of Navy, Coast Guard etc.etc. and cause so much damage. That the elite forces of the country took sixty hours to overcome a handful of ruffians that too leaving ten scores dead renders it a pyrrhic victory and to hail it as a ‘defeat of terror’ is an uneducated hyperbole.

The dust has settled, literally and metaphorically, in the premises attacked by the terrorists In Mumbai. The blame-game would start with agencies involved pointing finger at each other. None would remember to accept responsibility for the slain innocents nor would anyone venture to answer the question put forth by the loved ones – what mistake did they commit, except being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

A grand Navy, a fanciful Coast Guard and even more populated Customs – all put together were not able to prevent a schooner carrying terrorists and loads of weapons coming in to launch an attack on the economic capital of the country. It is an open secret that the Western Coast has been a haven for criminal activities, not just in the recent times but since time immemorial. Gangsters like Mastan built their empires by indulging in smuggling in “phoren” goods. Now it is drugs –loads from Afghanistan find their way into the city via Pakistan. The explosives for the Bombay blasts were also shipped into the city with the help of corrupt officials who sold their brethren for a few silver. One would have thought that India will wake up and be more vigilant in guarding the coast but nay, we never learn. Fifteen years are not sufficient to put a fool-proof system in place. That in all probabilities the dinghy ferrying the terrorists would have floated past the Naval Headquarters should have the Admiral shedding his fancy uniform but then why should he alone bear the cross when the sin of incompetency is on all the agencies guarding the country.

The question arises, why are we so incompetent? So inefficient? India has always been a soft target for marauders. “To Md.Gazhni” commented a historian, “India was like a tethered cow. He could come down and milk it whenever he wanted”. Centuries later, nothing has changed. A BBC expert on terrorism says that we are “such a soft target that terrorists use it for practice”. The present situation is due to political ‘shenaniganism’. This largest democracy in the world is fooling most of the people all the time. Three cases, three classic examples of our incompetency and inability to safe-guard the values of democracy. Three very good reasons why we should be called a banana republic.-by:pksundar