Where the mind is without fear and the head held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake

                                                                                                by Rabindranath Tagore

Life will be a peaceful journey if we are able to face difficulties without fear, swallow the bitterness of tragedy, enjoy the happiness, and love that life showers on us.  Such lovely life is being crushed to death by the ruthless terrorism in a fraction of second right in front of our eyes.  In the journey of life death is appearing everywhere in today’s world. 

Parliament, temples, malls, shops, local trains, on streets, in star hotels, in air, on land or in water – everywhere terrorists are hunting down innocent people.

Recent attacks in Mumbai with are a direct war waged by terrorists on India.  Every time something like this happens I see a regular drama and it always has the below statements:

“We will destroy the very roots of terrorism and make our country a safe place again”

“I appreciate the people for the courage they have shown in this hour of crisis”

“We will not bow down before terrorism”

I think by now you would have guessed the people who make these statements.  These are our Netas.  When terrorist beasts are killing people mercilessly, what is the assurance being given these leaders,:

 “Incidents like these are happening all over the world and it is difficult to predict these incidents”

 “In a big city like Mumbai it is not possible to keep an eye on every person who comes in”

This is nothing but escapism and gross irresponsibility of the leaders.  They don’t even feel ashamed for making such statements. First time when terrorists killed people, I hated terrorists.

But then they repeatedly killed people, I started hating our politicians and law makers more than I hated terrorists for giving them a license to kill. 

10 to 12 terrorists who have entered Mumbai via sea  were able to hold the entire nation as hostage for 3 days. This clearly shows how incompetent our leaders, our policies, and our intelligence are. 

As if a sudden realization has dawned, Shivraj Patil resigned form his post. 

But it took a nation to loose 200 lives of civilians, 24 police officers, and soldiers to remind the Home minister of his “Moral Responsibility”.  After the UPA government came to power the number of attacks by terrorists have increased manifold and nothing was done politically to tackle this issue.  With all their concern for the terrorism they got POTA abolished. 

These leaders who can’t even step out without a dozen commandos around them say “people here are very courageous”.  They don’t have to certify our courage.  People of this nation are always more courageous than the leaders.  Though we know that our lives are not safe every time we step out, we still walk on the street without any fear.

Leaders make statements like “we will not be cowed down by terrorism’.  But it’s we the people who show this in action.  Within 3 days of the terror attack, ‘Leopold café’ is opened and people thronged it.  This is testimony to the courage of an Indian.

Mumbai resembled a war zone for 3 days.  Once it’s over people are back on the street not because of the assurances given by our politicians but because of the courage and patriotism shown by the Armed forces. 

Those brave commandoes who have sacrificed themselves to save us gave us the courage to come out and salute them.  Those of us who witnessed their dedication and sacrifice in flushing out the terrorists from Taj, Nariman house and Oberoi can’t forget them in our life time.

Even today we don’t have proper mechanism in place to tackle something like this.  We don’t have the weapons or technology or strategy.  How can you explain bullets piercing the bullet proof jackets of our cops? Our government is not able to stop the inflow of RDX into the country from Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Our intelligence officers became spectators when the terrorists were equipping themselves with latest weapons.

After the parliament attack in 2001, though the government declared Terrorism as a national issue, nothing was done to beef up internal security.  Though, Prime Minister spoke about setting up of a ‘Federal Investigation Agency’ nothing has materialized.  Look at America, immediately after 9/11 attacks, they have put in place ‘Department of Homeland Security’.

At last Prime Minister woke up and setup a task force to come out with a strategy to counter terrorism in 100 days.  Actually, this should have happened long back.  None of the states in India has plan in place for terrorist attacks.  There is no proper co-ordination between our Police and intelligence.  Attack on Mumbai is an attack on the whole nation. 

Hope at least now our leaders will open their eyes and really take an action to fight terrorism.

Image Credit- Sameer Gupta

Popularity: 26%

26th November 2008 will be remembered for the most audacious and daring terrorist attack that was launched on Indian Soil. Ten terrorist came down in a trawler and were able to take the whole nation hostage for over 60 hours killing over 180 people. Mumbai’s well known landmarks like the 105 year old Taj Mahal Hotel, Leopold Café, the CST Railway Terminus and the Oberoi Trident were the targets.

For over 2 decades now, India has been reeling under these terror strikes at prominent places which were supposed to be most secured. This means that the terrorists have been able to walk in freely and execute their strike successfully without much hindrance.

When most of the terror strikes were analyzed, two things have often stood out:

• Ineffective intelligence gathering
• Improper Policing

Ineffective Intelligence Gathering

As the popular adage goes “Prevention is better than cure” an effective intelligence can prevent these kinds of terrorist attacks. An effective intelligence gathering includes gathering ground information and then passing on the information to the required people to act upon post analysis.

Indian intelligence agencies on many occasions have failed in atleast one of the activities of effective intelligence gathering. Most of the defense analysts have criticized our premier Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Agency RAW for being good at covert action but not good at intelligence assessment and analysis.

It has not always been the Intelligence agencies that have been at fault. Sometimes intelligence agencies have supplied credible information to the Central and the state government entities and the police but they have been unable to act upon it because of bureaucratic hurdles or lack of supporting infrastructure.

For instance in the case of the Mumbai attacks, the information of the sea routes being used for some kind of terrorist activity was given to Maharastra state a day before the attacks, but nothing was done.

Improper Policing

As in the case of the Mumbai attack, when intelligence was available to the Police and the government about the possible sea borne attack, they couldn’t respond effectively as they lacked the resources to commission a reconnaissance. The below facts about our porous coastline are even more worrying:\

• India’s 7500 km coastline which has many critical installations and ports don’t have any kind of surveillance, electronic or physical.
• Against the sanctioned 73 police stations we have only 55 operational, but they lack proper equipment like speed boats and the like
• Illegal smuggling has been going on through these coasts to which the governments of these states have just turned a blind eye to

When the terrorists had attacked the CST Terminus, they had AK-47s and grenades with them and what did our police have a lathi and World War era rifle. Most of the police force in the India has faced similar problems when they come across the anti social elements like the jehadis or the Maoists.

To add on to the woes when these anti social elements were caught, the lack of proper laws have prolonged their cases and because of which most of them are still serving as under-trials when these people ought to be doing their time in the prison.

All these problems have been around because of the lax attitudes of our leaders towards terror when they enjoy Z category security for themselves. These clearly goes to say that our politicians can go to any extent to fill up their vote banks but will not do much that will help the common man or to make him feel secure.

Image Credit: BabaSteve

Popularity: 13%

Last 55 hours India has faced its worst ever crisis. 15-20 terrorists took Mumbai under siege. As many as 150 people killed including several High Profile Cops, Army Jawans, The Taj burning, gunfires, grenades, AK 47s, and god knows what not.

Mumbai is burning. India is angry. Pakistan seems to have a hand.

One man who had spoken for the Marathi Manoos and lampooned North & South Indians left, right and center seems to have hidden behind the curtains. No one heard his voice. He seems to have chickened out.

It needed the strong brave army of National Security Guards consisting of mainly North & South Indians to save his Marathi Manoos.

Raj Thackeray – Today, your head should bow in shame. So much for your regional jingoism !

What have you done for the Marathi Manoos ? Attended them at the hospital with a few hundred cameramen around you so that the whole world could see your drama, your crocodile tears ?

Where were you  when there was fierce gun battle in front of The Oberoi, The Taj and The Nariman House ?

Your party is called Maharashtra NavNirman Sena. And I thought Sena means Army – No ? The name “Sena” is a shame for you and your partyworkers.

What NavNirman are you talking about ? NavNirman means Rebuilding. We don’t want people like you to rebuild once it is fallen. We want people like Hemant Karkare, Ashok Kamte, Vijay Kalaskar who would lay down their lives and not let the morale of the Marathi Manoos fall.

We want leaders with a vision. Not one who would pitch against each other for every petty thing.

Go learn something from the Army, from the Jawans, from the guards who laid down their lives for Mumbai. They didn’t talk of South India or North India. They talked as if they belonged to one nation – India – Their India.

Raj, it is high time that you gave up your utopian concept of a Marathi boundary filled with Marathi Manoos. We are Indians first.

For heaven’s sake – Stop Your Regional Jingoism !

Popularity: 42%