The electronic media is going to town with stories about the palpable anger brewing among the Mumbaikars and the nation at large. What is this anger about? Who are they angry at?
Most of the people are outraged because their lives are not secure. That is perfectly understandable. It is the answer to the second question that is disconcerting. Most of the people are angry at the government, at the system and at the nation at large. It is very easy for people to turn cynical and despondent when they are still emotionally fragile and are being constantly bombarded by disturbing TV images.
At this point each one of us should ask this question — finally, what do the terrorists want? They want to undermine the Indian state and destroy the “idea of India”. They want to demoralise the nation, instil fear in each one of us, disrupt our daily lives and force us to doubt our fundamental premises, our cardinal beliefs. They want us to start questioning ourselves.
Should we, as the public, play into their hands by training all our guns on the instruments of the state? The post-mortems and the blame-games have already started. Indian politicians are venal and nincompoop. India doesn’t have an internal security policy. The police is worthless. It is an intelligence failure. We are doomed as a nation.
Politicians are the easiest targets, the softest ones and they rightfully deserve a major share of the blame for the mess we find this nation in. But can we wait a wee bit longer before going all out against them?
Can these TV anchors turned arm-chair experts suggest the way ahead rather than merely decrying the system and the nation? Media acts as a force multiplier for the terrorist. A similar incident in the heartlands of Bastar would have achieved little except a byline in the inside pages of a national newspaper after two days. If this kind of media coverage provides oxygen to terrorism, then the electronic media and the society needs to introspect about the role of media in the Indian society today. It is about TRPs and revenue figures for the media while it is about pandering to voyeuristic tendencies in each one of us.
Comparisons to the US during 9/11, although not very exact, will continue to be made. Let us look back at another famous siege in India that happened nearly a quarter of a century back. Was Operation Blue Star less gruesome or worse than these Mumbai attacks? The terrorists inside the Golden Temple had even laid mines and shot down army tanks with anti-tank weapons. But it wasn’t a media spectacle and the mood in the nation was not of despondency and vexation. The nation then said — let’s fight and eradicate terrorism. What is the feeling in the nation now — let’s berate the government and eradicate this system of governance.
If that be true, then the terrorists and their ideology have already won. Let us be cautious and careful in venting our emotions. Each one of us has a right to be angry, but at the right target — the terrorists and our countrymen who, wittingly or unwittingly, further the terrorists’ agenda for their petty, selfish gains.
The immediate goal of neutralising terrorists inside Mumbai has been met. There is an urgent need to identify and lay out a short-term plan for ensuring internal security, along with a long-term vision for restructuring the internal security system in this country and a medium-term strategy that bridges the short-term plans and the long-term vision.
Implementable reforms anybody?
@pragmatic
“Media acts as a force multiplier for the terrorist”
[1] Now we know who or whom they are helping apart from their own ad revenue. Censorship pays.
“Was Operation Blue Star less gruesome or worse than these Mumbai attacks ? ”
[2] Was fairly easy to knock out Rasputin and a bunch of crazies holed up in temple. Took a few Bns. Less easy to similarly ‘re educate’ or ‘circumscribe’ a (some or what percentage of ?) quarter of humanity similarly inclined ? It’s all about numbers. Attila the Hen, Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi could have done it though.
Beware True Indians!!!!!! , I am watching the television news media past few days all the news channels are slowly targeting the BJP……the news channel medias which is antinational is spear headed by Prannoy Roy’s NDTVand Rajdeepsar Desai’s CNN IBN …it starts like this first they say when the operations are going on we should not blame anybody now (Congress Party) …. next thing is after the terrorist are killed and operations are over they say no poltical party( that is the BJP) should use this as election issue…..now the NDTV has started spreading news that Modi compensastion money has been rejected by the Karkare family…the media wants to turn the Indian outrage against BJP.The news channel and media have a clear goal and agenda behind this
1) Bail out the CONGRESS PARY out of this Dastardly act
2 ) Put pressure on the BJP so that they cannot use this incident to attack the congress and win elections
3) Blame the RSS, VHP , BAJRANG DAL etc etc that they are responsiable for this actions by terrorist saying it was a natural reaction of radical muslims
What we have to do as True Indians Firstly be patient ,think straight and be aware about the maipulation of the media.
Reforms are very easy, but before that we shud overcome our mistrust between organisations. once that is achieved, we will find things very fast. one of the first and the most basic reforms is let there be no direct selection of police personnel in the officer rank. let them be moved after 10 years service from Army, air force, navy, BSF, ITBP etc except CRPF(it is not a comment on their professionalism but their deployment). once they have actually seen the threats to the country for 10 years, they will appreciate the internal security much better. their decisions will have the tinge of national security.
we shud not compare our situation with US, or other countries (we may compare it with Israel) because of the situation all around us. howmuch ever we try some of the spillover is likely to come into the country. we have Maoists in Nepal, Pakistan as a whole, whatever Mujahideens in bangladesh, Afghanistan is as good as our neighbor, LTTE in srilanka, and insurgent groups of Myanmar. so we can’t say we have a single opening towards something friendly (govt as well as ppl). this calls for drastic measures.
the sideways placement from these agencies will also remove a lot of ills facing them, as they will have a better opportunity either way ie within the organisations as also if they leave the organisations to police and CRPF. they would just require a short orientation course as the basics have already been ingrained in them.
the second reforms shud be in the civil services (IAS, IFS etc). the cadre strength shud be reduced to just 20 % of the permanent cadre. balance should be taken on contract based on the specialisation and experience. it would also lead to reduction of administrative expenditure. IAS should pickup academicians dealing with public administration, finance ministry shud pick up ppl from finance and so on.
how does this help?
the direct cadre over a period of time loose touch with the latest developments and loose their innovativeness. the youngsters joining are full of zeal, but seeing the situation around them (no one listens to young IAS or IFS officer, he is only running around, not anyway involved in policy making) they slowly get stereotyped (a husband & wife living together start looking and behaving like each other after 10 years). with over 80 % of ppl from outside changing regularly the stereotyping will not take place, rather new ideas will find easy acceptability and we will become proactive (due to the pressure to perform). the 20% permanent cadre while will not be able to create the stereotyping effect, will be able to maintain continuity of thought. just to give an example, despite we being an IT powerhouse, we have not been able to reach a stage where the govt depts work online. result a simple sanction takes 2 months (quite unimaginable in the corporate world). ask any corporate they will scoff at the thick file with nothing worthwhile in them. the share market which was the most difficult has been able to achieve complete online operations.
why has the govt not been able to achieve it?
the older (senior) staffers are poor in IT, so they are not keen, result the junior who is raring to go, has to resort to the thick file. even if 20% of the senior officers (read secretaries) were able to work on the online clearance system for proposals, imagine the reduction in staff (clerks reduce by over 50% as he would have to feed his own comments), no files lost (they are on the server and the mailbox will show the pending projects with him), speedy movement (he cannot say i haven’t received the file, it is in his mailbox and can be monitored from the server). this is just a simple example.
i met a finance guy, who was extolling the virtues of credit card. while i was apprehensive, in the end i was amazed at his foresight (not the advantage to the holder, though it is ingrained, but to the countries financial system).
Proposal – issue credit card to all people employed with a credit limit of 70% of his salary. (70% so that he does not fall into debt trap even if he wants).
advantages.
1. our mints(printing currency) work half as most of the transactions are cashless. less requirement of currency notes (they do not get soiled or damaged)
2. since the money he is spending (on credit card on credit) is in the bank liquidity increases by 1/12 percent (the credit adds to the liquidity).
3. economy takes a jump of straight 1/12 percent as this is the extra amount spent in that MONTH. (US economy has grown only on expenditure)
4. less, rather near elimination of black money. all transactions on credit card and recordable.
5. cash handling expenditure of firms reduce since most of the transaction online, cost efficiency.
6. reduction of crime, less cash at home, firms send very minimal cash to be deposited at banks.
7. firms tax evasion removed, all transactions recordable.
he had mentioned four more, which i have forgotten.
the issue is not the credit card but developing innovativeness and their core strength in the government depts. since ability to manipulate the system will reduce the politicians will be less corrupt (no understanding in the entire hierarchy that this is done, due to stereotyping)
wow i am impressed at my analysis. intelligent and mature comments?
Frustrating isnt it?
We are very angry but we dont know who we are angry at. Makes us more angry.
let’s stop being angry and sorry and throw up solutions.
I think their choice of date is significant: 26th November, the day our Constitution was passed by the Constituent Assembly in 1949. May be I’m being a conspiracy theorist here, but what else defines us Indians in the present world than our Constitution?
Angry at whome and for what?
Angry at the political class for their insensitivity. At those politicians who are in the league of Raj Thakarey and R R Patil. At those politicians for whome this is just yet another attack which is quite a routine thing to happen for a city like Mumbai!!
For them this is not the real threat. What they would be scary of is the spirit of India which was in ample display during the counter operations in Mumbai.
For a sample, Maj Unnikrishnan, who is a keralite hailing from Bangalore in Karnataka commissioned in to the Bihar regiment of the Indian Army deputed to work as a commando in the NSG has fought valiantly and made the supreme sacrifice to uphold the pride and prestige of India as also to save not only Mumbaikars but the entire humanity.
This is India at its best in Mumbai. And this is what Thakerays and Patils are afraid of.
But then India has learned to survive in spite of them.
@ all
Has anybody even thought as where our Hnble supreme Commander has been throughout this entire national tragedy? She is so busy holidaying with her kith and kin in SE Asia that matters of grave national security are of no consequence to her. Its a shame that she has chosen to continue her holiday, has made no official communique and shown how indifferent she is to such grave matters. And our media and the opposition have had absolutely no time to highlight this disturbing action to the nation. Perhaps the PM or 10 Janpath ought to advise the Supreme commander that she be a little sensitive to the people of the country.