Quote

A great quote that a friend sent
“throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted , the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it matter most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph”

Views-Ideas-Suggestions on Terrorism

Here are some views that my grandfather penned down in a note titled “Views-Ideas-Suggestions on Terrorism in India”

1. I feel that our politicians and political parties, along with other Government agencies concerned directly or indirectly with terrorism never took this problem as a serious matter. Unless seriousness is considered at highest levels, all efforts will be wasted.
2. Also for all attacks of terrorism in the recent past, throughout India, all officials responsible for negligence of basic duty, should be booked after thorough investigations and be punished suitably.They cannot get away scot free. Unless this done, all will take advantage of public short term memory and things will go on as usual.
3. Any Government in power must understand that security of safety of all citizens of Free India must get top priority. Suitable legislations must be passed in Parliament. The issue of terrorism should cut across all political parties. All opposition parties must cooperate with the Government in power at all costs.
4. A separate agency or an independent body is required to coordinate between various Central Intelligence Departments and state Home Ministries, Police and Anti-terrorist squads etc. All important ideas and suggestions must be implemented on an urgent basis.
5. It is high time a solid and fool-proof plan of action be prepared and put in practice at the earliest. People have got the right to know what is being planned and implemented from time to time on such a important national issue. TV Media and newspapers can play a constructive and useful role in creating a sense of confidence among people.
6. Proper monitoring of all aspects must be on a day-to-day basis, at least in the beginning to create a sense of confidence and security among people.
   Signed M K Doshi
   7/12/2008

Celebrities and Politicians

Switch on any form of popular media – and you will find celebrities hogging the limelight with regard to the Mumbai terror attacks. Actors and other celebrities are rattling of policy measures that they would like to be undertaken at a furious pace. This entry is not to discuss the validity and feasibility of these policies. Instead – I would like to ask why our Government officials are not doing the same. By this I mean, why are our Government officials not willing to come together in a public debate and discuss what kind of policies would help our country. It is extremely important that such discourse is public – so that the citizens of India know that the politicians are actually doing something.

Lets analyze what the politicians have been doing since the attacks:

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came on television roughly about 18 hours after the attacks and gave us an insipid and limp speech insisting India would not be beaten down.

Pratibha Patil spoke for about 45 seconds saying how she honored those who sacrificed their lives – even while operations were ongoing. It is absolutely pathetic that she gave a pre-written speech that must have been filed in her drawer under “what to say in case of a terrorist attack” – the lack of interest in public sentiment at the time was appalling.

A meeting of the Congress Working Committee was called in which we learnt that various public officials such as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Shivraj Patil offered to resign. Did these politicians, tasked with the welfare of our country, not realize that a terror attack had just taken place and instead of shirking their responsibilities, they needed to inspire confidence in the people of India. The time for resigning could have come later.

Then began the whole fiasco about the Congress Government in Maharashtra. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what was going through Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil’s head when he said that these incidents were common in big cities, implying he did not think the furore being created over these attacks was justified or necessary.

After which we woke up to images of Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ram Gopal Varma at the Taj. This move further supports the theory that politicians do not have any gauge of public sentiment.

Deshmukh rightly faced a lot of flak for this incident and offered to resign. After this, 2 whole days were spent lobbying for the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra. Narayan Rane’s reaction to Ahsok Chavan being named as the new Chief Minister has been extremely immature.

Do the politicians not realize that terror attacks have taken place? A person without any knowledge of these attacks would be forgiven into believing that elections are next week, given the flurry of political activity not related to the terror attacks.

It is a shame that the only people that we get to see on television actually discussing the terror attacks and giving constructive suggestions are media personalities. Our politicians need to take a leaf out of the books of these celebrities – since they themselves do not seem to have a darn clue as to who to gauge and react to public opinion or sentiment.

The world’s largest democracy is in shambles.

Some Images

(Pictures courtesy of http://www.boston.com)

billboard

Read a touching slogan on one of the billboards in the city – We care because all we have is us.

Security?

Another quick post
For every 500 Indians there is 1 police official.
For every 250 Public Officials and other “celebrities”, there are over 500 police officials.

Security, America and the way ahead for India

There seems to be a general consensus that what America did in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks made Americans safer, and whether you agree with George Bush’s handling of the situation and his broader policies, his actions have ushered in a period of relative peace in America and Americans.

I disagree with this view. Lets look at some facts:

(i) America has never been faced with terrorism on the same scale that Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal have had to deal with. The last foreign attack on American soil before the 9/11 attacks were the 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center which killed 6 people. So the argument that America has been a safer becuase of policies enacted by the Bush Government are not true. It was and is relatively much safer than India and Pakistan.

(ii) America shares its borders with Canada and Mexico – 2 friendly neighbours, whereas India shares it borders with China – with whom India went to war with in 1962 and Pakistan – with whom India went to war with in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999 – clearly not friendly neighbours. Furthermore, America’s borders are secured by 2 large oceans – the Atlantic and the Pacific, whereas India shares a large part of its borders with Pakistan and China. A terrorist cannot use a small fishing vessel and decide to attack America. Thus, due to geography and neighbours, as opposed to Bush’s policies, America is a lot more isolated than India, hence safer.

(iii) America might be safer, but Americans across the world are clearly not. After 9/11, America might not have been attacked, but Americans across the world have been. Below is a list of attacks on Americans on foreign soil after 9/11:

1. 2002 – Attack outside the American embassy in Karachi, Pakistan which left 12 people dead.
2. 2003 – Suicide attack on housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia which killed 8 Americans
3. 2004 – Attack on  the offices of a Saudi oil company in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, take foreign oil workers hostage in a nearby residential compound, leaving 22 people dead including one American.
4. 2004 – Terrorists kidnap and execute Paul Johnson Jr., an American, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 2 other Americans and BBC cameraman killed by gun attacks.
5. 2004 – Terrorists storm the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 5 consulate employees.
6. 2005 – Suicide bombers hit 3 American hotels, Radisson, Grand Hyatt, and Days Inn, in Amman, Jordan, killing 57.
7. 2006 – Attack by four gunman on the American embassy foiled in Damascus, Syria.
8. 2007 – The U.S. embassy is fired on by an anti-tank missile causing damage but no deaths in Athens, Greece
9. 2007 – Al Qaeda terrorists detonate two car bombs near Algeria’s Constitutional Council and the United Nations offices killing more than 60 people, including 11 United Nations staff members in Algeria
10. 2007 – A car bomb and a rocket strike the U.S. embassy in Yemen as staff arrived to work, killing 16 people, including 4 civilians in Yemen.
11. 2008 – The recent terror attacks in Mumbai, India resulting in 5 American deaths.

(iv) India has the issue of Kashmir to deal with. There is nothing territorially comparable to Kashmir that America has to deal with. The fact that America does not have significant land disputes to contend with automatically makes it a safer place.

For all of the reasons listed above, I do not believe that Bush’s actions post 9/11 are the reasons that America has not had to deal with a national terrorist tragedy with the same frequency that India has had to deal with. In FY 2009, America is slated to spend $515.4 billion on its defence budget, whereas India in FY 2009 plans to spend $26.4 billion. The disparity in resources is plainly evident.

The rhetoric in India which says that Indian foreign policy should mirror that of America’s in terms of how to deal with terrorism is completely baseless. People who argue along these lines must please consider the various differences between the 2 countries outlined above and realize that following America’s anti-terror policy is not the solution – it might have played a small role in stopping terrorism in America, but has definitely increased anti-American sentiment across the world hence making Americans the targets of an increasing number of terror attacks.

Do we in India really want to make India safer and at the same time making Indians more prone to terror?

Insurance?

Just a quick post-

The Taj and the Trident are insured against destruction caused by terrorism. However, they are not insured against destruction caused by commandos.

Electric

Went for the peace march at the Gateway of India today. Expectations were about 25000 people would show up 200000 did. It was a sight to behold. Colourful banners that condemned politicians, the Indian tricolour, hundreds of candles and a young boy dressed up as though it were Halloween  in an army uniform with a toy gun. During spontaneous renditions of our national anthem the sea of people stood still and respected what our brave army and police force had done. More importantly however, it was Mumbai – united like I have never seen it  before. The atmosphere was electric.

People from all walks of life, regardless of race, colour, caste, creed and profession were there. This mass gathering of people included the rich and the poor all standing in the same line – we even saw Javed Akhtar waiting in line. Today demonstrated to me that the argument about the recent terror attacks being so publicized because they were aimed at the elite is erroneous. Had they only effected the upper socio economic strata of society, street urchins, beggars and people from the middle class of society would not have been present in the numbers that they were. It is amazing to see Mumbai united like this – it is a shame about the kind of events that are needed for this to happen.

I will leave you with one of the more humourous comments that I read on one of the banners –

“The terrorists brought RDX, Deshmukh brough RGV” (Ram Gopal Varma)

Believe it or not

The story just gets worse. Somethings that could not get worse seem to have. The media (newspapers and tv channels) have exposed some startling truths and laid out some facts which in view of the recent terror attacks are absolutely astonishing.

NDTV reported that the bullet proof vests worn by the Maharashtra police and the ATS division are faulty and cannot withstand bullets from a pistol, let alone an assault rifle. The current batch of bullet proof vests were ordered in 2001. An anti-corruption unit found that 2 batches of equipment between 2001 – 2004 were substandard. The Government returned them promising to get new ones. However, the equipment supplied after this too was faulty. All our bullet proof vests failed tests at the Goregaon State Reserve Police Firing Range.They still were distributed amongst the state police.

This suggests utter incompetence on the part of our authorities. Having corruption in such vital areas is undoubetdly one of the largest factors in explaning why India appears to be so underprepared in the face of terrorism. People that are tasked with defending our country are not given the adequate means of doing so. Do the politicians not realize that if given proper equiment these forces can actually mitigate the effects caused by such heinous acts. If the armed forces are given the opportunity – I have no doubt that they will be even more effective. This in turn will reflect positively on the politicians. The politicans are myopic and do not seem to have any form of moral rectitude.The state of the political system in our country is appaling and we as responsible citizens we must no longer turn a blind eye to the problems that are endemic to our country. If the politicians do not have a moral compass, we must agitate and force them to take decisions for the good of the larger populace as opposed to simply fill their coffers with taxpayers money. This is not acceptable and India will stand for it no longer.