However, once the reality has set in, and we’ve become aware of the gravity of the situation, the customary distance we’d tend to keep from things happening in different parts of the country has not made itself evident this time around.
The terrorist attacks in Kashmir have not made our blood boil so much, or made so many of us spew vitriol in the way these Mumbai attacks have. The various attacks in our country have shaken us up, including the ones that took place in Jaipur, Ahmedabad, in our very own Bangalore as well as in Assam.
What happened in Bangalore was probably the scariest of them all personally, at least when the first reports of the explosions were reported. However, these fears were significantly assuaged when we were made aware of those blasts being low-intensity, and that a few bombs had been defused and significant damage to life and property had been averted.
However, none of these attacks has made us angrier as a collective people, than what is going on in Mumbai currently. No longer is the average Indian, let alone the average Mumbaikar speaking about the resilience of the city, and its ability to weather any storm and the innate nature of its people to be able to pull themselves together in the face of any adversity.
No longer is anyone speaking about how life will go on once these terrorists are flushed out from the Taj, the Trident and Nariman House.
One is under the distinctive impression that the Bombay that withstood the communal riots, the bomb blasts of 1993, the local train explosions of 2006 and the various other sporadic incidents of terrorism and violence has now finally reached the end of its tether. As a city, it is too great to be equated to a camel, and hence I’d like to refrain from using the last straw metaphor. (As a pertinent aside, I was born there in 1983)
What every Mumbaikar, nay Indian is demanding at this point in time is justice. We’re tired of being labelled a soft state, that will withstand the blows that these terrorists keep raining on us. We’re tired of being in a situation where we have to be on our guard at all times, being in fear of our lives at all times.
True, we’ve acquired some sense of bravado within us that keeps propelling us towards doing what we have to, as we go about saying to ourselves that what happens will happen, and we will face it when it does.
However, turning the other cheek just doesn’t seem to cut it. With all due respect to the Mahatma, I don’t think his ideals and principles were developed around trying to provide solutions against radical hardcore religious fanatics who seem to have adopted the motto of ‘kill and get killed’. Ostensibly, Gandhigiri will just not get us anywhere.
This sense of anguish and despair was epitomized by Shobhaa De’s scathing commentary against politicians and her anger at how security is diverted towards their protection while the common people are subject to open gunfire in the streets when they go about their daily activities. Her angry responses towards Barkha Dutt’s quesitoning on NDTV earned her a lot of respect last evening, and in a way, was representative of the feelings of most people in general.
We, as a people need to wake up and get better acquainted with collateral damage. It is not enough to engage in armchair philosophy, while we let someone else take the bullets to ensure that our need to get jungle-style justice is addressed.
When we engage in retaliation against the source of these terror attacks, and I sincerely hope to God that we do, we can expect them to hit back hard at us. Lives will be lost, businesses will suffer, and our general quality of life might take a beating for the worse. People we know, maybe even you and I, might be ridden with bullets or have our limbs torn apart due to explosives.
What we need to understand, and more importantly hope and pray, is that the possible short-term troubles we face due to any steps undertaken in response to the attacks on Mumbai in particular, and the terror strikes on our country in general might translate into the long-term good of all of us Indians as a people.
Right now, one can only wish for the ordeal in Mumbai to end, for the decisive next set of steps to be taken. Respect to those personnel who laid their lives down in the line of duty.
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