Why did it take Mumbai?

Blast after blast but we haven't seen much done. Demands of resignations and then some rebuttals, the blame game and we're back to square one. Another day and another blast. Today the target was Assam but no one will talk about it. No debates, no coverage, no media persons. The sad fact is that terror has become a part of our lives. India holds the unfortunate record of the second largest death toll due to terror and guess what? We're second only to Iraq. Some might see our ever expanding population as an asset but this is one record we'd rather not hold. The problems?

Our non-optimized defense budgets:

Does every VIP need security? Shouldn't we get more from what we spend for the defense of our country? We spend 5% of our budget towards defense and related expenses while most developed nations spend a maximum of 3% of their budgets. Are we spending the right amount on the right things? When we spend so much on arms and ammunition defense personnel, why wasn't the Maharashtra Police Head Quarters well equipped to fight automatic riffles and grenades?

The morale of our security forces:

Does the police have to be controlled by the state politicians which in a way requires them to be act in the most subservient of ways. There are numerous stories of officers who get posted around just for disobeying a politician. Is it time to separate politics and policing? The Prime Minister is talking about a federal terror fighting agency, but will that have enough teeth to fight the menace of terror or will it become just another puppet in the hands of the

central government?

Corruption:

When even a havaldar needs to pay his way to get a posting he wants you can imagine how deep rooted corruption is. Police officers with the biggest bellies you'd have ever seen and then again for the fresh recruits at the lowest levels the selection process isn't the most transparent either. People pay just to join the force and with the low salaries the only way of making some money is ofcourse bribes. The role of customs also needs to be studied. Although in the case of Mumbai, arms and explosives were smuggled in by the terrorists themselves directly be the sea route, in the numerous blasts preceding this where did the RDX come from? Were the customs officers inspecting whatever comes through our highly border with Nepal have something to do with this? The truth is that large amounts of goods are being smuggled into India with customs being bothered only about how much the smuggler is ready to bribe. This nexus was first exposed after the 1993 blasts when a few customs officers came into the picture. But is that a lesson forgotten?

Naxals:

Who are they? Are they Indian or is all terror exported from Pakistan? You don't expect such a large movement to happen without sympathizers within our country. When tribals in so many of our states were virtually forgotten while we were writing the growth stories for our metros such repercussions were bound to take place. Maybe it is time for us to truly see why the most mineral rich states: Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh are also our poorest states. Maybe then we will get an answer to why the problem exists and it would be more sensible to treat the problem rather than the symptoms.

Mumbai shouldn't merely be used as an excuse to propagate war or earn some cheap political brownie points but as a time to ponder over our mistakes and how we could have avoided them. I sincerely hope what happened on the 26th November in Mumbai will help us overcome the inertia that has driven our systems for so long and hope that the politicians will also see what happened in Assam on the 2nd December as an equal infringement of our security and as big a failure of the system as was Mumbai.

Don't get me wrong. I am no disgruntled youth who wishes to flee his country and settle in a land overseas. I am as proud of my country as anyone else is. What I am not proud of is our leadership, no party in particular because they're all the same.

I salute the bravery of the men who gave their lives in Mumbai trying to save and protect strangers in a city which most had seen for the very first time. All I wonder is why did something like this have to happen in the first place?

61 years ago Nehru had said:

'Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.'

Maybe what Nehru said on the 15th of August 1947 was still true on the midnight of 26th November 2008 while we all watched what happened in Mumbai. Maybe it's time to redeem our pledge yet again.

जय हिंद 

-Akhil Sharma