Mumbai Bomb blasts, blocking of blogs by the Indian Govt and their overall response
I have been resisting from writing anything on the Mumbai blasts so far. It is because I feel so strongly about any act of terrorism, murder or a form of killing which is deliberate by an individual or a group of individuals that I am afraid that my opinion will be little too harsh. But, it has been discussed so much in the blogosphere that I can’t resist adding my $0.02.
Very recently, one of my cousin, who I used to admire the most for his approach and risk-taking capabilities in business, was murdered brutally – this has been the single most disturbing factor for me and a lot of my family members in the last couple of months. This is one of the things that one doesn’t want to discuss about and talk about but feel so strongly about that the hatred against any murderer, any terrorist is strong to the extent that nothing can justify another such act. Mumbai blast is another such event and my heart goes to all those who suffered because of the heinous activity.
But more than the terrorists, I blame the Indian government for this activity. We just don’t learn from past and let these acts happen time after time. Why can’t we reply to it once? We have been practicing tolerance from the last so many years and nothing have changed. I can act matured and say that it’s not just the government but our responsibility too but if it happens with you and you know that the frequency of the operation will not change, that maturity goes for a toss. The number of terrorist organizations have only increased with time, the attacks are becoming bolder and the number of civilans that get affected has only increased. And if we take actions, we take it half-heartedly which does more bad than it does good. We will have to stop being such an easy prey for the terrorists. And if it has to happen – we need to give one really strong response. I don’t exactly support the way US attacked Afghanistan and looked for Bin Laden because of 9/11 attacks but don’t we all think that if US hadn’t done that and weakened Taliban to the extent that they had to go into hiding, there would have been more such attacks in the US. Yes – it does mean that US will always have to be careful because there will be somebody from the Taliban organization and their supporters who will always look to harm the country but it is also true that no other attack has happened in the US after that. We just need to compare that with what has happened in India as against to in the US – in the last decade. So, it’s very easy to read about this in the newspapers and come up with comments on whether we should act or not against such attacks – but history tells me that unless we take some concrete actions, nothing will change. Terrorism will never stop. And if the terrorism doesn’t stop killing so many individuals, it is just a matter of time that another section of the society will take up arms and fight against them. Obviously, we don’t want that.
And now this blocking of blogs is probably the most insane thing that the Indian government has done so far in this episode. Apparently, they are blocking the communication between terrorists – as if they just had this medium to communicate. If they really have to communicate – what will stop them from registering a domain and using that for communication instead. That was just an example, there are so many means of carrying out the communication. As pointed out in the comments of my previous post (by Saad), why don’t they block Google? Yeah – we all understand that the ban is not permanent and will be removed in a few days. The blogspot and other blog-users can start using their blog after a few days but it is setting a bad trend and will give government an excuse to ban another blog / site in future whenever somebody writes something that is not popular with them (as Hiren pointed out in the comments of the previous post). Huh – how lame.
My dear politicians of the country, you will be appreciated a lot more if you focus your energies on actually doing something against terrorism either diplomatically or in a more aggressive way. It’s not difficult to make out if an act was truly to block terrorist communication or just something lame to divert people’s attention.
The sad part is that your actions, however lame, doesn’t affect most people in the long run. It’s because those who haven’t suffered directly at the hands of terrorists will have short-term memory here. I have known more than a few people (directly or through another contact) who have, unfortunately, been on the darker side of the fence and none of them will ever support it. When somebody bombed the parliament and you saw a personal risk, the entire army was stationed at the border but if it happens at a more public place, nothing happens. What kind of justification is that?
Technorati Tags: Blocking Blogs, Terrorism, Mumbai Blasts
Mumbai Police is considered to be one of the best in India. I am surprised to see the incompetency of Mumbai police dealing this.
The blasts should not be there in first place if they have happened then the terrorists should have been nailed till now.
On top of it Govt. actions … I just cant stand all this…
Ashish,
Mumbai 2006 appears to have been a turning point in many peoples lives whether or not it directly affected them. As in the case of Israel the nation seems to be crying out enough’s enough. Instead of seizing up the moment and take actions that pass on the message “you can’t f… with us” to the terrorist, our weak govt goes up sucking to the G8.
And what do we get in return, pathetic homilies by Richard Boucher in ToI today advising us on restraint and sort of introducing us as a new victim of global terror (if this were funny I would be rolling on the floor laughing).
The Mumbai police have been hamstrung by political interefernce and when the DGP mentioned an MLA by name (allegedly Baba Siddiqui), the house has found it appropriate to introduce a privilege motion to censure him (when they have actually better things to do like catching the culprits).
Today sitting in barracks , i feel sad about the condition of my fellow citizes.Terrorists are killing people everyday-blowing up temples, railways tracks.We are all geared up to penetrate enemy terrtry and smash them and we have the capabiity and ability to do it but then we are told to keep our eyes & ears open and mouth shut.
Irony is that our politicans hold control of our destiny and they are busy:
i)making money
ii)changing names of states and districts( i wonder soon they’ll change the name of india)
iii)making foreign trips and gaining nothing out of it
iv)creating reserved seats
v)imposing tax and add to inflation
these are few to name.
It is sad that my fellow soldeirs died on line of duty and thier family members still have to get adequate compensation or support from government.They don’t give a damn to it.
We started wondering as to why are we raised for if we cannot save the dignity of our country.Those terrorists must be sitting and laughing at us.
recently is saw an ad. in paper which says that people should get together and defend ourselves.In such eventuality, why do we need politicians,police or army?
Our country is burning and if these politicans don’t act, then lets burn them all…
True. The incompetency of the Mumbai police,forces and the inteliigence department is really something not to be proud of.
Virtually nothing is being done to nail down the terrorists. They have got an e-mail from the people responsible for the blasts, a particular group admitting proudly that they were the one responsible for the act but all these are not enough for the intelligence department to track them and kill them…what more do you need?Hey- if you are thinking that the terrorists will come to the police and admit it- then you must know that they won’t do that!
Instead of paying attention to changing names,reserving seats;it’s high-time that the government must handle the important matters-should quit playing the game of power.
Nice comment,Aditya!
We need to take stronger actions against these terrorists. These terrorists are nothing but a by product of lame laws and an example of people born with underdeveloped brains. These terrorists are also examples to others on what happens when parents don’t raise their kids properly and give them enough education. In many cases these terrorists seem highly educated but I am sure these morons would have gotten their degrees by use of unfair means.
A good way to deal with these terrorist pigs is to cut off their arms and legs once you have them arrested, cut off one of their ears, blind them in one of the eye, cut off their tongues and let them live. We should not kill them!!
These kinds of mis happenings have happened so many times in life, now it seems to be part of life. Everybody is reacting on this accordingly. Theoretically, everybody seems to be right, we should do this or govt. should do this etc-etc. After few days of all this, what happens?
There may be so many theoretical solutions to all this but is there any practical solution / approach for all this. Practical means practical which is possible here in India…
I am sure the day is not far when only a very few people in the world will be familiar with and know the meaning of the words like humanity, righteousness, chastity, integrity.
I am shockingly curious to know how can someone be motivated to kill 100s of innocent people. Whatever may be the reason for killing, its just not justified and absolutely inhuman. What happened to humanity? Why humans are behaving like devils?
Thanks for your comments – Arvind, Prashant, Aditya, Siddhartha, Dhurendar, Amit and Ahmed. Glad that you all agree with me.
I dont have a solution but I know for sure that keping quiet is not the solution. Those who think that letting it be like this are cowards in my opinion.
As rightly said by aditya in indian politics the moto of politicians is to just stay in power as long as they can n collect heaps of money in thr lockers(Let them be burned usin those money after death)……
Wen they(govt.)have enough technical n manual resources to supress terrorism, why don they use it? They will not bcoz they don wan to risk thr life or position……
Using an iron aganist terrorists might help supressing terrorism to some extent…..
Thank u ashish for such a nice post