Whenever I hear the comments "We are like that only”, “Somebody must fix the politicians” "Chalta hai yaar!” I am filled with anguish, shame, and a resultant hopelessness, as I fathom the reality behind these phrases.
The terror attack on Mumbai may have “awakened” the dormant sleeping citizen within us but it is yet to cure us of the deep rooted pathology of each and every one who calls himself an Indian. Certain things persistently refuse to change. We remain unmoved until there is a media sensationalisation of the events, to stab us repeatedly with recurring images of horror and death. We are unprovoked even if there is shameless display of cheap meanovours by politicians. There are still a vast majority of people who are blissfully unaware of and unbothered by the repercussions as long as it is not their loved ones who have been lost.
People are angry, smses are doing the rounds, peace marches and candle light processions are being carried on throughout the city, there are placards and posters and angry voices and debates.
But is that really enough? When I hear people scream “enough is enough”...it just seems a rhetoric which is now mechanically being uttered in every upper middle class household. But how many of us are really thinking of deep seated core issues which have never been tackled and are the key precipitating factors for terror. I am not talking about only the government incompetence, the ineffective bureaucracy, uncoordinated and under equipped intelligence and security force, so on and so forth. These are still factors which will get redressed very very slowly owing to international as well as local pressures. What remains unaccounted for is the the mentality of the people, the lack of political consciousness and the complete absence of a public will! We remain fragmented and divisive sub-consciously. Loud shouts of "jai hind"," mera bharat Mahan" and "mumbai meri jaan" aren’t enough to disguise the narrow-mindedness of the society that we live in.
So what is really needed is not a movement to bring the elite classes out on the streets but for them to get together to build a nation where poverty, illness, lack of education, caste and religious differences and dissatisfaction is threatening to destroy the very foundations of a nation we have just resolved to mobilize for the fight against terror. As citizens of the richest metropolitan in the country, we need to realize that the small world of our friends and neighbors isn’t
A poor fisherman transports terrorists to the coast for a small sum of money, villagers and youth in rural India resort to joining fanatical camps and groups of naxalites as a solution to unemployment, a small street urchin goes and places an unidentified package in the dustbin for a few rupees, each quite oblivion to the fate of hundreds of families who are going to lose their bread winners or the loved ones. Caste wars, killings in the name of religion, separatism among the states kindled by politicians are perpetual miseries for
When are we going to throw away this terror of hatred, corruption and moral decline which we as Indians have carried with us as some sort of a heritage? When are we really going to take our constitutional power to vote seriously? Is criticizing the politicians and protesting enough, or do we need to stand up and decide to take the reigns of power into our own hands? Are we ready to unite together for one goal, one inspiration and go down to the root of all the miseries of our social reality?
We need more awareness, we need large scale reforms at the ground level, we need education and not mere literacy required to broaden and sensitize minds of the masses. It is not only the bookish education we have continued as a British legacy which would suffice, but true education in the values and morals. An education, required to create the urge in every farmer to care for his nation, for every entrepreneur to make ethics and corporate social responsibility as personal tagline, for every public servant to wake to the demands of the people who in turn take the nation and its running as a personal responsibility!
Each one of us has to make a start by changing the attitude towards the fellow beings and the society. The impact will be felt by one and all but once a different level of awakening seeps in!
All this to be possible in the current scenario is an enormous task in itself, but it has to take place and now. It’s no longer for growth and development alone, but as an essential pre-requisite to our safety and security! Revolutionary attitudinal change is not a dream to be achieved...it is the most crying need, and unless its tackled on a systemic level as a priority, and planned as a nation wide endeavor...the terror will continue to keep hitting us if not in the form of terrorist attacks and bomb blasts then as a perpetuating terror of the mind! Yes its time to say" enough is enough"...to the corrupt narrow minds within...to the hypocrisy within...to the terror within!!!
