Pain, Anguish, Anger !!

The recently released press communique
In a very sorry state of affairs, we have heard these words too often in the recent past, with little being done about it. Year after year, the Indian people have been resilient and united in strength trusting their government and expecting that the security & intelligence learnings from incidents like the one that happened on Wednesday will be taken forward to prevent such happenings in future. This trust just keeps getting betrayed, over and over again, year after year. If anything the frequency of these incidents is only going up with every instance.

It's hard to understand - Haven't we had enough practice to be able to pick up patterns & ways of operation of these groups? Either we are learning too little from these incidents Or we are too slow as compared to the ingenuity of the people creating these acts of terror, or worse still, these groups seem to know all the loopholes in our system, I fear perhaps even better than us?! to be able to consistantly achieve their goals without being caught! How can these groups garner the strength, funding, resources and skills to come back and create havoc without being noticed while they prepare & plan for these acts? Is it so easy to permeate the security & intelligence systems of the business capital of the world's biggest democracy? Is this like a natural calamity we cannot do anything about?

In a country which has over 645 million people below the Multi-dimensional poverty index; with all the evidence in the world, we still have the courage to spend crores of rupees (and counting) to provide high security to a terrorist who attacked this very city a couple of years ago; and the supreme luxury to re-initiate a diplomatic dialogue over a world cup cricket match with the representatives of the same people; whom we consider the source of these problems! What a mockery it is of our lawful processes. Justice delayed is justice denied. And here, certainly, justice delayed is justice denied raised to the power of four! First the families of the people who lost their lives are denied justice, second a criminal is given fantastic treatment at huge costs resulting in third, attackers to garner the courage to repeat their acts and four Do we really ever leverage any diplomatic mileage out of holding such a person alive?!

If there is anything we need to emulate from the west, it is the "attitude" towards the terror creation elements and the "attitude" toward their own people. Look at what happens in the US. The government upholds accountability to their own people in that nation. Their own people are their priority. The government there does not care if their enemy is in their soil or not, they do not care if a democratic case is tried in the court of law, and whether they have informed the world about what they will do and what they are doing! All they are concerned about is to find the root cause; go wherever the root cause exists and ensure that the root cause is eliminated; in the speediest manner.

It's time we stop taking pride in our resilience and ability to get back to work without stopping; and being satisfied with producing tons of documentation to prove someone guilty. It's time we stop being democratic to elements that subvert law and order. There is no good case for extending just and lawful hospitality to elements that do not practice lawful processes! It's time our leaders merely stop saying that they must be brought to justice quickly and be subject to the rule of law that they have sought to subvert. It's high time; to act tough and do what has been said all this while!