Any living entity that has been following the news closely is sure to know the word "jehad" today. Everyone who calls himself human would despise it. Anyone who watched the cold-blooded massacres in the financial capital of India would want all this jehadis to vanish from this world as soon as possible.
But the very same jehadis have given us a great lesson in breaking the routine. Whenever the whole world thought that it was the ultimate attack and it cannot get worse than this, they have found new ways to breaking the routine and instilling fear on the humankind.
After the 1993 blasts in Mumbai (then Bombay), everyone thought the terrorists would do nothing but plant bombs and run away. In a way, the people started getting used to the bomb-blasts. But the terrorists had other plans. They wanted to instill fear in more ways than one. They attacked the WTC and Pentagon (read 9/11) in a manner that no one had contemplated in the wildest of their dreams. Till then, terror was just land-borne. Bombs exploded in buildings, market places, etc. But they had broken the routine and introduced a new form of attack - the air-borne attack. All countries now had to protect even the air- routes.
The terror did not end there. Till then, terrorists were just suicide bombers who would bomb places or kill themselves. On 26/11, they again broke the routine and started a new form of attack- the fidayeen attack where the soldier goes on killing spree and taking hostages and fights till the last moment of his life. This kind of attack was not thought of before. Probably a TV watcher in the Taj hotel during the 9/11 attacks might have thought, "They will never attack me in a hotel in here! At least I am safe". But not anymore. They have broken all "routine" standards and nothing is safe today - neither the local trains, the markets, the places of worship, the five star hotels, corporate houses - nothing at all.
The terrorist network has established itself inside our nation so heavily that they can target any place and at any time. Neither the sacred temples at Varanasi nor the esteemed educational institutes such as IISc are safe. For all that we know, a terror attack can happen in that very place which we are considering the safest right now - be it the parliament or the Raj Bhavan.
And how have our leaders reacted to all this?
There is one deputy chief minister who uses dialogue form one of the superhit bollywood movies to tell us that we should start taking this as a routine matter. There is one CM who acts like a joker and tells that if his responsibility is to prtect people, then he is ready to resign. To top that he goes on a tour along with his actor son and a director whose movies are enough to scare any terrorist in the world. Then there is a CM who tells us what he thinks of about the brave soldiers of our land through his famous "dog" remark.
In a way, these politicians seem to me like the real dogs in our nation. They are infact old dogs who don’t even bark. When provoked they just give a "grrr" saying that they will attack the enemies of the nation. But even they themselves don’t believe in what they say. No wonder then the jehadi sitting on his warm couch somewhere in Pakistan laughs aloud watching our leaders' remarks on TV.
It is time we changed our attitude of looking at things. It is time we broke the normal routine habit of making harsh remarks on Pakistan initially and moving on after the sorrow dies down. Not even one leader has spoken about a possible war on our crooked neighbours. Not even one strong statement has been made against terror. To add to it, the netas are busy playing political games out of this attack. There are reports that some Congressmen were partying on the weekend when the whole nation mourned. All these days, the hotels which were attacked always had one or the other politician staying in it everyday except for three days before the attacks. Do you smell anything fishy? Doesn’t that explain why no politician got killed in this attacks?
To the never -honorable ex- Deputy CM of Maharashtra, I would like to quote another popular dialogue form the same superhit movie, "Aadatein agar waqt par badle nahin jaate to zaroorate ban jaate hain - Sir, if habits are not changed on time, they become necessities". The netas are already getting used to the habit of making soft statements each time an attack happens. I just hope that it does not go to such a level that we start getting used so much to terrorism in India that a terror attack every 2 months becomes a necessity.
I am deeply hurt by the tragic events that have taken place in the past weeks. Events so painful that even the most powerful pain killer cant cure - the pictures of bodies lying around like sacks of rice spilled all over in one of the busiest railway stations in the world; pictures of the burning Taj, the glorious world heritage site in India; pictures of the calm Nariman house in complete disarray after the attacks; picture of the terrorist himself walking around with heavy ammunition with him - these are the ones which will stay etched in our minds forever. But let us not accept this as a routine this time. The terrorists have shown us time and again how to break the routine. This time, let us give it back to them. LeT us show them what we are really made up of.
Jai Hind
