A Safer World: Uprooting Terrorism

The city of Mumbai witnessed one of the most brutal terrorist attacks on Wednesday, Nov 26th. The sheer magnitude and manner with which the terrorists entered and attacked the city completely shocked the entire nation. People around the world were taken aback by the sheer audacity with which these young looking men carried their mission, killing roughly 200 people with complete impunity.

The wounds this incident has inflicted on the hearts of my countrymen will not heal in a short span of time. The spirit of Mumbai with which we have often been attributed is nothing but a shameful mask of our indifference and complete apathy. Indians don’t feel the pain till it happens to a member of their family. Kashmir has been burning for almost 3 decades now; Naxalis have been active in the eastern states from time immemorial; but we were never even impacted with the news of such activities. It was all happening at a safe distance from us and  just another piece of statistical information to be read and forgotten.

But this time, the anger is palpable and some really tough questions are being asked. I will not indulge in another set of retorts to reiterate hundreds of such questions which are being posed by every other news channel in the country. As a fellow countryman, I would like to present my perspective on resolving the root cause of Terrorism and how to deal with it.

I believe that one requires immense motivation and conviction to carry out such an heinous act of terrorism. We should peek into the psyche of these young terrorists to find out what provoked them to carry out these acts. I believe that any act of injustice acts as a trigger that stimulates some minds to take such a monstrous path. Let us all be conscious of any perpetrator of such gross injustices, which converts minds to extremism, and stop them. Let us all resolve to strengthen, both in execution and conviction, our Judiciary and Law Enforcement Agencies. Let there be not another Kashmir, Godhra, 1984 Sikh Riots, Orissa Riots or any other similar unfortunate incident in this country.

Secondly, we must beef up our intelligence systems and all law enforcement agencies. Its appalling to even compare the kind of arms our police are using when measured against the Kalashnikovs of the terrorists. The communication networks around the continent must be monitored by intelligent voice pattern matching and recognition systems. It’s an irony that India is the outsourcing and IT hub of the world and we ourselves don’t seem to have any national identity and security system in place. I guess these are extremely achievable goals. 

Lastly, I feel that India must adopt a harsher stand on all insurgency and terrorist incidents. We must not be recognized as a soft state which remains tolerant to such episodes. Also important is the fact that we must contain the virus of corruption which is highly rampant in our country. Corruption acts as a termite hollowing the entire administrative apparatus of our country. All the administrative positions in our country, including the police and law enforcement agencies, have a price ticker attached to them. And if one has to reach these positions, it’s their money and political linkages rather than their sheer capability which becomes the selection criterion. Let all positions be taken by an individual who truly earns it. 

We should all try to build a consensus this time and then create some citizen apparatus to counter this threat to our country. Let there be action and not just empty talks.

Do drop in your suggestions too.