India: A Nation requires Rebuilding

Los Angels

I was staying in Marriott, Rome, when chilling news of bombing of JW Marriott, Islamabad first aired on the news channel. I was quite shocked as Marriott was a second home to me this year. And this week, when 11/26 happened in Mumbai, I was more shattered, as Mumbai is like my own city. I studied in Mumbai (NITIE, Vihar Lake), worked near Hotel Oberoi (Ferguson and Co). The marine drive and Gateway of India were two most happening places in Mumbai. I could visualize the sea and sea of people on the seashore on Marine drive where Hotel Oberoi exists.

From last four days, nothing is moving as I simply move website-to-website to get some reassuring news about happenings. My heart and brain was continuous telling me, everything will be fine. Continuous fire, gun battle, blood and dead bodies visuals made me nervous but not out of thought. I was constantly thinking about commoners, brave policemen and respected politicians. ATS chief Karkare, Saluskar and Kamate apart from Unnikrishanan and Gajendra Singh were never so close to my heart and every loss of life for me was looking as personal loss. Brave MARCOS (Marine commandos), NSG, RAF, ATS and Mumbai Police won my heart many times. I read that Foreign minister had tough talks with Pakistani officials and Prime Minister was talking tough enough to ensure the nation. LK Advani and Narendra Modi were out in public and raise their grievances.

We lost quite a lot, Business magnets, foreigners and spiritual leaders and most importantly the confidence of international community, India as safe nation. The economic impact of this whole affair has not been assessed yet. But it is clear that coming time would be tough for Hotel and travel agencies and investors. Economic meltdown would obviously more fluid with this incident. However on sidelines, my brain is saying something, it was slow and creeper thought as my mind was in no mood to listen any advice at this moment, but I realized it is more important then any of the incident which is happening. I realized it was same thought, which came during chilling winter of 1999, when IC 814 was hijacked. The thought was coming round and round. ‘We failed again’, as a nation, we failed again. It is the same thought I know it, I can’t deny and I can’t run away with this, It is same thing, whenever I fail or I see as a country we performed badly, I take the responsibility and now time has come to take the responsibility of each and everything happening in my life, which affect me, that’s why I decide to pen this down and tell my fellow Indians, that we need to take responsibility. We can’t run from this, this happened to us many times. And if we wont learn from history, we will be part of history one day.

We are quite young nation, 60 years of independence and mammoth challenges of population, unemployment, poverty and long standing conflicts with neighbors and within remained unresolved. With global dynamics changes faster the seconds clock, we remained a poor and sidelined nation in global arena. Recent success in economy boosts the confidence of investor, foreign national and most importantly in our own masses. However the incident like 11/26, in Mumbai would put as back 10-15 years in our own growth story. This kind of disturbing news shakes confidence of people within and outside the country. We can always go in one direction and choose to live in fear and feel constant threat and danger. The word ‘Danger’ in Mandarin (Language spoken by Chinese) is made up of two symbols (Mandarin has only pictorial alphabets), one is fear and other is opportunity.

Our response to these coward actions of some extremist determines future of this and next generations. There are chances that we will fail again as happened in past. However we as nation need to take responsibility. However we need to ascertain, what responsibilities, we need to take at various level. We have many layers, which include government, oppositions, bureaucrats, army, police, state governments, responsible media, business houses and then people. On top of that, we need to restore the confidence in the all the layers. We need to start believing that people at every level are doing their best to shoulder the responsibility of building nation.

We have trust in our policy makers. We have trust in the Prime minister and his entire team, though they were primarily responsible for this attack and fall out of the delay and loss of lives. However they have their own stories and we believe in them also. They need to take the actions and build more detailed policy for counter terrorism and ensure day and night the incidents like this should not happen. Opposition has every right to expose the shortcomings of government and when second day Mr. Advani and Mr. Modi started ripping apart the government’ actions, they were also correct. And we trust them also. However instead of just criticizing government they need to go one step further and place a full proof plan and strategy to counter terrorism. Responsible media has to ask this question to them, what is their plan apart from making tougher laws, how they are planning on police reforms or why NSG is just based out of Delhi. The same questions, which need to be answered by government, should pose to the opposition also. The most disturbing news came from Israeli media and Pakistani media, when they said, India has a weak government. This means that Indian government; irrespective from the political parties perceived as the weak in the international media and this perception is continuously growing in the mind of international community. This requires a remedial action at every level.

Our Armed forces remained our strengths from so many decades and it is one amongst the colored feathers in our crown. However army top brasses are answerable of why and how terrorist enters in our country. When accusation like Bangladeshi infiltrators cross the border paying money to BSF personals or drug and explosives smuggling happen across the border with the help of ground officers, leveled against armed forces this needs to be dealt with iron hand. Why NSG reached at 5:00 AM at Mumbai and why only BEST buses were provided to them to reach south Mumbai. Why National Disaster management button was not pressed on time. These are again some questions, which need to be taken more seriously.

Beurocrats and State government should be answerable for statewide security and state cabinet has to take responsibility of any fall out of the law and order situation in the states. However we need to praise RR Patil instead of criticizing him for putting a brave face that the “small incidents like this happens”. And yes this was a very small incident in the date of history. In my view RR Patil is the first politician who came out of the grip of nervousness and said, let we begin the day again, these kind of incidents are not going to bother us or stop us. We are Indians and we will build ourselves faster then expected. However home minister RR Patil cannot shed the responsibility of why intelligence report, which could be utilized to, neutralized extremists in the seawater was not analyzed properly.

I hope NSA chief M.K. Narayan is listening that it’s a personal failure, which turned in to national havoc. Other states chief ministers should learn from these mistakes. Poverty, population, health and unemployment are priorities but above all security is the vital for any successful government. US, Israel and other countries have shown this by examples. We should learn from others mistake, so that price remains low. Even after this we wont learn, not only price will be high but we will lose moral to live as a nation

On the other hand, Business and people have to come to the normalcy faster then terrorists expected. We have to send this signal worldwide, that we are back to work and normalcy. We are feeling safe and you will be safe if you visit India and Mumbai, especially south Mumbai. To show a positive fall out of this incident, people should work extra hour, keep shop open for some more time and do business more. As a business traveler, I would keep traveling more and make sure to give the right signals to the people who want to stop us.

Responsible media should engage in the ensuring that every layer is working as per the expectation. Media is horribly wrong in engaging common people in terror talks and asking them for their opinions and forming their opinion against national establishment and politicians. These kinds of talks would make people either criminals or cowards. Incidental bravery would not help nation to reign to her glory. Also responsible media should stop giving same news, same bloody footages, and stories around same plots and sermons what politicians should do. If a journalist thinks that some policy is wrong or some layer is not acting as per the requisite expectation, they can raise their voice in right forums. Igniting masses by mere talking and asking them to take responsibility to play a different role would be very disturbing. Let media restrained by just giving the objective news rather then directing people and if some journalists still have urge to lay down policies or form mass opinion, they should join other social or political organization.

On personal note, Prime minister has to take personal responsibility to rebuild Taj, Oberoi and Nariman House with Ratan Tata and other owners. Just like in 2001, during Gujarat earthquake, then Home Minister LK Advani visited Gujarat as many as 5-6 times and personally supervised the rebuilding activities.

Epilogue:

David Taylor, one of my close colleague from New Zealand was quite shocked, and told me, it has been quite devastating and horrifying incident in Mumbai. As he was planning to visit India, he asked, Is India safe place to go? I told him, oh yes, we are quite ok, we will be able rebuild this in few months, if not days. Mumbai has spirit of running faster then expected after any debacle. India still is a safer place to go and enjoy the world-class luxury. Taj in Mumbai is definitely one of them and it’s my dream hotel to stay.

Ignorance is bliss

Before reading this, Please read

http://ibnlive.in.com/blogs/sagarikaghose/223/52813/trouble-at-om.html

Hello Sagarika,

Thank you for giving food for my thoughts. I was never so troubled reading your blogs after reading ‘Troubled OM’. Being a journalist and associated with IBN/CNN, I can understand your qualification for writing and speaking your mind and zeal to be listened across the globe. However the ‘Trouble OM” article lacks to emphasize the core issue and it fails to deliver your arguments in the right perspective.

Being read much of your work, I also try to understand your thought process and my observations are following,

1. You lack the very fundamental concept of religion and life. When you comment like Hindu religion under threat of fundamentalist after repeated attacks on churches and bomb blasts, seems to me that you don’t read history well. Since beginning, these kinds of outfits and passionate people exist in the society. In 60’ we have Bal Thakare, in 20’ we have Bal Gangadhar Tilak and most successful personality of 17 century was Shivaji. Hindu religion was always remained in threat because of extremists within. And which is obvious that in 1 billion people, we have many peace loving and tolerant people and equally intolerant also. This
has nothing to do with religion. Any ways India as country only remain tolerant to its tyrants. It was never so tolerant to weaker strata of its own society or any other religion which was not capable of defending it self. Buddhism could’t flourish in India. Jainism has only 1-2% followings even after dating the date since beginning of history of this country. And when you talk about society, which never exists anywhere, I could not believe your passion to give sermons without
knowing that there is no one at receiving end. We were united only few times in history, such as before independence (Less then 5 million participated in Independence struggle), ‘62, ’65, ’71, ’99 and few dates on which cricket matches flood our veins with national ethos.

2. Religion in this country is so personal that you will find almost per person thousands of way to follow. Your comment on Sadhus, which says that frustrated people take sanyas in this country, shows your deep apathy towards the poorest rich-culture of India. Gandhi took sanyas, and constantly fought the enemy within till his death. As I say and repeat, there is no enemy except within. I can take you from Adi Shankaracharya to Vivekanad and many more lately, who are still constant source of light for generations to come. And yes they would be few, because one Buddha, one Mahavir and one Krishna are enough to create this much passion and chaos. Simplest relationship can be established between your professionals and Sadhus. Many of your “Jhola chhap” (no offence to any Journalist) and “air conditioned” colleagues are struggling and getting frustrated because of constant struggle with enemy within. And these frustrated journalists are constant threat to so called Indian society more than fundamentalist of any
religion. Do you know, one of the reasons of banning exit polls by Indian establishment is the nexus between, political parties and journalists. These parties conduct exit polls after paying to your colleagues across the board. Every one knows it, even Prof Yogendra Yadav and Mr. Rajdeep Sardesai can’t deny.

3. I believe that you are a very political person, because you are always against politicians and always ready to comment on negativity. It is better if you can shape your thoughts in more neutral ways. Constant bashing of unabashed politicians of our country is creating a big problem, which all your professional family members do not understand. Politics also requires young and fresh blood, like Barak Obama. Manipulated father produces corrupt sons. All these days
because of your constant bashing on politics and politicians, only people join politics are the sons and relatives of your opposition (please read politicians). The youth and the more commoner, the critical for the success and development of our country, constantly feel that politics is not a place to go. People do not come to vote. Your channels are constantly propagating negative aspects of politics.

4. I can establish another relationship with you and so-called fundamentalist, pro or against secularism and communist. Your business flourish on the comments, actions and thought of these people. Mr. Advani and his ideologues will keep defending their positions, with same or new theories, words and new books. You will keep attacking them with counter arguments and theories and try to prove them wrong. And help them in selling their theories and books. Manmohan and Sonia’s secularism catches unnecessary news every time they speak M word. You will keep speaking and writing without much of the analysis and thoughts. Because you need to take a position and it should be taken very quickly otherwise your potential rivals would grab eyeballs on other channels and websites. So the business keep flourish on both sides, politicians get publicity and you will also get publicity by opposing them. This business is same as God and Devil’ business. Both exist together. So you and your professional family, the so called fourth
pillar of democracy think that you are protecting democracy and civil rights and you will keep adding theories to prove the point, which at first place neither exists nor required for the country. On top of that, journalists like you behave like saint and giving directions to the so called invisible society to make and form opinions, on the issues, which can be dealt more effectively by simply ignoring.

I hope, some day we will talk about commoners. The history is completely filled up with Tyrants, aggressors and people who looted innocent people. I chose not to be part of this and I welcome you on my walk of life. Believe me “Ignorance is bliss”

PS: I can ignore your thoughts but it is difficult to ignore the perspective you bring in.