We, the people of India
One good outcome of these horrible attacks we had on our India a couple of weeks back is that there is an awareness in the country for lack of security. People are now conscious about the importance of security, security of the nation and security of the establishments in India.
For the past couple of decades, India has been going gung-ho on the economic front and has seen an increase in the well-being of a section of its population. I would be glad to see this well-being being distributed to the less fortunate population as well. Probably this single-minded quest for better infrastructure [ which is yet a far dream in many of our cities ] to boost the economy made investments in the development of security take a backseat. One fall-out of this economic boom, as seen in China, is the increase in divide of the haves and have-nots. China has already started working on this divide since 2005, by giving impetus in forms of easy small term loans and other initiatives to its ageing agricultural sector. India needs to learn from this and help in empowering our farmers to benefit from this economic boom.
Coming back to the topic of this post, I have been watching the debates and talk shows on the news channel in India now and hate seeing people going through the same motions all over again, as they did after any previous attacks. Its in our Indian psyche to "blame" someone for a problem. It looks like blaming someone is the end of it all. We dont understand that each time we are hit, we need to understand the reasons for it, and work towards improving ourselves to be less prone to such attacks in the future. There should be a country-wide security system to tackle such national issues. I am sure we already have that, but may be the speed with which it moved into motion this time was not as fast as most of we citizens felt it do be. This is certainly one big learning to be gained from this attack.
On the micro level, I was hearing people voice their angst against the system for its lethargic response. There were outcries to change the system. I felt like laughing on those people. They fail to understand that, each citizen of this country is part of the system. If, you are blaming the system, then in reality, you are actually blaming yourselves.
Ofcourse, I am also part of this same system we all hate. There are so many of us, who have had the fortune of travelling outside India. I wonder why we do not learn the good things from there and implement them ourselves in our homeland. I bet, it is the "chalta hai" attitude that makes us feel more home in India to break the laws at our own will. Do we really need a police standing at each juncture to make sure that we dont break the rules ? Arent we educated enough to understand that rules are not to be broken ? These were some of the questions that came to my mind. It would be interesting to see what each one of us would answer to these :
* How many of us actually slow down our vehicles, when we see someone crossing the road and not push ourselves making others to stop for us.
* How many of us dont break the queues and wait patiently for our turn to come.
* How many of us look out for a dustbin in public places when we want to throw some unwanted covers and wrappers.
* How many of us think twice before taking another plastic cover from the vendor.
* How many of us take care to not throw waste items on the street outside our houses and infact take the ownership to atleast keep our own street clean, and not just our house ?
* We feel no shame in throwing the pizza boxes in to proper dustbins while eating at pizza joints, but dont give a damn when throwing the bhel-puri cover right on the road.
* How many of us consciously avoid throwing waste items from the windows of our vehicles we travel in, like the bus, train and cars ?
* How many of us actually follow the traffic rules while not being inhibited with strange smiles from others who might consider us to be fools to follow traffic rules
* Have you ever stood up when you heard our national anthem being sung ? [ in the media and in real ]
* How many of us have actually tried to learn about the people whom we vote ?
I know that these things have nothing to do with security. But all these things and more, are needed to show your responsibility to the country you live in. We need to take accountability for the things we do. If you dont do the things that you can do yourselves, then there is only one thing i can say. Its a quote from someone whom i read which says
" People get the politicians they deserve "
The reason behind this is quite simple. These politicians rise out from the same group of people that are part of the system as we are. If we feel that we need better politicians, then its time for us to change ourselves before asking for a change in the system.
On a completely tangent note, I was happy to hear in my weekly summons at the mosque, that all the Muslim clerics in India are encouraging Indians to celebrate Bakr-Idd in a straight and simple manner with no pomp and pamper. They have also suggested us to wear a black band on the arms as a mark of grief. This is to be done as a mark of respect for the terrible attacks on India in the recent weeks. After all, Bakr-Idd beckons us to sacrifice our most beloved possessions. I hope people reading this will spread this information to many more.