Yesterday evening I was working late, when one of my friends called me up asking if I would like to join her in a peace march, in memory of those who lost their lives in the 26/11 attack. Though it was a well-meaning gesture it triggered off a string of reactions from me. What was the use of the peace march?
Half the people who joined the peace march, did not vote. Why? Simply because they were not bothered enough about their country or concerned enough about who runs the country or lazy enough that they couldn't find the time or take the effort to go and register themselves in the voter's list! Oh but they had all the time in the world to participate in a useless peace march. And they will have enough time to go and catch the latest movie or hang out with friends or laze around their houses doing nothing! Why show all this pseudo-concern when you can't even do your duty by your country?
Not only that these people would drive without licenses, skip traffic lights all the time and would suffer no qualms in bribing the policeman who caught them doing so.
It doesn't stop here. The people participating in such things are so ignorant about the entire situation at hand. They are not concerned about why such attacks are happening, they have no idea who is responsible, or what lapses lead to the current situation or what steps if any are being taken to avoid such things happening again. Hell, most of them don't even know the names of Home minister and defence minister of their own country! And when they themselves stay in such a state of ignorance, why do they participate in a peace march or an awareness march.
Besides I do not understand why 26/11 should be marked by organizing a peace march. If anything we should be organizing a protest march. Protest against
•Indifference of people towards democracry – A protest against all of those who are not concerned enough to vote
•Ignorance of people towards affairs of their own country – A protest against all those who do not know the office bearers in their own country and are ignorant about the basic political and diplomatic scenario.
•Indifference of Politicians – Neither the Prime Minister, the President, Chief minister, or any of the cabinet ministers issued a statement in times of this crisis to restore the confidence of people. Instead some of our esteemed leaders did not hesitate to make a political issue of the situation. Moreover one year after the event the then chief minister of Maharashtra who was not only ineffective and incompetent but also took Ram Gopal Verma on a tour of the Taj with him now holds a Cabinet position!
•Failure of defence mechanisms – The intelligence collected by RAW and presented to various office bearers was repeatedly ignored and not acted upon, which lead to this unfortunate event. And this situation still persists.
•Poorly equipped policemen – Our policemen still have the rifles which are no match for the AK 47s of the terrorists and carry VHF radio sets which do not even function well in a place like Mumbai that has so many high rise buildings. The CCTV surveillance in most CST like places still doesnt work.
•No speedy justice – Kasab still hangs in there and the state is paying a hefty price for keeping him alive
•Failure of diplomatic mechanisms in getting our dear neighbor to own up to its hand in the event and hand over the guilty.
•No naval intelligence mechanism in place – Inspite of having a huge budget allocated for modernisation of our defence till 2012 we still do not have a naval intelligence mechanism in place.
I am not saying we should not pay our homage to those brave officers who lost their lives in these attacks our pray for the souls of the victims of the attack. I am just saying that wearing white clothes and lighting candles is not the solution or the right way to do it. The right way is to raise your voice, and make sure its heard. It is the least we can do to do our best to protect our country.
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