Impact of Mumbai blasts on me
In my vain attempts to be a neutral citizen and not form and opinion about the incidents have failed. But what surprises me the most is that I have mixed emotions for both for or against.
Let’s go to the bad part first. Not blaming the terrorists. There can be many shades of positive arguments about this. First which I think is more important is not to give them a death sentence. I am strictly against death sentence. What if they land up in heaven by accident? Then the whole purpose of death sentence will be lost. We can rather give life long imprisonment making their life like hell. I think that’s what should be done to all the criminals who are sentenced to death.
Second is, these are just brainwashed youngsters made to do all this because they have nothing better to do in life. Let us create fair job opportunities on both sides of the border rather the sub-continent as a whole. Killing these people either by encounter or by conviction is not a solution. I specially hate the media hyped and liked by many – the so called encounter specialists. I always get the feeling that by accident, they are may be not killing absolute offenders but also some people just at the wrong place. I always get reminded of some incidents which happened to me and I bet every one of us at some point. Here are 2 examples:
1) Did it ever happen to you that you are with a bunch of “friends” who suddenly get into eve teasing? So they are passing comments at a certain girl on the road. The girl looks back. Is there any reason that she will believe you are not amongst them? Same may happen to a guy killed in an encounter. I agree that you should avoid such company, but you know, it’s not always avoidable.
2) You typecast just because of your geographic origin. For me, though jokingly, people call me Commi, Bangladeshi infiltrator and in one case was a part of a convicted group for just being from “Maharashtra”. I do not say that I should be separated from the rest. After all, yes, I am from the Commi state, my great grand parents did live in Bangladesh way back in 1905 and I am a proud Maharashtrian born. I would not like to be separated from these groups and revered in isolation.
3) You are doing the right thing in the wrong time. Once I took my very dear school friend for a walk. He is physically challenged so we took some time for the walk. And I was beaten by the teacher for being late and my nice deed was entirely unappreciated.
So, might be many of the terrorists fall in one of the above 3 categories and put friendship/loyalty first? Do they deserve to be killed?
Another ting I liked about this entire last few days of event was failure of BJP’s terror campaign. Deep down, I think I still prefer this party over others. But it is high time they learn that national issues do not and should not concern common people who do not have even access to basic amenities like drinking water. How is getting killed by a bullet worse than dying of thirst. It should get into the root cause campaigning mode and not this “India shining” or “Anti terror” campaigns. Terrorists most likely will never target small villages.
Having said so many things against the common people, I don’t know why, deep inside me, a small hatred has started against Pakistan. I would not justify these acts as enough has already been said and done by politicians, media and intelligentsia. But as a consequence of that, I could not make myself buy the 1000 times better Pakistani biryani masala and the Basmati rice and instead chose the inferior Priya and Swad brands. Still not able to fathom why and how to get rid of this emotion.
5 comments:
Unfortunately, I don't agree with anything in this blog!!! Your opinions appear to be as twisted as those of human rights activists fighting for rights of terrorists who just killed 500 innocent people.
Firstly, you say that the terrorists should not be given death sentence. I can agree with that part if they have not been proved guilty. However, if you do not kill them once proved, their colleagues will try to get them rescued and you have episodes like hijacking of IC 184. Moreover, do not forget that the terrorist rescued during the hijacking episode went on to create the organization partly responsible for the Mumbai incident. I would prefer the human rights of terrorists violated by killing them rather than putting lives of innocents at stake!!
Talking about the encounter specialists. Its easy for you to sit at your desk (or corner) and type in those sentences accusing encounter specialists of targeting innocents. However, there has not been any reported incident where a person who wasn't a threat was killed. Agreed that the gangs in Mumbai sometimes used police specialists to eradicate members of the rival gang. However, in the end, it was always the gangsters that were killed. Also, it isn't easy being an encounter specialist. They don't kill because they are crazy or they love taking lives. It takes balls to be one and I doubt soft-spoken people like you who love to wander in wonderland will ever appreciate their work towards cleanliness of society. Considering the fact that normal people in Mumbai are not scared, but proud of them itself is testimony to their importance. I am genuinely surprised that the Mumbai episode, instead of making you demand a strong counter-terror/gangster organization, is actually making you quibble about the very people who are willing to throw themselves in harm's way and kill terrorists that threaten your existence!!!
India does not have the time, personnel and resources to analyze terrorist psychology. Even if they did and came up with a solution, its useless because the terrorists come from another country and thus you cannot implement your bright ideas there. As the situation stands now, its best to pursue the "Greedy Algorithm" and protect the people. With s many attacks in 1 year, that is bound to work best as of today.
And now talking about the villages, let me turn your argument on its head. What good is water in your village when you might get killed trying to access it ?? Agreed that it is important to provide basic facilities in villages. However, that cannot be done at the cost of putting the lives of the exceptionally large number of people living in the cities at risk!!
Somehow I think you missed the point. What I am saying is you can be wrongly caught in the act. And that's why fair justice is necessary.
On death penalty, hijacking was an unfortunate event. The cost of Masood Azhar was 100's of people on the flight. I agree it happened again. But how is this 100s more privileged than the 814 100s. So we should not put that as an argument. And I think harsh jail life s a worse punishment for self than death.
The whole point of encounter discussion was that merely related (mind you, not totally innocent) or people wrongly held responsible for an event may get killed. The 3 examples I say suggest how I was wrongly convicted for a crime I never did (on much lower scale though).
Thirdly, I think people of Rajasthan will agree with me that it is better to die of one gun shot than die of continued hunger and thirst and neglect.
hmmm...life imprisonment over the death sentence? it should be based on a culprit friendly, human rights notion that human life should be preserved, terrorists are human too, or a scenario where the culprit ponders over his actions and turns into human(like Shantaram), or an unfair judgement is nullified by such provision but not to make the culprit's life hellish. that's a bit paradoxical.
Yes, once lost, a life can not be brought back. And this is what has been happening in Mumbai. People have lost lives, not for the first time or second time or third time. To use those humane notions is what India has been doing for so many years. All three categories mentioned here "do not involve life threatening incidents" so it doesn't feel appropriate to apply them to terrorist acts.
As an Indian first, the anger is what comes to my mind, although not against Pakistan in particular. We fail to see this through the eyes of general people of Pakistan, who not long ago were our brothers and have a lot of striking similarities, including the very mixed hatred emotion that surfaces after these incidents.(and politicians try to take advantage of it). If making terrorists lives hell were the ultimate aim, they are already in hell with the label 'terrorist', there is no heaven on this earth for them. Not even Pakistan. We Indians, and Pakistanis, have a lot in common in that way.
A bunch of wicked people are threatening the progress of not only India but both of the nations. We should be careful when we use the term Pakistan in general.
India AND Pakistan both have to understand that these bunch of crooks should be penalized with ultimate death sentence to erradicate any hopes terrorists hang on. Pakistan needs to take the lead and show support to India and India needs to show "no tolerance anymore" or "even if few innocents lose life" before terrorists abscond to nearby Bangladesh or Nepal or Sri Lanka. One should be proud enough to die for own country even if it means getting killed as innocent in encounter speciallists attacks. It is a lot better than dying anonymously for no good reason.
There will be some unwanted consequences, like those USA faced when it reacted with "no tolerance" to such acts, but India has to step up now, change the strategy with changing scenes. Else, in my eyes, allowing terrorist escape and let them kill more innoncents will take us to even more painful hell than the terrorist himself will be sent to.
Interesting to read: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/the-lessons-of-mumbai
Hey Dh, really liked ur rationale and the deeply thought over comment. My blog was more of burst of disconnected emotions. We need to get to the root cause of the problem. The master minds are safely sitting in Northern Pakistan or Dubai or whatever.
I am still not convinced about death penalty for the executioners who carried out the plan though. They were made to act, more like the 'Imperius Curse' in Harry Potter.
Ahha, now that I got the potter analogy, things are so much simple. It is exactly like potter story. We need to find the voldemort. We do not have any harry potter but we do have ron, hermi, neville, etc.
If you notice not many except Voldemort and Bellatrix die from the Dark side as well :)
Anyway was really nice to read ur comments
I was on spot during the Delhi blasts...escaped injury, if not death by just a few metres.. its not interesting at all. Its the feeling of insecurity and uncertainty terrorism creates... too see blood and to survive the aftermath... all promises from all ends proving futile... one after another, more and more life is lost.Doesnt make sense.
Post Mumbai, we have lit candles, signed petitions, but got back to our normal lives. Kasab is gradually becoming a forgotten name. Maybe he was under "imperius Curse", maybe most terrorists are, I dont know. But they come prepared to die, because in most encounters, they do get killed. Often, the ones who are caught are innocent youngsters who hardly know what they are fighting for. What one can perhaps do is to publicly announce that the prisoners are killed (so that hijacks and likewise dont happen) and send them to juvenile homes so that they can be psychologically treated (perhaps brainwashed) and can move on to live their lives as ordinary citizens.
As for finding Voldemort, we can unite as a wall, so that he cannot penetrate anymore. His failed attempts would leave clues to his true identity...
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