Growing up I always used to wonder what it will be like to have a nation without any regional, religious and political biases. Would it be difficult for us as Indian's to ever make a society minus all these? Can we ever live in a society which is not hypocritical in nature and more discriminate of its people than the US? Then, I used to think to myself, yes it is possible and it is doable, and, I, as an individual will make a difference.
15 years hence, my views stand corrected! The reasons for this change are the recent terror attacks that 'my' country has faced. These attacks have questioned the very essence that our country stands for "freedom"; our freedom to live & to fight back. These attacks have proved one thing to me – "we are not safe in our own homes".
I have had the privilege of spending some time out of India and upon my return a number of my friends and colleagues questioned my decision of returning to my country and suggested that I had made a mistake by coming back. According to them, countries apart fromIndia are better, as they offer a better "way of life", of course with "monetary benefits". However, what they do not realize is that if you are working abroad, you are earning your living in their currency, so how are things any better? Moreover, the cost of living in almost all developed nations is far higher than that of India. Anyways, my argument to them at that time was that, "there is no better place in the world than your own home". Quite philosophical, but true, yet I stand corrected again!
Off late, there has been enough and more debate on the state of our STATE, it's internal and external security and a lot of questions have erupted out of this debate; one of them being that the state of our politicians couldn't get sadder. As much as I agree with the sentiments of my fellow citizens, I am compelled to ask a question to all of them, including myself – Do we have an option but to elect the illiterate, criminal and old filth that has plagued our political system? Will I want to enter politics myself to clean up the mess and provide a fresh perspective to this line of profession? In my various discussions with a number of people coming from different walks of life, of late, the answer to the 2nd question has been a long drawn silence of thought and to the former one, has been a prompt, non thought of response basically stating that these guys should be put in front of a firing squad and shot dead or that this country should be cleaned of these parasites. Well quite interesting thoughts, however quite unpractical and illogical, if exercised, would force me to come back to the 2nd question or better still raise a new one – Are we ready for Marshal Law?
It is quite understandable that we are angry and agitated postNovember 26, 2008 with the way our politicians have behaved and their actions or should I say the lack of any! What I do not understand is that, are they the only ones to blame? Truly, what have you or I done in the past 60 odd years of our Independence to make it otherwise? Are we not to be blamed as citizens of this great nation or is it just for the politicians to face our wrath? Will we ever stop this blame game and look at solving a deep routed problem of religious bias and territorial enmity that we have within the state? Will we ever look at, if we have done our bit? It pains me to say that "I am an Indian" and frankly I am ashamed to say that as an Indian, I really cannot think of one thing that I could proudly say I would have done for this great nation. I do not have any answers to any of the questions that I would have raised above or the many billion that the million other citizens would have raised till date and I am ashamed of myself.
We are talking about concrete action to be taken against Pakistanand I couldn't agree more on this, but something like 'carpet bombing' a neighboring state and killing innocent lives is not the answer to our problems! Post 26-11, people said that when 9-11 happened in the US, the US waged a war against Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Al-Queda. A fact, but then the resultant affect was seen by the Bush administration. In fact, I was watching We the Peopleon NDTV post 26-11 and someone said that when 9-11 happened in theUS, they responded back with an attack on Iraq & Afghanistan and Barkha (Dutt) said yes they did, but it backfired for the Bush admin. The point that should have been made on this should have been that, it backfired 'cause Bush used 9-11 as a reason to attack Iraq (a must longed dream of his father!) and the terrorists were in Afghanistan & Pakistan, so why did innocent people (both US & Iraq) lose their lives over Iraq? But then that's another debate for another time! Right now what we should learn from the US is that they suffered in 9-11, and so did a number of other nationalities and they decided on sending a clear cut message to the world. A message of – Do not mess around with 'US'! What is stopping us from sending a similar message? Why are we getting so scared? Who are we scared off? Why are we so dependent on the US to bail us out or help us in this time? Are we so weak that we need someone else to speak on our behalf? – "Not the India I had dreamt off"
No comments:
Post a Comment