Mumbai 26/11 - Bhoole Nahi Hum....

Extraordinary circumstances evoke extreme reactions and therefore need to be handled with extreme caution. The Mumbai terror strike brought death, devastation and shame. The vultures who wrote the script had planned it like this. What more could they have expected. They got round the clock television coverage as they held a nation of a billion plus population to ransom. And even though everything went according to their script what they failed to calculate was the enormous, once in a life time, kind of opportunity that they presented to the mighty Indian nation.

History is replete with examples. Opportunity travels alongside death and devastation. Japan was able to grab it because the death and devastation caused by the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wrapped in shame. America's 9/11 also had shame written all over. And now if those who planned the terror strikes in India are not taken care of once and for all the opportunity that has come alongside the Mumbai shame would also be lost for good.

Of what good is the nuclear deterrent if we can be bled like this. Has the weapon of peace been good to us in any way? Peace sells, but who's buying it? The lives of those who are still lucky to be alive are in no way more important than those who have laid down their lives. Let not a single drop of Indian blood go waste. Those who are coming out on to the streets be ware, it is no candle light party out there. Everything comes for a cost and the cost has to be borne by everyone.

Let's not look up for any kind of action to the Singh who became king by buying votes in parliament. Nor from the BJP that abused the ATS chief a day before his death and later turned up at his residence to offer a compensation of Rs One Crore to his family. Nor the communists for whom shame is a decent word. Only a rabid dog could have said this: not a dog would have visited the Unnikrishnans' house had it not been the slain Major's house. Where and when in history has a martyr's father been treated like this? What could be more shameful than this?

The solution is lying somewhere around in the dark. We needed to act, and we needed to act fast. But we didn't. Who's responsible for this cowardly act? All eyes on Pakistan. All fingers point to Pakistan. We even had the proofs. But we couldn't do anything. We handed a number of dossiers to the neighbor, but no stern action taken till date.

Mr Manmohan Singh, a year is too much. For you, it might be just one-fifth (just twenty per cent) of your term, but to the families of the martyrs and deceased, each day passed as a year. And you didn't care. Only monetary compensation and showing sympathy is not the solution. The solution lies in curbing terror from the root.

Yes !! I feel shame when I have to accept that we have failed. I don't know what others feel. I don't know if Mr Manmohan Singh feels the shame or not, but I do. 'Coz we failed. We failed to provide security not only to our people, but also to foreign nationals. We failed to act against the perpetrators. We are merely watching the tamaasha unfold in Pakistan. We are helpless. We lack the spirit. We shouldn't have moved on with this until any strong action had been taken. But we moved on. India lacks leadership. India lacks courage.

I feel shame when I see the President of India having a gala time flying a Sukhoi, but she has no time to come down to Mumbai on the first anniversary of the deadly massacre. I feel shame when I see pics of the Prime Minister partying in the USA when people are paying homage to the martyrs and the deceased. It happens only in India !!

If India is crying for leadership, this crisis had the potential to throw up one. Only raising slogans against the government and the politicians is not enough. A few of us should have raised from the rubble to become leaders. But we chose to remain silent and protest. Candle light vigils can just add CO2 to the already polluted environment. Let there be no peace till the perpetrators of the Mumbai Mayhem are smoked out of their safe holes.

JAI HIND !!! JAI JAWAAN !!! 

May the souls of the martyrs and the deceased rest in peace....

Amen.