India is a, indeed, a strange land. And from every point of view-the cultural multi-diversity, the plethora of languages that we speak and, foremost, our diplomats. It's more than a year since the Mumbai attacks. Let's see what has happened since then.
To describe it tersely, one say, it went from outrage to rage to token gestures to a comfortable mellowing down. Nothing's changed after the Mumbai attacks. No tangible action. Nothing, in the least, that could result in some tangible action in the future. The oh-so-interesting case of Kasab, which invariably and with a growing uninteresting episode of events, hasn't yet be concluded, and what we get to encounter are the notorious and funny demands of the terrorist. Clearly, it's not helping. We could as well hang him while I complete this post. Some columns in the newspaper every now and then, with decreasing frequency and even more rapidly decreasing length of those, only suggest that we haven't yet got amnesia.
No one can ever forget what the mood was just after the attacks- it's surely going down the history line. The world at that time was sympathetic to India. The US was just too eager to help India to wipe out terrorism from Afghanistan and the place where it is bred- Pakistan. Pakistan sure had a tough time to deal with. But, I got to say, Pakistan diplomats are far too clever for us to recognize that. They stuck to their old theory that India is a "soft state". And we just proved it with a more concrete proof. Islamabad was keen to buy time and Delhi sold them- at a bargain. Now, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that US, too, thinks that. We are a soft state.
So is everything lost? The lives taken all goes futile? Supposedly, yes. And no one's helping. India took a tough stance by stopping outright the dialogue process with Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Though they should have done that when the Shimla pact was no more respected, but nevertheless, better late than never. Omar Abudallah, the CM of J&K, wants the talks to be revived now. It is no surprise Pakistan seconds that opinion. And the US, given the turn of events, will also want that- maybe it'll also lure India to start the peace talks by showing a lollipop called the "permanent member of the Security Council". Newspaper editorials, which at that time, commended Delhi's move now talk in the same vein. But the question why should the talks be revived? Just because a year has passed and the dead people doesn't matter anymore. Talks were cancelled for a reason- so that some tangible action will be taken by Pakistan. Even after dossier after dossier on the masterminding of the Pakistan terrorists, Pakistan still claims the evidences are inconclusive.
In short, the Mumbai attacks were just another chapter with no real significance. India is known not to have a foreign policy- only a Pakistan policy. It seems Delhi is losing the Pakistan policy as well. War is not the answer. The dilemma is, what is the answer?
If such attacks are meant just to be forgotten, India might well be schizophrenic.
2 comments:
"Soft state" Nice declaration. but hard to breathe the words.. :(
Who are we to pass judgment on Kasab, who, by the Indian Law and by any decent law, has the right to be given a fair trial by the State? If our judiciary is not efficient enough to come to a conclusion fast enough, we cannot just champion Chinese policies, and go about executing under-trials, guilty or not.
Yes, India is a soft state, no doubt, but I'd prefer this country to one which goes about murdering innocents, in the name of finding nuclear weapons, when their neighbours have openly declared the presence of nuclear arms. What makes our country special, is that despite the entire world succumbing to the 'empire' and the 'empire controlled media' we, have to a great extent resisted the pressures.
Besides, our 'Pakistan policy' as you say, is immaterial... Before we think about hanging Kasab, while you were writing this post, how many of us were thinking of hanging the JMM chief, the Shiv Sena chief, the RSS chief, the MNS chief and the list is possibly endless. Does the value of human life suddenly rise a million times, if it is taken by a Pakistani? That does make Pakistan special, doesn't it?
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