Retributions  

After a while, it almost gets surreal. A terrorist attack, and you almost know what the worthies are going to say. The Prime minister has exhorted the people to maintain calm, America has called the bomb blasts a terrorist attack while the Home minister rolls on.

It is not difficult for us to understand the design behind the blasts. The design is not only to injure and kill innocent people which is happening. The bigger design is to see that different sections of the society clash and create more difficulty, more turmoil and a bloody situation,” Patil said.

Well, the more difficult question of course is what do we propose to do about preventing such attacks in future apart from the usual platitudes? The resounding answer is: Nothing. We will just sit on our collective asses and pray nothing will happen.
India’s cause is of course not helped by the discordant voices it speaks with. While the Home Minister is dropping not so subtle hints as to who is responsible, his police officers on the ground have not named anyone. Why cant they at least discuss things among themselves before rushing off to the media?

And then there is the whole business of talking to Pakistan. At any given time, it is impossible to say whether India is talking to Pakistan or not. It behaves like a truant child who refuses to talk to a class mate because his toffee has been taken away. Suddenly and this is the crucial point, without any change in the ground situation, he is back on talking terms. Till his toffee gets stolen again. And again…So currently, we are again kickstarting the dialogue process.

We in India are always surprised that the West does not take our charges against Pakistan seriously. The question is:Do we take ourselves seriously? After every terror attack we impose certain conditions for getting back on the negotiating table, whether it is the list of 10 most wanted fugitives or a reduction in infiltration. Pray, which condition has ever been fulfilled? Then why do we impose such conditions which make us look like a fool in the eyes of the world?

The answer I suspect is what Jaswant Singh confessed in his recent book. Public consumption. In which other country in the world, an ex-foreign minister of an alleged hard-on- terror party would openly confess that the entire Army was mobilized, hundreds of crores were spent just to show the people some thing was being done. An elaborate con job if any!
General Musharraf understands the post 9/11 world far better than India does. He knows the old school Kargil type invasions cannot be repeated in the new world. Unfortunately, what we seemed to have forgotten that change in Musharraf’s attitude was not of natural occurance, it was forced by geo-politics: the reality of the post 9/11 world. For all his talk of enlightened moderation, when it comes to real substantive issues, whether it is tightening the screws on Madarsas or the recent capitulation to Taliban (a virtual carte blanche to Osama Bin Laden) the General has shown no stomach or inclination for hard decisions.With India, it is the same old ”death by a thousand cuts’‘ strategy albeit with fewer but more spectacular attacks and less rhetoric. The only force which can make Pakistan move is USA. The only thing which frightens America is a specter of a full fledged War in South Aisa. By giving up its offensive option, India has virtually left itself without any leverages. And of course, the repeated flip flops on peace talks certainly don’t help.

Terrorism calls for a coherent and strong response, not the confused blabbering which we constantly hear. If Indian leaders cannot talk sense, at least they can just shut up. If they cannot help India’s cause, why damage it further?