Who is to blame???

26th Nov, 2008 , 11.00 PM- I am deep asleep in the hotel room after a day of field work in a village of East Godavari. My cousin calls up asking- Where is R(my brother)? Is he OK? There is some bombing and firing going on in Mumbai. I say I am not aware of it. Then I call my brother immediately . He is also asleep and not aware of anything.

The next day morning I wake up to the headlines - " Terror attacks in Mumbai"
Immediately we make phone calls to all the known people in Mumbai to ensure that they are safe. And then Thank God.

The whole nation(i.e the population which is aware of the happenings in Mumbai) is glued to the television sets and the transistors for the next 3 days to be updated. People are sad, angry, desperate- sad for the so many innocent lives lost, injured and for the near and dear ones of the dead who have to go through the mental trauma; angry at the terrorists, the politicians who pass some senseless comments and the situation about which they are not able to do anything except pray; desperate for all this baseless violence to end.

And finally it ends on the 29th of November. Its time for statistics now- the number dead, injured and homeless...The news reads- the Home Minister resigns...I dont know how it is going to matter?

The nation cheers for the NSF. All those who have come out alive are heroes of the moment and those dead are martyrs. Political parties conduct meetings,the news channels keep highlighting the same things- cheers to the heroes, public blaming politicians, and the investigation.....and whatever little details/rumours received .....and after a month or so, the news disappears slowly..until the next attack.

Will the same unity which happens when a foreigner attaks the nation remain? Or will it be back to caste, regional and communal politics again?????

Anything which harms the unity of the nation should not be left free on the roads, be it the politicians who use caste, community or region as a political weapon? Democracy doesnt mean the politicians can talk anything and everything. If it is affecting the society, it has to be nipped in the bud...y prolong everything when there is sufficient proof that they are disrupting the unity of the nation??? By the time the accused r convicted, it would have given rise to 100 other problems.

We blame the system for everything. The makers of the Constitution were of high intellect. How many of us follow the system to blame the system? We say we dont have TIME for all that right???? We dont care for the traffic signals because we are getting late to office, we didnt have time to start off 5 minutes earlier.And then we blame the law. We have no patience till the person in front of us to get down from the bus. We keep scolding the patient who is in the doctor's room when we are at the clinic because we are getting late. We cant wait anywhere, we act as if the burden of the whole world is on our shoulders where as we are actually running away from our responsibilities, responibilities of being a citizen of a nation, a part of the society, an organisation....

We play double standards everywhere. We want someone responsible to come into politics, become bureaucrats and other responsible positions but not our own people because "it is risky". We want someone to write about the problems in our society but we don't.

All of us have read- It has to be country first, countrymen next and then our own self. But its all in the reverse. We have the attitude- " We have hundreds of personal problems, where do we have time to think about all this. If I alone be correct, what difference is it going to make". And we are proud of our culture. A culture which doesnt let the pedestrian walk on the zebra crossing, a culture which scolds every alternate person in the traffic jam, a culture which still believes in caste system where the real basis of it has been lost, a culture which thinks twice before doing some charity.......What is all this if not DOUBLE STANDARDS???

Everything has become a fashion statement-be it spirituality, be it sympathy, and anything for that matter. Break the rules, who cares? are the 'cool' statements used by the people.
And for the media...everything is a news item. What right do they have to blame the politicians when they themselves dont know when to speak what? How can any sensible person ask a person whos father is caught in the Taj firings, "what is going through in your mind? What do u think will happen?" Doesnt it sound so inhumane? It did happen on NDTV Profit.

Why does the media highlight things which tend to become issues of communal violence, be it Karunanidhi's statement on Rama or his comment on the sacred ash of the Hindus? Why does the media discuss sensitive topics and sometimes senseless topics on the so called 'educative programmes'. Topics like love marriage vs arranged marriage, which city has the worst roads????? We dont need Karunanidhis and Thakreys. Just ignore their statements so that they will not even attempt to say such things in the future just to come into limelight.

Nothing is going to change by media highlighting an issue and interviewing a handfull of people. These channels have become a source of entertainment where people watch it with their families and talk about it for some time and then its all the same.

Nothing will change unless people act responsibly, each one of us, be it at the bus stop, in the ticket counter or on the roads...it may look small but it matters a lot.

"One person can make a difference and every person should try" - John F Kennedy

JAI HIND