FIGHTING
TERRORISM & VIOLENCE
IS IT INDIA’S GREAT OPPORTUNITY?
Terrorism is entirely different from other ordinary violence.
Violence is an act to inflict damage on a person or a group or inflict fear into them. It does not usually go beyond that, to people not actually involved in the violence from the side of the affected persons or from that of the perpetrators.
Violence is usually unleashed by people nearer to you, known to you and for reasons that are fairly obvious – though not justifiable.
Some times, violence on innocent persons also occurs – to establish somebody’s brutal power in the locality. Many Political Parties and Mafia Groups have violent people of this kind.
But, terrorist attacks are intended to drive a Whole Nation crazy, to keep the nation in surprise on - whom they will target next and therefore retain a huge suspense and fear element, for a very large section of people.
The violent man hides from Law but not from the victims. The terrorist hides from all – and his whole strength lies in the surprise element that he can use against a nation.
It does not mean that terrorist is always from a different country. Any one who wants to adopt terrorist type of mass attacks with a surprise element, totally hiding himself, his aim being to terrorize and humble the country – is a terrorist.
26/11 was a terrorist attack. The latest attack on Mumbai is a terrorist attack – by these premises. These are purely my premises. You can differ.
Let us make no mistake. Terrorism is not violence of ordinary kind. It is targeted to humble a nation. To demean its Self respect.
A Naxalite is a violent man – but, we know him. He may be in some hills or forests and he may strike against some trains or some people. Yet, it would perhaps be wrong to classify him as a terrorist – until the naxalite picks up links with terrorists and becomes their ally and attempts similar attacks on unknown targets, totally hiding him self. A Naxalite is away – but not hidden. Perhaps, a Naxalite can be reformed. He does not want to hurt the Self Respect of India – he just has a different meaning for it.
So is the case with many other indigenous organizations.
But - India is an unfortunate target for terrorists from certain countries who are themselves fighting terrorism – and will probably remain so for some time – until we become effective enough to counter them, like USA does.
A terrorist attack is not necessarily a crisis, but a great opportunity to forge the unity of the country. John. F.Kennedy said long ago – that, "When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters - one represents danger and one represents opportunity."
This is an opportunity time for us – to do many useful things. If we seriously seize this opportunity and prepare well, even luck and destiny will favour us – as the famous saying goes.
As Churchill said – we must see the great opportunity that this difficult time has presented before us – and not just see the difficult time.
So, what are the opportunities, we can seize; how we can make the Nation stronger; how we can bring the people’s minds nearer; how we can terrorize the terrorist instead of he terrorizing us; how we can make the nation prosper even on account of this terrorist attack.
(i) We have Parliamentary committees on Defense, Public expenditure etc – which are filled with MPs from all major parties. Like the Public Accounts Committee. This was intended to achieve a national Consensus on all important national affairs in our democracy.
(ii) The very fact of existence of these committees has proved a great facilitator in all these important national affairs for the last over 60 years. Government has to share all info with all parties for the Purpose and it is happening. Our Budgets and expenditure scrutiny are a reasonable success – despite all debates, because of the evolving of national Consensus.
(iii) The same thing must bes true of India’s war on terrorism.
(iv) War on terrorism has to be India’s war, a war of all Indians, of all hues - not just the ruling Government’s war. It is India’s war on those who want to tarnish our National self respect.
(v) Let us accept that Terrorism is the greatest threat to India’s self respect and that it requires the best Possible response. Let us therefore constitute an all party parliamentary committee on Terrorism - which can possibly be the best response we can send to the Terrorists – indicating that we are all one and together, in fighting terrorism.
(vi) Let Government be guided in its actions by this committee. After all, we need to surmount bureaucratic hurdles, legal hurdles, intelligence hurdles etc – so, let there be a common, consensus response to the terrorists which makes all this easier. I am not talking of 100% consensus – which may never happen. A 2/3rds majority will do.
(vii) As earlier said – whether the terrorist is a foreigner or Indian – treat them on same footing for all such purposes – treat them as waging war on India.
(viii) Second – Technology is India’s greatest strength. It must be marshaled in all possible ways – to locate terrorists and their activities.
(ix) CCTVs are good and must be used in much larger number and in more locations in a way that they cannot be damaged by terrorists easily.
(x) Every organization must be encouraged to use powerful digital cameras facing the roads – which they must switch on – in case of any crime, violence or terrorist activity across the road-stretch. This can serve terrorist activity prevention as also ordinary crime prevention. Some Individuals are even now doing it – consequently, we see so much of videographed crime now a days – including many crimes on the part of Police also. Government must encourage use of technology for such crime / terrorism detection purposes.
(xi) Individuals must also be encouraged to use their cell phones, cameras etc – if they are present at such incidents.
(xii) Police Response on 100 is some what tardy and ineffective even for normal crimes. Let us not expect them to respond to Terrorism or bigger crime at 100. When a huge crime or terrorist activity occurs – it calls for speedier response. May be – a swifter Police Group with a number like 1000 – on which the complainant has to identify himself and give the incident – but will not be harassed for too many details later should be devised. This info must go simultaneously to many sub groups of this Fast Action Group – so that who ever is nearer can respond fast.
(xiii) Every city Police and special action forces must be able to have Telephone numbers of any locality at their finger tips within minutes – through software programs – and they must activate larger establishments in that locality immediately - to confirm the incident and starting videographing / photographing the incident immediately. But, Don’t expect Individuals to stop terrorists – which is not easy.
(xiv) It is heartening that some secret Agent training centre is being proposed . This is the sort of initiatives that must come FAST in response to terrorist attacks of this kind. We can have one training centre in each metro – but be sure we are not training a terrorist at this centre itself. Attitude check is extremely essential in such cases.
(xv) A terrorist usually has some local harbours – which must be treated on par with terrorists and destroyed.
(xvi) Terrorist is the most hardened criminal – having the least humanness towards our country. He is on a cruel, unjust, inhuman war against our countrymen. Let us understand that countries of their Origin are in no position to take any punitive action against them. I don’t think we must treat a terrorist like a Buddha does or a Gandhi does – when we are not even treating small time murderers in India like that. We must have special courts and speedier justice. There should be special laws to deal with terrorism of this international variety most expeditiously – which must be clearly distinguished from small time violence of any kind occurring within the country.
(xvii) The most Important aspect in all this is India must preserve its self respect and its Unified spirit in all such terrorist attacks – and respond FAST and ADEQUATE – without giving scope for excuses of any kind.
(xviii) If we all come together – well.. there is no crisis at all..
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