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When cowards run the State, the nation bleeds

September 17, 2008 15:30 IST
Again the same old stories, the same threats and same resolve of politicos, like wet, squeezed paper. We told you so, at that date and time, but you didn't listen. We asked for a stringent law. Our intelligence department was warned, yet no one acted.

It's a plot to derail the peace process with Pakistan, we shall never get trapped but continue our mohabbat. They are not Islamists. Bad guys have no religion, so don't say it's Islamic terrorism. They come from nowhere. May be from Mars, but certainly not from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. They are not our people, not Kashmiris or Delhi-ites.

Don't embarrass Pakistan by pointing fingers at it or at SIMI or Hurriyat -- we are continuing with our Confidence Building Measures and such blasts aim to disrupt it. Why should we allow that?

Another feature, another magazine: SIMI is an association like the YMCA, these communal hate-mongers have connived with the Congress government to implicate them wrongly while they were conducting adult education classes. Please see the truth from secular eyes and defeat the anti-Afzal Guru crowd. Maybe the next time we will include Afzal as a minister for internal security after having experimented with the Muslim League as a partner in governance.

The Deoband's concerned maulvis will again issue a statement to be welcomed by all peace-loving people. Look, they have again said that their scriptures don't recommend this kind of violent jihad and killing innocent people. But no one would ask them how many killers of the jihadi variety have turned peaceniks and left their bomb factories after such dictates.

'Hindu intolerant groups behind such bomb blasts!' -- another secular television channel would scream -- because they create an atmosphere to malign Muslims and get votes, it's election time folks. These bomb blasts, like the Godhra train fire, have been planned by Hindu chauvinists.

A job well done. We can all go to sleep.

When cowards run the State, the nation bleeds.

A will to eliminate the weeds and face the wrath of malevolent elements with the confidence of a victor is the prerequisite to be a ruler and, yes, to be a citizen. If it's there, you build a nation. If not, civilisations vanish.

If citizens encourage and harbour the wicked, forget dates like December 13 that should be remembered, forget to take revenge on anti-nationals, continue with their late-night parties when dead bodies of their fellow citizens lie splattered in busy fashion markets, no one can save that deadwood society.

Where writers and columnists advocate yielding to the gun-wielding secessionists because 'they want it', no one can save that country from disintegrating as every day new secessionists will emerge.

It's useless to blame this party or that organisation. See what we have done and to what level the state of affairs have been brought to. Everything boils down to personal wars and wins, and homemade potboilers rule the top echelons of organisations.

The nation as a matter of serious planning and vision has simply vanished off the agendas of those who are the known faces of our leadership and decision-making mechanism of the State.

Personal jealousies, vendettas and mandi-isation of the high and mighty turn peoples' security into a joke of the ghostland where signal-jammers and black cat commandos iconise the Neros and the Republic is left to fend for itself.

This is our state of affairs today.

Any day, any time, anyone.

Free Afzal committees. Visits to the Azamgarh home of a terrorist. Demand citizenship for Bangladeshi infiltrators. Demand ban on patriotic organisations. Win the election. That's the final aim of governance and our living. Only the people are to be blamed. It's a democracy. Choose those who bring you safety and succour. If you choose the marauders you get back marauders.

The Indian people, as Indians alone, have done it marvellously before too whenever the occasion demanded solidarity and cohesion. Kargil saw it, 1965 saw it, 1962 had a great solidarity of the patriots. Always, it's the leaders and politicians who have failed the country and backstabbed the trust people had reposed in them.

Peoples' power saw that the culprits behind the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy case were brought to book, however influential they may be. It was because of their pressure and media build-up that the Nandas were punished in the BMW case. The Right to Information Act is a great instrument given to the people not because politicians wanted it but there was public pressure to have it and finally it was done.

And look how Jammu rose to see the tricolour win against the Pakistani flag-wallahs. No one had ever imagined a people can create an upsurge unknown in regional history and win too. Great things happen nimble-footed. The British never had ay inkling of the 1857 uprising till Mangal Pandey shot the British officer in Barrackpore. Jayaprakash Narayn's too was a movement whose expanse and impact no one had anticipated, and so was the Ram Janambhoomi movement that changed the contours of the Indian polity.

If people will, they can.

Indians will have to decide how many more will have to die before they feel compelled to rise in revolt. India needs a rebellion of Indian people who would merge all their other identities under one banner -- the tricolour. Forget temples, churches and mosques. The first to protect the church should be a Hindu like the first to protect a swami should be a Christian. That's where the nation gets life.

When the nation is in peril, gods must be discovered in national unity and not within concrete structures. These ugly, nincompoop politicos need to be thrown into the dustbin lock, stock and barrel. The truth is we, as Indians, never paid a price for our independence and honour. When I had interviewed Morarji Desai, which turned out to be one of his last, in his Mumbai apartment, he said not more than five percent Indians had participated in the independence struggle. The rest were either too lazy to come out or had lined up before the British for bakshish and be their officers.

Read what Abraham Lincoln did to save America from disintegration and his famous Gettysburg address and also his inaugural one as president. He accepted a civil war but refused the demand to divide America. Nearly seven lakh Americans died in that war, but a new sun rose on its horizon that inspired millions across the globe with its egalitarian and democratic values.

What sacrifices have we offered to save national integrity and the civil life of our nation?

Isn't it time to ask this question and rise in rebellion to say 'no' to this bloodbath unitedly?

Tarun Vijay