I am usually contemptuous of attempts to link enormous tragedies to the writer’s minor personal misfortunes, but bear with me on this. On 27th November, I was stuck in a hotel room in the United States, unable to return to Mumbai because my flight was cancelled due to the terrorist attacks. I had missed breakfast because I was glued to the television, and because it was Thanksgiving day and no restaurant was open, I faced the prospect of staying hungry throughout the day. I was also feeling exceedingly lonely and was desperately missing my two-month old infant son.
My problems, needless to say, were trivial compared to what my city went through. The reason I am mentioning them is to explain why the incident of Karambir Kang, General Manager at the Taj, losing his wife and two daughters in a fire while he was saving hotel guests caused me to burst into tears.
It has been over a week since, and I am still seething. This is not the first terrorist strike on Mumbai or on India, and the way things are going, this will not be the last. But there was something different about this one. It is one thing to anonymously set off a few bombs and kill a couple of hundred people. It is quite another when 10 or 20 people, armed with guns and grenades, hold off the might of the Indian State. This is probably the greatest display of India’s military weakness since the defeat of 1962.
“It is one thing to anonymously set off a few bombs and kill a couple of hundred people. It is quite another when 10 or 20 people, armed with guns and grenades, hold off the might of the Indian State. This is probably the greatest display of India’s military weakness since the defeat of 1962.”
Because they were able to enter or because they were able to “hold-off” for 62 hrs?
I hope it is the former.
The answer is complicated, but… the thing is, if I were to design an operation that shows up just how bad India’s internal security apparatus is, I would design it this way. Perhaps “military weakness” was the wrong phrase for it.
If I were to design one set of absolutely inane and stupid bloody lines to post about the issue, this would be it.
Of all the inanities, you have to link your missing a flight with somebody losing his family; somehow make the personal tragedy of losing a family a symbol because he is affluent and in the media limelight; and finally, end with the mindbogglingly asinine remark about MILITARY weakness coming into it.
Just to settle a bet : please confirm that :-
(a) You believe an attack on Pakistan is the right step now
(b) You “will not stand by”. You will “not talk about the spirit of Mumbai” and “refuse to just bounce back” ?
I don’t know : I thought you were reasonably intelligent. I guess this incident has everybody putting foot into mouth.
I think the coast-guard lapse should be plugged (and will be). But I also think the Indian security machinery acted rather well as far as the crisis response is concerned.
Talking about security lapses, any amount is going to prove insufficient. India would have to strengthen the odds only through a fitting response. And keeping up the pressure until the response is fitting enough.
And at the same time, we’ll have to make ways to remember these tragedies, year after year (rather than forget about it and confuse it with “Mumbai Spirit”). Remembering the tragedy yearly can be a first step towards a yearly audit on our Internal Security.
Just some random thoughts… Point being, don’t despair… We did ok only after tragedy struck… Lot more to be done…
Swami – and what is a fitting response?
A situation created out of decades of apathy is not going to be solved by ” a fitting response”. We don’t need a response. We need realization. Realization that nation building and development is a serious process, that needs participation from each on of us. As long as we have such vast masses of people who are illiterate and poverty stricken, there will be people who will be able to exploit a few to perpetrate such acts. There is no way out. We should stop trying to find a short term of solution.
Vijay,
If I understand you right, I’d respond by saying we need both short and long term solutions.
A fitting response can be a surgical joint military operation on LeT bases in Pakistan (and PoK). Long shot but with sustained pressure (particulary from the west), some kind of a compromise crackdown is a possibility.
Which might reduce such incidents in the near-term [during which time, we can work on removing global poverty!].