The capital has been bombed again. Terror is visiting our cities with a nauseating regularity. The sense of helplessness has once again overpowered us.
I have been to the Central Park in CP a few months ago. The divine sounds of a Sufi music performance going on in the amphitheatre of the Park almost mesmerized me. As the evening fell and darkness intensified in spite of the soft lights of Central Park, the spiritual ebullience peaked and the listeners appeared to be transported away from the humdrum metropolitan life. Everything was just perfect to create a kind of ecstasy one would never expect to achieve while strolling around the hub of this busy political capital of India. Right beneath the Park is the Connaught Place Metro Station, the epitome of modern infrastructure. The Park seemed to suggest how craftily the government had tackled the so called development and environment trade off.
The bombs have gone off on 13th Sep at the Central Park also hurting and killing innocent people. The terrorist attack on Central Park like the one on Parliament has a lot of symbolic importance. The attack has taken place right under the Government's nose. The Indian state is helplessly watching the sad stories unfold in various cities- Delhi, Varanasi, Jaipur, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat. And many more may be in the offing. When such gruesome attacks happen with undiminshed force and frequency, you can't help but laught at the talks of our superpower status. We are good at winning software contracts. We are good at economic growth. We are almost the best at holding free and fair elections and running democracies at various levels. How about national secutiry? Why are these challenges not taken seriously?
What we need is a professional and technocratic response to crimes like terrorism. We do not need any inputs from politicians to combat this problem. It is a war like situation. Do generals consult political parties to frame strategies during war? Just leave the professional agencies and forces alone to deal with terrorism.
There is nothing political or ideological about terrorism. It has a lot to do with national security. It is a crime that bleeds civil societies and claims lives of innocent non-combatants. And governments just cannot faff about or fool around.
For me, the pictures of the blood stained lawns of the Central Park have replaced the memories of that divine musical evening.
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