The fragrance of bad attitude

Author : Ashok Murthy

Location : India 

3 blasts rock Agartala and this is what I am reading as I am trying to come up with this article. For the past several weeks, it has become a matter of daily reading. Bomb blasts in Delhi, bomb blasts in Bangalore and Ahmedabad and how this is just a warning sign of bigger things to come, blah blah blah. Then there is violence against Christians in coastal Karnataka and Kandhamal in Orissa. The lesson to be learnt from all this is that these terrorists are telling us something, that they can hit us anytime any place and there is nothing we can do about it. 

It doesn’t matter who the fight is between, but at the end of the day it is the ordinary common man who bears the brunt of the impact. India is at a particularly difficult point of time at the moment. On one hand we have religious tensions flaring up in Orissa against Christians and while the government was doing quite a sad job containing that, fresh anti Christian violence erupted in Karnataka. Before one could come to grips with this, there were also terrorist attacks in Delhi to deal with. Why is it that we fail to recognize any way out other than violence to address our frustrations and anger? Why is it that everytime we don’t like something, we see only one way out of it, to focus on one particular group and make them the subject matter of violence? 

One cannot help but wonder what it will take for voices of reasons like us to be heard. Time and again the rule of law is being made a mockery out of and yet the state watches around not helpless but simply unwilling to risk any bold action with elections around the corner. The people of this country on the other hand seek to be concerned during times of terrorist attacks only to the extent of their near and dear ones and once the safety of that social group is concerned, they are back to watching their favourite sop opera. Have they ever wondered perhaps, they are a party to this unfortunate situation?  

It is sickening to note that ever since a child is born, all that he/she shall learn over the course of his/her life is how helpless he/she is against the world and how futile it would be to even try and do anything about it. For those who wish to take on issues without fear, they are constantly reminded of an Indian Oil Corporation officer who was shot dead trying to bring the oil mafia to his knees but is there one person in this country who can look at that incident and envy the man for having had the opportunity to take on the forces of corruption head on and die while trying. Of course the ordinary parent’s reaction to this is, the public won’t remember that poor fellow for too long, so what’s the point? It is time that we here in India recognized what the Bhagavat Gita tells us, make your best efforts and do not seek a result. Fear is our doom, fear is our sin and fear is the root cause of all our miseries. 

The 1900’s were troubling times no doubt, but in that era we saw people come standing up for what was right even if it meant going against majority opinion. For every Hitler there was a Schindler and for every colonial power there was a Gandhi. It is perhaps time that we started wondering as to whether our present attitudes truly reflect the gratitude we owe to the people before us and whether they died in vain for making the future safe and secure for a bunch of people who are more dead than alive. Resilience in light of trouble should be exercised as a matter of proud choice and not as a matter of force. This is something that the ordinary Indian as well as the state machinery should realize and in it lies the first step towards combating the forces of communalism and terror.