When will we feel outrage?

I started watching news reports at about 3 PM (EST) and have been pretty much glued to the news for the last 10 hours. My emotions went from absolute shock, to non-comprehension, helplessness, frustration, and now I feel the beginnings of rage. Communications with my friends and family back home lead me to believe they share similar feelings. But I cannot help thinking; when will we as a nation feel outrage?

In my lifetime I have never watched one of the largest cities in the world burn for ten hours thanks to a few dozen young men with ammunition. It seems fairly obvious that these are very stupid and highly audacious young men. But it indicates a lot more about the administration and security in place in Bombay and rest of India.

The Maharashtra Police looked as helpless as the bystanders. And one can hardly blame them; they have service revolvers, ridiculous helmets and a joke of a bullet proof jacket, to match the AK-47s of the terrorists. We don’t need to hold our breath for the result.

Saying that the intelligence seems to be completely lacking is both obvious and an understatement. While I do appreciate the courage of the top officers of MaPo and the ATS, it is foolishness and hubris on their part to walk into open fire when they have been unable to assess the strength of the opposing side. Overnight the ATS which had some local knowledge and experience has been wiped out.

What I fine shocking is that this should have been expected and prevented, but it wasn’t. In the last few months there have been serial, perfectly coordinated, bomb blasts in Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, New Delhi and Assam taking over 200 lives. Did the administration expect the terrorists to retire after a successful stint the last few months? And Bombay is not really a farfetched target; there have been serial blasts in Bombay in March 1993, August 2003 and July 2006.

Why have there been no resignations? Actually as a nation we are so immune to lack of action by the executive that we have stopped demanding that pubic servants accountable for the security and law enforcement take responsibility and resign. Ideally Shivraj Patil should have resigned many months ago, or should have been sacked and replaced with someone with a better track record.

I also wonder why we have no specialists in the cabinet. When we are in financial crisis we get an economist in the Lok Sabha or bring in an economist through the Rajya Sabha to take matters in his hand. Is no special knowledge required for other portfolios especially one as important as the Home Affairs?

In times when border security and internal security face very similar threats, it seems odd that the Armed Forces are led by specialists who have served for a couple of decades in the organization. And at the same time the Home Minister is determined on the basis of loyalty to a dynasty and the bureaucrats serving him have been promoted up the ladder based on age, seniority and reserved quotas.

Another extremely irritating aspect of the current political leaders is that they have the audacity to

a) Issue stupid statements “condemning” the attacks, like that would make the world a peaceful place.

b) Request civilians for their “calm” and “cooperation”. This is a polite way of saying “we didn’t do our jobs, but things are bad and this is not a good time to yell”.

c) Praise the spirit of the people who return to their everyday lives as if nothing happened.

Especially on the last aspect of everyone praising the spirit of the Mumbaikars. Mumbaikars stopped showing resilience a very long time ago. Their return to their lives has two reasons. Most of them need to work to earn their day’s meal and cannot afford to lose their jobs by staying home. The second reason is that the citizens know that the government will not take much action irrespective of their decision to stay home or work. It is wishful thinking to interpret this as courage. In fact the faith and the spirit of the people has been broken so often that they have stopped feeling outrage.

While the attack cannot be undone I wish we would all show our outrage. That we demand an explanation. That heads roll in the senior bureaucracy. That the ministers responsible are sacked and replaced. This is the only way to ensure that the most recent casualities are not in vain like the last 200 lives have been in the last few attacks in 2008.

And some links on the attacks.
The coverage on IBN has been good and can be found here.

The various places in Bombay that have been attacked can be viewed here.

A chronological list of terrorist attacks on Bombay and other cities in India since 1993 here.

Friends who were at the centre of the pandemonium today here.