The tragedy in Mumbai can be nothing but a total collapse of our Intelligence failure. When we have been warned of the attacks, even their locations specified as 5-star hotels by the US and some other countries, its really a shame that we couldn’t deal with it efficiently. Credits goes to the NSG, commandos, jawans and the hotel staff. That we at least put up a fight with our old guns and so-called bulletproof jackets (one of which was pierced and led to the death of a brave official) is a miracle in itself. I think its high time that we act, the politicians act, the entire administration and security system acts as Indians. Not to save our chairs, but to save our future generations.
Read more: How to become a famous blogger »
Its true that we feel like taking up arms ourselves and showing everybody what Indians are about, but since we cant begin a revolution with arms literally, we should be satisfied with lighting candles and keeping 1 minute’s silences, showing that we are concerned about this from the bottom of our hearts, concerned that we have the biggest loopholes in our security system, about the infrastructure of our arms and ammunitions and after all we are so happy to have such responsible politicians who are responding so well after this national tragedy, forgetting what happened and focusing on saving their chairs(failing inevitably), not even giving a second thought before politicizing the death of a martyr. Sincerely hope the situation will improve, and our country will stay strong and prosper amidst the ruins of these chaoses. With improvement and advancements in security technologies we sincerely hope greater peace will come and prevail across all our communities.
Indian Security Forces
The larger question that emerged from those four days in late November was whether India had been taking its coastal security seriously at all. The attackers arrived by sea, slipping past the Indian Coast Guard and the Mumbai Police marine units, landing at a fishing colony in Colaba with automatic weapons and explosives. How does a country with a 7,500 kilometre coastline leave gaps that wide? The answer, painful as it is to admit, is that our security establishment had grown comfortable with the assumption that land borders were the only vulnerability worth funding. Sea routes, airspace monitoring, and rapid-response coordination between state police and central forces had all been treated as secondary concerns. The siege at the Taj, the Oberoi, and Nariman House exposed every one of those gaps in the most public way imaginable.
Equally troubling is how slowly the National Security Guard was deployed. The commandos are based in Manesar near Delhi, and getting them to Mumbai took hours that should have been minutes. A country serious about counter-terrorism stations elite forces in every major metro, not concentrated at one airbase thousands of kilometres from the likely target cities. The lesson from 26/11 is not just that the warnings were ignored, but that the response architecture itself was built for a slower, calmer era that no longer exists.
What ordinary citizens can do beyond candlelight vigils is demand accountability through every democratic channel available. Write to representatives. Vote on issues of security and governance rather than caste and community. Support the families of the martyrs through legitimate channels. Keep the memory of those four days alive in conversation, in writing, in civic engagement. The politicians who treated this tragedy as a photo opportunity are still in public life, still seeking office, still counting on voters to forget. A nation that remembers its wounds is a nation that eventually learns from them. A nation that moves on too quickly simply waits for the next attack.
Keep reading: End to an unforgettable era »
