Mumbai Attacks – Guest post by Supratim Basu
Dear Friends, It is my pleasure to publish this first guest post by Supratim Basu aka “Patriot”. Supratim has been an avid reader and commentator on this blog. He is also involved with me and others (including Sanjeev Sabhlok) on the Freedom Team of India. I am sure you will find his views stimulating and thought-provoking. This post is the first in a series.
***
Dear Shantanu and everyone else on this site:
I am going to take a break from making any further comments on this site for some time, as I analyse where I want to go from here. I am going to write a series of articles, through which I hope to lay out my thoughts and my plans.
After living through the attacks on Mumbai for the past three days, it feels like I am recovering physically from a debilitating illness, worse than any I have actually suffered physically. Last time I hurt (but, not so badly) was after the attacks on Mumbai’s trains on July 26, 2006. While I was angry, I did not channelise my anger into anything productive, except for becoming marginally more active politically and seeking out blogs such as this.
I realise now that this is not enough, and blogging actually acts a safety valve, and precludes actions that can make our nation better and stronger. After writing a post, we feel like we have actually done something for the nation. This is bullshit.
Second, at a gut level, I can see that we blame our political parties continuously, but we are not willing to stand up ourselves and do anything actionable to reform the system. We just *want* our politicians to be better.. Why? They do what they do because we allow them to do it. What are we going to do about our policy and polity, *besides* venting on blogs.
Third, I realised, again viscerally, that blogs are no better than the mainstream media that they complain about viciously. You can already see the politicking here, and on the Offstumped blog (where I do not comment), where we are already politicking and finger pointing and pushing our own agendas forward.
I was in the US, one month, after the 9/11 attacks, and the solidarity of the public, the politicians and the media, which I saw first hand but remains like a dream for us in India. Who is to blame for this situation?
Us.
Our politicians are not from Mars or Venus, they are from this nation, this land. They reflect who we are. This is the harsh truth. You may continue to ignore this, if you wish.
Fourth, I have not seen a single comment from Mahesh Patil and he is *right* not to comment. The blogs of Indians are the blogs of the elite, to whom no one in India’s decision making infrastructure is going to listen.
Why?
Because they do not represent the majority of Indian people. You have a PC and an always-on internet, you are part of maybe 5% of India’s population, and you very likely do not know how the vast majority of the people of India live or have forgotten about it. You can continue venting: no one will care, not least because many of you who post comments do not even live in India.
What is the way forward? I hope to present my thoughts in the next few articles that I write.
***
Related Posts:
Terrorist Attack in Mumbai – Part II
Here is the thing. We live in an era of globalization. We might not be able to impact people from India or whatever but we can try to raise awareness of the western people. That’s where the blogs become important.
This is a fact that news media such as CNN-IBN is EXTREMELY bias. For instance, Sagarika Ghose, who was so outspoken against so-called “Hindu” terrorism became EXTREMELY silent during this massacre Muslim terrorists committed. Why is this double standard? We need alternative news sources (including blogs) to counter bias in media.
Here is a very nice analysis of Mumbai attacks Dr. Richard Benkin has posted in our blog.
http://www.bangladeshihindu.com/is-mumbai-really-anything-new/
Patriot
I am happy to learn more about you. All the best and take care. Everything begins with the pain and helplessness. we
start with venting out and later we become serious. Inclination becomes stronger day by day by venting and commenting. And time comes our detrmination becomes stronger to make that happen. Time to take some serious actions. Its natural process one goes through if I am not wrong about it. I appreciates your hard work and detrmination to work for the country.
jai Hind!
Well put Supratim.
We have loosened our Govt. on several small issues, and now it is effecting more significant areas of public space. Callous attitude by everyone has always killed people or at the very least, made an average Indian citizen lead a pathetic existence. This cancer has now become so significant that the threat to our living is very direct and obvious.
Thanks Supratim
I look forward to your moving from ‘becoming marginally more active politically’ to becoming a leader that India needs. A focused expansion of liberal policy will ensure that a government does what it must, and punishes anyone violating the laws. Accountability must become the norm, and not merely a Home Minister resigning.
I’m also coming to a view that the particular philosophies of Islam (not Islam as a whole) which permits such mayhem must be understood better and challenged. Ultimately ideas matter the most, and we must enter the ideas debates, not as a political group (eg Freedom Team) but as concerned individuals.
I’m not very familiar with the particular school or schools but I remember reading that the violent philosophy arose somewhere in India and then moved to Pakistan. It is time to understand these violent Islamic schools and challenge them, though I’m not sure if they will listen to reason. But if nothing else, let us find out what they are saying and why violence is seen as a valid option instead of public debate and democratic expression.
These mad people are holding the world hostage and it will be insufficient to merely strengthen the security system and accountability. These ideas have to be isolated and battled as well.
Regards
Sanjeev
The big fat elephant in the room that no one wants to address is that this is not just one of a series of random attacks against India but actually a holy Islamic war on India. The media (CNN-IBN, NDTV) are just multi-national corporations and these as a rule don’t have national loyalties or even patriotic duties. Barkha Dutt and the rest of them are loyal to their pay-masters and can’t really be blamed for the drivel they spout.
At present there really is no 24 hour news channel which gives us stories from a nationalist Hindu perspective.
More importantly, we need to rid ourselves of the notion that Islam is only a religion and not a political ideology. Islam historically has never been an inner quest for truth but rather the outer quest for domination and subjugation of infidels–it hasn’t changed all that much since the time of Muhammed. When Hindus collectively lie to themselves about the true nature of Islam and lie to themselves about the true nature of the Islamic rule in India which was brutal (to say the least) even during the relativley tolerant rule of Akbar, they condemn themselves to yet another era of terror.
What we are seeing in India and throughout the world is the rise of Islam as a religious and political ideology with the specific stated purpose of destroying infidels and the nations of infidels to bring about a pan-Islamic world. What we are also seeing is the deafening silence of Muslim moderates, who supposedly are the majority, but never speak out. So where are they? Could it possibly be that there are not that many of them?
An interesting article by Andrew Bostom in http://www.americanthinker.com on Hindus, Jews and Jihadi Terror.
A must read for those who want to delink jihad and terror from islam.
Hi Shantanu:
THank you for your comment on my blog/post! I am amenable to your request, but would have to wait till I return to Boston in a few weeks. I am super busy here with things that I had originally come here to do.
Enjoy and Best WIshes,
Arun
where are you based?
@Patriot I know this is just the beginning of your posts, but, could you be more specific regarding your mention “I was in the US, one month, after the 9/11 attacks, and the solidarity of the public, the politicians and the media, which I saw first hand but remains like a dream for us in India.” ?
Actually I wonder if those people would react the same way as they did if they had to suffer like us?
@Patriot
I can’t disagree with “They reflect who we are. This is the harsh truth”. May be no one can; its afterall ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’.
I agree with Indian on that it is we, the citizens of India, that should be held accountable for not trying to reform our system. Despite cribbing abt politicians, every chance we get, nobody does anything about it and still vote for them. It is time for the Indian citizenry to act and reform our political system. Otherwise, the essence of India will be lost. The first thing we need to do away with is the entry barrier that in effect prevents anybody new to make an effect in the polity, without becoming part of the existing political system.
“Our politicians are not from Mars or Venus, they are from this nation, this land. They reflect who we are. This is the harsh truth.”
Well, in my opinion, above is a over-simplification of facts. For examples of the data that goes against the above, just notice that neither the prime minister, nor the just-ousted home minister, are people who are elected by the “people” — they are simply selected by an extra-constitutional authority. Likewise, the present incumbent dispensation at center does not enjoy a majority in the parliament — the reason why it has not yet called for a monsoon session of parliament which is long overdue now!
But thinking a little long term with some retrospection, we did have at one point a system in place when you could say leaders represented the spirit of people. That was when we had the likes of Lajpat Rai, Tilak, Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Lal Bahadur Shastri, P D Tandon, G B Pant, and so on.. or in opposition, the likes of Lohia, Jay Prakash, Deen Dayal Upadhyay, and so on. For all of that generation, Power was truly a means to some other end. But then came the era, beginning with middle of Indira Gandhi period, when Power in itself became an end, disregarding the rhetorics to the otherwise : and the glass ceiling was erected to not let the TRUE indians of the older vareity ever come up to the ruling “class”, and it continues to this date, and I must say all across the political spectrum.
A grand reform & overhaul of Indian democracy is required before we can truely say ‘yathA prajA tathA rAjaH’. It is possible.
Mr. Sanjeev,
A comment on understanding Islam. I have been studying Islam since after 9/11 and have come to the firm conclusion that Islam is not a religion, but an Arab imperialistic ideology masquerading as religion. I agree with K. Harapriya’s view about Islam. And it is not particular schools of thought in Islam that are violent. Core Islam itself is violent. If you are shocked to know that, well so was i when i discovered it. Please read about it and enlighten yourself. Islam is pure gangsterism. The problem with Hindus is that even though, Hindus were able to defeat Islam militarily, only few of us know about the core ideology that produces such behavior. Islam has such contempt for non muslims (Kafirs /Kuffars). After reading about it i was able to understand why the history of Islam has been so bloody. Shri Ram Swarup has rightly said somewhere “Christianity, Islam and Communism have been the great tragedies of Humanity”
There are lots of free resources online. Especially valuable have been the books of Voice of India publications.
Authors Shri Sita Ram Goel and Shri Ram Swarup have done yeoman service in this field. I have seen worthies on TV after the Bombay attack say things like muslim alienation is what causes the attacks. I haven’t seen one intellectual worth his/her name come out with the truth which is that it is the ideology of Islam that makes muslims live as a separate and alienated group. There is no record of muslims having mingled with any soceity in which they live. When muslims are a minority, they live subdued and appear peaceful. Then the meaning for the word Islam that they present to the world is “Peace”. When they physically multiply and increase their population, then they take over demographically and then the meaning of Islam becomes “surrender” or “submission”. Then they start killing, converting or driving out non muslims from that place. So like the nature of Light, Islam has dual nature.
To me my enlightenment and intellectual breakthrough on Islam has come after years of reading and research.
Hindus can do themselves a great favor by deeply studying Islam and being enlightened about it. And enlighten others about it. I have succeeded in letting a few Hindus be enlightened about Islam. So you have to work on people one at a time. And in the city where i live, i know of a muslim who has left Islam and has converted to Hindu Dharma.
Regards,
Guru
PS: A few resources presented here
http://www.islam-watch.org/AnwarSheikh/Islam-Arab-Imperialism1.htm
http://voiceofdharma.org/books/
(many free books here on Islam. All scholarly work)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/hindus_jews_and_jihad_terror_i.html
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
http://jihadwatch.org/
http://www.islam-watch.org
I fully support the views of K Harapriya.Islam mandates 2nd class status for non-muslims. We are told big lies about islam.In a great facts revealing book ‘Stealth Jihad’ by a great learned auther ROBERT SPENCER we have so many parallels that apply to India.
Hindus have been betrayed by Gandhi,Nehru,Kangress and communists, for letting muslims to stay here in India inspite of the partition demanded by them.
Main inspiration of terrorism is in Islam.We have to liberate muslims from the evil clutches of Koran & Mohammad
by exposing the evil face of islam.Sooner it is better it will be for humanity.
All: I know emotions are running high at this time…but please be restrained in your comments…and in apportioning blame…
Thank you.
***
I must also thank Supratim for agreeing to write this post… I will respond to some of the comments later.
Guru Charan, Great comment.
Gurucharan Right!
Sita Ram Goel was very courageous and brave writer. I applaud his work calling a spade a spade. He went through many hurdles while writing but he never gave up.
Jai Hind!
Following the subhuman attacks on Mumbai…I have been thinking to myself..all things said and done what is the change I need to bring about in my personal life…that can change and ensure a safer n prosperous India ?
Though I have been working tirelessly like many others, thinking that we are getting there slowly n gradually. However, that does not seem to be the case anymore..Needless to say a terrorised lot can not generate any kind of development – social,economic,intellectual n spiritual…
Again, we need to ask the right questions to ourselves…be ruthless to ourselves….corner ourselves…why do we always get away by rationalising this thing or that thing…why are we not doing enough ?procrastinating – waiting for the right time, right opportunity, right person etc..All that may be fine…but the question is are we doing enough ourselves.. today, here and now ?
“Peace” is losing across the world because all those “for peace” clearly do not have the motivation, that terrorists have…there is no match…They may be mislead, indoctrinated. However stupid their cause may be but they are ready to die for it…and they do die for it….
The recent series of terror attacks clearly highlight the fact that whoever we are and whatever we are doing (including myself and my organisation) is just not good enough.We need to rethink our personal/organisational plans. More than strategy it is motivation that we are lacking…Higher motivation levels would force us to set higher objectives for ourselves and our organisations to achieve….
There may be diff approaches and ideas about setting these objectives. There are a few specific things that come to my mind which are as following: (some of us may already be doing these already)
1- Cut down on our family time/expenses.
-Planning to have another child..Dont.
-Cut down on our Holidays/Holiday budget,lavish parties.
-Stop accepting and giving expensive presents
-Use a cheaper car.
-After work, start having dinner outside.Network with youngsters and the influential FOR INDIA.
-If we are overseas become a part of India’s Public Diplomacy policy n activities.
Divert all the time and resources that we save towards “the casue”. If we think our near and dear ones would not understand and cooperate – it is because they “choose not to understand”….so be it..There is nothing left that anybody can not understand.
Its said, “Those who sweat in peace bleed less in war”….Are we surprised we are bleeding so much ?
2- Break the status quo. Challenge ourselves and people in our organisations to reset/reconsider our plans and objectives in light of the shameful environment we are making ourselves to live..survive ?
3- Research – why does a particular book lend itself for interpretations that have been disastrous for the entire world for a very long time now.
Extra ordinary times need extra ordinary measures. Merely saying enough is enough is not good enough.
The last thing we need to do is blame others. At the end of the day it is us who are responsible how the outside world treats us.
Dear Shantanu,
As many of us are looking at new perspectives, let us look inward as Shri. Soni has said.
Let us begin with ourselves. Have we really contributed anything to get back anything at all.
Let us go back to the basics. Yes the real basics as to what we are and what we can do. let us work to an objective and clear ourselves of doubts that has been created in our minds as to what we mean as Bharatiyas to ourselves before we guide and support others.
Let us get rid of our poor self respect and get back to our pride of our ancient Rishis. All of us have made mistakes and we will continue to make it, no doubts about it, but we can always make a course correction.
Let us provide ourselves with the pride and a certain arrogance arrogated to ourselves that we come from an ancient civilisation.
let us give back our self respect to our children that we had the best civilisation the world had ever to offer. let us educate the youth of this country about the greatness of the traditions ‘however stupid, superstitious, dumb… please add any more invectives and derogatory terms to it as any one may wish” it may “SOUND”.
Let us study our traditions and as to the why of it rather than throwing it into the dustbin because “Somebody” who has never been in this tradition has informed us or “educated” us on it..
Let us study our scriptures for whatever it is worth. THEY CONTAIN TOO MANY GEMS.
If you have the opportunity please bring out a source of blogging which will provide for a new beginning for ourselseves, where we can discuss our traditions, our habits, our motivation as to why we follow it, a scientific background to our methodologies of why we perform an act etc. etc. There is always a method in the madness!!
Let us submit articles, write ourselves “HOARSE” until we
GET THE POINT”.
Let us make a beginning.
I am at it and if I make it ahead of you I will need your assistance on it.
Regards,
vck
Very interesting suggestions by Amitabh Soni. Except the suggestion to have fewer children. In fact Hindus had better start producing more. Demography is ultimately destiny and entire populations can just die out if they don’t reproduce (e.g. the parsis who will probably disappear in next few centuries if their population
doesn’t increase).
The only way Hindus in India can counter the population explosion of Muslims in India is to have one or two more kids (above the required we two ours one population strategy of the govt).
Even when we are 80% the population , we are unable to enforce a uniform civil code or protect ourselves from terror and we have a foreigner ruling us. Just imagine an India where only 50 or 40% of us are Hindus.
Bangladeshi Hindu,
Thanks for sending the link with the article by Dr. Richard Benkin. It is heart rending to see the plight of Bangladeshi Hindus. I had never heard of Dr. Benkin before. It is interesting that Afghanistan and Bangladesh are two areas that quickly folded under the weight of Islamic invasions because there was a lot of Buddhist influence in this areas.
In the long run, the only hope for the world is when muslims know the truth of Islam and start leaving in large numbers like Abul Kasem. Muslims are as much victims of Islam as are non muslims.
Our thoughts and prayers go to our Bangladeshi Hindu brethren.
Sincerely,
Guru
Read François Gautier
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?title=Sonia%E2%80%99s%20presence%20in%20Delhi%20is%20costing%20India%20dearly&artid=LNnjswClsuc=&type=
Important pointers, Supratim. But essentially, we need to express that inner outrage. And we should.
Thanks, Shantanu, for hosting this.
Thanks to all who commented and all who read. I hope to write my next post shortly.
@BangladeshiHindu:
Thanks for your comment. I do understand the importance of raising awareness in a globalised environment, especially in the west, if we want them to fight on our side. And, blogs such as yours and that of Shantanu do a great service in this respect. However, from the point of reforming India, this is not enough for the reasons I have stated in my post. But, I do agree that it is not an “either-or” situation. Also, I browsed your site – very impressive.
@Indian:
Thanks. One does what one can, I guess.
@Surya:
Thanks for your comment. Yes, we need to hold the government accountable, but we also need to hold ourselves accountable. The vicious cycle in India can be best seen in the case of taxation.
@Sanjeev:
Thanks. But, I still think you underestimate the destructive power of generic Islam. As, I said in some other comment elsewhere, whereas the new testament was a reforming document of the old testament, the koran, OTOH, has been a regressive document. And, we need to acknowledge that.
@Harapriya:
If I were to accept your thesis of “the big elephant in the room”, what are you proposing to do about it?
@Hemant:
Thanks for your comment. I was in the USA in November 2001, across multiple cities on the east coast, mid-west, west coast, on business. Here are a few key observations:
1. If you are familiar with US politics, you will know that there is a huge division among US voters along the republican-democrat fault-line. They call it a culture war that started in the 60’s. The two coasts are usually democratic, while the rest of the country is largely republican. This culture war reached its peak in Nov 2000, when *half* the country thought that Bush had *stolen* the election.
YET ……. yet, post 9/11, the whole country came together behind Bush, giving him the moral authority to do whatever was necessary – no finger pointing, no blame game, no questions about competence, no arguments about what needed to be done. Just a determination to get stuff done. And, this included the entire media, including the so-called liberal media like the New York Times. Compare that with India, where politicians were muck-raking, standing in the blood of the victims, even before the operations were over. And, as far as the TV media goes, less said the better.
2. There were ‘n’ number of arrests that took place after 9/11 – some were preventive, some were based on evidence, some were exploratory – there were no questions raised about the integrity or motives of the officials making the arrests. Compare that with India.
3. Even in San Francisco, the capital city of liberal USA, there was consensus that now was the time to secure the borders, to go after the perps and to leave petty politicking aside.
4. Everyone I met post 9/11 told me that the need of the hour was to strengthen the government, focus on the twin agenda of ensuring that such attacks never recur and of ensuring that justice was meted out.
5. Finally, this is a general comment: in the US, the man on the street, for the most part, respects the law officer and recognises him/her as a key part of their civil society. There is an acceptance that without the law and the officer enforcing the law, there would be no civil society. Compare with India.
@Nanda:
Thanks. So, do we wait to evolve? : )
@Arby:
So are you ready to take the next steps?
@Sarvesh:
Most complex problems appear so because either we fail to understand the sub-components of the problem, or we fail to apply first principles in our analysis. From what I have seen in India, is that we are very fond of tying up lateral issues to a core problem, instead of just focusing on the core problem. And, the core problem that we face in India is poor governance and our apathy to this poor governance.
@Amitabh:
A good set of action points, although the path may not necessarily be the same for everyone. But, I guess where we all fall apart is in defining “what is the objective?”
I would like to talk to you offline. Shantanu has my email ID.
@Trailblazer:
Thanks, but I think we have all been “expressing” the outrage. My objective would be to understand as to how we can “channel” it so that it results in productive action for the nation.
@ Patriot: Thanks for summing this up…Awaiting your next post!
@Patriot. I think that focusing on trying to reform Islam or to get the existing liberal media to give a balanced view of terrorism or to even mention the Islamic component of terror etc. is a total waste of time. What I want to do is to reclaim the national discourse on terror from the “intellectual subversion” (to borrow a term from Radha Rajan) that has plagued us . I think the way to do this is to have two things in place–one a national English newspaper which covers the news in a truly balanced way instead of focusing on rumour and innuendo. I specify English since the educated Indian seems to prefer that, and much of the communist/liberal/secular progressive discourse seems to come from the mouths of the educated elite. And secondly we do need to come up with a news channel that provides a fair and balanced view. In the few years I spent in the US, one of the things that I learnt was that a news channel like fox news could give voice to fundamentalist christians and change an election outcome.
Toward these two goals I plan to devote my energy and as much resources as possible.
I welcome any input on how best to go about it.