Amarnath Attack: #YesInOurName, Crush Terror Now

Patience is not a limitless virtue, and anger is not a vice beyond a point. The attack on the Amarnath Yatra pilgrims on Monday night, unless avenged in some form or the other, will make patience look like weakness and turn anger into an uprising. The government of the day is realising that. Hopefully.

The pilgrims might have taken a bus that wasn’t registered. They might have been travelling after permitted hours, along a path that wasn’t sanitised. They might have even got in the line of fire during a raging battle between the terrorists and the security forces. But that means exactly what? Justifies what? When you don’t stop firing if an innocent comes in your line of fire, then you are killing that innocent with a motive. Also, would the LeT terrorists hold their fire if the bus was registered? One is tired of this contrivance called ‘balanced view’ – trying to thrust plastic rationality into an outrageous act of murder.

The tax that we pay every month to the government buys us many things – one of which is security for our person and property. Every Indian citizen has the right to take the shortest and quickest route to his preferred destination – in the case of these pilgrims, it was home after a gruelling journey to the cave shrine. Every government’s duty is to ensure that citizens do not come in harm’s way. The seven deaths in Batangoo, Anantnag district, are a failure on that front. Should Pakistani terrorists decide how, when and where we travel in our own country? Should the fear of bullets from Lashkar-e-Taiba guns determine our lives?

Reactive muscle-flexing in the form of tough-talk, crisis management meetings and spot visits by VVIPs – well, India has had enough of it. The surgical strike carried out by the Narendra Modi government had acted as a tonic for the country, made us look strong and proactive. While it is the government’s prerogative to decide on the response to this dastardly attack, we, the citizens of India, should not let our collective anger turn limp with time. Inaction is not an option post Amarnath - for reasons more than one.