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Sunday, December 7, 2008 12:49 IST

Joining the thronging crowds at the Gateway of India on Wednesday last set me humming `Movement of the People’ from Bob Marley’s immortal 1977 album, Exodus. This looked like an extraordinary protest march even given the horror that had precipitated it.

Dissent against politicians and other authority had built up over the previous few days as the pitched battle against the terrorists raged at the CST, Taj and Oberoi. So widespread and intense was the rage that the neither the size nor the raucousness of the crowd at the Gateway should have been surprising. I returned back to office largely happy, yet also somewhat bewildered.

In the days since, my apprehensions have grown. A spontaneous mass movement against obvious maladministration and diabolical lapses in intelligence which led to the terrorists assaulting our city so easily was something that suggested a new awakening. But in the several protest marches after that, the sensible few with solid, constructive ideas have been largely drowned in insensible clamour laced with shades of needless jingoism, some deeper hue of war-mongering, and a deeply coloured shift towards anarchy.

The blame game has become frenetic. Politicians were the first and obvious victims, but by the time I write this, the media, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Muslims in general, the Left in India, the Right-Wing hardliners, the pacifists, the western world – almost everything under the sun -- has come under the public scanner, leading to so much diversity of opinion as to become chaotic.

In one sense, this is understandable because of the nature of the horror. The release of pent-up emotion was inevitable. But unless this rage is given coherence and channelised into constructive action, I’m afraid it could end up becoming like that favourite Indian pursuit: Time pass.

In all the brouhaha, what has been sidestepped is the role of the citizenry – us, you, me, – in shaping our own destinies. Everybody wants some action to be taken, as the hundreds of smses we have all received tell us, but the direction of all action seems outside the self, not within.

Problem is fulmination is too abstract, and therefore short-lived. In a functioning democracy, the onus must eventually come back on the individual, and unless that is accepted, everything else will become only so much hot air. I am not being cynical and discounting the emotions that have brought the entire country together in a common cause. But the path from here is going to be more difficult to sustain, let’s be real, as everyday life occupies us: Unless it changes our mindsets and therefore, our actions.

Let’s look at what we have learnt so far:

a) The terror attack has not only exposed the ghastly (and costly) indecisiveness of politicians, but also the feudal relationship they enjoyed with the people. The insensitive words of R R Patil and Achhutanand, the callousness of Vilasrao Deshmukh in taking Ram Gopal Verma to the Trident even before it was completely sanitized, revealed their utter contempt for people who had voted them into power.

So grave was the tragedy, however, that this time there was no place for such people to hide. Their heads had to roll. Others like L K Advani, Bal Thackeray and Narendra Singh Modi sensed the seething anger in the public and chose to stay away from the usual hate-mongering.

We need to take this further. What is needed is not just a change in politicians, for the worse may replace the bad, but in the political process and fabric. People armed with a franchise must educate themselves enough about their politicians to make informed choices. The new equation is that politicians are meant to serve, not rule.

b) The inert bureaucracy, that draws its power from playing spoiler, failed us as much as dithering politicians. I had mentioned in my Sunday DNA column (November 30, 2008) how the Navy had failed to fill up its depleted resources despite defence minister tabling this in Parliament six times since March 2007 simply because the babus in the ministry wouldn’t move! Nandan Nilekani in his new book Imagining India talks of the stranglehold the bureaucracy has over the country, albeit in a wholly different context. He mentions that for India to take off, this debilitating bureaucracy needs to be demolished. Here too, the will of the people must come through clearly.

c) Our first point of defence remains the police, which has been shown up to be poorly armed, even more poorly paid, and despite the heroics in the terror attack, lacking dismally in motivation. Police reforms, which have been hanging fire for decades, must now be pushed through urgently, with the people giving this top priority.

There are several such issues that need to be addressed, which require knowledge, fortitude, courage of conviction and a strong moral fibre in the citizenry. The last is crucially important, because unless this is evident, everything other demand and will ring hollow. Accountability in our politicians and public servants should be mandatory, but we can help achieve this by our own sense of responsibility in everyday life.

Deciding not to bribe cops, for instance, or not allowing divisive elements to ruin our social structure, may be a good beginning...