Will govt wake up now?

The politicians and bureaucrats who run the central and state governments in India must hang their heads in shame after Wednesday's terrorist outrage that hit Mumbai. This time it wasn't anonymous bombers who killed and injured innocent civilians; the terrorists targeted citizens openly with machine-guns and grenades, causing panic and immense casualties. While it is no one's case that every citizen can be protected against wanton attacks by motivated, but demented, individuals, what is unpardonable is the lackadaisical way in which governments in Delhi and the states have been tackling the menace.

We have seen blast after blast killing ordinary civilians by the hundreds over the last few years, but nobody seems to have a clue about how these threats can be minimised. The investigations have been shoddy, and the police have done little more than anger one community or the other by random arrests and harassment without getting to the real masterminds. After so many years of disaster, the least the government at the Centre could have done was put in place an effective system of intelligence to prevent at least some of the massacres. But no. All we have seen is a nauseating blame game, with the opposition parties blaming the government and the government throwing its hands up in despair. We have also seen government and opposition make stupid arguments on who is tougher on terror; we have seen politicians trying to justify one kind of terror or the other; we have seen policemen and investigators merrily leaking half-truths and misleading information on the people arrested. What we have not seen is effective action to head off future attacks or solid detective work after a carnage.

It is high time everybody started doing his duty. The government must put in place an effective intelligence mechanism and give the police more equipment and powers to deal with the challenges. Politicians need to abandon short-term vote-mongering and put the country's interests above everything else. At the end of the day, it does not matter whether the UPA or the NDA or a Third Front comes to power after the next elections.
There will be no India left for any of them to rule if they continue to behave the way they have done so far.