Three years on, 26/11 has been reduced to just another ritual

26/11. A day three years ago, when the average Mumbaikar’s sense of relative security was ripped out.

It isn’t that Mumbai was a haven of security and peace. The last two decades were quite traumatic for the city of dreams. First came the gang wars, followed by the riots and then the bomb blasts in the 1990s.

This had an impact on the fabric of the city, and its psyche went through trauma that was best associated with other places. Then came the sporadic bomb blasts, targeting trains, buses, inflicting death, damage and fear on a population that was on the move, trying to create a better life for itself and its families. Yet the city plodded on. Then came the floods — a random cloudburst that shook up the city. You still see the effect of that incident. A heavy downpour and half of Mumbai seems to be indoors.

Then came 26/11, possibly the most traumatic of the lot. Not because it happened in the elite areas of Mumbai. Not even because of the toll, but because the enemy — and let’s not mince words about who it was — was able to sneak into our city with utmost ease and unleash carnage, while all we could do was wait and watch. That they were able to do this in multiple locations including train stations, hospitals and hotels with ease makes one feel even less secure. The kind of impotence and paralysis associated with the four days of bloodbath was without parallel.

An elite, highly indoctrinated, professionally trained, and well-armed killer squad landed in your city, your country, and killed, and killed and killed — and there was no way to stop them.

Three years down the line, what does 26/11 signify? Like much else in this country — a ritual. A ritual where we take out old candles and light them, a ritual in which we send a file to Pakistan to ask for justice, a ritual in which television anchors, newspaper editors and the intelligentsia pontificate on what was, what should be and what isn’t. 26/11 has become a ritual. A ritual like all others. Garlands, flowers, candles, meaningless words — but have we really learnt anything?

The primary goal of the state is to keep its citizens secure. To ensure this, security forces have to be well staffed, well trained, well armed, and well coordinated. Mumbai, three years after 26/11, faces a 40% shortage of police personnel. There simply aren’t enough policemen to take care of law and order, let alone a terror attack.

The remaining anti-terror infrastructure promised in the aftermath of the 26/11 attacks is still in the distant horizon. There is no political party asking why jobs are not being filled — by locals or others.

There is no rath yatra highlighting the miserable state of security across the nation, and there is no activism on keeping citizens secure. While it may be impossible to prevent terror attacks 100% of the time, it shouldn’t be this easy for the enemy to get through the gates.

The response of the Americans and the Europeans to terror attacks was backed by an all-party consensus on the way forward. Can you see our politicians, our civil society, our citizens coming together on anything? If the Congress proposes something, the BJP has to oppose and vice versa. Everything is a political issue. Everything is geared towards capturing the headlines. And, political capital is sought to be built on every little aspect of governance — be it FDI or security. National interest takes a back seat in this political edition of Tom and Jerry. What politicians seem to forget is that while Tom and Jerry is fun to watch, does one really want them in charge of the nation?

And finally, everyone knows where the terrorists came from. Everyone knows who funded them, trained them and deployed them. They also know that these weren’t non-state actors. So why does India persist in this delusion of ‘we need to be friends’ with Pakistan? They aren’t our friends.

They never have been. There doesn’t have to be a logical, understandable reason for their visceral hatred towards India. What there has to be is an appreciation on the Indian side that some people just want to see your country burn.

And those people are not hidden away in caves in the Hindukush mountains, but are within the Government of Pakistan.