Two blasts happened in Hyderabad, one foiled, last week. Cacophony rose on the television and the theatre of absurd is ready for a play, a whole new season. Reasons and explanation are being deliberated over the deaths, now crossed sixteen.
There is something strange about what we call a national conscience, if there is one such thing to go by that name. It gets shaken and outraged over some things while sleeps unperturbed with an unburdened soul regarding others of similar or even gruesome matters. The very next day a report of the death of six policemen in Maoist attack came in apologetically in the back pages of the newspaper, ashamed perhaps at relative public apathy. Having just finished Kurt Vonnegut's 'Fates Worse Than Death', I was wondering why one death is different from other. He used the argument in the context of death by nuclear attack. But the question easily can be posed in any other context, to no valid response or argument or explanation.
Why the outrage on the molestation of a teen in Assam gathers enough outrage and creates enough steam that the creaky, engine of justice chugs to function, at the same time the little girl brutally ravaged in Rajasthan or six year old raped with nauseatingly disgusting brutality doesn't cause more than a murmur? There is something wrong with us, something seriously wrong- and dead. We are a nation with barely awake conscience with the leadership in an even worse stage of comatose stupor. In spurts, we get annoyed and aggrieved, through a sleep which stretches across centuries. On occasions we are stormed out of slumber, we make sleepy utterances like Death, blood, hanging. The government merrily obliges and we both go back to the sleep, with baby smiles on our lips. One good thing which I can foresee arising this apathy precipitated by routine terrorise attacks, we will very soon be able to frustrate the terrorists, since it will stop being of any consequence, in terms of large national outrage.
The blasts happened in Hyderabad, people died, scores are injured. Citizens act with restraint, they can not act anyway other than that. After all, it is only some people dying in a nation of a billion, not a new state being formed or temple built. A very sad and poignant moment, no jazz for the youth to yet bring out their candles or threaten self-immolation to force the government to act on those responsible for not having the video camera functioning at the blast site or for letting those responsible for this walk out of a Kolkata jail. After all who as the time, people in Hyderabad are more busy with Telangana and those in Bengal are busy attesting cartoonist professors.
The Home Minister says, "intelligence was there." Goethe retorts, "Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." The state home minister denies. Centre rebuts with information regarding four more intel inputs. Then a News is released about an injured there. Same man was injured in Mecca Masjid blasts. A very accident prone gentleman this is. He seems to be following the blasts, too closely. If not anyone else, this gentleman ought to sue the police and the government. If it is former then he must be one with the worst fate, or looking at it otherwise, must be of great fortune that he escapes all such mishaps alive. Either ways, this is too much, he must single handed bring forth the right to recall. Every time terrorists want to attack the state, they end up attacking him. No proof of this poor man ever having said," L'Etat. C'est Moi! ( I am. The state), a la French emperor. He sure has very easy to establish ground to seek damages from the state.
Police had picked up some men earlier for the earlier blast. The government decided to balance investigation across the communities. They felt the communities cared, regrettable if we as citizens gave them a reason to believe so. So to counterbalance, NIA brought in another set of people convicted for the same crime. The Home minister refuses to comment on who could be behind the blast, as he does not have enough proof. He made some claims to please the selector of the cabinet some time back, but at that time did not have evidence and one month down had to retract. Now he has wisened up, unfounded claims does not please anyone, not even the Madame.
The news is already dying down. We can not do much. There will be some programmes over the weekend with candle lights, celebrating the spirit of Hyderabad as the city will get back to work. As if the city were given a choice in this regard. No NCTC can replace poor policing on the ground, and no policing can help unless it is efficient and free. Why police reforms are not coming by, will someone ask before we slip into another long slumber? Is it because the brown rulers who replaced the white ones do not what to let go of the trappings of the royalty, which in pre-democracy age controlled the whole of administrative machinery, with a total control, beyond question and beyond reproach? I still remember, calling up friends in Mumbai after the blast there few years back. Now it has become all so commonplace and routine. Office next week, work and then pay taxes. So we live as a sleepy nation, in a deep unending slumber.
Arundhati Roy will write couple of more articles on how these blasts are a result of the actions of an arrogant state which hanged Afzal Guru, and How she wants to cede from this nation to form a one woman country. As a citizen of this country, I feel extremely lucky, because it is only luck which keeps me alive. I have to be watchful to keep myself alive, pay taxes so that the police gets paid and work on VIP duties to guard the weddings of sons and daughters of politicos and I can in spare time fight to create Telangana or to save cows or kill them, or to get rest of the Indians out of Mumbai except on the occasions when I want NSG to be flown in to the city from the much hated north. The Roman Emperor in the movie, The Gladiator, mentions the idea of nation being so fragile that anything more than a whisper can break it, I wonder how our nation survives the cacophony.
There is something strange about what we call a national conscience, if there is one such thing to go by that name. It gets shaken and outraged over some things while sleeps unperturbed with an unburdened soul regarding others of similar or even gruesome matters. The very next day a report of the death of six policemen in Maoist attack came in apologetically in the back pages of the newspaper, ashamed perhaps at relative public apathy. Having just finished Kurt Vonnegut's 'Fates Worse Than Death', I was wondering why one death is different from other. He used the argument in the context of death by nuclear attack. But the question easily can be posed in any other context, to no valid response or argument or explanation.
Why the outrage on the molestation of a teen in Assam gathers enough outrage and creates enough steam that the creaky, engine of justice chugs to function, at the same time the little girl brutally ravaged in Rajasthan or six year old raped with nauseatingly disgusting brutality doesn't cause more than a murmur? There is something wrong with us, something seriously wrong- and dead. We are a nation with barely awake conscience with the leadership in an even worse stage of comatose stupor. In spurts, we get annoyed and aggrieved, through a sleep which stretches across centuries. On occasions we are stormed out of slumber, we make sleepy utterances like Death, blood, hanging. The government merrily obliges and we both go back to the sleep, with baby smiles on our lips. One good thing which I can foresee arising this apathy precipitated by routine terrorise attacks, we will very soon be able to frustrate the terrorists, since it will stop being of any consequence, in terms of large national outrage.
The blasts happened in Hyderabad, people died, scores are injured. Citizens act with restraint, they can not act anyway other than that. After all, it is only some people dying in a nation of a billion, not a new state being formed or temple built. A very sad and poignant moment, no jazz for the youth to yet bring out their candles or threaten self-immolation to force the government to act on those responsible for not having the video camera functioning at the blast site or for letting those responsible for this walk out of a Kolkata jail. After all who as the time, people in Hyderabad are more busy with Telangana and those in Bengal are busy attesting cartoonist professors.
The Home Minister says, "intelligence was there." Goethe retorts, "Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do." The state home minister denies. Centre rebuts with information regarding four more intel inputs. Then a News is released about an injured there. Same man was injured in Mecca Masjid blasts. A very accident prone gentleman this is. He seems to be following the blasts, too closely. If not anyone else, this gentleman ought to sue the police and the government. If it is former then he must be one with the worst fate, or looking at it otherwise, must be of great fortune that he escapes all such mishaps alive. Either ways, this is too much, he must single handed bring forth the right to recall. Every time terrorists want to attack the state, they end up attacking him. No proof of this poor man ever having said," L'Etat. C'est Moi! ( I am. The state), a la French emperor. He sure has very easy to establish ground to seek damages from the state.
Police had picked up some men earlier for the earlier blast. The government decided to balance investigation across the communities. They felt the communities cared, regrettable if we as citizens gave them a reason to believe so. So to counterbalance, NIA brought in another set of people convicted for the same crime. The Home minister refuses to comment on who could be behind the blast, as he does not have enough proof. He made some claims to please the selector of the cabinet some time back, but at that time did not have evidence and one month down had to retract. Now he has wisened up, unfounded claims does not please anyone, not even the Madame.
The news is already dying down. We can not do much. There will be some programmes over the weekend with candle lights, celebrating the spirit of Hyderabad as the city will get back to work. As if the city were given a choice in this regard. No NCTC can replace poor policing on the ground, and no policing can help unless it is efficient and free. Why police reforms are not coming by, will someone ask before we slip into another long slumber? Is it because the brown rulers who replaced the white ones do not what to let go of the trappings of the royalty, which in pre-democracy age controlled the whole of administrative machinery, with a total control, beyond question and beyond reproach? I still remember, calling up friends in Mumbai after the blast there few years back. Now it has become all so commonplace and routine. Office next week, work and then pay taxes. So we live as a sleepy nation, in a deep unending slumber.
Arundhati Roy will write couple of more articles on how these blasts are a result of the actions of an arrogant state which hanged Afzal Guru, and How she wants to cede from this nation to form a one woman country. As a citizen of this country, I feel extremely lucky, because it is only luck which keeps me alive. I have to be watchful to keep myself alive, pay taxes so that the police gets paid and work on VIP duties to guard the weddings of sons and daughters of politicos and I can in spare time fight to create Telangana or to save cows or kill them, or to get rest of the Indians out of Mumbai except on the occasions when I want NSG to be flown in to the city from the much hated north. The Roman Emperor in the movie, The Gladiator, mentions the idea of nation being so fragile that anything more than a whisper can break it, I wonder how our nation survives the cacophony.
Comments
"theater of absurd is ready to play" was a good one...
got your link from Darshit Patel..