Mumbai, impotent politicians and lousy rights activists

Time we kicked politicians and caned social elites who sob in name of human rights As I step into a quiet Saturday, I feel a queer discomfort. The spectacle of death and devastation in Mumbai last three days has left me gasping. I am anguished. I bow my head in shame for inheriting a wretched breed of politicians – or shall I call them impotent and lousy scoundrels – whose bickering and myopia has made us all vulnerable; whose despicable apathy has made the country and its innocent people a perennial target of terrorists. Yet again it’s apparent we as a nation can never learn from our mistakes. I have grown sick of the knee-jerk and clichéd responses from politicians. They miss no time in showing up on television channels and can’t say beyond what is by now so routine for us all to hear. They engage in rhetoric and make promises as if there is no tomorrow, not to forget the generous grants they declare for the devastated families of deceased and disabled. Stop this you rotten thugs. We can take it no longer. Can we also request the byte-hungry television journalists to stop panting after these idiots called politicians? Not so long ago on September 13 when I had seen terror from close quarters when a bomb exploded right below my office on Barakhamba Road in New Delhi’s Connaught Place area, I had begun to severely suspect the abilities of the present government in tackling the internal security situation. The Mumbai carnage has left little by way of doubt. It’s apparent this is a feeble bunch of union ministers at the helms now whose primary motive is to secure their seats till the time the present government is in power and make merry, people be damned. I am certain this November 26-29 episode too would get drowned in other mundane cacophony of our routine lives. Politicians would be back in business. TV journos would continue to run after them. And though they are drowned with a mysterious silence, the social elites and rights activists too would be back in business. I am ashamed at the abhorring hypocrisy of Indian socialites and elites – many of them cried hoarse after the Batla House encounter in Delhi post September 13 serial blasts and asked for probes beating their chests. Some political parties including the Congress too tried to gain whatever mileage it could out of the Batla Encounter brouhaha. What a shame. Where are you, you hypocrites, you mischievous sprites? You have seen this time as well innocent being killed – and look at the swing of fate, they were more like you than the bus-goers in Delhi. Will you again question the veracity of the encounter following the mayhem at Taj and Oberois? Will you still give those measured, mugged up bytes on television channels in your made-up husky voices? Will you still go and hold phony demonstrations on Jantar Mantar in Delhi with your drug-induced followers? Will you continue to drool at the idea of a photo opportunity? Will you still question why Army men get 24 eggs as ration and get pampered by the nation? Will you continue to be as shameless as you have ever been in the name of Human Rights? In my humble opinions all you awful foolhardy socialites and elites should be dispatched to Karachi in the same boat which the terrorists used to make a gateway through the Gateway of India. The lousy politicians will follow. And we shall be much happier without you.

** There is so much to write about on Mumbai Mayhem. I shall continue to pour my thoughts as they shape up. I would like to congratulate Arnab Goswami and Rahul Shivsankar of Times Now and their team for doing a commendable job. You all were so measured, so guarded and so sharp with your details, the three days video should be made a case study in classic reporting for generation of journalism students. I am sure Arnab would have made some kind of a history in television by being on the anchor chair for longest number of hours.