Not letting terrorism break our spirit?

I think it caught on since the time of the Mumbai bomb blasts. News media noticed that it was business as usual the day after the blasts. They couldn’t help remarking the courage and indomitable spirit of the city - taking things in its stride and going on with the task of nation building. Since then, this spirit thing has become a feel good cliché - you can predict that two out of three news media will talk about the never-say-die ethos of a people the day after a horrible blast takes its toll.

Is this such a good thing? Okay, there was no decrease in footfall in the glitzy malls two days after a human tragedy - why is this statistic worthy of so much back patting? Let’s look at some alternate perspectives. Lets ask a voiceless citizen who lost his family member in the explosion. Mr. Ashok, do you feel the same way about the spirit of the city? “I don’t know if this is spirit or indifference. My neighbours are good - they were there to support me in my misery and they have also cut down a little on their planned celebrations. But going by the appraisal of the news agencies, these empathetic people are a cowardly aberration in the kaleidoscope of a brave citizenry.”

Maybe this is a skewed argument. Yes it is important for us to demonstrate that acts of terrorism cannot subdue us. But that is only one objective of these terrorists. They have still succeeded in their plans to take innocent lives and snub the government. We have to get to the stage where we can thwart their plans or achieve lasting peace, we will never get there if we are only concerned about tom toming our unbreakable resolve to shop at the same spots.

A bully in school was pelting stones on a weakling. The weakling could not retaliate or make the bully see reason. All he could do was dodge. Sometimes, he was unable to dodge and got hit. But he didn’t want to let the bully have the satisfaction that he had hurt him. So every time he got hit, he used to make a face and say ‘Kuch nahi hua. Kuch nahi hua.’ ( nothing happened, I didn’t get injured). Do we want to applaud and emulate the behaviour of the weakling?

The root of the problem lies a thousand miles north of the capital. Disputed land is fanning the flames of fanaticism. Until this dispute is settled, people will continue to be brainwashed in propaganda, dastardly plots will continue to be hatched, innocent men, women and children will continue to lose limb or life while carrying on with the routine of life, investigations into such incidents will probably continue for ever, some pawns in the game might be brought to justice, news media will continue to glorify the spirit of the country in bouncing back to normalcy and we will probably take cue from such media to light a diya at 8pm - to show the terrorists that we will not break, but maybe not do much else either.