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| Stop politicizing terror | | | | It is like a tragedy coming twice. After the tragic Mumbai terror attacks, the political class has sharpened its tongues to divide people and communities realizing little the fact that they stand isolated for their hollowness. Before looking across the country, see how the BJP has indulged in shameless exercise of politicizing terror in ongoing state elections to garner some votes in Jammu and its neighbouring areas. The kind of response coming from BJP is doing no good to the shocked people who are being provoked and pitted against each other by their venomous statements. Indian politicians were never on the honours list for sensitivity or even for simple comprehension. But their conduct and comments during and after the terrorist attack on Mumbai have ignited the simmering anger of people throughout the country as never before. Popular anger against politicians for their bullying, corruption, lack of accountability, indifference, casual violation of all promises, easy access to violence had been erupting with increasing frequency in many places, as for example in West Bengal. Ordinary, peace-loving people were taking to the streets in spontaneous protest against politicians’ actions. But Mumbai has laid bare before the country the political class’s alienation from the society it is supposed to represent, its shamelessness after its failure to protect the people, and its incomprehension of the impact of the Mumbai attack on the Indian citizen. The ruthless concentration on electoral calculations and the single-minded pursuit of power have made the Indian politician lose all sense of proportion: even the biggest leaders do not seem to realize, after an escalating series of terrorist blasts culminating in the attack on Mumbai, that there are some issues which are above party one-upmanship and ministers’ egos. People’s fury against their elected politicians does not augur well for a democracy. There was a peculiar silence among leaders at first; only some Opposition heavyweights came out to make hay for themselves with both eyes on the forthcoming elections. If the grieving families of members of the security forces rebuffed party leaders at their door, the public rebuffed them by uproariously thanking the forces for doing their duty, and by lining up in thousands to mourn the policemen and soldiers who had died. It would be additional folly for political parties to ignore these signs. But the minimum decency or humanity seems impossible to summon up. The chief minister of West Bengal has said nothing; he has not even expressed the state’s solidarity and empathy with the people of Mumbai. The talkative Left has suddenly fallen silent, perhaps it is awaiting instructions as to how to react. The general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) surfaced briefly to “regret” the crass comment of the Kerala chief minister, his partyman. As sorrowing, frightened people all over the country try to pull themselves together, the CPI(M) is focussed on covering up for its party. |
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