The same tired game of cat and mouse

On the eve of Valentine’s Day, while love was supposed to be in the air, somebody decided it would be as good a day as any to blow people up. Thus ensued the bombing of a popular eatery called the German Bakery in the western Indian city of Pune.

I remember growing up in India and growing to understand fear. You always knew what to do because everyone else was doing it. Don’t go out there are riots, angry mobs running wild and crazy in the streets killing people in the name of religion or politics or something important like that. Grow up a little more and you learn new terms like bombs and terrorists and mangled and dead. I know all these words and then some. I love my country, but I can’t help but be annoyed at what can be and still won’t be because our politicians are corrupt and uneducated and our people are easily swayed, willing to fight to honour someone else’s ideals, someone else’s greed.

I don’t believe in Valentine’s Day but I do believe in love, I believe in life and I believe in equality. This is the oldest story in the book, almost everything that results in death or destruction in India is more often than not blamed on Pakistan (I’m not saying that they are entirely guilt free either). But I am tired of this tug of war – India blames Pakistan and Pakistan denies all terrorist ties. In fact for all of you who didn’t know this and I quote the Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on this “We condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/14/hindus-india-talks-ban-pakistan-bomb-bakery)

In the aftermath of yet another ‘terrorist attack’ a few things immediately stand out – Pakistan is blamed without proof almost immediately (I must also emphasize that proof or no proof Pakistan will continue to shake its head and ‘condemn’ terrorism), the same Hindu nationalist leaders that strike terror within the nation due to their small-minded policies and agenda have called for peace talks with Pakistan to be cancelled (the previous talks were cancelled following the terrorist attacks of November 2008 in Mumbai). Firstly what good is that going to do? I mean I have no illusions that the ‘peace talks’ will result in us letting go of our deep seated enmity against Pakistan but even attempted peace talks should be better than none right? I mean what probability laws apply here?

I am an Indian citizen and I am tired. I am tired of knowing friends and family who have died in bomb blasts. I am tired of a country that gets used to it. I am tired of a government that gives statements like There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which India's Home Minister P. Chidambaram described as "a significant terrorist incident". (http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gnZHVHrTQyoJ9GcXp9z7VwSpffkA).

So I ask you. Are there any insignificant terrorist ‘incidents’???