Yes,WE can!!

Despondency has hit the streets as angry citizens are flooding the roads with placards, top notch celebrities are expressing disbelief, terror and solidarity, heads of state chiefs and bureaucrats are rolling and there seems to be an unprecedented feeling of animosity towards our system. 26/11 is unequivocally our enemy's most successful accomplishment, and by far our biggest intelligence failure. Secularism and our sovereignty balances itself on a perilous fringe that has hitherto indeed stood the test of time. Look at the facts. We live in a land that has never attacked, never plundered. We live in a land that perhaps can singularly pride upon its non-violent past. We live in a land where we refused to kill to win our freedom. We live in a land that has a woman president, a Muslim Vice President , a Sikh Prime Minister, at the hands of an Italian born national and a fundamentalist Hindu opposition. We practice every religion known to mankind, speak languages the numbers we've lost track of, boast of every ethnicity that has ever existed. We're incredibly warm hearted, duly progressive and aspiring in consciousness. We've been extremely tolerant, immensely patient and yet pleasantly cynical. Our resilient middle class is endearing and persevering,and yet imbibes unmistakable resentment. We have successfully managed to build a multi-ethnic vibrant functional democracy in all glory. Where is it that then that we've faltered? What is it that still makes 15 percent of our population to live on less than a dollar a day? What questions nag us that make us a country with only the have lots and the have nots? We've been left grumbling about our unscrupulous politicians whom we've fallen prey to. We've succumbed to a whirlwind of cheap divisive politics. We find ourselves in the midst of a cynically adamant, morbidly corrupt and bankrupt Pakistan, a disturbed Afghanistan, a treacherous Bangladesh, an emerging strong Communist China and an insignificant Sri Lanka. Our middle class is as impervious to politics as much as our poor class is gullible to. We have complained far too long. We have never had the conscience not to spit on roads, not to throw garbage mindlessly, and not to resort to bribes. We've resorted to our comfortable cushioned sofas in our luxurious living rooms and our elephantine lazy butts do not want to go out there and fight for a good cause. We may cease to be a third world country soon, but our mentality still seems third world. We want change to happen,never want to make it happen. We wait for an Obama to sweep us away with his rapturous speeches and rejuvenate our maligned political and bureaucratic framework . Change , we've certainly believed in, but,pain, we've always lived in. We've never guarded our vote with the sanctity it deserves. We live in a land where me and you can stand for an election based upon a common ideology, yet we've never. On the other hand,ours is still a system which will never let Tianmann massacre to happen, we'll never compromise on the lives of innocent citizens trapped in hijacked planes,unlike Israel. We've long complained to make stringent laws on population control emulating China, but we'd be the first people to protest against it on humanitarian grounds. In the past few years,we have developed in confidence as a nation, we are no longer meek and submissive, no longer subservient. The country,let alone the world itself, cannot afford to have an ineffectual Indian middle class. We are engulfed in boundless opportunities and possibilities, yet we face a myriad of problems to deal with.Perhaps,terrorism is just one amongst a long list. Perhaps the whole issue of terrorism is a little hyped. Thousands die due to disease and hunger in our country every day, lakhs still live in hunger and acute poverty. Perhaps, terrorism comes under the several miscellaneous problems we face. Perhaps, the poor in Bihar did not care about the recent terrorist attacks, perhaps the deprived in UP are more concerned of managing 2 square meals a day. Perhaps, education is our standout priority. Nonetheless, 26/11 has been a symbolic attack on our sovereignty exposing our vulnerability,our insecurities. Perhaps, in bleak times we sense an uncanny spirit awakening, a need for monopoly of virtue. Perhaps, this is our pre-ordained calling to politics of principles and virtue, of responsibility and a sense of patriotic fervour. Our tradition teaches tolerance, our philosophy teaches tolerance, our Constitution practices tolerance, let us not dilute it Let this emotion not fade away like the beautiful sunset in Kashmir.Let us demand questions until we ourselves realize we all along knew the answers, let us assume the mantle upon the value system bequeath by our founding fathers.