Ananth Venkatesh

Employees and guests of the Taj Mahal hotel, site of one of the shootouts with terrorists, are recued by firefighters as fire engulfs the top floor on late November 26, 2008. (LORENZO TUGNOLI/AFP/Getty Images)

Terrorism, a poison that has historically maimed a plenteous number of blameless Indians, rocked India once more for nearly 3 days. Mumbai’s Taj Hotel, a legendary symbol of architectural splendour, was targeted by Islamic bigots. The Oberoi-Trident was also brutalised by the bloody insaneness of the terrorists. Mumbai, familiar with such bigotry, had to endure the chilling ramifications of another intelligence blunder and the ineptitude of the law-enforcement machinery. Nariman House, mostly inhabited by Hasidic Jews, was also in the line of fire. The frequency of terror in India, with its inherent demoralisation, must alarm even the most optimistic Indian.

The terrorists, with a plenitude of deadly ammunition, journeyed through the sea to Mumbai. The inability of the police personnel and the Coast Guard members to hunt down these merchants of death before the formalisation of their devious designs is another addition to the lengthy list of incompetence of our security system.

The meticulous terrorists had eyed overseas nationals as well and their murder provides an international dimension to this issue. The attack on Jews in Nariman House is another lugubrious facet of this tragic episode of terrorism perpetrated against India. It only demonstrates the necessity of solidifying the Indo-Israeli alliance to forge a more efficient co-operation between the two sides, especially on the issue of counter-terrorism measures. The military relationship with Israel also needs to be deepened determinedly.

Indigenisation of terrorism is a mournful reality, which needs to be countered with fierceness since these venomous terrorists only understand the language of forcefulness.

Our political category has abysmally failed to supply relief to the Indian citizenry. The relentlessly inane squabbling between the political parties has enfeebled this federal government diametrically. A severe counter-terrorism law needs to be passed legislatively, which will serve as an appropriate counter to the evilness of terrorists. The notion of stringent laws to corner terror is always deemed as unacceptable by the pseudo-secular branches of the media and the polity. The rationale for the rejection of such legislative decrees is the possible brutalisation of the minority community. It is such small-minded politics–which refuses to understand the meanness of the temperament of terrorism–that is constricting India from confronting terrorism.

The ire of the citizenry has steadily expanded over the past four years during which several terrorist punches have bled India. The inaction of the national and provincial governments on the issue of terrorism could result in an electoral downslide for the governing coalition. The politicians have been incapable of acknowledging the indigestible facets of the terror hitting India 

Pakistan, which has mastered the art of disingenuousness, is the basis of all the terrorism directed against India. The mendacity of Pakistan has been divulged in the past. The joint anti-terror mechanism between India and Pakistan, an irksomely romantic vision, has become dysfunctional.

The barbaric ISI, which has provided schooling to the youthful terrorists, will never allow the instalment of trustworthiness in the Indo-Pakistan association. Pakistan, while adopting an aggressive stance on the matter of confronting Al-Qaeda and its ghastly cronies in the tribal areas of Western Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, has treated the primarily anti- India terrorist outfits such as Luhshker Tayyaba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen weakly.

The stratagem of Pakistan and its espionage machinery remains the same, which is the terrorization of the Indian populace. India must call off the peace course that it has travelled on with Pakistan since 2003. As long as terrorism continues to be used as a weapon against India, India must not engage with Pakistan in any way.

India must interestedly consider the possibility of obliterating terror companies in PoK. This might seem an outrageous suggestion but India has been abused by Pak-endorsed terrorism for too long. Pictographic evidence along with material evidence exists with the national military and the central Home Ministry, which unmistakably determine the connivance of Pakistan’s infamous ISI with the anti-India malefactors.

Finally, the empathy of most of the globe will be on the side of India. India must strengthen its union with America in order to be able to tackle Pakistan and its terror zones aggressively. 

Timeline of Mumbai Terror Attacks