Foundation When On Brink

It has been going on for a while now, with explosions in markets and trains and buses and busy places in India becoming perhaps less common than another nation not so far only in terms of per capita frequency.

With the long siege of what was perceived as a landmark and the sixty hour battle waged by police, then all forces together with commandos arriving to much applause from all bystanders - people in various stages of trauma, with worry about their near and dear, and about the nation - and spontaneous cries of Bharatmaataa Ki Jay and Ganapatibaappaa Morayaa (the former much recognised by the media explicityly, the latter quite clear and yet ignored as if that would make it impossible to hear) - these were genuine scenes.

People have been patient, and now it is a consistent mood of anger, a just wrath slowly rising to boil. The much patient nation at mercy of various groups who would attempt a domination or terrorising or a takeover, dealing with all these idiotic attempts with the infinite patience of a mother who sometimes just might give a whack or let out an admonishing shout, is now obviously running out of patience for the moment.

At that it is again something to be said for the people, who do not take up the media and others for a spanking they deserve for calling this the worst only because now it is the rich and elite and much valued "foreign" visitors targeted rather than the usual poor and middle class who get much less media coverage with much more deaths. Unless the media can give it a different angle, which is when it is endlessly pursued while other "incidents" are deliberately glossed over.

But no, people have been united with solidarity irrespecive of who was hit, and ignored the media bias, and taken it as an assault on the nation to be dealth with as one nation. They have not asked why the media wrote off the other blasts and assaults when they were not against rich, at any rate they have not been holding that as a reason to say "this was not our problem" as in fact the media and the rich have tacitly - in fact even explicitly - said about the earlier assaults that affected the not so rich.

Sometimes one wonders if the media realises they do not deserve the great people of the nation that they let down so callously so regularly without a thought. And then there are the politicians who are at the moment in power in most states. Supposedly those that belong to the people, at least in name - they stick those labels and think it is enough - they have lost touch with people, with reality, with meanings of words. With what they call themselves for that matter.

And the people are united in just wrath, as a nation, with a solidarity most people of the affluent would-be western sort do not expect only because they wear blinkers of their would be western attitudes. The people are seething, and not boiling over yet but that is not due to any help from the media bytes by any of the usual - the rich and the famous, the politicians or the media, or the glitterati of any sort. Few have said anything people could perceive as what being with them would be. AB said something all too human, no pretension, no special reminder of status, his usual way. Few others. It is the people as one nation that is very clearly perceptible now. In anger, and support of the affected, in laudatory response to the saviour forces of the nation, in grief for the dead, in reverence for the heroes.

It meanwhile has been - extremely unwisely - helped along to higher temperatures by the politician who was seen spurned in his media political exercise by the grieving father of an only son, the young major who lost his life battling the terrorists and saving lives of others.

The father did not wish a drama, a facade, belittling the reality of his loss - and the politician, not accustomed to being refused entry to a citizen's home since he is a chief minister now, gave shockingly disparaging comments about the father of the much revered martyr. He certainly chose a moment to commit political suicide, to say the least. For someone supposedly leftist it was far more callous a few bytes than one would expect from a feudal lord that he acted as if he was, which is perhaps what he has become accustomed to be treated as.

For the last few days the nation is on the brink of chucking all politicians out, and especially the ones at the moment in power in the affeted state as well as the other stupid ones on the side. The heroes saving lives were from police and the military and special forces. The country and the people have been close to a brink they have not perceived, of becoming a military rule if only there were one person who took over and showed what was needed for the hour.

Fortunately this is India, and it is not so easy here. Democracy, people's fundamental rights and powers are not bestowed by anyone either of colonial rule or subsequent. They are deep rooted in the very soul of India. It is not about formality of it, it is about the truth of the matter.

When there was a threat to this it was not the leftists or the westernised elite or any of the much voluble but the mainstream people, the silent populace of India that very effectively used what little weapons they did have - and threw it out, in recent memory and in older times. For those who belong to the nation it is a matter of well deserved pride, rather than looking elsewhere for approval.

The foundation is ancient and firm rooted, and the nation has survived being on the brink and not toppling over into a dictatorship by choice. That it has been so, even when faced with threat from outside and military and police the only defence, is a matter of gratitude indeed. To the nation, and the Creators of the nation.