Thursday, December 18, 2008

Will This Happen Again? What a foolish question!

Ever since the unfortunate terrorist attack of 26th Nov, I have been reading in the news papers almost daily the one question people are asking (I don't know to whom though!), 'Will This Happen Again?'. Many of the brave ones even take a step forward and even answer themselves, 'This won't happen again'. When I read all this the only thing that comes to my mind is What a foolish question! Whom are these people trying to make fool and why are they looking for false assurance!

Of course, this will happen again. Can anyone stop it? Don't take me wrong, but think logically. The only way to prevent this again is to implement military rule in the country with so many checks and counter checks at each point that its would be impossible for anyone to indulge in any such anti social activity. But this is of course not possible and also not advisable. Even our security agencies work on sampling basis. But sampling doesn't cover the entire set! So, in reality you can't prevent such incidents from happening again. So, even to ask such a question as 'Will this happen again' is shear foolishness.

I think when people ask such questions they want someone to answer them that this will not happen again just because it would give them a false assurance of safety, which they themselves know is false and secondly, so that they could have someone to blame when this will happen again. Its the general human tendency, nothing good or bad. But there is one very important question which one needs to answer, how much of the personal privileges are we ready to forgo to have a system in place to prevent these sort of activities. Very often I see people circumventing such checks when they are in place or arguing that they are not criminals or cursing that its waste of time etc etc... But they don't understand that criminals and terrorist are also one among us and its for our own safety.
But anyway, just a few days after 26th I happen to see an interaction on NDTV, between Pranav Roy and Sanjana Kapoor. Sanjana Kapoor was criticizing the incident (as everyone else was doing), but then Mr. Roy threw a bouncer at her and asked her, How much of the personal privileges and conveniences she is ready to let go off to prevent such things to happen again? Now, as it always happen you tend to form opinions about someone even u don't know them, so honestly with Sanjana Kapoor's background I had the impression that she would be just another dumb celebrity and she would give just run of the mill remark... But what she said made me changed my opinion and its one of the best I have ever heard... The lady has a lot of brain! She said that it not about giving up privileges. These sort of incidents can't be prevented come what may you do and this will happen again. What we need is a system in place which could react quickly and efficiently to control such situations and prevent them from becoming worse. Its the assurance which is needed that if such incidents happen again then they will be immediately controlled and taken care off.

To me that the sounds quite logical and realistic... and its the right direction to move forward. But the question to ponder upon is, 'Are we moving in this direction or just making hollow claims and looking for false assurances?'