In my professional career I get to interact with companies across the globe and in recent times I have been talking to an Israeli company. How does that have anything to do with this blog? You’ll see …
In the wake of the serial attacks by Israel on Lebanon, I sent an email to this company’s VP of Sales. She is about 40 – has 2 kids. One in College and the other in School. I was a rather concerned about the situation and more so because they are situated in the northern part of the country. I sent out my wishes and was sorry for the situation.
She sent me an email back with the following lines: “Thanks you for your concern, as I live in the northern part of Israel, we got used during the last week to get in our secured shelter every now and then. Other than that we (the Israeli people) feel we want them out of our lives, and if we need to bare the bombings another few weeks, we will.”
I was rather taken aback. For a mother of 2 kids to make a statement like so says a lot about the country and its attitude. Last week our beloved Mumbai saw bombs planted in local trains to have 200 people dead and more than 700 injured. People were calling all over to see how their loved ones and business associates are. There was a lot of concern and lot of love and care. But what was missing was the anger. The anger I am talking about isn’t the one to get vocal on the streets or on sending our letters to editorials and publications describing the general apathy towards the Indian attitude towards our neighbor. This anger gets you to do something. Like when you are losing to an opponent in a game of soccer. You huddle together and say – ‘Guys – this is enough. Let’s just go kill them. This is OUR game. This is OUR Victory’. We are de facto a soft country and it reflects in our ability to take strong actions.
The only people making noise about the Israel attacks are the Americans. Quite naturally – their interests are affected. But you don’t see Israel newspapers crying over what has been done. They are over it. They are now in a mode to get things DONE. They want to take actions and settle things.
The FLIP side:
It seems easy to just take a call and mobilize the Indian Army and the Air force against a country like Pakistan. It’s not a very difficult thing to do. All a prime minister needs to do is declare war. All the 3 chiefs are mobilized and top down the aggression starts to flow. But the strange part of it isn’t that we cannot do it. The strange part is that we intrinsically do not believe that this is the best action. When a country like Bangladesh, butchered 16 of our BSF Soldiers, there was nothing but dialogue that took place.
Why do we as Indians take pride in our patience? Why are we not people our neighbors are afraid of? Are we weak? Or are we just following our bapu’s long established philosophy of non violence. Is Violence a solution to aggression?
We are Indians. Undoubtedly the most talked about country in the world today. We are already the largest democracy. The day we become the richest, we will rule the world. It’s inevitable. The time isn’t very far when Indians will become the center of technical, art, scientific, social, advancements. We will be the hub of all what Free America takes pride in today.
And THIS is the reason why we shouldn’t be short sighted. Consider this – is it a possibility that the American sleuths planted these bombs on the Mumbai locals to instigate the Indians population against Pakistan. Is it a possibility that all tensions between India and its neighbors is due to Mr. Bush playing dirty. Why would it be? Simple – to demolish a growing force. Lions kill their male cubs when they are helpless. It’s an old saying – kill a creeper when its young else it will break through your wall.
All said and done – its imperative that the Indian population realizes that we need to be serious about taking harsh decisions. If you put ur hand in mud, its only your hand that get dirty – not the mud.
Although having said that – I do understand that its time to take some serious stand. We need to probably make some things rather clear with our neighbors – not only the ones who share boundaries – but also the ones who share interests.
