NCTC Imbroglio

The growing hiatus between non-Congress chief ministers and the Centre on the NCTC issues conspicuously reflects the underbelly of federal structure enshrined in the Constitution of India. The sad part is that despite clarifications from Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram on the role of NCTC as a nodal agency for counter terrorism, the chief ministers have consciously agreed to disagree on the operational points of this new framework. Touted as a draconian enactment by the Centre to encroach upon State powers, many chief ministers like Naveen Patnaik, Mamata Banerjee, Nitish Kumar, J Jayalalitha, and Narendra Modi have raised their concerns that this will act as an autocratic body with boundless powers to supplant state authority on law and orders issues. Now the moot question is whether it's a valid concern over Centre-State relations or a well thought-out collective strategy by non-Congress chief ministers to buckle down UPA by playing the federalism card. Nevertheless, the politics from policy making in India can't be ruled out.

Now come down to brass-tacks. Whether the states can singularly handle modern-day terrorism issues without support from Centre is the big question. The growing instances of terrorist attacks in India including Maoist problems unambiguously suggest that the states are extremely vulnerable to these fringe groups within and from outside the borders of Indian territory. Dealing them with kid gloves as states think is just laughable and a matter of extreme impracticability. The recent incidents like taking hostage of Italian tourists in Odisha and abduction of Alex P Menon, district collector of Sukma (in Chhattisgarh) unfold the menace of Maoist violence in states. What these states have done? Simply, the state administration has surrendered to the demands of Maoists. How long the innocent civilians of this country would pay price for the afflicted state governance?

If the states are so equipped with power to handle these grave issues, then why do they send SOS message to Centre during crisis? Federalism is one issue and handling terrorism with iron fist is another. A zero tolerance policy is only the need of the hour. Despite all political differences the chief ministers must understand that the state police are nowhere close to the desired capability to handle serious security issues like terrorism. Without sufficient and actionable intelligence the state police can't even trace out terrorists, forget about bringing them into justice. So, what's urgently required now a broad consensus among states and the Centre to form a nodal agency like NCTC and work cohesively to act tough against terrorism.  

Capital Seized

Within four months of a sophisticated reconnaissance of a dry run of terror attack apparently in the same place in May 25, the terrorists finally carried out the dastardly blast near the reception entry of Delhi High Court on September 7 at 10:14 AM, reminding us a fact that the sovereignty of India can be attacked by anybody from inside or outside, and our leaders will behave in the same callous way by refraining from their accountability to the citizens of the country. How many terror strikes would be enough to really move these politicians and bureaucrats to wake up from their eternal slumber? How many times our PM and HM will read out the same rehearsed speech in the aftermath of blast to fulfill their formal protocol? How many times our HM will display his false intellectual arrogance by saying that handling terrorism with iron fist is a “complex” process? How many times the innocent citizens will pay their lives for the mistakes of our leaders who in all probability forget their responsibilities once they get elected for five years? How long the bureaucracy will bully the entire nation in the name of red tape? No one has a proper answer though to these real problems.

We all are seriously infected with a prolonged pernicious disease called “status quo”. The time is not far off from today when India will fall into hands of some destructive forces and still we will love our “chalta hai” attitude as if nothing has happened and flaunt our paradoxical great Indian resilience, an obsessive compulsive disorder that we think it's our preserved human value system.

It's the high time for citizens to wake up and demand their fundamental rights of living without fear and prejudice. Until there is no public upsurge against terrorism, our leaders will behave in the same shameless manner as they are doing now because the loss innocent citizens bear can never be felt by them. Every time a terrorist attack takes place in Delhi, the politicians, bureaucrats, law and enforcement agencies spring into a blame-game mode. The news channel keep the issue live and hot for few days and then they get back to their routine. And the real sufferers, the innocent citizens, are pushed into their own fate.

We can't tolerate this anymore. The incompetent political leaders who think can rule us for ever by devising dirty plans must understand that the Frankensteins they are devising through vote bank politics will backfire them someday. We must understand the fact that any act of terror is an attack on the sovereignty of our country and any amount of tolerance to terrorism however small should not be encouraged by any political outfit. And most importantly the security of our nation should not be bugged down by our frivolous foreign policy which has no rationality when the sovereignty our nation is at stake. Beyond the ambit of reactive measures that our forces are used to, the law and enforcement departments should act autonomously to take serious preventive anti-terrorism measures. We must act tough now.