Birthday of a Bulleted Bombay!!!

It’s the first birthday, but rest assured that there will be no cake cutting and candle blowing. However, you might just see some candles burning brightly in the memory of what can be called a grand spectacle of the audacity of terror – the 26 / 11 Mumbai Terror Attack. Official figures claimed that 173 people were killed and over 300 injured, but the effects of this ‘in our face’ brutality can never be fully quantified. It has indeed dented our psyche, and left Mumbai more vulnerable than ever before.

Mumbai has not been alien to such dastardly acts. Since the 1993 serial bomb blasts, many such incidents have rocked the city, but each time, the city has fought back and emerged stronger. The true cosmopolitan Mumbaikars have proved time and again that they share a common sense of belonging to the city, rising way above any linguistic barriers which some of the political class has been trying to perpetrate for decades. The thing about greatness is, that beyond a point you start taking it for granted. The famed "Spirit Of Mumbai" has been lauded and almost always taken for granted by the administration as a garb to overshadow its own inefficiencies.

The attacks had multiple, far-ranging effects. The impact was felt on Mumbai and on Maharashtra state, and throughout urban India. The Maharashtra state government has planned to buy 36 speed boats to patrol the coastal areas and several helicopters for the same purpose. It has also initiated an anti-terror force called "Force One" and plans to upgrade all the weapons that Mumbai police currently possesses.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh on an all party conference had declared that legal framework will be strengthened in the battle against terrorism and a federal anti-terrorist intelligence and investigation agency, like the FBI, will be set up soon to co-ordinate actions against terrorism. Government strengthened Anti terror laws by UAPA 2008, and federal National Investigating Agency was formed.

But the real question is, do we feel any safer than what we did a year ago? And the obvious answer is No. Mumbaikars have shown the same apathy while it came to voicing their opinion through their ballots, both at the Lok Sabha and the Assembly elections clocking a measly voter turnout. The same Home Minister of our state is back in office, according to whom 26/11 was just another incident in a city like Mumbai. Local trains remain as crowded and as vulnerable as ever. Uniform ID Cards for citizens is yet a dream which is resting on the credibility of a certain Mr. Nilekani till it becomes a reality.

The voices of dissatisfaction with the probe are growing louder with each passing day. The administration has again been put to shame by the widows of the slain martyrs asking fundamental questions regarding the probe, to which the state mechanism seems to have no answers. Ajmal Kasab the lone captured face of terror still awaits a sentence thanks to our painfully lethargic legal system.

Nothing much has changed, except that now, even in Diwali if we hear a cracker explode, we yet want to make sure that it’s just that!