Newton's Third Law Re-visited

I originally started writing this blog in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai serial blasts based on the expected reaction from our people and government. But, I didn’t manage to complete it because I was either too busy or wanted to write too much. Nothing unexpected has happened since then though for me to really change the tone of this piece. So, here it goes.

Newton's third law states that "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction". Though his laws of motion were meant for inanimate objects, I wish to explore its validity in the domain of people and nations in light of the two incidents that hogged headlines all over the world:

1. The recent serial bomb blasts in Mumbai and India’s expectedly tepid response.
2. The kidnappings of three Israeli soldiers and the strong and seemingly disproportionate response from Israel.

As I started reading reports about the bomb blast and a slew of related articles, my initial reaction was one of great sadness and a little anxiety as there was a chance (small though) that my brother could have been on one of those trains. But, after a while, the overwhelming thought was one of rage - I was angry that such things seem to happen so many times in India without anybody being punished/held accountable. I was blaming the “soft” government, our “incompetent” leaders and “inefficient & corrupt” police for letting things come to such a pass. Then, I read some more.

• This article mentioned that the author's colleague counted 38+ cars in the motorcade that accompanied Sonia Gandhi, Laloo Prasad Yadav and Shivraj Patil pass by while other traffic on the road (likely lot more important) was blocked by the security cordon. When I saw the news about their intentions of visiting, my first thought had been – “What in the bloody world will they achieve by going there now other than cause lot more hardship to the affected people with their posse of security?” and the same seems to have been true. They went there and mouthed clichéd dialogs and inanities that don't serve any purpose.
• Our honorable home minister told reporters that the government had previously received information of a planned assault, but the “place and time was not known.” Isn't that his freaking job to find out or at least ask everyone to be more alert? May be he expected terrorists to be courteous and let him know where and when the next bomb blast was going to be!
• A number of blogs/articles mentioned how police didn't arrive in many places even after 45 minutes. People living in slums were far-more forth-coming with help with whatever meager possessions they had.
• BJP leaders started making political statements about how the UPA government is soft on terrorism and that being the reason behind the blasts. They have already coined slogans for the next election campaign. But, wasn't it Jaswant Singh as foreign minister of the NDA government who went all the way to Kandahar and handed over 3 terrorists including one Maulana Masood Azhar, who founded Jaish-e-Mohammed, to Taliban after the government blundered through the hijacking of IC 814?

As I read all this, I couldn't help but think, “here we go again” and feel angrier. Politicians will make statements “condemning” the blasts, express the “pain” they share with the people of Mumbai, praise the “indomitable spirit” of its people, indulge in blame games and that will be that. Of course, we always have Pakistan's ISI and groups operating out of Pakistan to blame for anything and everything that happens in India and there is never any need to arrest somebody and prosecute for such heinous crimes. Based on alleged “footprints” of ISI seen by the government anywhere from J&K to TN, Assam to Gujarat, one would think that ISI is the most accomplished intelligence agency in the history of mankind! Anyway, based on various blogs and comments I read on the web, I gathered that many others shared my anger at the failures and incompetence of the governmental machinery. A guest columnist on Rediff said “Enough is enough” and contrasted India's “softness” to America's “slam-bang” approach to tackling terrorism. There was another article suggesting India should be ruthless in its vengeance and “take out” the leaders of terrorist organizations wherever they may be in a manner akin to Israel's method of tackling terrorism. Considering the comments on that article and other comments/opinions I read/heard elsewhere, “eye-for-an-eye” policy seems to the policy of choice among all these “angry” people and I wanted to agree. And, I kept reading/hearing a lot contrasting India’s approach to that of Israel. So, as an avowed history buff, I will digress.

I have also admired the strength projected by Israel and the national spirit of its people although I have often questioned some of their “disproportionate” actions/responses to provocation by Palestinians and other Arab nations. India and Israel in their current forms were born around the same period of time. Forget for the moment that the establishment of the modern state of Israel had something (if not a lot) to do with the guilt that Britain and other powers felt for not protecting the Jews and/or the belief that the likely migration of European Jews to "the promised land" of their holy books would rid Europe of a major source of tension among its people. Let us also set aside the notion that creation of Israel on a piece of land that had been inhabited by Palestinians (though not in big numbers) for a long time was unfair to the latter and is the source of seemingly unending conflict. The fact is Israel like India came to exist in an openly hostile neighborhood, possibly lot more hostile than India's. But, with generous help from the U.S. and hard work of its citizens, Israel reached a position of so much strength in less than 20 years that the grand coalition of Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq was soundly defeated in a matter of six days during the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967 and military superiority of Israel in that region has been unquestionable ever since. Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, arguably the most influential Arab leader of modern times, even resigned as President of his nation because his blunder in taking on Israel left the largest and most modern Arab air force in tatters. In years that have followed, be it the brilliant rescue of hijacked passengers at Entebbe Airport, Uganda in 1976 or the pre-emptive bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, Israel has been strong and forceful (at times too strong and forceful IMHO) in protecting its national interests and that of its people, often with a minimum loss of Israeli lives.

And, that brings us to the recent kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers. A general in the IDF had promised to turn back Lebanon by twenty years and they seem to be well on their way to achieving that goal in spite of protests from a host of nations especially in light of the recent killing of 50-60 children and women in Qana. Of course it helps to have the backing of USA which fights Israel’s diplomatic wars in every international forum imaginable. Now, contrast this with what the Indian government managed when a few BSF soldiers were captured, tortured and killed by soldiers belonging to Bangladeshi rifles (BDR) a few years back. The Indian government condemned the incident and issued strong protests to the government of Bangladesh (a country that probably owes its existence to India), which by all accounts did nothing about it. If one were to go searching, there would be scores of other such instances (Mumbai blasts being the most recent) where India has acted like a “soft” state.

We of course blame it on our “gutless” politicians, rave and rant with articles and comments giving hundreds of suggestions ranging from nuking every country in our neighborhood to “hot pursuit” of “terrorists” across our international borders. Why can’t India be like Israel seems to the question in a lot of people’s minds? Lest we forget, Pakistan is no Lebanon – militarily, geographically and politically! Further, where is the proof that violent action of the kind championed by Israel has produced any lasting solution to problems? To be fair, neither has India’s “condemnation” and “protestation” – possibly because an effort hasn’t been made to address the root causes of the problems (I’ll try to get into this later). I used to think the “non-violence” that is supposed to part of our ethos for centuries contributed to our “softness”. But, then even after Ashoka became a staunch Buddhist and refused to wage wars, his empire was as strong as ever with no body daring to attack it. And, I also got a chance to talk to Mr. S.R. Hiremath, a pioneer in non-violent protests to protect the environment, who spoke eloquently about the strength of non-violence. A violent person is the one that is weak because he/she is easily swayed by his emotions and indulges in an act that plays into the hands of the very forces he/she is trying to fight. The one really “strong” action that India undertook, Operation Bluestar, led to the assassination of our PM and untold misery for the people of Punjab for more than a decade. Does that mean, we should sit and do nothing about all this? Hold that thought for the moment.

It is so very convenient to be critical about the politicians, police and other constituents of the government treating it like an entity that exists independent of us – the citizens of our country. Didn’t we elect them as our ministers and prime ministers? Aren’t the people that are part of the governmental machinery also from amongst us? So, if the government is “soft”, doesn’t that mean that “softness” is endemic to our nation as a whole? Everybody expresses their anger when such major incidents happen. But, where is this feeling of righteousness, anger at being exploited and “josh” to take evil/unfairness head-on:

• When after almost 60 years of independence, many citizens of our country don’t even have access to clean drinking water leave alone a day’s meal or electricity?
• When 3600 Sikhs are slaughtered in a few days and not one high ranking member of the government or police gets punished for it?
• When thousands of people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy are still suffering?
• When mobs go on a rampage destroying public property and bring cities to a grinding halt? Many commentators have called the “Mumbai suburban trains” the lifeline of the city after these blasts. Wasn’t it the lifeline when Shiv Sainiks (including the Mayor of Mumbai!) blocked their movement to protest the “insult” done to their leader’s wife’s statue?
• When more than 100 pilots perish flying old aircrafts while the government debates on buying an Advanced Jet Trainer for 15 years?
• When a woman is harassed and sometimes even raped in public?
• When a fellow motorist does not follow traffic rules?
• When we shell out bribes to get our work done faster or get out of legal loopholes?
• When an honest engineer is killed by the mafia for raising valid objections to sub-standard constructions?
• When floods and famines kill hundreds in Orissa year-after-year with no end in sight?

A foreign correspondent concluded his article on the Mumbai blasts with a telling comment about India. Though I can’t recall it verbatim, it went something like this – “India will have to invest crores of rupees on closed circuit television to avoid such disasters, but then the money might be better spent in saving thousands of lives lost every year due to poor drinking water.” Shouldn’t we be more upset about the fact that his comment is so true? Aren’t skewed development, rampart poverty and societal injustices leaving people frustrated and forcing them into violent acts for retribution? Why do we as a nation react with lot more emotion and anger to “silly” issues such as

• A player being dropped from a cricket team?
• An actor asking a perfectly reasonable question about the state of people affected by the construction of a dam?
• A movie that “hurts” the sensibilities of a religion/caste?
• Insults, real and imaginary, to our so-called “leaders”?

We perceive injustices every day, may be even feel angry about them, but, how many of us do something to rectify the problems? We sit in theatres and applaud movies like Anniyan, Rang De Basanti, etc. and then go back to living our mundane lives amidst all the injustices surrounding us asking “What can I do? The system is bad.” Until we realize we are part of the system and make conscious efforts to fix it, things will not change. A government that is drawn from a nation of wimps can only act like a wimp! I think we have lived vicariously of our “filmi” heroes for too long and forgotten that problems are not solved simply by feeling angry about them. May be Lord Krishna shouldn’t have said, “Yada Yada Hi Dharmasya Glanirva Bhavathi Bharatha, Abhyuthanam Adharmaysya Tadatmanam Srijami Aham” (loosely translated as “Whenever there is decay of righteousness O! Bharatha and a rise of unrighteousness then I manifest Myself”) because we seem to be waiting for some divine deliverance from the many problems (terrorism would probably be pretty low on that list) that afflict our nation. I believe if we could direct our anger at fixing these myriad set of internal problems that affect every day life, other problems like terrorism will take care of themselves. We could possibly eliminate the very reason someone felt compelled to place the bombs on those trains.

But, there is a silver lining in every cloud. Srinadh had written about this protest “Rang De Basanti” style against the acquittal of Manu Sharma in the Jessica Lall murder case. Prasanna here urged voters in Chennai to vote for candidates of Lok Paritran, a party formed by six IITians, who chose to give up fruitful careers and focus on efforts to bring better governance to the country. Anantha wrote about the Tamilnadu Right to Information Campaign, which is part of a national campaign against bribery. There are thousands of others who have devoted their entire lives to improving the conditions (economic, political, and societal) in India. The least we can all do is support such initiatives. When the number of people voicing concern and being pro-active reaches a critical mass, India will slowly but surely change for the better. The sooner we reach that critical mass, the faster will our problems be solved and we wouldn’t have to vent our anger at some unknown enemy across our borders. But, will we ever be compelled enough to achieve that critical mass or will we just sit at our PCs in “phoren” lands writing blogs like this or reading blogs like this and going “he is right” and then not doing anything further?

P.S: I wish I had written this more coherently and referred to all other articles I wanted to. But, the blog got so bloated that I simply had to finish it, abrupt and incoherent though it may be!:)