Actions Will Speak Louder Than Words

If I learned anything about India in the past week, it is the fact that politics and politicians will never keep their noses out of things. Of course, when terror hits one of the biggest cities in the world, the government is bound to be expected to take some drastic steps.

In this case, the drastic steps involved some heads rolling - these heads should have rolled a long, long time ago. I'm sorry. This government, as unfortunate as it has been in encountering the global economic crisis and this unfortunate incident, has been equally inept in its response to both.

Of course, what preceded both the economic crisis and what is now being called 26/11, can also make one question the government's grip over the country. As far as the economic crisis was concerned, the banning of export of basmati rice for a couple of months and a ban on the export of food grains for a year after the crisis had fully begun made the buffoons sitting in Delhi show their true identity.

Increasing the petrol prices after the oil companies were on the brink of running out of cash was also an almighty disaster. In trying to keep the voters on their side, the party currently governing this country delayed the rise of petrol/diesel prices - if they had done that earlier, the rapidity of the rise of inflation might have been curtailed.

Now, 26/11 has yet again thrown huge question marks about how much control this government actually has over this country. The intelligence failures are apparent. The delays in sending the National Security Guards, who are known as "black cats" and are commonly seen in politicians' cars and outside their houses, and the delayed reaction of the Marine Commandos or MARCOS, showed that even in times of great urgency - red tape is something which the people of India have to live with.

What has truly amazed me is the response of the various political parties. Name calling, using this incident as leverage for the elections and trying to divide and rule in times where the people of India need to be united just make me feel sick. What has also surprised me is the reaction of the public to this terror attack. People are angry and want good governance - they don't want idiots coming television and trying to score political brownie points.

The reaction of the people though, can be understood because this has been an attack on the people in the higher strata of society. Had this attack happened in a remote village, people would've cared for more than four days and forgotten about the whole thing. The fact that this was an attack on people like bank chairmen and millionaires has made the upper echelons of society realize that nobody can escape the phenomenon of terrorism.

What people want is action - not politicians coming out and making promises that they will never fulfill, not bureaucrats thinking that their jobs are safe no matter what. In these times of great uncertainty, the least that the people of this country want is that nobody enters this country with guns and grenades to kill them.

The Prime Minister of this country is certainly a great man - one who brought the economic reforms to this country which is now growing rapidly. It is now time for him to reform a considerable number of issues and ensure that there is some accountability within the government.

In these troubled times - only actions will reduce the anger of the public. We're sick and tired of excuses from inept politicians.

We want answers, and fast.