So long - and thanks for all the Crisis!

It has been over 42 hours since the crisis in mumbai erupted (nope - not the financial one - that was in NY!). Over 150 lives have been lost, over 300 have been injured. They say mumbai is now very "used to" crisis, and it prides itself in 'bouncing back' quickly. They call it 'the spirit of mumbai'. Whether it has been the serial blasts in 1993, the train blasts of 2006, or the annual city flooding ritual that has become an annual affair - the average mumbaikars really have no expectations from the state-machinery. They help each other out during the time of crisis, and return to their life the very next day with the same amount of zest, energy and discipline. So, will it be the same push-and-bounce routine for mumbai this time around?

Not quite. Seeing the images of blazing Taj and Oberoi Towers, looking at the images of a passing police van spraying bullets on the by-standers, and seeing the images of grinning terrorists brandishing their AK-47 - all these images are likely to leave a strong scar in the mind of mumbaikars. A scar that will not allow them to experience the freedom of security, the freedom of "khulke jiyo!". At every instance that an average mumbaikar steps out into the city, his sub-conscious is likely to keep him wary. Wary of any school bag kept in the local train, wary of unfamiliar faces in any restaurant or bar that he frequents, wary of dark grey clouds in the morning that can prevent him from getting back to his home in the evening, and even wary of a police patrolling unit that passes him on the road. These events of the past are so deeply ingrained into sub-conscious of an average mumbaikar now that he now feels insecure of any unknown face / object / movement in the city.

And this is not limited to mumbai alone. The chief minister of Delhi states "She was being adventurous" in response to the death of a journalist who was returning home at 3 am. The serial bomb blasts across Delhi in the month of October brought the expectations to a level wherein people started taking bets on where the explosions would occur in the approaching weekend. Similar is the case across Urban India wherein the philosophy of "trust noone, save yourself, dont expect state support" reigns supreme. The message is loud and clear."Enjoy your freedom - but at your own peril". Is this what we meant when we say "India Shining"?

Coming specifically to the problem of Terrorism - this is obviously a problem that a number of countries face. There are three parts to this problem - the cause, the prevetion and the response. The cause of such problems are quite straight forward. Any place where religious / regional / sects / caste based affilations are stronger than state-based affilations - this problem is bound to surface. Kashmir issue is again the prime bone of contention between the Indian state and the Pakistani state (and / or Islamist radicals). Without going too deep into the causes, the worrying part for India is the the national politics which, in no way, is tuned to focus on state-based affilations. Instead, fanning up the religion / region / caste / sect based affilations seems to be the key motto of all parties alike. It is a divide-and-rule redux - first it was the British, now it is the political setup.

The second part relates to prevention. India lacks here big-time. Be it "intelligence" inputs from within or outside India, having regulations like POTA which enables the police to apprehend suspects, India has more often than not failed in these aspects. Even the current crisis, wherein terrorists prepared for at least 2-3 months, got loads of arms and ammuniations and easily entered territorial waters of India, developed a high degree of familiarity with the hotel layouts and the designs of Nariman House - all these instances rake of a massive intelligence failure. Again, this is a solution which requires changing the intelligence structure, higher degree of diplomacy and other long term measures.

The third and the most easily addressible part of the problem relates to state's response. And this is the biggest problem area for India. The crisis response mechanism in India is, at best, in a dismal state of preparedness. Forget about long-term measures such as getting the appropriate infrastructure to respond to a crisis, the State has not even spent any time on developing quick-fix solutions on how best to use the existing infrastructure.

Consider the current crisis. There could have been many lives saved had only the state thought about developing some quick-fix solutions for crisis response mechanism. There is NO standard operating procedure / recommended set of guidelines or even use of a common sensical approach by the state during such crisis. Some obvious admin issues in this crisis - such as making the hotel layout available to NSG in a short-time, or communicating with the hostages holed up in their respective rooms using large posters / hoardings around the hotel would have helped in soothing nerves, smoothening the operations, and saving a few more lives.

Of course - there also have been no guidelines to media on how to handle these situations, and more often than not - media is left to exercise a self-restaint. So we have an India TV which was interviewing the 'claimed terrorists', and a strategic analyst at Times NOW indicating the identification of a Pak-based number that is being traced! (Brilliant Holmes - we can NOW catch him when he uses the number next!). 6 cameras of India TV, 3 cameras of Times NOW - all of them were broadcasting live pictures of what the NSG strategy is, and where the NSG commandos are situated. Seriously makes you wonder if media was present just to help out the terrorists!

The bottomline is simply this. Terror Strikes and other crises cannot be prevented or changed in a short period of time. What can be changed immediately is our level of preparedness and response. Does the state even have a plan on how to deal with a hostage crisis? with serial blasts? with a flooding? If yes - what are the dos and dont that a citizen should stick to? What are the dos and donts that media should adhere to? How can we use Radio, Cellphone networks, Hoardings, Internet and any other technology to minimize the damage from such crisis?

While developing infrastructure (training staff, getting better equipment, etc.), developing prevention mechanisms (POTA, intelligence restructuring, etc.) and uprooting the causes of terrorism (diplomacy, political solutions, etc.) are long term solutions, the immediate quick-fixes such as the above can be used to atleast respond to crisis in a quick and efficient manner. Given the frequency of crisis in mumbai, such an initiative will go a long way in saving a few more lives - when the next bomb, flood or a tsunami strikes mumbai! Well - the bear market crisis - that will have to just wait! :-)

Till then, So long - and thanks for all the crisis!