Of selective nationalism...

 

 

The terror attacks in Bangalore and Ahmedabad and the saga of unexploded bombs found in plenty in Surat couldn’t have happened at a worse time for the government. After taking national interest as the ultimate paradigm for carrying forward the nuclear deal and having tried to assert himself through the new image of a strong man, the Prime Minister has suddenly found himself and his government in the back foot and unable to assert the same conviction in decisively tackling terrorism, the way they tackled the opposition during the vote of confidence. Post blasts, the parochial statements about the inefficacy of a strong anti terror law like POTA and that the blasts are a sign of desperation of the terrorists to break the nation’s unity sounded more like from a typified and a clueless government praying hard that the next attack doesn’t happen soon enough. Surely the blasts didn’t happen in one day without thorough planning and surely it was a tight slap on the sheer incompetence of the federal intelligence agencies as well as the vindication of the complete breakdown of police intelligence at the state level. Worse, the inept Union Home Minister – after failing to see justifications behind the need of a strong anti-terror law and having failed to assert himself in convincing the self serving and myopic state governments to see rational behind the need of a federal anti terror agency – now thinks that the best solution would be to amend the CISF Act so that this paramilitary force can be used to guard key private sector companies. Well, one wonders if he at all had guessed the number of private companies needed to be guarded. Does the CISF, already hard-pressed in guarding almost all strategic installations, has the requisite personnel to guard thousands of private companies unless efforts are made to properly train and arm some of the better private security agencies? So if the government didn’t seek consensus when it came to the nuclear deal, why give the excuse of lack of consensus from states as the reason for not creating a federal agency and not assert executive rights instead in national interest to counter the hidden enemies? Just before the vote of confidence, nearly 38 elite greyhound commandos were killed by Naxalites but the government didn’t even utter a word of consolation, leave alone fighting back. Where was national interest then? During the vote of confidence, the government parroted about how the nuclear deal would solve India’s problem. Did it take terrorism into account too?

Nothing is worse than selective use of the phrase 'national interest'. As the saying goes, first thing first, unless there is resolve to wipe out terrorism in national interest, that day of reckoning when civilian nuclear power can be used in national interest may never materialise.