India has been at the receiving end of terrorist attacks since the past two decades, thanks to our hostile neighbors China and Pakistan and various other nations which are hell bent on destabilising our nation. In July 2008 the IT capital of India and my home town, Bangalore, suffered from serial blasts across the city. Luckily the terrorists had placed only low intensity explosives which caused only two deaths. Within a weeks time another major city in India, Ahmedabad in the western seaboard state of Gujarat was rocked with a set of serial blasts. The Ahmedabad Blasts were by far the most deadly taking a toll of 45 people and leaving over 160 people injured. And now after couple of months our national capital New Delhi has been attacked, early this morning there were five blasts in crowded areas in the city which has left 30 killed and 90 injured.

The attacks mentioned above are the most high-profile ones. There have been several attacks of a minor nature across the country, even as Kashmir continues to burn and Kashmiri Pandits (Hindus) are being killed day in and day out in the northern state.

While cops and military get active after terrorist attacks we need to stand back and examine why this is happening. What or who is motivating the terrorists to continue to strike on our country? The need of the hour is to think about flushing out terrorism completely and not move from attack to attack. For this the government should make hard and tough policy decisions without thinking of vote banks which have been continuously nurtured and grown historically.

Isn’t it time the union government took strong action against the root cause of terrorism. Which of course lies in our neighboring country and in the west? Of course people say now locally bred terrorists have taken over from foreign ones and are perpetrating these attacks.

Just imagine for a moment that the blasts had happened in the US capital instead of Indian capital. What would have been the result? US government would have acted immediately and sent their full force to destroy all the terrorist hideouts, suspected terrorists would either be incarcerated or killed. Isn’t it time we Indians started to take action instead of just appealing for peace. We have been talking of peace for far too long, it is time to stand up and take action, if necessary use all means.

But then which politician or policy maker or for that matter civilian is bothered about the country. 99 percent of the country’s billion plus population is bothered about themselves and their family. So long as the terrorist attacks don’t affect their family they live blissfully unaware of what is happening elsewhere in the country. And for politicians more terrorists means more opportunities to appease minorities, create conflicts and make more money at the expense of the exchequer. Arms purchase, upgradation of the police, army etc means lucrative contracts to be awarded to favourite dealers and businessmen. And of course the businessmen will give generous kickbacks in the form of donations to their political parties or any NGOs the unscrupulous politicians are associated with.

I wonder if India will every become a strong and no-nonsense democracy which will be respected and feared by people and nations across the world. Or will this remain a dream of millions of Indians like me....