Dazzling. Baffling.

Just a few days ago, I got an SMS from a neighbor and family-friend. While the message was in Hinglish, here’s what it said in English ‘Every Muslim is not a terrorist. But every terrorist is a Muslim. Wake up Hindus.’

Given that this was an SMS, I’d assume that it would have spread around quite a lot. And coming almost right after the train terror strikes, we need not spend time in speculating the general state of mind of people receiving and spreading this kind of message. What struck me was the dazzling logic of message the way it began, and then the way it ended. Seemed almost worthy of Shakespeare writing for Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar! If ‘not every Muslim is a terrorist,’ then what’s with the call for Hindu awakening? And is every terrorist a Muslim? What about the thousands of Hindu terrorists who participated in the Gujarat pogroms? And still continue to hold sway in that state?

This is the kind of logic that always baffles me we have the butcher of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, who in his recent visit to Bombay uttered messianically that POTA was the answer to our troubles. In his words, it was POTA that made it possible for the bombers of Akshardham to meet justice, while the perpetrators of the Bombay blasts of 1993 were still walking around scot-free!

Remarkable connection Mr Modi by this logic, the Emergency years should have been the safest and thus the most desirable path for the nation?

You require unquestionable rights to deliver justice? Absolute authority to provide law and order? Why are the Gujarat genocide cases being transferred outside the state of Gujarat?

Enough of these and other attempts at dividing and ruling, I’m a human being, not a statistic in a vote-bank! Vigilante justice is not only no substitute for a disciplined, efficient and accountable law and order machinery, in my opinion riots and street violence should be ruthlessly tackled and dealt with. Without fear or favor, regardless of whether the rioters are from some political party or any religious group!

I’m not a pacifist, I do not yet have the convictions of M K Gandhi and so do not advocate love and turning the other cheek. I, and a possibly millions of Indians and humans expect the state machinery to provide an efficient law and order mechanism that enforces the law of the land, in an efficient and accountable manner. The law of the land may be questioned, which requires an efficient judicial system not the surreal, nightmarish maze of case backlogs that characterizes all of our courts, perhaps barring the Supreme Court.

Why should we have to approach the SC for governance failures? And what if any other choices do we have? Does democracy imply that I can do what I want, without any question? How is it that this is what our politicians do blatantly?

Accountability. Transparency. Law and order. Governance. All of which are conspicuous by their absence in our country. Making us into a nation of cynics, where we deal with bribes and corruption by calling it speed-money. How that for logic?!