The Opportunities: After the Mayhem

India is mourning this weekend, the Taj Hotel, the heritage building of Mumbai is destroyed, hapless India could not even save its guests, The citizens are angry, the armed forces have given 21 gun salutes to its martyrs.....

We will stand up again, India is a proud strong nation, The world probably paints it as a soft state, but actually the people of India have always been strong, they are the most resilient probably after the Jews world around. We will rebuild the Taj for sure, we will again make Mumbai bustle with economic activity, the damage is done - agreed, but lets look at the opportunities-

1) History is testimony that great tragedies unite the citizens at times, they bring an opportunity to forget the scars of the past, ignore the partisan differences and rise up as a nation. I believe this is the moment. The anger is there, there were no riots within India, no one can blame each other based on religion for once I did not hear a single comment that the "other" is responsible. Every one is united in saying that they stand by each other, we wont riot, we wont kill our own country men, yes we blame the political incompetence and negligence.
2) We caught one terrorist alive, that should be positive for sure, because not only does it allow us to gather more details related to investigation, but also makes it easier to retain the credibility of our security forces and investigative agencies. No one can or should blame now that the arrests made are communal profiling, or that this is also stage managed by the GOVT or the right wing Hindu or any "domestic" group.
3) This is also a chance to see how friendly USA is. If Barack Obama an his country put pressure on India to not retaliate and show restraint against Pakistan, this would expose the hollowness of USA's policies. After 09/11 there has not been a single attack on US homeland, am happy for USA that it is so able to protect its soil, but then, they have retailed hard, even to this day, there are incursions into Pakistani Territory to eliminate threats and terror infrastructure. If USA is entitled to carry out preemptive strikes why can not India do the same?
We have had enough sweet talk about "Worlds largest democracy" and the "Land of Gandhi", no one has been actually more exploited than Gandhi i believe :)
The point is will USA allow India to act to restore its self respect and pride or will it interfere to save its "other" friend on terror?

4) This is an opportunity for the Indian citizens to vote out the incompetent politicians, ask strongly for systemic changes which would at least give us good governance, one of the root causes in the case of India is a gurangutan political and bureaucratic failure.

I pay homage to the victims of the terror attack in Mumbai, pray for their families and HOPE my nation rises up again to set an example for the rest of the world to follow this time.