Are we really Angry at Ajmal Kasab????

Hi All,

I know the next topic of conversation promised was Telangana issue. But I am not quite ready to write about it just yet. My topic of conversation today is Ajmal Kasab. My heartily condolences to the people who have lost the near and dear ones in this attack. I condemn violence to the core. In the 26 years of knowing myself (and trust me you are amazed how much you don't know about yourself and how much you discover about your character, capabilities, limitations every single day) I have never thought of myself as a violent guy. I am not saying I am Mahatma Gandhi, but I don't like violence, for it creates cracks and wounds that runs so deep, they might never fill. They create a void which will never help repair a relationship fully, be it between people, organisation or country. It can never bring you to trust the other person fully ever again. Having said that, the topic of today's post is not the act itself but the thoughts behind it.

Having had numerous conversations about Ajmal Kasab and the Mumbai attack with my peers, their emotional response ran so deep that there was a lot of hatred for Kasab. They wanted to see him punished, killed etc. I wont lie, even my initial response was the same. But having thought about it for hours I cant seem to get myself to hate him anymore. Pity is what comes to my mind. Help, guidance is what people like him and thousands others need. Before you get angry at me, lets see why I have to say that.

When Kasab was arrested he was nineteen, nineteen years old. I immediately start thinking about who and what I was at 19. I was a carefree person, who wanted to be focused on achieving something in my career, wanted to study hard and become something (wanted is the key word here). The fact of the matter is, I was a little brat, who gave a damn about the world, cared about my cricket, volleyball, partying and hanging around friends. This coming from someone who always had food on his table, got most of his wishes granted by my parents, educated enough to understand the nuisance of the world and not having to worry about a damn thing.

Now lets talk about a million Kasab's that reside in the subcontinent. Kasab was from a very remote village in Pakistan. He didn't have much education or means to get it. In fact he was from such a poor family that couldn't even provide him with basic amenities of food, clothing education etc. On top of that, he had sister/sisters (cant remember how many) that his family was worried about getting married. Imagine yourself at 17 (when this terrorism recruitment started for him). Your father curses you for not helping him out with providing your family with basis necessities, you not having enough skills to earn (or not getting work at all for that matter), you not having enough food to eat, and the constant nagging, helplessness, poverty that just wont leave you alone for a single moment of your life. Half of us are not capable of understanding how much this can break you mentally each day, until you feel nothing of yourself. And I didn't even talk about his own needs, enjoyments, aspirations etc. Imagine you being so poor and watching someone in the town, or on TV having all the necessities of life and much more. I really pity such people who are worn down in life so much that they feel like they have no choice. Their real target doesn't remain their aspirations or dreams but it turns around to being someone who provided something to their family. And that is where and how the hand that  holds the guns (ones who really are the true terrorist and disgrace to humanity) find their bullets in the form of Kasab with promises of MONEY and nothing else.

I know few people will come to argue that people go through difficulties in life, and that difficulties shouldn't make them turn in doing heinous crimes and terrorist acts. Well, I believe that we are all different, not everyone has the same mental strength to keep fighting every single moment of their life, some rise and some fall hopelessly. If we all were the same kind, then we wouldn't be able to appreciate a Mother Teresa, a Bill Gates or a certain Sachin Tendulkar. The only way we can stop these things to happen in future is to help provide the needy with the care, the amenities and all the things they are entitled too, just like us. Make way for them in our economy. Our economy today has become a rat's race where we care about the top achievements and are not ready to forgo our economic earnings to help carve out a way to create programs in helping the backward and rural areas of our country where the Kasab's keep emerging from (lets not kid ourselves that we have, no we haven't).

I believe there are 3 kinds of people in the world, the good, the bad and the grey (Grey is another topic itself). The hand that was holding the gun (the people who convinced, trained, brain washed Kasab) are the bad elements of the society. They just want to destroy and create nuisance. The good is all of us who want to live a peaceful, achieving, harmonious life. I BELIEVE Kasab was a good person, bogged down with pain in his life. Unfortunately the hand that guided him was of a BAD element instead of a GOOD one. Should Kasab have not been punished? He should be and he has been. I believe you are always responsible for your own actions. You made the choice and you live with it. But lets not kid ourselves. That is not, wont be, and never has been the root cause of the problem in the first place. It is sad to say that we achieved a shallow victory or a kind of revenge to relieve us from the pain we suffered during the Mumbai Attacks. We still haven't addressed the root cause of eradicating poverty, providing food, shelter and education to the needy who don't seem to have the means to achieve them. And I am not talking about just Pakistan here. India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Africa and all the developing countries that suffer from the same selfish economic industrialist, corrupt government officials sail in the same boat.

Up until the time we address this problem with all our heart, I am very sorry to say the Kasab's are going to keep emerging everywhere in the world.