Resilience or plain cowardice

Another terror attacks strikes Mumbai. The pattern is now oft repeated – bold headlines, TV channels running for TRP and excitement, innocents losing lives, families getting shattered, politicians including the heads of the state “condemn” and request people to maintain “calm” (why don’t they just hand over a previously recorded version instead of repeating the same glib statements is something beyond my limited wisdom, and why do media attach so much importance to their repetition is also strange). Another thing that comes up repeatedly, esp. in the media is the “resilience of Mumbaikars”. Now that leads me to wonder, what is meant by resilience? Is it to suffer attacks time and again and do nothing, just go back to old business, forgetting everything – is that what is resilience? Silently suffering all corruption, bad civic infrastructure, monsoon flood – are these all part of the same resilience? To my mind, this is not resilience but far from it, it is cowardice. It is the tendency of ignoring all ills, it is the indifference and the lackadaisical attitude, and it is the attitude that as long as it does not affect me or my family and friends I am ok. It is tama guna as per the definition of Bhagvat Gita, not the sattva guna of resilience. Resilience is fighting the menace, disarming it through sustained non violent effort. India is now in the grip of the same psychology which Arjuna had before the start of Kurukshetra battle – it needs a lord Krishna to remind it – “Be a lion, shake off this weakness, stand up and fight”. It'll have to get rid of its political class, the Shakunis and Duryadhana's of modern age. If there is courageous leadership rest will fall in line.


Mumbai is therefore not resilient, Mumbai is coward, indifferent. It can put up statues of Shivaji or name airports after him, but an actual Shivaji is now more needed instead of his statues and signboards in his name.