Cynthiachandran’s Blog

Yesterday, I happened to watch Bollywood star, Shahrukh Khan’s interview to Barkha Dutt, Group Editor of NDTV’s English news channel on Mumbai attacks, India and Islam.  Neither the interviewer nor the interviewee ever changed track to his films. 

I was just glued by his answers on the attacks and how the Mumbaiker’s should react to such terrorist attacks.

SRK was quite vehement that it was not 9/11 of India and we should not get paranoid.  The interview had lasted for almost half an hour and SRK tried to evade the question on whether India should promote terror tourism as US had did. 

 He did say that it was a very serious lapse from the intelligence agencies and it is unbelievable that terrorists can come by boat and walked through the hotels and railway stations and started shooting at free will.

I agree to SRK’s views that India being a secular, democratic and multi racial country, it can withstand any attacks from any corners.  However his theory on intelligence agencies being privatised sounds absurd. 

SRK was suggesting that security agencies should be run by an expert and the company should be based on profits with a central control by the government.  I don’t know how far this would be successful.

The Communist Party of India –Marxist (CPIM) had withdrawn support to the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) on several factors and one among them was due to the privatisation of key sectors. However, the people are aware that lots of money is being utilized for maintaining the security of the country. 

When it comes to crunch situation like Mumbai attacks, India’s National Security Guards (NSG) and intelligence agencies are way behind in cracking the terrorists.

Filmstar Vs Publicity

It is intriguing to know that the country’s prime NSG do not even have an aircraft of their own and no wonder it took them almost nine hours to reach Mumbai from Delhi. However, after Barkha Dutt’s report on NSG not having a dedicated aircraft, the government acted swiftly and now they have an aircraft is another story.

SRK conveyed that he did not want to be in the limelight giving comments on the 26/11 attacks and felt that it was unwarranted.  Bollywood’s angry young (old) man, Amithabh Bachan too had shared the same sentiments to his fans earlier. 

So the timing of the interview with Shahrukh Khan was perfect and now I am eagerly looking forward to hear Mr.Bachan’s comment on the attacks.  He does have a blog (obviously, written by PR people) and refrains himself from giving away his thoughts on the tragedy.