02 May,2014 07:48 AM IST | | MiDDAY Correspondent
It was a bloody May Day for India as a young woman was killed and 14 others were badly injured when two low-intensity bombs exploded within five minutes on two coaches of the Bangalore-Guwahati train at Chennai railway station
It was a bloody May Day for India as a young woman was killed and 14 others were badly injured when two low-intensity bombs exploded within five minutes on two coaches of the Bangalore-Guwahati train at Chennai railway station. Reports state that the Guwahati-bound train arrived late in Chennai by about an hour at 7.05 am at platform number 9 and, in a span of five minutes, two low-intensity bombs exploded in S4 and S5 coaches. The 22-year-old who lost her life in the explosion has been identified as Swati, who was travelling to Guntur via Vijayawada, and the injured are undergoing treatment at the state-run Rajiv Gandhi Hospital.
Post that, of course, reports have poured in about politicians rushing to the spot, condemnation by many and shouts of ire by the opposition.
While political reactions may be dismissed as âstock' by a cynical public, it is shocking how casual we seem to have become to bomb blasts. Earlier, when a city limped back to normalcy post a terror attack, even when people got back to work, one could sense the shock, outrage and anger. Today, though there may be some anger, there is also a lot of indifference. We seem to have become inured to such news. This is a dangerous and reprehensible sign. It shows that we are losing the ability to be affected by such events. That itself is a huge statement. It shows that this country is seeing too many such attacks. It is surely a very bad commentary on our leaders and people. Today, one can almost feel a kind of dismissive attitude that has seeped in, a feeling that these things are going to continue to happen. It is surely time for people and politicians to get extremely worried when one starts getting such a reaction from people. By this, one does not mean that we start riots in our cities but this kind of take-it-in-our-stride attitude must get the red flags up and waving.
This is not resilience but indifference. There is a thin line between the two and unfortunately, we are crossing over from to the latter. One person dead must be one too much, for India and its people.
