No piecemeal measures, please

Three years after 10 terrorists from Pakistan entered Mumbai using the open sea route and massacred 175 people at various spots in the city, it is an open secret that India's internal security infrastructure continues to be in a rotten state. Trouble is, it's not just the state of our internal security that should worry us.

Our Pakistan policy, which has seen more changes in the last three years than the green room of a busy fashion week, has meant that we have virtually stopped questioning the neighbouring country's involvement in the attack.

Except for a few homilies on each anniversary, our government has not put any kind of pressure on the Pakistan government to bring to book various agenciesu00a0-- both state as well as non-stateu00a0-- for their involvement in the 26/11 terror attack. Instead, there is great rejoicing in New Delhi following Pakistan's announcement of the Most Favoured Nation status for India, an act that has little meaning in strategic terms.

There is often much heartburn among this nation's chatterati that the US, despite having an active drone programme inside Pakistani territory and in spite of statements by its top administration officials against the country's terror programme, routinely provides aid to Pakistan amounting to billions of dollars each year. Yet, they somehow do not seem to question India's official inaction in matters relating to the 26/11 attack.

There is also no nationwide debate on police reforms and force modernisation, something that this country has been crying hoarse for decades. Take the distribution of something as simple and as basic as bulletproof vests. Maharashtra needs over 50,000 such vests, while less than 3,000 have been disbursed in the last three years. In a situation that often seems hopeless, we seem to live on hope alone. Hope, alas, cannot be a substitute for policy and action. Nothing short of an overhaul of our approach would do.