Isn't This Duplicity?

The barbaric acts of destruction in New York and Washington has rightlyroused condemnation and revulsion amongst the right thinking people of thesane world.

The condemnation of the barbarians who have inflicted thistragedy on thousands of innocent victims and left psychological scars onmillions of survivors and an entire nation cannot be too loud.

Our prayers are for the victims and we sympathies with the survivors andfamilies of the victims as well as with the traumatized citizens of Americaand pray that god gives them strength to overcome this tragedy. 

As a citizen of a country and specifically of a city which was similarlytraumatized eight years ago in 1993 by a series of bomb blasts that rippedapart many civilian establishments across the city of Bombay (now Mumbai)I am bewildered at the duplicity of US administration and politicians.

For seven years India has been asking that Pakistan, who was involved inplanning training and supplying the explosives to the perpetrators of theBombay bomb blasts, be declared a terrorist state, yet its pleas havefallen on deaf ears.

The main accused in the Bombay Bomb blast, namely Dawood Ibrahim and TigerMemon, are openly sheltered as favoured guests by Pakistan and yet the US doesnot question Pakistan.

But when similar actsare perpetrated against the US on US soil it immediately gives an ultimatumto the rest of the world "Are you with us?" and asks every one tosupportwhat ever retaliatory actions it takes, not only against the terroristorganization but also against the countries which shelter them. 

Isn't this duplicity? 

Are Victims of Bombay Bomb Blast lesser than theVictims in NewYork and Washington? 

Indians feel bewildered and hurt when they hear that the US is seekingassistance from Pakistan in its retaliatory actions, a country which is nota democracy and which openly sponsors terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir andshelters the perpetrators of the 1993 Bomb Blasts in Bombay. 

Is the spilled blood of Indian victims any less precious than that ofvictims in New York and Washington? When the US asks "Are you withus?", wehave to ask them "Are you with us?"

(Apart from being the Mahatma's descendent, Tushar A. Gandhi, is alsoManaging Trustee, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation, Mumbai(Bombay), India)