Terror Cannot Be Stopped by Debate, Says Amitabh Bachchan on 26/11

Amitabh Bachchan recites his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s poem in memory of 26/11 at the Gateway of India.

Amitabh Bachchan speaks out on terrorism.

(Photo: Yogen Shah)

Speaking at the Gateway of India on ninth anniversary of the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai, actor Amitabh Bachchan said

Terror does not preserve anything, once unleashed it can not be stopped by debate. It can only be repulsed by a more powerful reaction.

Amitabh Bachchan

Bachchan was speaking at an event to remember the ‘Stories of Strength’ of 26/11, organised by Indian Express and Facebook. Recalling the fateful day, the actor said in his speech:

Nine years ago, on this day these attacks were, to me, a wake-up call. But the question I asked myself was: “Wake-up, yes, but wake-up to what?” I woke up to a new era of violence, a new kind of violence – a violence that was inflicted by terrorism.

I woke up to the fact that terrorism is not an ideology .. it is an act of scaring peaceful people .. an act of evoking the fear of sudden, untimely death It is an act of negotiating at the point of a gun. Terrorism is NOT an act of faith. Terrorism can never replace another ideology.And there is, before us, a true evidence of that :

The same children who held the same guns and ammunition in the trenches of Afghanistan to fight a foreign invasion of their land …. the same children who were paid wages and salaries to kill and be killed in those battles .. became professional mercenaries, after they began to use the same training and weapons … out of hatred, malice and vengeance…

Whatever political rhetoric may say .. terrorism is neither a form of justice, nor even an instrument of justice .. it is the whimsical randomness of evil.

Amitabh Bachchan, Actor

Bachchan also recited a poem titled Imprints of Blood by his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan:

I get up in the morning and see
That on my door
There are many blood-stained handprints

And my wife has seen a dream
That a skeleton in the middle of the night
Holding a bucket of blood in one hand
And immersing the other in it
Imprints his hand soaked in blood, and departs.
Then another comes, then another and another

Whose innocent blood is this?
Is it of those
Who have through hundreds of years been troubled,
Chased away from place to place,
So accustomed to bearing pain
That today they have lost the intent of revolt?
And, when ordered to move into the mouths of death
Silently and without any opposition they went
And throttled by the poisonous gases
Went to sleep forever?
If their blood stains were to mark,
Then to whose door would they make?

Whose speechless, tongueless, blood is this?
Is it of those
Who, governed by the tyrant’s vice-like grip
Caught and suppressed, tried to break free
To rise, to evolve through their efforts
And who were trampled upon, crushed into
A pulp
If their blood stains were to mark,
Then to whose door would they make?

Whose young and youthful blood is this?
Is it of those
Who sang the songs of their mother earth
Shouted slogans of freedom
Raised their hands, and walked fearlessly forward
But have now struck against this immovable rock wall
Smashing their heads against it
A wall that does not turn, or move, or melt?
If their blood stains were to mark
Then to whose door would they make?

Whose innocent blood is this?
Is it of those
Who with their effort and work, in the heat, in the sun,
In the dust, in the smoke-filled atmosphere, blackened
Did for their white-blooded masters
Make and build clean homes, clean cities, clean paths
But to place their feet within, to sit within them,
They did pay the price by the sacrifice of their lives?
If their blood stains were to mark
Then to whose door would they make?

Whose endless flow of blood is this?
Is it of those
Who through a dated line
Became outsiders in their own land,
Who, on the dictat of majority
On their idiosyncrasies and madness
Were termed guilty and convicted and punished
Without any home, without any wealth, without a living
Mercilessly butchered?
If their blood were to mark
Then to whose door would they make?

Whose unknown blood is this?
Is it of those who dream
That, a free and growing nation
Swinging on the eyelids and the pupils of hope had been brought up and nurtured
But greed, selfishness and selfish motives
Had gouged their eyes
And twisted and strangled their throats
If their blood were to mark
Then to whose door would they make?

But
For these inhuman, wrongful, erroneous, horrendous criminal deeds
Who took the responsibility?
On whichever door these prints were marked
They washed them away with water
They white-washed it clean!
But
May these blood-stains remain imprinted on the door of the poet
So that they reflect and recite immortality, the pain and anguish of deeds
And bedim the human in the yajña of words

And my wife has seen a dream
That these skeletons
Move from door to door of the poet
Imprinting them with the stains of blood
And lighting up the fire of the written word within.

(Source: Indian Express)