Indians For Guns

Bombs explode, but gunshots ring. That puts in some melody into the whole idea; except that the society’s greater part sings a bit out of tune. It is something they can do without and rather face adversity on face like a perfect gentleman (in Bengali: bhadralok; God only knows how many of them are there under different nomenclatures and speaking different other languages) and live later to regret about it; hide from the surrounding if the damage is irreversible or just die for the final time.

Now, things were different. There were more firearm (or any equivalent weapons) enthusiasts than there were not. If we try finding the roots of hoplophobia and lay the burdens on such machines that stay responsible for it (a wild guess: Bang! and the lids close momentarily. It takes away the view of an instrument performing and keep honour of the high-end concepts and machining); but then again, isn’t it also more because barring a few, the rest refuse to have a closer look? If not for anything, then we are a technical race; what stops us from admiring things built and machined to higher degrees of perfection?

That’s where it turns sour; it is a subject not taught in educational institutions and there are too many ways now to keep one’s own self busy the entire day. It’s debatable what percentage of the population is aware of the Indian Constitution (given many an educated person around, it seems a decent figure) and the rights it grants, still, things haven’t moved much since the past two decades. The ban imposed upon gun and ammunition imports could have been a way to put a stop to the Indian money flowing out, but why hasn’t there been any further amendments to the Indian Arms Act? Now that there is a host of foreign product manufacturers getting business done here in India, what could be the reason behind stopping firearm manufacturers an entry?

You are welcome to laugh (most probably, you are thinking – “This guy doesn’t even know the law”) but we are, at least, clear on the economic side.

So, the law! There is an archaic one and the one that’s in use. Laws seem to follow the trend of looking into what suits the Government most; the ways it can draw out the benefits from the platform it’s based upon – the commoners. The banyan tree makes concrete crack by sucking out its lifeblood; it’s an everyday scene. Similarly, people get stripped out off their Constitutional rights. What needs to be understood is there are good and bad sides to everything and so with conditioning, the chief spell behind getting someone fit for the society.

But we are Indians and we aim both eyes closed, only following instructions from generations past, which again had been borne out of political victimizations that made them categorize weapons with misdeeds. Or, it is more like a weapon turns you bad. It is a mindset that’s forced into since school (how many school kids can name five of our freedom-fighters at a go, apart from the ones mentioned through movies?); there also goes in ideas from higher authorities on nipping an occasional rebellious mind right in the bud and the rest requires not even a fraction of thought to be figured out.

All in all, you can’t fire a damp cartridge.

-- Mon Apr 13, 2009 22:39 --

My first contributed article to GFI/IFG; shall consider myself honoured if Abhijit and the rest accepts it.

Very nice write up...
... and if one really wants to talk more on the "It is a mindset that’s forced into since school" and " what percentage of the population is aware of the Indian Constitution", there is so much to dig and resource!
In my personal opinion, I feel that the majority of Indians, although I am very sorry to say, are drowned in stories more than facts. Every news is an article to divert the Indian mindset into thinking what the babus and 'rulers' want! Every stuff has what can be called real, or truth or law. When a lorry driver avoids a bunch of school kids on the road and drives over a pedestrian on the footpath, then thats 'Real', although the 'Truth' should have been that he sticks to the rules and drive on the road over the bunch of kids... but the law will always see it in a different way; in a way that is most suitable to the masses. If the lorry driver was Salman Khan or Dhoni, then the law will uphold the real stuff.. Something like that....
What I mean is that, one has to get out of th system to change the system. If you have a real dearth for money, you might be so bugged with your tensions, that you may not see avenues right next to you. But if I intervene, as an outsider, without any contact with the tensions you face, I may see an avenue right next to you. Such stuff happens. And why ever I want to relate all this here, is because it in interesting articles like what you have posted that make minds open, see beyond the box, and bring about a realm of 'possibilities' that the normal trained mind refuses to recognize...

Thanks a bunch for th good read