For a moment, forget Pakistan-booted terror in Kashmir and close your eyes tighter on China’s nibbling, Arunachal claims and walk-to-exercise’s at India’s mighty ‘porous’ borderlines. Open your eyes to interstate ‘for-us’ borders - present & future and other internal footings; an awesome line-up of Naxalites, Maoist guerrillas, Nagas and that wretched forsaken corner of the world’s biggest democracy –Manipur, stare you in the face!

Even a cursory flagging of the heavily infected to mildly infected Naxal areas show a noteworthy red quietly spreading like paint on a wet canvas from the east to the west of India. The insurgency has reached middle age with over 40 years of cool life and we just do not seem to be have a clue on what they want or how to tackle them. They receive tacit support from many like-minded criminals in Government, as well.

In the north-east, we have the Naga rebels fighting for sovereignty and a greater Nagalim with the Government. Mercifully, the roar of distant-guns is under cease with the tongues on both sides wagging the sounds for over a decade now-without any claimed success. Nothing seems to be in sight of the cross-hairs! Meanwhile, blood and corruption clog the development of this region.

Move over to neighboring, even below, Manipur which is probably the only state in India where one (particularly foreigners) needs a special permit to visit. Over 10,000 people have died in the 30 year old independence struggle which is ruled as a virtual Police State under the draconian emergency law of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

Incidentally the PM of India is from the middle-of-road Assam, that too a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament (Remember, he had lost the Lok Sabha elections from Delhi, has fought shy of another election and instead chosen to sneak into parliament through the once insurgent Assam to be the first ever non-Lok Sabka PM of India for over six years !).

Cut-across to the many incidents of inland terror in India and the most common factor is: the Police just looked the other way, the Police never arrived in time, the Police never bothered to take pre-cautionary action, the Police with only their pot-bellies & lathi’s were no match to the ultra-slim AK-47 terrorist, the Police never… the list goes on. Look at the recent Navy fighter plane crashing in Hyderabad. How old are our fighter planes? They just keep falling of the skies! How prepared are with the latest fighting equipment and weaponry?

The great Indian Army/Navy/Air Forces are doing a damn good job, under the circumstances, only due to the individual capabilities and the human spirit of its forces –without the backing of the dazzling, enviable, solid, high-tech gear of say, a modern day US Marine. Defense procurement follows the Bofors tag and many never ending scandalous earth & plot chilling stories.

Unfortunately, India does not seem to be realizing the fact that man is the only being which depends for its survival on the things he has made. Improving defense preparedness and local policing with the latest state-of-the-art equipment backed up by clever strategies and excellent governance and general administration is the only way to bottle emerging internal insurgencies, which threaten to balkanize the country and intimidate its development.

We do not need management gurus talking only about 7.5 growth, or of the importance of talking to rouge Pakistan or being judged by history over 3% nuclear power. Development of India is not just a question of economics of growth figures. It depends also on having effective, clean governments down to the village level. We need strong visionary enlightened leadership to galvanize the people, and especially the state governments, to resolve the bouncing internal issues of the country and reach out to hidden neglected corners of the country. Sadly this is awfully lacking in the present Govt. Optic cables alone will not do the job, nor will 33% reservation for women and endless quotas. In this state of India, when will a true leader arrive?