Mumbai Terror Attacks

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[Icy]

NYT also has this excellent editorial, written beautifully by Suketu Mehta, who provides a history of the religious tensions in the great city of Mumbai:

MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

Just as cinema is a mass dream of the audience, Mumbai is a mass dream of the peoples of South Asia. Bollywood movies are the most popular form of entertainment across the subcontinent. Through them, every Pakistani and Bangladeshi is familiar with the wedding-cake architecture of the Taj and the arc of the Gateway of India, symbols of the city that gives the industry its name. It is no wonder that one of the first things the Taliban did upon entering Kabul was to shut down the Bollywood video rental stores. The Taliban also banned, wouldn’t you know it, the keeping of songbirds.

[judi]

Deb, please let us know when you know she is safe...I can just imagine how worried you must be..prayers are with you and your daughter

the comments by Jonathan Ehrlich, the young man who nearly escaped, were so passionate.  He stressed that we cannot let the terrorist win, by stop going places, working, etc...to put down our fears.  We are all one in the minds of terrorists...they do not care if you are liberal, conservative, race, age, etc.  they are against all people from the west who they consider infidels.  we must come together to stop it

Then you start to wonder just why would these young people knowing they will die go on such missions.  If we do not address that then there will be no way to stop terrorists, who I am sure in their minds are fighting for rights.   Poverty, destruction of their homes, killing of their people, discrimination just some of the things that come to mind.  I just am not sure how to counter all of this to stop the violence that results from it.  

[Icy]

Another excellent editorial, from WAPO, written by Dileep Padgaonkar  .  What is the background of terrorism in India?  How has the government handled it?  Have they been too lax?

The timing of the assault is equally significant, coming on the eve of elections to five provincial assemblies. Campaign rhetoric has polarized opinion along sharply antagonistic lines, essentially pitting the ruling Congress party, which swears by secularism, against the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

After terrorist attacks in the past, the BJP has denounced the Congress party as being soft on terrorism in an effort to mobilize India's substantial Muslim vote in its favor. The Congress, in turn, attacks the BJP and its affiliates for bashing Muslims in order to consolidate its core Hindu vote. Indians have a peculiar word to describe this state of affairs -- communalism, meaning a determined bid to exploit religious sentiments for electoral gain.

The effect of this competitive demagoguery has been disastrous on many counts. Terrorism suspects have been picked up at random and denied legal rights. Allegations of torture by police are routine. Questions have been raised about the "encounters" between police and terrorism suspects. Suspects have been held for years as their court cases have dragged on. Convictions have been few and far between.

[Steve]

What is the background of terrorism in India?

An incompetent and corrupt political class that doesn't pay attention to any other form of protest or grassroots movement directed toward reducing poverty or relieving Muslims of persecution by Hindu nationalists.

How has the government handled it?

Selected terrorists are tolerated, others are fought against incompetently.

Have they been too lax?

On Hindu terrorism against Muslims, yes. And now Muslims have issued an international wakeup call.

[LJP aka Revolver Trooper]

Steve, I am very interested in the politics and cultural issues that laid the ground for the Mumbai attack;  years ago I read Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and learned about the violence that erupted between Muslims and Hindus and led to the division into India and Pakistan.  Do you know what I might read to better understand the background of the current crisis? Even for a news junkie, it is hard given the mainstream media to find good discussions of the kind of deep divisions in other cultures.  I'd appreciate your advice on where to turn for more information.

[Sirenoftitan]

LJP - I'd recommend the works of William Dalrymple - The Age of Kali being one in particular. Rushdie's Midnight's Children.  Both will add to that general background afforded by Scott.

[LJP aka Revolver Trooper]

Thanks. And Kevin the Outside Cat is a beauty.

[Sirenoftitan]

Thanks. And Kevin the Outside Cat is a beauty.

I wish he'd come inside but he thinks we'll make cat-stew...

William Dalrymple has a Comment piece in today's Observer Newspaper discussing the significance of Kashmir in the context of the Mumbai atrocities.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/30/mumbai-terror-attacks-india1

As you'll see from the comments below, there are numerous viewpoints.

[Steve]

Steve, I am very interested in the politics and cultural issues that laid the ground for the Mumbai attack;  years ago I read Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and learned about the violence that erupted between Muslims and Hindus and led to the division into India and Pakistan.  Do you know what I might read to better understand the background of the current crisis? Even for a news junkie, it is hard given the mainstream media to find good discussions of the kind of deep divisions in other cultures.  I'd appreciate your advice on where to turn for more information.

Sketch of a background: "India", meaning what are now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh was a collection of independent, multiethnic and multireligious states. While Islam was introduced almost as soon as it arose by Arab and Persian merchants and occasional plunderers, the conquest of all India by the Mongols (commonly known now as Moguls, or Mughals) significantly altered the political landscape. Several processes followed the conquest: The Mughals assimilated culturally, adopting local languages, etc. Many lower-caste Hindus converted to Islam (not because they were forced to, but because Islam did not recognize the caste system, therefore was an escape from it). The Muslim rulers were, relative to European norms, tolerant of a multiplicity of religions and cultures. India became rich: It had more industry than Europe up to the 1700s; year-round agriculture fed everybody; it was integrated into the Eurasian trade system, exporting food, spices and fine goods for great profit.

Then the British arrived and changed everything. Native industry was nearly abolished, harsh taxes were imposed, the population was reduced to poverty, divide and rule politics unfortunately worked as well as it did throughout the British Empire...

Fast forward to the 20th century: The independence movement united Hindus and Muslims for a time, but the two communities also fractured internally, each developing a militant right wing seeking to resore either a new Mughal empire under Muslim rule, or a pre-Muslim, purely Hindu country. The partition into India and Pakistan, theoretically separating the communities, actually produced two civil wars because the communities were, as they always had been, geographically intertwined. Pakistani Hindus and Indian Muslims were slaughtered by the millions. Resentments linger.

Kashmir, a major sore point, has a majority Muslim population, but in 1947 its Hindu ruling prince exercised his option to join either of the two new states by going over to India. Since then, Hindus have effectively treated Muslims as foreign enemies, expropriating communal lands, suppressing religious institutions, etc. No Indian government has seriously interfered. The Muslims are very angry.

Start of a reading list:

This week's TIME has a good article - a condensed and necesarily reduced history of tensions, but accurate as far as it goes.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862650,00.html?imw=Y

An older article on Muslims and economics in India.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/29/news/india.php

An Indian scholar's blog.
http://www.zmag.org/zspace/badriraina

More heavy-duty stuff.
http://www.stimson.org/pub.cfm?ID=543
http://jis.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/16/3/400
http://www.questia.com/library/religion/muslims-in-india.jsp

[Icy]

What an excellent summary, Steve!  Thank you.

Day 5, information about interrogations with the only remaining terrorist involved in the Mumbai attacks are leaking out.  From U.K.'s Daily Mail:

The only terrorist captured alive after the Mumbai massacre has given police the first full account of the extraordinary events that led to it – revealing he was ordered to ‘kill until the last breath’.

Azam Amir Kasab, 21, from Pakistan, said the attacks were meticulously planned six months ago and were intended to kill 5,000 people.

He revealed that the ten terrorists, who were highly trained in marine assault and crept into the city by boat, had planned to blow up the Taj Mahal Palace hotel after first executing British and American tourists and then taking hostages.

[LJP aka Revolver Trooper]

I am amazed and humbled by the knowledge on this forum, both individual and collective.  Steve, thanks for the summary and the "starter links." 

[Steve]

As if it couldn't get worse.

Nov. 28, 2008
New America Media, commentary by Yoichi Shimatsu:
Dawood -- Did Criminal Mastermind Stage Mumbai Nightmare?
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=050dc87c7cffe019c7177175cefe1ad8

The coordinated nighttime assault against seven major targets in Mumbai is reminiscent of the 1993 bombings that devastated the Bombay Stock Exchange. The recent attack bears the fingerprints of the same criminal mastermind – meticulous preparation, ruthless execution and the absence of claims or demands.

The eerie silence that accompanied the blasts are the very signature of Ibrahim Dawood, now a multi-millionaire owner of a construction company in Karachi, Pakistan. His is hardly a household name around the world like Osama bin Laden. Across South Asia, however, Dawood is held in awe and, in a twist on morals, admired for his belated conversion from crime boss to self-styled avenger.

His rise to the highest rungs of India's underworld began from the most unlikely position as the diligent son of a police constable in the populous commercial capital then known as Bombay.

His childhood familiarity with police routine and inner workings of the justice system gave the ambitious teenager an unmatched ability to outwit the authorities with evermore clever criminal designs. Among the unschooled ranks of Bombay gangland, Ibrahim emerged as the coherent leader of a multi-religious mafia, not just due to his ability to organize extortion campaigns and meet payrolls, but also because of his merciless extermination of rivals.

Dawood, always the professional problem-solver, gained the friendship of aspiring officers in India's intelligence service known as Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). He soon attracted the attention of American secret agents, then supporting the Islamic mujahideen in their battle against the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan. Dawood personally assisted many a U.S. deep-cover operation funneling money to Afghan rebels via American-operated casinos in Kathmandu, Nepal.

[Sirenoftitan]

Misha Glenny in the Guardian also covers this criminal angle

The operational key to the Mumbai attacks, however, is almost certainly held by D-Company, the sprawling and hugely effective organised criminal syndicate that is steered from the Pakistani port city of Karachi by the most powerful figure in Mumbai's fabled underworld, Dawood Ibrahim. It is virtually impossible that Dawood was unaware of the preparation of the attack, given the D-Company's extensive intelligence network (which in several past instances has proved more effective than the Indian state's intelligence capacity).

Full article here http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/01/comment-and-debate-misha-glenny

[Jamie]

My husband walked around the house shaking his head all weekend after seeing the CNN coverage saying "These terror attacks have been going on for over a month (or more?) killing people in trains, burning people alive, but they knew that the only chance they had of getting the international coverage they were looking for was by finally taking European/American hostages and killing a few. Unfortunately the international community is only interested when this happens, and they figured that out."

[Sirenoftitan]

My husband walked around the house shaking his head all weekend after seeing the CNN coverage saying "These terror attacks have been going on for over a month (or more?) killing people in trains, burning people alive, but they knew that the only chance they had of getting the international coverage they were looking for was by finally taking European/American hostages and killing a few. Unfortunately the international community is only interested when this happens, and they figured that out."

He's right Jamie.  One of the articles I read talked of attacks in India taking place on a monthly basis.

[Steve]

"These terror attacks have been going on for over a month (or more?) killing people in trains, burning people alive..."

Such attacks by Hindus against Muslims have been going since the '90s, burning mosques full of people, a train with all its passengers...

It should be noted that the Hindu rightists have also launched deadly attacks against Sikh temples and villages, in short, against any communities they consider alien.

[Jamie]

What I am afraid of is India taking advantage of this terrible situation to attack Pakistan. The first statement by India's PM that I saw on CNN when he brought up that India knew that the attackers were coming from Pakistan, a shiver shot up my spine. I wonder if they think that an attack on pakistan would have the world's blessing? And we thought that WWIII would start in the Middle East.....

[Sirenoftitan]

It's worth remembering that India has government elections next year and the current crisis could play into the hands of the extremist Hindu party the BJP.

I hope that both countries do not suspend the peace talks they've been engaged in for the last 4 (?) years

[LJP aka Revolver Trooper]

Tonight on Countdown, one of Keith's guests (can't remember which one) talked about how India and Pakistan nearly went nuclear on each other a few years back but the U.S. talked them down.  I just hope they can hold their trigger fingers until Jan. 20, as I am not sure anyone is still at work in the Bush administration.  Condi Rice has done just about nothing at State.

[Deb the SwinePrincess]

I hate to interrupt the thread to give an update on the SwineDaughter, but I will anyway

Thanks to everyone for all your good thoughts!!!  The update is that they will not be going to Mumbai except to change trains on the way to Nagpur and then back again to change trains on the way to Kerala.  Apparently Mumbai is something akin to Atlanta in that even to get to Heaven (or in this case Nirvana) one has to go through it. 

For the time being she is safe and happy in Delhi and will be heading to Nagpur in a week.  All her reports are that this is the most remarkable country she has been to so far (it is competing with Ecuador and Tanzania).

As far as being safe anywhere... well, the whole point of terror is to make us all afraid and certainly, sadly it works.