Here is a round-up of commentary from various Indian blogs:
India’s Nine-Eleven
From Great Bong (Random Thoughts of a Demented Mind).
Is this India’s 9/11? There is no doubt that what we have seen today is as much an act of war as 9/11. Foreigners have breached the nation’s borders (with consummate ease may we add). Not through the snowy slopes in the mountains. We are used to that. Not through the porous borders of Bangladesh. We know of that. But through the coastal waters of India’s biggest, supposedly most secure, city. The waters of which as a route for narcotics smuggling should theoretically have been under heavy government surveillance. Or perhaps it is the very lucrativeness of the clandestine water traffic (after this this is D-country) that makes the local authorities not look too closely.
However will this the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back that will ultimately make national security the number one national agenda? Will this change India as 9/11 changed USA fundamentally? Though I would like to hope so, I have too much faith in our so-called “resilience” to be more than a bit pessimistic.
To understand the scope of the operation and the sheer scale of India’s failure, one needs to look at historic precedents of similar kinds of amphibious assault. In 1961, in the famous Bay of Pigs invasion Cuban emigres, trained by the CIA, tried to retake Havana by a similar beach-originated attack after days of US air attack. They could not get much beyond the beach despite being supported by the full might of the United States of America, which in the 60s was possibly at the height of its power. Though I do not want to draw exact historical parallels (the scope of Bay of Pigs was to overthrow Castro), the point I am trying to make is that it should be theoretically intensely difficult for foreigners to use the sea route to infiltrate a country, even more so when the country claims to have an extensive defense infrastructure. But these group of men, well trained and equipped they be, managed to do so without detection and without being attacked. If this does not shake every Indian to the core, I fail to see what will.
The two questions that we all ask now: is why and who? The questions we do not ask because we are afraid of the answers are “When next?” and “How much more”? This being a sunny happy blog, let me not even go into those dark areas. For now.
A Night Out in Mumbai
From India Uncut.
This is turning out to be one crazy night. A friend of mine had an opening of her art exhibition a few hours ago, so we ventured to South Bombay for that. We attended the exhibition, sipped the litchee juice, nibbled on party snacks, and then six of us headed out for dinner. First we tried Indigo Deli, which is a couple of hundred metres from the Taj. We were told there would be a 25-minute wait. So we headed to All Stir Fry, the restaurant in the Gordon House Hotel in a lane down from there. They told us we’d have to wait 20 minutes. We stepped out again, and as we did so, we heard gunshots, and saw people running towards us from the left side.
One of the hotel employees rushed out and told us to get back in. “There must have been an encounter,” he said. “Get back in, you’ll be safe inside.”
We followed him in. We waited in the lounge-bar upstairs for a while. The big screen there was showing cricket. India won. Then someone changed the channel.
That’s when we realised that this was much more than a random police encounter, or a couple of gunshots. We heard that terrorists with AK-47s had opened fire outside Leopold’s, the pub down the road. We heard there was firing elsewhere in the city as well, including in the Taj. We watched transfixed, and as the apparent scale of the incidents grew, we realised we couldn’t go home. We asked if they had a room vacant; they did, so we settled in, switched on the TV, and watched in horror.
More below the fold and all are worth reading.
Mumbai
From DesiPundit.
Care for some misinformation and immaturity? Tperacha at Lahore Metblogs provides a fine example:
It’s about that the Indian media stop is propaganda and do some soul searching as to the actual reasons behind these attacks. A good starting point maybe, the state of Muslims in India.
So let me get this straight, the way to improve the state of Muslims in India is to get pleasure in killing innocents, target foreigners, and hold a hospital for women & children hostage for hours. If the educated elite in Pakistan is anything like this moron, then I fear for Pakistan. But why am I pontificating. I’ll let an Indian who happens to be a Muslim answer your ridiculous explanation [hat tip: curdriceaurora]:
The Indian Muslim doesn’t need people killing in his name. He needs reform. The community is one of the most backwards communities in India, a large part of the blame for which it will have to shoulder itself. Partition had already crippled the community, giving the Indian Muslim the easy tag of a ‘foreigner’ in his very land of birth. Do you think the he now needs Pakistani terrorists to come in and create mayhem and anarchy in India?
There’s Work to Be Done, Everywhere
From Sticks and Stones.
Cancers are born within, they are a mutation of your own that because it comes from within threatens stealthily. Like cancer, the terrorism India faces has the potential to weaken the set of values that keep us standing up against it. Cancer rots from within. It eats at us slowly. It saps our strength. And someday we shall succumb.
Wait. No. It’s at this point that I’m going to cut off the analogy. Because we can do something about this. First of all, everyone with a job needs to get up out of bed tomorrow and get to that. Bills won’t stop coming because the dome burns. And we need to keep making movies and music. We need to keep chattering in coffee shops. We need to return to Cafe Leopold, because there’s some good food to be had. Some fine people to meet along the way too. Before the bombs exploded people were indulging in a city full of colour and taste. They were having a lot of fun.
But we can’t naively carry on. To enjoy life like this, made up of the things we savour from vibrant cities like Bombay, we need to be protected. 94.6% of sixty thousand respondants at NDTV.com say it is time for India to enact stringent laws to curb terror. That’s quite a mandate, but I believe they are wrong. They suggest following the example laid down by the United States after the 11th of September, 2001. This includes a Department for Homeland Security and a Transportation Security Administration. Security is a wonderful word. At times like these, reading it in bold typeface across buildings and on cloth seals pinned to the shoulders of frowning men, it make us feel safe.
But what about real safety? Pakistan’s ISI seems to have a dirty little hand in a lot of what happens in Bombay. The chronology, laid down at the International Herald Tribune’s website shows the shocking breadth and depth of terrorism in India. If the ISI is so talented at finding out where, when, and how to cause havoc, India needs an intelligence service talented at finding out where, when, and how — before terrorists strike.
Perhaps Pakistan had nothing to do with this. If so, fine. India would not have been able to pressure Pakistan’s government anyway. Zardari and Gillani have little to do with the ISI and anyway have domestic policy problems to address whilst diddling away IMF/World Bank money.
More significant is for India to built a robust intelligence agency so that Prime Minister Singh doesn’t wake up to IBN as the rest of the world did. With that in place, I would love to see India develop the tactical ability to intervene at the planning stages. Fantasies of Quantum of Solace-esque covert operations are irrelevant. The point is not to make us feel safe with the regalia, pomp, and circumstance of metal detectors and 3 ounce bottles of shampoo in bins.
The point is to actually meet the threat. Rather than building high walls, rise to the challenge and destroy it. The sneering condescension with which I’m told to take off my shoes and belt won’t suffice anymore. In fact, it never did. Not only do I not feel safe, not only do I know I’m not safe, but I believe my government is failing in keeping me safe, be it in Washington, London, or Bombay.
Dear Mr. Terrorist
From The Times of Bullshit:
My name is not Hades. Some of the more intelligent readers of The Times of Bullshit no doubt suspect that.
My name is Shoaib Daniyal. No, that won’t do. My name is Shoaib Mohammed Daniyal.
You say that they killed 130 people in Mumbai to avenge the maltreatment that people like me with names like Mohammed have faced in India.
Let me tell you something about my self. I did my schooling in Calcutta in one of the city’s finest schools—La Martiniere for Boys. I completed my graduation in Electrical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and am now employed with a premier business research firm in Gurgaon.
Maltreated? How?
If there was wide spread discrimination against Muslims, as you claim, how did these institutions take me in? A cursory look at my name is all it takes, if you want to discriminate.
That’s not to say that India is perfect. To get a house in Gurgaon I had to lie about my religion. I claimed I was Christian, playing up the similarity between ‘Daniel’ and ‘Daniyal’. People would not let out their house to a person named Shoaib Mohammed Daniyal.
But for that will you kill 130 people? For that will you hold hundreds more hostage? For that will you destroy a city?
And even if you do, how will that help the India Muslim? Will people now let out their flats to me? Will future landlords now say, “Bravo! Terrorists destroyed Mumbai for you. Here are the keys to my flat. If you need anything, I’m at your beck and call.”
I don’t need retarded scum like you to make my life better. If anything, your barbaric actions will make my life worse. Much worse.
The Indian Muslim doesn’t need people killing in his name. He needs reform. The community is one of the most backwards communities in India, a large part of the blame for which it will have to shoulder itself. Partition had already crippled the community, giving the Indian Muslim the easy tag of a ‘foreigner’ in his very land of birth. Do you think the he now needs Pakistani terrorists to come in and create mayhem and anarchy in India?
People across India are angry, and justifiably so. And people who are angry often act irrationally. There are calls for tougher anti-terror laws—a demand that the Congress could stave off. Till now. Our PM has already announced that his government will tighten existing laws. By carrying out this attack you have provided just the opening fundamentalists in our country needed. Who will stop the Right Wing now? The BJP has already taken out ads in Delhi which read “Fight Terror. Vote BJP” written on a background of blood. Rediff boards ring with calls for Modi as PM. And in a perverse sort of way, I agree. This government has totally failed to protect us from you.
So thanks for your concern, but no, thanks. If you want to blow yourself up and ascend to heaven please go and do it while destroying your own country.
JUST GET THE FUCK OUT OF MINE.
Yours,
Shoaib Mohammed Daniyal
Mumbai, Bruised But Not Broken
From Improper Conduct.
Shock. That’s what I felt when mom woke me up at 11.15 on Wednesday night telling me there’s been a blast. But it turned out to be so much more. I watched the news in horror. Firing at CST? In a hospital? In the Leopold’s Cafe? The Taj and Oberoi hotels under siege? What hellish nightmare have I walked into? It only got worse. As I watched all the familiar South Mumbai places being attacked, my mind could barely fathom that all this was actually happening. Every waking moment was spent glued in front of the television. Even as my body cried for sleep, my mind refused. I was determined to follow the entire tragedy right till the end – which, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be approaching, inspite of repeated assurances that the operations at all three places; Nariman House, The Taj Hotel and the Oberoi Hotel, are in their final stages. They have been in the final stages since yesterday afternoon. When is this insanity going to end?!
Ah, and then came the politicians for their moment of glory. They stubbornly insisted on visiting the sites, choosing to ignore pleas that asked them to stay away. Of what concern was it to them that the police had to deploy extra personnel to look after their safety? Did it matter that the policemen had to look after these attention seeking brats instead of focusing on the situation at hand? Was bringing the situation under control as important as assisting these so-called people in their 15 minutes of fame on the eve of the elections? These politicians were busy passing the blame instead of taking responsibility for their actions; instead of being the leaders they were elected to be and taking charge in this time of crisis.
When I was younger, I remember someone telling me “If Pakistan dares lay a finger on Mumbai, India will annihilate Pakistan.” Such was the confidence in the government. Now, however, the politicians are so busy playing the blame game that they barely have time for something as trivial as weeding out the perpetrators and bringing them to justice.
The infallible Mumbai spirit has taken a hit. The streets on Thursday resembled curfew. The usually full-to-bursting local trains were deserted. Very few taxis could be seen in Southern Mumbai. Offices were nearly empty. Schools and colleges were closed. The Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange remained shut. What floods, incessant rains, train blasts, blasts in the BSE, blasts in the midst of crowded markets, blasts in random vehicles around the city, communalism and bloody riots couldn’t damage was accomplished by these young ordinary-looking, gun-toting terrorists in one fell swoop.
However, we are Mumbaikars and our resilience shines within each and every one of us. It is this spirit that makes Mumbai what it is; that makes us what we are. We may be down, but we are most certainly not out. Life is slowly getting back to normal. The streets look haunted no more, the trains are fuller. People travelling all over the city are tense but tough. We are Mumbaikars and we will not go down without a fight. We may not fight back with weapons and violence, but fight we will. Our determination to survive through this is shown not by picking up a gun but by going on with our lives. By trying to bring about a sense of normality within our lives, we are fighting back. We will not bow down to this mindless terror. We will not be afraid of you. You are cowards and we know it. You may be determined, but your determination is nothing compared to ours. Not for nothing is the Mumbai spirit admired. We are hurt but not broken. We are bouncing back even as you make your desperate attempts to create even more mayhem in this urban warfare.
We are Mumbaikars and although we fight on with our resilience, we will not forget; cannot forget. We have forgotten in the past. We bounce back but we don’t remember. We don’t demand security. We don’t insist on explanations and clarifications. We don’t ask “How?” We don’t demand the answers that we should. But no more is this acceptable. Now we demand answers. We demand retribution for the slain police men’s widows, for the parents who are suddenly without children, for the woman in Delhi who excitedly planned her wedding in vain, for the family whose sole bread winner was killed, for the son who has been orphaned, for those foreign nationals touring India, for the man who ushered his hotel guests to safety even as his wife and children were killed in a fire – for all those people whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We seek justice.
To all those Mumbaikars and fellow world citizens who lost their lives to this mindless terrorism – R.I.P. Our thoughts rest with you.