What has happened was unprecedented in the history of India’s independence. It truly is India’s 9/11 as everyone seems to be saying. Mumbai has always been the pride of India. And Taj Hotel – standing tall opposite Gateway of India – for years has been a symbol of India’s business capital. Terrorists surely have hurt India’s pride like never before. But the important thing to understand here is that in this particular instance only the scale is different, the intent and motivation behind the attack is still the same – this is an attack against humanity. It’s targeted against India’s unity and integrity. Needless to say that whosoever is behind these kinds of activities is completely insane and insensitive. We know for a fact that there were some young Pakistani boys who carried out this massacre at not less than 10 places in Mumbai but we are still not sure which organization was behind these and whether this was a state-sponsored act of terror also supported by some international elements or possibly also by our own local chaps. But if we try to analyze on various dimensions of this horrible terrorist strike, we might get quite a few clues relating to this. Here is my take on various activities/actions/statements related to the 48-hour long operation which has shaken not just the financial capital of India but the whole of the nation itself.
Unparallel in Scale and Style: This strike is quite unlike anything that we have ever witnessed, not just because of the number of casualties but mainly because of the style of operation. This terror strike was different to all the terror strikes that we have seen in last couple of decades all over the country mainly because of two reasons. Reason one is - in the prior incidents the terrorists have always been doing the blasts or firings and running away, whereas in this particular case, they have done blasts and firing on the innocent civilians and then stayed inside the Hotels and kept huge number of hostages. The only prior terrorist act, this particular incident can be seen closer to was the hijacking of Indian Airlines plane, IC-814 where more than 150 passengers were kept hostage and one person was killed as well. But that plane was taken to Kandhaar, which is outside India. And moreover, that incident was less bloody and simply cannot be compared to this one because the loss of human life is unparalleled. And second reason this attack was different is in terms of style of operation with which this has been carried out. Reportedly 26 men came from the way of sea carrying huge amount of ammunition and hand-grenades. They attacked 10-11 key places in Mumbai. Not just that, they then remained inside couple of major five-star hotels destined to die sooner or later. The 3 locations that these terrorists chose later had to be turned into battle-grounds. Such sort of attack, of such large scale, has never ever happened before; not certainly on Indian soil.
The International Factor: There have been news claiming that terrorist in Hotel Taj and may be in Hotel Oberoi Trident had singled out the British and American people. They asked foreign nationals, i.e., people holding passport particularly of Britain, America and Israel to come aside and then held them as hostage. Also in another incident in Nariman Tower (or, Chabar Tower) people of Israeli origin were kept hostage. This does tell us of a possible international link relating to this terror attack. Australia, United Kingdom, United States of America and Russia were among the major nations condemning to this tragedy that India has witnessed. The fact that quite a lot of Islamic terrorists groups spearheaded by Al-Qaida have been working against western nations in general and USA in particular, seem to be a major motivation behind the assumption that one such group might once again be behind these acts of cowardice. Also, we know for a fact that USA has been backing-up Israel directly or indirectly and this has aggrieved Muslims who support Palestinian cause. And now that India is been seen as a close ally of USA, terrorist groups that had been working against USA might have shifted their focus to India. Also, since USA after 9/11, has been an impossible target for these terrorists, they seem to have decided to target Americans and other western citizens in places where it is easier for them to attack.
Pakistan, ISI and Karachi Stock Exchange: It has now been known world over that Pakistan has been passing through a huge economic crisis that has shaken it to its very core; so much so that Karachi Stock Exchange had remained closed for quite few days. Needless to add that democracy has only recently been restored and the army and ISI are still very powerful in Pakistan. Pakistan’s president, prime-minister and foreign minister have officially denied any Pakistani connections in this terror-strike. They even denied this strike was planned from Pakistani soil. But India has enough reasons not to believe what Pakistan says. Here are few of them:
o Pakistan has a history of cheating India. Governments change, military rulers change but Pakistan’s policy against India doesn’t. The reason is – no matter what Pakistani leaders or Army commanders may comment it is ISI which drives and regulates all policies when it comes to India.
o Pakistani government itself doesn’t have full control on Pakistani territory. If this was not the case how could they justify blast after blast in their own country?
o Terrorist attacked two of the major five-star hotels in the economic capital of India and held hostage large number foreigners along with Indian people. This is seen as an attempt to shake world’s view of India as a growing economy. It might be too much to speculate but I don’t see any reason not to consider the claim that China might be passively supporting and funding Pakistan in carrying out such acts in India. An enemy’s enemy is a friend after all. In past as well, China has been supporting Pakistan and Bangladesh against India. China is the only other emerging super-power in south-Asian region, other than India. This claim however is not based on any leads, news or evidence; this is just a speculative view.
o Terrorists in Mumbai strike were carrying latest machine-guns, seemingly more than huge amount of ammunition as well as hand- grenades. These men seemed trained in the ways Army and black-cat commandos fight. Some of them came by way of sea, 6-8 days before the fateful day & stayed in the city while some others stayed in Taj & Oberoi itself and planned their activity. According to Indian officials, these men had rehearsed & prepared for this incident extensively. All this is sufficient to make us believe that an attack of this scale cannot be an act of few men. It must have been sponsored by a state and the fact that the caught terrorists being Pakistani tells us which state it must have been.
o India and USA are coming closer like never before and if at all this is a problem for anyone, it is Pakistan and ISI because Barrack Obama has openly mentioned Pakistan as a major sponsor of terror and pledged to take action on all terrorist activities happening on its soil.
o These terrorist definitely were not mujahedeen’s as they claimed they were because when talking to one of the Indian news channel they happened to reveal that they were not even sure why were they fighting this war or what was their motivation. These were young men of 22-25 years of age who must have been brainwashed by people who trained them and sent them in India to carry out this task. Also, it’s very likely that these terrorists might be under the influence of drugs.
Pakistani terrorist organizations keep issuing statements every now and then saying they are taking up the cause of justice for Indian Muslims. I don’t understand who has told them to help Indian Muslims when Muslims in their own backyards are getting killed by their own bullets and bombs. Whole world knows that there are more Muslims in India than Pakistan and India is the second largest Muslim populated country after Indonesia. And to top it all – condition of Muslims in India is better than any other place all across the globe. True – there are problems in India and Hindu extremism is starting to be a matter of concern. But nothing gives right to any country or organization to interfere in our internal matters. India is a democratic country and we’ll resolve our internal disputes ourselves, including Kashmir issue. We have done that in the past and we are capable of doing that again.
Kashmiri Link: The voter turn-out in the ongoing J&K general elections has been competitive to that of any other Indian state. This must have been like a slap on the face of extremists in Indian Kashmir who had always been boycotting the elections. And also it has been a major setback for terrorist outfits operating out of PoK, mainly Hijb-ul-Mujahideen. They although, have denied any links with these terror-attacks, initial investigations by Indian intelligence experts are seeing possible links with this terrorist organization. When couple of terrorists, while still hiding inside Oberoi hotel, called an Indian news channel, they gave some clues about their origin and the message of hatred that must have been injected in their minds. Their language is reportedly told to be Punjabi, similar to what is being spoken in some of the Pakistani provinces like Mujaffarabad. People of J&K, these terrorists said, are been tortured by Indian Army and they are taking revenge on their behalf. Also one of them mentioned something about Satchar committee reports on minorities in India. Although it’s highly obvious to assume that some of the suppressed people of Indian Kashmir might have been exploited by ISI, Hijb-ul-Mujahideen or Al-Qaida – it’ll be unwise to see all Kashmiris in the same light, especially because the voter turn-out in the J&K tells us that people of Kashmir have strong faith in Indian constitution. In the fight against terror, it is going to prove very important to take-up the cause of people of Indian Kashmir and ensuring they are not tortured by the Army, if at all there is any truth in what has been stated every now and again by terrorists and organizations working in Kashmir. Last thing India now wants is alienate its very own people and let outsiders take advantage of our internal differences.
Political Motives: Elections in four-five Indian states are either undergoing or a few days away and parliamentarian elections are just round the corner – scheduled to be held in summer of 2009. Could this just be a coincidence that Mumbai got attacked just couple of days before Delhi state elections? Both Mumbai and Delhi, as we know, are ruled by Congress. It has been clearly evident from campaigns and statements made by BJP leaders that BJP has desperately been trying to come back to power in Delhi and elsewhere in the country. I don’t have any strong reasons (as yet) to doubt the credibility of so-called nationalist leaders; although it’ll be foolish not to notice the alleged support of Hindu organizations (which have strong ties with BJP) in some of the terrorist attacks in the recent past and if you are smart enough to read between the lines and to see things behind the curtains, you can very well figure out why would our very own local chaps might be behind these Mumbai attacks as well or at least supporting them. Let me raise a question here – who in India would be the biggest beneficiary of such attacks, if at all anyone?
I was particularly shocked at the statements made by Mr. L. K. Advani and particularly Mr. Narender Modi. Instead of standing united with the government in this hour of calamity, they seem to be taking political advantage of this. No prizes for guessing why BJP leaders couldn’t wait for the military operation to finish before starting off with their political statements bashing out UPA government and Prime-Minister. Simple reason is – it would probably have been little too late. Mr. Modi travelled to Mumbai and gave congress-bashing statements on 28th November, 2008; he made it just in time – not before and obviously not later than one day to Delhi elections. Not just that. Delhi on the same day – 1 day before the elections – saw full page advertisements in some of the national and local newspapers by BJP asking for people’s vote, highlighting nothing except the terror strikes. At a time when nation expected BJP to act maturely at the biggest calamity, they still are doing what they do best – exploit people’s sentiments and emotions in their favor.
Before you take me wrong and think that I am a congress-man smashing my opinions against BJP, let me tell you that I was not as well inspired or even impressed by Prime-Minister’s speech to the nation. There is hardly any doubt that Indian government lead uninspired by UPA is lacking strong foothold in the war against terrorism and that shows in their statements too. But at the very least, congress has stayed away from taking political advantage of this unfortunate incident. Don’t you think that a Bush-like strategy (where he took, or got, advantage of 9/11 in the US-elections that followed) could have been adopted by Congress as well?
India’s biggest misfortune (bigger than these terrorist strikes) is the lack of strong political leaders. But everything aside, we DO NOT anymore expect Indian politicians to fight with each other in the mad rush to gain power and not even spare the issue of terrorism to be used as a political issue. Security of the citizens should be of utmost priority and we cannot be made to vote in return of security and safety. Fight against terror is something above and beyond political cat-fight. I just hope that people of Delhi do not change their vote influenced by the politics being done after this terror strike.
Islam and Muslims: These terrorists killing innocent civilians say they are doing it in the name of Islam. One of the terrorist told on phone to a national TV channel that it’s their revenge for the killings of Muslims in India and partiality being done against them. It’s still not sure whether the person calling was from inside the hotel and was one of the terrorists. But whosoever the caller was, these foolish insane people for sure don’t know that they are doing more damage to Indian Muslims themselves than Indians of non-Muslim religions combined have ever done. If at all anything, they are bringing shame for the Muslims world-over. Bullets coming from their AK-47s don’t ask the religion of the person before taking his life. And, if these men were really concerned, as they say, about Muslim cause then the only thing they need to do, in India particularly, is not to do such acts of terror and associate them with Islam. Indian political parties (some of them for sure) try to do the politics of divide and rule and they do not leave any chance of taking political advantage of such incidents. This has been a shameful truth of Indian civilization that people from outside excite us, attack us & make us fight with our own brothers and what’s worse – some of our own local people support outsider’s cause for their own benefit. How long is this going to continue? How long are we going to be fooled by our politicians? I do hope (against hope), that it’ll not be the case this time. People of India will not blindly believe such leaders and fight our own people.
During 2008 India has witnessed a full series of terrorist strikes all over the country, this strike in Mumbai being the last. This year seems to be like a Hollywood action movie which had its climax setup in form of this 48-hour thriller sequence. I wish, just like in a movie, this huge death-toll could be unreal as well. But this is for real, the pain we have got will remain forever and we’ll have to continue our lives with this burden on our hearts day after day. But, as a matter of resurgence, we need to do something. Indian Hindus and Muslims need to understand that we are pitied against each other by fate. We are blood-brothers. Instead of fighting external forces, we end up fighting with each other – every time and become prey of these external forces as well as our cunning politicians. We need to defy the purposes of anti-Indian forces and stand united like never before. We need to be wiser and ignore any statements that might trigger communal violence in the country.
As another matter of resurgence, Indian government will have to restore citizens’ faith in the system. We have seen an example of the ‘fight against terror’ presented superbly by United States of America. We now need to back our leaders to take us on the path of a fight back – against terror. Our police, army and security forces deserve the complete credit for the safely of hundreds of people who were kept as hostage by terrorists inside the three buildings in south Mumbai. Was it not for their bravery and selflessness, this tragedy could have been of unimaginable scale. Courageous policemen and army commandos gave away their lives for the safety of us all. This is time to salute these great men and pledge that we will not let their lives go waste!
