mumbai
1 Dec 2008
Militants Shatter 'Brand India'
Mumbai's attackers were targeting India's image as an emerging global power as much as they were targeting foreigners, writes Mustafa Qadri
Mumbai's Taj Hotel is an ornate throwback to the British Raj. Its website boasts of hosting "Maharajas and Princes to various Kings, Presidents, CEOs and entertainers".
That reputation came back to haunt the luxury hotel when several gangs of armed men launched 10 separate, coordinated attacks on it and several other locations in central Mumbai including a Jewish community centre. The large hallway of the grand Chhatrapati Shivaji railway station where gunmen indiscriminately fired on the large crowd was transformed into a grotesque mess of luggage, blood and body parts. In total at least 172 have been killed and hundreds more injured.
Among the casualties are three senior police officers, including the Chief of Mumbai's counter-terrorism squad. The scale and precision of the attacks has shocked the world.
The perpetrators called themselves the "Deccan Mujahideen" (Deccan is the term used for central, south India), a previously unheard of group that has security officials and analysts suspecting there are other powers at play. When an Indian news crew contacted one of the gunmen and asked what the group's terms were he could be audibly heard asking others for a response. In the end the nebulous demand was for all "mujahideen" (religious warriors) to be freed from Indian prisons.
The obvious culprits are militants based in Pakistan, and a shortlist of most likely candidates all pointed towards the troubled South Asian nation. That was certainly the implication in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's televised national address when he called the perpetrators a group "based outside the country". Indian security officials have now publicly stated that they believe the assailants came from Pakistan.
There have been further reports that the attackers entered Mumbai via speedboats carried into the city's harbour by a "mothership" travelling from the high seas from Pakistan. Conflicting reports have been given on whether the boat has been interdicted.
Daoud Ibrahim, a major figure in the Mumbai underworld now believed to be living in Karachi, Pakistan, is also suspected. Indian authorities believe he was involved in previous attacks by Islamic militants in India.
Another possible culprit is the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which has been banned by the Supreme Court of India for alleged involvement in past attacks. It may also be linked to the Indian Mujahidin, an Islamic movement blamed for attacks on New Delhi and Jaipur earlier in the year.
Another still is Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), the militant group created in the 1980s by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence to conduct attacks on Indian soil, particularly in Kashmir. LeT is considered a terrorist organisation in most Western countries, including Australia. There are reports that the group has issued a statement denying involvement in the violence.
For the Western press the attacks are a shock because, unlike neighbouring Pakistan, India is not readily associated with politically motivated violence. That the militants appeared to target Westerners for murder and kidnap has heightened that fear. The image of India as a peaceful, mystical destination for tourists from developed countries has also been severely tarnished. As has the country's reputation as one of the most stable emerging markets, what the business community describes as "Brand India".
Yet the Mumbai attacks are not the first by Islamic militants in a major Indian city — there have already been several this year. Five bomb blasts in crowded market areas of New Delhi, the nation's capital, killed 22 in September. Mumbai itself fell victim to such violence only five months earlier when on 11 July seven bombs exploded on its train network killing 200 people. In May multiple bomb blasts in Jaipur, northwestern India, including at a Hindu temple, killed 80. The Jaipur blasts followed bombings in Ahmedabad and Bangalore in July. Islamic militant groups associated with Pakistan like Islamic Mujahideen and LeT have been accused of being behind these attacks.
Most of the victims in Mumbai, as with previous attacks in India by militants claiming to act in the name of Islam, were ordinary Indians — including Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims.
Several groups — religious, Muslim and secular — have been implicated in bomb blasts and armed attacks throughout modern India's history, particularly in the past 20 years.
Many survivors of the attacks were amazed at just how young the gunmen were. It is possible that some or all of them are disaffected young men recruited from India's largely poor, marginalised Muslim communities. Although India has experienced an unprecedented economic boom over the past few years most remain mired in poverty. The World Bank estimates that there are 455 million people living below the poverty line, or on less than $US1.25 per day, in India.
There have been communal tensions, particularly along sectarian lines, in India for decades. In Gujarat in 2002, for instance, at least 2000 Muslims and Christians were killed after a train carrying Hindu members of the rightwing Shiv Sena movement were burnt alive in a train. There are real fears of reprisal attacks against Muslims following the violence in Mumbai, just as many Sikhs were targeted in revenge killings after a Sikh soldier assassinated Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984.
The Mumbai attacks, which have been described as India's September 11, risk giving India free reign against Muslim political movements whether or not they are involved in violence. The fact that Pakistan has a strong association with militant Islamic movements does not augur well for India's Muslims either. Hitherto, however, India has remained relatively restrained in the face of past attacks by Islamic militants.
On an international level, the attacks may bring relations between India and Western countries closer together, particularly with respect to counterterrorism. There has already been a slow gravitation in that direction this year — the Bush Administration signed a nuclear power agreement with India that, although ostensibly relating to civilian nuclear power, effectively legitimates the emerging power's arsenal of nuclear weapons. US security officials blame militants linked to Pakistan's Army for a July attack on India's Embassy in Afghanistan that killed a Defence Attache, a diplomat and two guards.
The message for Pakistan is as loud as it is clear: clean up the militancy or expect reprisals from India with the support of the international community.
Regardless of what lies ahead there can no longer be any doubt that the chaos which began in Afghanistan in the 1980s and spread to Pakistan a decade later has well and truly reached India.
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I find the use of the term ‘relatively restrained’ in the face of past attacks interesting. The truth is that the Indian government is not restrained it merely uses violence against Kashmiris and Muslims under as much cover as it can muster. If the State sanctioned terrorism of the Indian Government were halted there might be some chance of halting other violence. As long as India continues to lie to itself about the part that it’s official policy plays there will be no end to violence. India is a potential powder keg. It was when I lived there in the early 90’s and little has changed. With countless millions of people illiterate, jobless, homeless and hopeless and the Indian Government continuing to pour billions into military hardware, nuclear arms and a space programme for god’s sake, it is little wonder that increasing numbers of disaffected people will be created.
If India put its energy and wealth, and it has massive wealth, merely not shared, into providing education, homes, toilets (even Gandhi said what India needed more than anything was flushing toilets to get the shit off the streets) and a future for its citizens, Muslim, Hindu and Christian alike, regardless of caste or sex, then it might have some chance of remaining a united nation in the future.
The cobbled together country which emerged from British colonial rule, and which did not exist prior to British colonial rule, will only endure if all Indians have some hope, some security and some respect.
It’s a facile interpretation of an act of apparent lunacy.
One phrase is quite telling: "On an international level, the attacks may bring relations between India and Western countries closer together, particularly with respect to counterterrorism" In other words India might more willingly come aboard now as the USA’s more acceptable, less fanatical local ally now that Pakistan has outlived its usefulness.
The Mumbai attacks are already being touted as "India’s 911". How provocative. How convenient.
The more cynical observers amongst us would see a False Flag operation here. No terrorist group in the region would gain anything, not even political notoriety (the group who allegedly planned the attack will be forgotten by next Monday).
Ah well, Leo, conflict between India and Pakistan could be a useful distraction if the US and Israel want to attack Iran. The reality is that no-one ever knows for sure just who is behind what. The meddling of the CIA, MI5 and Mossad spreads wide and far and the interference of foreign governments is responsible for the lack of peace in the world in general. It is all self-serving. It is all dangerous. It is all sad.
Rosross: Good comment! What makes all of the terrorist attacks so utterly banal and evil; is all the protagonists use the excuse of religion to justify their evil deeds. As do presidents, prime ministers and other world leaders. If it could be possible to kill religion, it would, at one stroke, kill half the misery in the world. The waste of all human life, animal life, terror, destruction, and the desecration of women. Life would become something of value. Not a mere bagatelle to be sacrificed at the whim of a pope or a dictator. It is religion that is the greatest impediment for the future of humanity. All religions, with the possible exception of Buddhism which is both a philosophy and a creed of peace. Here’s an odd thing: Of the religions which Muslims are discouraged from marrying. Buddhists are strictly off limits. Not to be tolerated. Or so I’ve been told by Muslim scholars. The ones I met in Syria, Iran and Jordan.
Good night and cheers
V.
Mustafa you finally exhibit some even handed writing.
As for your commentators, very pathetic individuals indeed.
I’m afraid RosRoss has shown themselves to be either neo nazi or bader meinhoff.HALT! HLT HALT! a word not considered English and so removed from road signs decades ago. A german word for stop.
Another one says it’s a false flag operation…What victims, victimize themselves?! You indeed are worthy of being put in the Irving, Tobin camp. Those conspiracy theorists who believe the Jewish holacaust was a fabrication or even a deliberate ploy on the part of Jews to bring about a renewed Jewish state in Israel.
Another thinks all religions other than one that does’nt believe in propagating the human species (buddhism) are dangerous.
Yes some religious leaders do use at least emotional blackmail and many much more severe measures to control and manipulate their fold.
It’s up to the sensible majority to work out, who is actually throwing the baby out with the bath water and who is guilty of drowning the bub in the bath water.
I have found so called sceptics and atheists are anti religion usually in order to rationalize their own immorality or deep seated personal sense of ethical failure.
For all your travels some of you, you only seem to have narrowed down your views further.
I don’t travel any more, not just because Qantas seems to have lost its mojo, but because the people that instigated all the horrors in India, Indonesia, Africa, The Middle East, USA, UK, etc are still being encouraged by people like some of the writers to these posts.
This upsets me greatly, I wonder what I should do about it?!…
What would an extremist do?
Good thing I’m not one of those.(!)
revilo, what is so radical about suggesting that conditions for the majority of Indians in general and muslim Indians in particular, are a contributing factor?
The ‘theory’ in regard to the holocaust is not that it was fabricated but that it has been exploited and exaggerated. Clearly these beliefs are easy to prove or disprove if one is allowed to debate the issue … which is illegal in Germany and some other countries by the way … and if the records in Germany were released for open public inspection. The most important point is that in a civilized society no subject should be barred from discussion.
And Venise has a point, religion has been and remains, the source of division and much human misery. Then again, if there were no religion there would probably be something else to take its place.
By the way Venise, Buddhism is seriously misogynistic at core although it has been less of a warring religion than others.
Revilo, the important distinction is that there is no problem with a belief in God, whoever he or she or it may be thought to be, and no problem with a spiritual life, but serious problems with all religious systems which have been distorted by a few thousand years of misogynistic patriarchy.
The other distinction is that nothing happens in a vacuum. the people who perpetrate these horrors are no different to the people who perpetrate the same horrors in the form of State sanctioned terrorism as we see America and its allies doing in Iraq, Afghanistan and supporting the Israelis doing in Palestine and turning a blind eye to the Russians doing it in Chechnya, the Chinese in Tibet and the Indonesians in Aceh, and of course, the Indian government in Kashmir … to name just a few.
One could argue that State sanctioned terrorismn is a greater crime than those who form groups to fight to free themselves from tyranny, occupation and state sanctioned terrorism.
However, at the end of the day all violence is to be condemned and no-one can point the finger ‘at the people who instigated all the horrors’ as you put it without pointing the finger at all governments who do the same thing, whether by omission or commission.
I am sure that Iraqis, Afghans, Palestinians, Tibetans, Chechens, Kashmiris etc. feel exactly the same about ‘those people’ who murder and maim them as do the Indians about the attacks in Bombay and as did the Americans about the attacks in New York and Australians and Balinese about attacks in Bali.
Murder is murder, terror is terror, whether done by an individual, a group or a government.
It is interesting to note that the original article was about the risk to India’s position in the Global Economy yet all comments are about the same old arguments about the USA and Israel and mal treatment of the minority islamic societies.
I am interested in knowing whether all of you are actually interested in the saddness and distress of the killings or only the opportunity this tragedy allows to bring out, once again, your tired views.
Can’t you see that a person arguing his point of view from the west bank of a river has a different view of the river than the opposing view from the east bank . Whose view/point is wrong? Neither!
Whilst ever you justify your rightousness through arguments of right/wrong, cause/effect you create a seperatiion from the suffering of people. You have turned the human pain and suffering into a symbol for your beliefs. These are no longer 278 dead humans. They are a symbol for ‘America’s war in Iraq’, ‘Israel’s aggression in the Mid East’ or ‘US/Israeli subdefusion for an attack on Iran’.
Whislt you are focusing on fault you are focussed on the past; you are focussing on only a view of the river and not the actual river; you are focussing on symbols and not the humanity. As such you are missing the point and, most likely, your puropose.
ghood,
The reason that the US, Israel and others are cited is because everything is interconnected.
I lived in India for four years and there have always been religious tensions which erupt, regularly. These tensions have increased in the past 15 years because Hindus have become more nationalistic and militant and this means Muslims, who make up a significant minority, but a minority after all, are increasingly discriminated against and persecuted. So are Christians by the way but they are a very, very small minority.
Because India has as many Muslims as Pakistan (there never should have been a Hindu/Muslim split in the first place but that is another debate) and because Muslims, like Hindus, Jews, Christians and others, have a strong sense of religious connection, then what happens to Muslims elsewhere, matters.
So, when you have disaffection and discrimination in a country like India, it will be exacerbated if members of the same religious group are oppressed, abused or discriminated against elsewhere. It feeds the fire of anger so to speak.
Therefore, Israel’s violent and vicious occupation, colonisation and abuse of the Palestinians; America’s violent and vicious occupation and abuse of the Iraqis; America and allies violent ‘occupation’ (supporting a puppet government) of Afghanistan; Russia’s violent and vicious occupation of Chechnya ….. all matter.
Israel and the US come in for the strongest condemnation because Israel’s treatment of Palestinians (Christians as well as Muslims although the Christians are very few these days) is one of the worst human rights abuses and war crimes in modern history and America’s illegal, immoral and completely unnecessary invasion of Iraq, and it’s continued occupation and ‘colonisation’ through military base building, constitutes one of the greatest war crimes of modern history. Muslims know these things. Just as Christians around the world or Jews or Hindus for that matter, would react in exactly the same way if they were in the same position.
The point is that violence breeds violence and injustice breeds rebellion and rebellion breeds violence even if one would wish that passive resistance were an instinctive human response as well.
India’s problems with its Muslim population are bad enough given the State sanctioned terrorism which India uses in Kashmir and with its own Muslim population, but it is all magnified massively by actions carried out against Muslims elsewhere.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. The US, which only counts because for the moment it is the most powerful country, has the greatest responsibility to fight for justice and human rights and instead it shows it fights for its own ends and cares not a whit for justice or human rights for others otherwise it would not support the tyrannical Saudi regime; the tyrannical Israeli regime; would not have supported Saddam Hussein’s tyrannical regime; would not have supported the Taliban and helped them get into power in the first place; would not have supported, armed, trained and abetted countless poisonous regimes and tyrants around the world over the past 50 years.
The river is the crimes of State sanctioned terrorism carried out by some and supported by omission or commission by the rest.
I would add, the only way that we can help humanity is by understanding why things happen. India’s economy is irrelevant by comparison with the potential it has for division, chaos and violence. The success or failure of a nation or a society is sourced in the quality of life which its citizens can expect and the principles of civilization upon which they can draw, or rather, rely. India has massive problems to overcome …. many maintained by its own actions in terms of where it chooses not to spend money … and none of them will be solved without justice and hope for all of its citizens and without world action which removes the impetus for disaffection amongst Muslims.
Look at the facts:
The terrorists clearly wanted to cause mayhem on a broad scale, targeting six or seven busy areas of Mumbai - they were not a suicide squad intent on one big display, a la the WTC bombings. Now reports are emerging that the sole aim was (allegedly) to kill Israelis? This is patent rubbish.
The terrorists didn’t even have a clear idea (when negotiators asked by phone) why they mounted this attack, which was extremely well organised. After conferring among themselves, they said it was to gain the freedom of Mujihadeen prisoners.
If killing Israelis was indeed their sole aim, why would their operations be so widespread and so indiscriminate? And why would they (within the hotel) also target US and UK passport holders? The majority of the dead were not Israelis or Europeans, they were commuters waiting to get on to trains at Chattrapati station.
The terrorists could clearly be seen wearing the red wrist strings of the Hindu religion, and independent Indian witnesses reported their surprise at seeing "white-skinned", "foreign-looking" and "blond" gunmen, not the dusky-skinned terrorists they expected.
Many witnesses expressed disgust at the total lack of engagement the terrorists met with. Many have said that anti terrorism forces were on the ground, but did not fire at the gunmen, who were clearly identifiable, and who were walking around spraying gunfire..
The terrorist attacks took place at many locations throughout Mumbai almost simultaneously, not just at one hotel, yet only nine bodies of "terrorists" have been found, most of them brought into the morgue by the Indian secret services.
None of these bodies is readily identifiable, the pathologists have stated that without exception all the faces were mutilated, rendering facial recognition impossible.
The Indian authorities who intercepted the terrorists’ drifting boat have declared there was separate equipment for fifteen individuals not ten, and they feel some terrorists are still at large, perhaps having escaped after impersonating hostages, or having been allowed to do so.
Too many questions left unanswered for anyone to go blaming an obscure group no-one (until now) had ever heard of.
rosroaa
I think you are helping to prove my point.
Firstly, all you say is correct but you haven’t balanced it by looking accros the table and seeing the violent and vicious occupation of Afghanistan. You haven’t mentioned how the Jewish people situated in other parts of Muslim Africa have been brutalised to the point where they have had to leave the country and become homeless refugees. Infact, you have such a strong filtering system you haven’t mentioned any attrocities than those delivered to muslims.
Secondly, by trying to move forward by looking backwards (even with unfiltered eyes) would not and can not help the cause of peace. How far back do you look? America in Iraq, Russia in Afghanistan, Britain in India and Afghanistan, the Holy wars, Rome’s conquest of the middle east, Alaxander the Great, Egypt’s conquering of Jurusalem, Babylon’s? Or are the muslims wrong as they only came into existance in about 600AD and so have a relatively recent demand on historical land. You can’t go into the past to help the future, especially if you only look at it from one side. But even if you look at both sides you will only gain history not a ptth to peace. History will only add conditions to every sides desire for peace. And conditional peace is not peace at all.
You will only gain a path to peace when all sides want peace and the stating point is the unconditional desire and intent to have peace.
Ammendment.
Firstly sorry for mistyping your name and I was describing the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 80’s in the first paragraph.
g
ghood,
I mention the oppression of Muslims because that is central to the topic. The allegation is that Muslim radicals were responsible for what happened. One therefore tries to put that in context.
It is not about Jews or Christians or Muslims being treated badly per se: it is about acts defined as terrorism and I merely make the point that the State sanctioned terrorism of Israel and the US are major factors in the terrorism of Muslim radicals.
I agree with you about not looking back. I am not looking back. I am looking at the here and now. In the here and now the US is a violent occupier of Iraq; Israel is a violent occupier and coloniser of Palestine; the US and allies are violent ‘occupiers’ in Afghanistan to the degree that they are supporting a puppet government; a western stooge and interfering in the life of Afghans…. in the same way that they intervened to put the Taliban into power in the first place.
These are ongoing human rights abuses and war crimes against Muslims which are used by radicals to fuel yet more violence.
If something were done about these festering sores the world could go some way to diminishing the rage which many Muslims feel and therefore, diminishing the violence.
As to the Muslim ‘demand on land’ as you put it, this is not the issue. Australians, Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders and Israelis have even more recent demands on land and yet the world accepts they should exist. What the world does not accept and Palestinians do not accept is that Israel refused to make apology for the wrongs done in its foundation as other historically recent colonisers have done and not only refuses to end its occupation but continues to colonise.
When it comes to violence there is only one side: Opposition. And, as I have said before, that means opposition to all violence including State sanctioned terrorism carried out to maintain occupation, colonisation, or to entrench military power.
Leo,
Where did you get these facts. I haven’t read about mutilated faces and Hindi wrist threads. nothing would surprise me of course. It is very convenient that they are all from Pakistan and highly likely that meddling foreigners are involved and even more meddling secret service groups, but the fact is we do not know.
And yes, logic suggests there was too much activity and carnage for a mere ten gunmen.
I lived in Bombay (Mumbai) for four years and know all of these places well. We lived at the Oberoi for a year. I can’t believe that two or three armed men could ‘hold’ that place in the way that they did for as long as they did. Ditto the Taj.
It also takes a very long time to get around Bombay and there is no way that gunmen could move from one site to another.
It is also odd that so few foreigners died and so many Indians when supposedly they were after UK and US citizens. And then the Jewish factor … why would you spread yourself so thin? And why Nariman House and a fundamentalist rabbi …. it’s all a bit odd and all a bit convenient if one wants to create discord between Pakistan and India and accord between India and Israel and India and the US.
I suspect the truth will out on the Indian blogs. Gossip is a way of life in India and while in India it is ‘enough to wish something were true to say that it is,’ the facts do have a way of escaping.
rosross,
Here is one link, which I re-found just by typing in "blond terrorist mumbai".
I just read lots of alternative reports. You have to.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7752625.stm
This is interesting in terms of the broader picture of who and what might be behind the India attacks.
http://www.countercurrents.org/chossudovsky011208.htm
rosross,
I’ve supplied links to my information source, but the moderators apparently have to approve posts now, so it may be a while before they get back from TAFE.
Oops. I see they’ve inserted it up there. Apologies to moderators.
Hi Leo
There is an automated spam filter which moderates/blocks some posts which include urls - but strangely not all of them. We approve the posts as we receive moderator notifications.
Regards
Rod
Managing Editor
newmatilda.com
Leo, Thanks for the link. I do read alternative press, consistently. I am sure that information will emerge over time although not from the Indian Government.
Leo,http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21378.htm
If you have not seen this you might find it interesting.
rosross,
The captured gunman is reportedly from a little Pakistani village out Woop Woop, but guess what? No-one there has ever heard of him.
Here’s a link
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/56808.html
Go for simplicity , the ‘T’ word is political nonsense.
Looks a lot like a build up to civil war , these help a country greatly by reducing population pressures , removing those wanting a glorious death for their cause (southerners in the US civil war were renowned for that) and providing people with a personal history of why killing is futile , much like the ANZAC tradition.
Oz is building up to one over water resources.
Lads (rosross and Leo), you forgot to mention that most of the Jews who lived in and around Mumbai/Bombay emigrated because they, too, were discriminated against.
Whatever you think of Jewish people, you surely can’t deny that they were the blacks of post-Roman Empire Europe, and thanks to the occasionally crazy policies of Israeli governments, are still regarded as pariahs. If there were 400 million Jews world-wide instead of 30 million (correct me, someone; I’m sure I’ve got that figure wrong), they’d be less of an easy target..
Hah, trust revilo to bring a bit of sanity to the situation! (Along with the good Mr. ghood, of course..)
Judaism in the context of world conflicts is a can of worms. Judaism can’t be accused of terrorism, whereas Israel can.
Don’t forget that many millions of Jews feel that their diaspora is a punishment from God and they wear that hair shirt willingly. Their kingdom is God’s and is to come. In the meantime their fate is to live in the lands of Gentiles, which is where we get the phrase the "wandering Jew".
As Prof, Israel Knohl puts it: "The reversible order to perform child sacrifice served as a test for Abraham’s faith, which he passed with flying colors; the People of Israel failed their test of faith, hence they are issued an irreversible order."
Many devout Jews see the formation of the present Israel as a blasphemy and are anti Zionist. They live quietly and prosper amongst the heathen. The real fanatics (as is so often the case - Hitler was Austrian, Napoleon was Corsican and Stalin was Georgian) are outsiders. Next time you hear Israeli settlers interviewed on TV, remember they’re just that - settlers.
Leo, you’re correct on that score, but were the English/Scottish planters who descended on Ireland, and virtually destroyed the native population and any vestiges of their culture in the 16th-18th centuries, just regarded as "settlers"?
The Soviets who took over Koningsberg and literally raped and pillaged their way through Prusssia, Poland and eastern Germany; were they regarded as "settlers"?
The Israelis who have occupied large parts of the West Bank are just as bad. I don’t consider myself as contradicting my last entry here; most Jews I know are good, decent people who also think that Israeli governments are, more often than not, full of nutcases.
It is time, though, that Israel departed the West Bank, and that the government got its arse in gear and made peace with its neighbours. (Ok, I must admit that I loathe Hamas and Hezbolllah, and what they stand for, even though they wield enormous power where they hold sway..)
"but were the English/Scottish planters who descended on Ireland, and virtually destroyed the native population and any vestiges of their culture in the 16th-18th centuries, just regarded as "settlers"?"
Most definitely, and they still are!
Not where I come from, pal..try occupiers..