Breaking News in Bombay via AP:
Seven explosions rocked Bombay’s commuter rail network during Tuesday evening’s rush hour. The blasts ripped apart train compartments and reportedly killed dozens, police and Indian media said.
Though the chaos makes it difficult to ascertain exact numbers, how many have been injured, Indiant tv reports said that “the death toll could be in the dozens.”
40 80 100 105 137 163 172 200 people have died and 300 464 700 are injured. I’m sure that before I can even update this post, one of you will comment with the latest numbers; I sincerely hope that they are not high. I know, I’m excessively idealistic, but whenever I hear “Breaking News”, “Bombs” or “Trains” or similar, I screw my eyes shut and pray for miracles.
Television images showed injured victims sprawled on train tracks, frantically dialing their cell phones. Some of the injured were being carried away from the crash site. The force of the blasts ripped doors and windows off carriages, and luggage and debris were strewn about.
Pranay Prabhakar, the spokesman for the Western Railway, confirmed that seven blasts had taken place. He said all trains had been suspended, and he appealed to the public to stay away from the city’s train stations.
Bombay, India’s financial center, and New Delhi, the capital, were reportedly on high alert. Bombay’s commuter rail network is among the most crowded in the world.
Developing… 🙁
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UPDATE # 1
Though CNN is reporting that no group has claimed responsibility, the NYT has updated the article I originally cited with the following:
The blasts appeared to have come in quick succession — a common tactic employed by Kashmiri militants that have repeatedly targeted India’s cities.
The first explosion hit the train at a railway station in the northwestern suburb of Khar, said a police officer who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
India’s CNN-IBN television news, which had a reporter traveling on the train, said the blast took place in a first-class car as the train was moving, ripping through the compartment and killing more than a dozen people.
…All of India’s major cities were reportedly on high alert following the attacks, which came hours after a series of grenade attacks by Islamic extremists killed eight people in the main city of India’s part of Kashmir.
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UPDATE # 2
MANISH IS OKAY.
The image you see above is from Ultrabrown; his post on this horrific terrorist attack is here.
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UPDATE # 3
CNBC’s reporter phones in to update the death toll: 100.
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UPDATE # 4
The Mumbai Help blog has resources, updates and a very important reminder that blood donors are needed desperately.
If you’re not shaken to your very core by this tragedy yet, perhaps this simple quote from that site will affect you as much as it has unexpectedly moved me (every other person on my team at work is a PWCer):
I’m so sorry
harshad borgaonkar from price waterhouscooper. His i-card was found amongst the debries [link]
My prayers are with all who were lost, those who are injured, those who are fighting to literally pick up the pieces and help, those who cannot reach family and friends and everyone else who is affected by this craven, calculated attack.
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UPDATE # 5
Bloomberg.com provides new and updated totals:
India’s commercial hub, was rocked by seven explosions on trains and in commuter stations yesterday, killing at least 163 people and injuring 464 in the nation’s worst terrorist attack in 13 years. [link]
There is now a wiki for the event and instead of lashing out scornfully against India’s neighbor, please note that it was created by a Pakistani-American in California named Sabahat Ashraf (via ASATA’s mailing list). SAJA says he “helped lead similar resource (sic) during 2005 Kashmir earthquake”.
SAJA’s contribution to blast-related resources–which includes a link to SM Alum Manish Vij’s Ultrabrown— is here.
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UPDATE # 6
Via Reuters, the grim reality of the wounded city, where predictably, they are running low on hospital beds as well as blood:
“Most of the patients have received burn injuries and are suffering from severe trauma,” M.E Yeolekar, head of Sion Hospital, told Reuters.
“In my entire career as a physician, this is the second destruction I have seen of this magnitude,” he said, referring to bomb blasts in the western city in 1993 which killed 250 and wounded around 1,000 people.
On whom we are praying for:
Hundreds of relatives frantically pored over a list of dead and injured outside the hospital, a scene repeated at many other hospitals, packed with people searching for friends and relatives.
Some of the people who entered a makeshift morgue were unable to identify badly mutilated bodies.
Considering some of the uglier talk on this thread and elsewhere, it’s important to remember that Muslims died, too:
“I spoke to him 10 minutes before he died,” said Haji Mastan, sobbing uncontrollably over the death of his cousin Mukti Mahmood Darvesh, who was travelling on one of the suburban trains.
“Why did it have to end like this? He was young and he has children.”
It’s always darkest before the dawn:
In another hospital, staff constantly mopped up blood from the floor as patients were being wheeled in by the minute.
“We collected scattered limbs with our own hands and put them in bundles and sent them to hospital,” said Santosh Patil, a railway labourer, as he stretchered in a mangled body.
First person account of an attack designed for maximum carnage:
“It was a deafening sound and before anybody could realise anything the roof of the train was ripped apart,” said Mukund Thakur, who was travelling to the northern suburb of Andheri.
“People were thrown outside. I saw limbs strewn around me.”
During our lowest moments, all we have is each other:
Local people distributed food and water among hundreds of people who waited for news from their near and dear ones.
“We are trying to persuade them to have something,” Gurpreet Singh Bangar told Reuters.
“In this moment of distress and tragedy, people don’t care for food,” he said. “But everybody has to live.”
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UPDATE # 7
More from the Beeb. Some commuters never had a chance:
An eyewitness at Mahim told the BBC some of those who had jumped from the train were run over by another train coming in the opposite direction.
Others were lost in the stampede which was inevitable, considering all the panic.
What price, for a life? Nothing can truly compensate for such a staggering loss, but…
The Indian railway minister, Laloo Prasad Yadav, has announced financial help for the victims and their relatives. He said relatives of those killed will get 500,000 rupees ($11,000) each.
He has promised jobs for the victims’ relatives and said the railways would also bear treatment costs for the injured.
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UPDATE # 8
I know, it’s ten hours old, but this quote from the web chat WaPo hosted with Suketu Mehta, the author of Maximum City, almost makes me smile:
Washington, D.C.: As a former Bombay resident, I was pleasantly pleased at the way the city reacted to the bomb blast last time around. I hope the same sense will prevail this time as well — nothing defeats the terrorists more than gettting back to normal within hours of such an incident.
Every resident of the city — former or current — walks wounded today.
Suketu Mehta: Bombay is not going to be beaten down by these blasts. In 1993, the blasts killed 257 people; one of the buildings bombed was the Stock Exchange. The plotters were hoping to cripple the financial nerve center of the city. When the Stock Exchange reopened two days later, using the old manual trading system because the computers had been destroyed, it actually gained ten percent in the next two days. Just to show them.
Show ’em again.
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UPDATE # 9
Mutineer Neha reminds me to check and then change the “tolls”. At this point, 900 people are either dead or injured (200/700). Have mercy.
The number of dead in the eight near-simultaneous bombings during Tuesday evening’s rush hour in India’s financial hub has risen steadily as rescue efforts uncovered more bodies and people have succumbed to their injuries.[link]
Meanwhile, the city kept on keepin’ on and Suketu Mehta (see Update # 8) was right. As one tipster wrote about the Sensex in our News tab, “Can’t touch this”:
Following the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai yesterday, the Sensex opened marginally (nine points) lower at 10,605…Early nervousness saw the index slip to a low of 10,550. However, buying emerged at these levels and the index rebounded into the positive zone.
Unabated buying in technology and select index heavyweights saw the index surge to higher levels in the latter half of the day. The index touched a high of 10,939 – up 389 points from the day’s low. The Sensex finally ended with a gain of 3% (316 points) at 10,930.[link]
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UPDATE # 10
More, from the Guardian/AP. While people once again board trains and the city limps back to its routine, hell isn’t over for far too many Mumbaikars:
Authorities say they do not know how many missing people there are. But Indian television stations are broadcasting pictures of dozens of missing in the hopes of helping relatives locate them.
You know how everyone knows or is related to someone in NYC? Same with Bombay:
“I’ve been searching for hours. I don’t know where else to go,” he sighed.
His colleague’s family lives in the southern city of Bangalore. “His wife called me up and said she hadn’t heard from him and we’ve been searching ever since.”
Because so many hospitals are treating victims, the search is difficult, Ahir says. Making matters worse, many with lesser wounds have been sent to the city’s many small clinics because the hospitals are overflowing.
“What do I tell her when she calls again?” he asked.
I hadn’t even thought of this heartbreaking reality:
There are also victims without families.
At a suburban hospital, a small boy lies unconscious, an oxygen mask strapped to his face. No one knows who he is.
“We searched him for identification, any photographs, but there is nothing,” said volunteer Shilpa Basin. “What if he was traveling with someone and they are injured as well?”
How many children are orphans now? If he wakes up, will this little boy even know where he’s from, what his parents’ names are, who he is? Heartbreaking.
This reminds me of Lower Manhattan, after September 11:
Gandhi, a college student, said her family had spread out to various city hospitals. “We’re taking his picture and showing it to anyone – to injured people, even to relatives of victims. Maybe someone will remember seeing him and we will find him,” she said.
Another horrifying problem: how do you identify someone after something like this…
Gautam Chavan, is fearing the worst.
“I saw how the coach had exploded, if that is the state of a rail coach, what chance do people inside have?”
Scenes of badly wounded people being brought to the hospitals upset him.
“What if we can’t recognize him? What if he’s not recognizable? When will we know?” he cried.
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UPDATE # 11
Via The Hindu: Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri makes tactless remarks, which rightfully get condemned by India (and me).
External Affairs Ministry Spokesman Navtej Sarna said “no cause” could justify killing of innocent people…we find it appalling that Foreign Minister Kasuri should seek to link the blatant and inhuman act of terrorism against innocent men, women and children to so called lack of resolution of disputes between India and Pakistan”.
What did the Foreign Minister say exactly? Oh, just this:
Kasuri has said the “best way” of dealing with extremism in South Asia is to tackle “real issue” of Jammu and Kashmir.
Right, because that justifies the slaughter of innocents.
Noting that not much progress has been made on Kashmir problem, (Kasuri) said “incremental approach is good but now we must tackle real issues. And this is the best way of tackling extremism in South Asia”.
Of course it is. Kill first, talk later.
Oh Anna, a girl after my own heart. I saw the Pixies reunion tour last year too – solid, but they were a bit too clinical with their massive attack. I am still more Thurston and Kim over Frank and Kim (though it is really a close call). How does one “ping you offline” homegirl?
Besides praising a decadent meal and a good time, Epicurus also questioned the existence of Deism. To wit – “If God wishes to prevent evilbut cannot, then he/she is impotent; If he/she could, but will not, he/she is malevolent.”
Kudos, Apu
Sorry, I probably amended my last “handle” too late. Try “Suitablegirl” at Google’s mail dot com. It should be what my name links to on this comment, too…
“SuitableGirl” – brilliant!! I’ll shout out to you Anna.
Hukku – great quote.
how long before this is blamed on the Hindutvadis? How many commissions will be set up to direct blame on the Hindus?
Fuck all of you godless bastards.
Just kidding! 🙂
At the end of the day, I feel small, powerless, and frightened in the face of these events. Most of us do, I think. Sorry if I dropped the “sand-bomb” (lol anna!) too quickly for comfort. I’m a stressed-out brother. Join the crowd, right?
As for God – maybe it’s not really about debating whether or not this being exists to change what happens in the world. I felt the same way you do at one point, Apu, but decided at some point that I find comfort in the idea that there is some form of meaning beyond the material world. Some people find faith in dark moments, others lose it completely. I can’t really say which one is better, I can just say what I believe and resist your assault on that. You do assume too much when you state that faith necessarily replaces reason and consciousness/analysis of material circumstances. You also assume too much when you confound faith with religion. I can be fully critical and disgusted with the way religion has served as a means to oppress and divide while remaining faithful in my own personal way.
Anyway. Love and peace. I hope everyone’s peoples are safe and sound.
Ranj, you ain’t heavy, you’re my brother, son… Your point is well taken.
There is a post on Karachi Metro blog – Best Wishes to Mumbai.
I wonder if there is any level of support for these kind of attacks by Kashmiri seperatists in the larger Kashmiri community.
Slate.com in its daily blog round-up quoted conservative American blog Captain’s Quarters as one of the blog sources to visit for a take on the Mumbai bombings. Check out the first sentence:
That first sentence alone goes to show you the ignorance of a large section of
conservativeAmerica. First they imply that every terrorist attack is connected to al-Qaeda and then they go on to assume that terrorism is something new to India. The entry continues:FYI Captain’s Quarters is one of the more widely read blogs here in America. Here is how its traffic compares to SM.
Slate’s blog roundup was written by their intern! I swear I do better research. ducks
Abhi,
I am not at all implying that Al Queda is involved in Mumbai train attack.
However, you are missing two points: 1) Al Queda is not a corporation. It consists of loosely knit every-changing, disparate groups that work together from time to time, often sub-contracted and a lot of them have their hub in Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Quite a few Al-Queda operatives got their first taste of field in Kashmir. Wasn’t that American Taliban kid who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001 confessed being in Kashmir?
2) Osama bin Laden has openly threatened India on various ocasions in his video releases.
Therefore, Captain Quarters maybe wrong on this instance or maybe, they are accidently on something. Let’s wait and see.
There is an excellent movie Khamoshi Pani (made by Pakistani movie director)- a very simple story that also shows how easily 1-2 operative can come to a town/ village and easily enroll militants.
Abhi:
Speculation about an al-Qaeda connection revolves around Dawood Ibrahim. Conservative bloggers do tend to conflate the various “Islamofascist” groups in the world, even w/ those that are secular and non-fascist, but I think that’s better than thinking the only group America has to worry about is Al Qaeda. Politics make strange bedfellows you know, as the crises in N. Korea shows.
But at least the conservative bloggers are addressing the issue. You’d need a microscope or an hallucinogenic pill to see this act of war being addressed on a some of the liberal blogs, like daily kos or talking points memo. Why? Well, we’ll leave that for another day.
It may not specifically be Al Qaeda but basically same philosophy, same goals, same M.O. To differentiate between AQ and Lashkar is drawing a very fine distinction.
I am not at all implying that Al Queda is involved in Mumbai train attack.
B. Raman, who is considered a credible Indian journalist on terrorism, openly contemplates an Al Qaeda link in Outlook.
Kush, you have to give me some credit 🙂
The way CQ phrased it gave the impression that al-Queda gives direct orders to every fringe group. Some of the groups in India have been operating long before the world ever heard of al-Queda.
When I want to get a pulse of the conservative mood I go to Drudge. He only had the Mumbai bombings as his headline for half a day whereas the London and Madrid bombings were up as his main headline for several days. What is the difference between Mumbai and London/Madrid? I will let you guess the obvious. The amount of attention being paid to this isn’t a liberal conservative thing. It is a Wester/Eurocentric non-Western/Eurocentric thing.
The main point of my comment was not “is this AQ or isn’t it” but that some sites have the impression that terrorism is NEW to India and that this is an expansion of some sort in retaliation for other global problems, which is hardly the case.
Hi, first time poster, longtime reader. Interesting point there, Manju (#213) about the liberal blogs not saying anything. I even went to my favorite magazine’s website, The Nation, and all they have there is a link to an article about it from the Christian Science Monitor. Enraged earlier today, when I could not get a hold of my middle-aged parents who live in Mumbai (they are fine, I later found out), and having had to see my beloved hometown torn to shreds on 9/11 (where I still live), I decided this morning to break with the left and wrote a very angry e-mail to many of my Muslim friends (many of whom I cried and kept vigil with after the WTC), demanding to know what they thought of the Islamo-facists who they were in cahoots with who had killed my parents and that I was now considering each and every Muslim in the world to be tacitly supporting Islamo-facists (I am a Hindu, by the way). Over the course of the day, after I had spoken with my parents and friends in Mumbai, I didn’t write an apology to those people, although I got many concerned responses. Although perhaps it is that the anger is still seething inside me about this senseless violence, I am wondering if many other people feel this way. I am not entirely sure that my anger this morning was totally unfounded: so many horrible things are being bombed by these people, and although Muslims seem to be equally disturbed by these things, none are out fighting terrorism to a large degree (i.e., Arabic translators in the military). I am a bit troubled by this; does anyone feel uncomfortable now? I don’t mean to start some Muslim-bashing thing here, I am just wondering if these sorts of things are what have crossed other peoples’ minds, and what do they think of this? Am I just going nuts?
News Hour with Jim Lehrer had a report from “Time” correspondent in Delhi. He said that Lashkar-e-Toiba is suspected. Times of India reports LeT, SIMI hand in Mumbai blasts
Lashkar-e-Toiba has known links to Al-Queda via ISI (as per Alex Perry of “Time” magazine)
Kush, Good that you pointed out your point #2 in your post #212. I have read the transcripts of Bin Laden’s video and he or Zawahiri routinely adds India to the list of their enemies.
Fair point Abhi (although a UCLA study revealed Drudge actually leans left) but it doesn’t contradict my point (“But at least the conservative bloggers are addressing the issue. You’d need a microscope or an hallucinogenic pill to see this act of war being addressed on a some of the liberal blogs, like daily kos or talking points memo”); it only adds another wrinkle to it.
I’m a student at UCLA and even I don’t believe that. Besides the study you are refering to was largely discredited about two months later. I will look for the link later.
Yes, on this I agree. I think America has always been psychologically isolationist even though as a political force itÂ’s been dormant for more than 50 years. But every once in a while pat buchanan breaks from the republicans and taps into it.
I haven’t checked out the BBC and British press yet on todays bombings, but I’m sure the coverage will be much dfferent.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper is doing a good job…comprehensively covering the blasts.
Day 2: Just got off the phone with Dad. As expected, WR services have been atleast partially restored. People who spent the night in offices have started trickling back home. Others have started going back to work on the very same trains. Phone lines seems to be back to normal
i’m stunned.
it’s a sad sad day.
my sincere condolences to all the families that lost loved ones in this tragedy.
unbelieveable.
If there is an Al-Qaeda hand in this, it is because they find it increasingly difficult to co-ordinate attacks on Western targets as they are too well protected, India’s railways are a soft target and i wouldn’t be surprised if Al-Jazeera airs a tape with Zawahari praising this new attack. Truth be told, Bin Laden and his cronies never talked about India much. Kashmir was almost a passing reference in the tapes that it was mentioned. There can be a couple of reasons for this.
A lot of jihadi funding goes through Persian Gulf countries and is influenced by Gulf based charities, during the Ayodha and Godhra incidents however, there wasn’t much hue and cry by the arabs at all except for cables of condolences by the Emir’s of the countries. As a matter of fact it was the Indian muslim expatriates that registered the most significant outrage against the Indian government, the arabs themselves were more concerned about the ‘Palestine problem’. The arab newspapers addressed the lack of significant arab outcry. However, it turned into a ‘Compare India and Israel contest’ with India emerging as the winner with regards to being Islam-friendly and that was that!
However, the more common notion (and one that i personally lean towards from my life there) is that Arabs are not really concerned about Indian lives, Indians are a sub-human race in many of their eyes. Some of them still find it hard to grasp that India can defeat their countries in a military endeavour. This notion is not limited to India. Anyone from South Asia are regarded in the same light. The reason we see a lot of anti-India bias in the political scene is mainly Pakistani lobbying, Pakistan has always deployed their manpower when it came to military needs of Persian Gulf countries. If you take a look at the military personnel you shall find lots of Pakistani’s in the Qatari,Saudi,Kuwaiti armed forces. When there was a lack of a adequate police commisioner in the district of Qatar i grew up,the only non-arab allowed was a capable Pakistani. During the siege of Mecca and Medina, the militants (Intrestingly this was the first reported terrorist attack where a bin-laden was implicated, it wasn’t Osama) beat back the Saudi national guard and killed many of them due to guard’s poor counter terrorism skills. It was Pakistan who provided special forces along with French GIGN troops (who went through the fastest conversion to Islam ever!) that managed to break the siege and kill all the militants.There is no denying Gulf funding of jihadi groups though as that and providing a safe haven for anti-India terrorists is the extent of their involvement.
Arabs don’t consider India important enough. I read a report by a former RAW agent on how when they apprehended arab or Uzbek terrorists RAW couldn’t intimidate them. However, when a Mossad agent was admitted to the interrogation and the militant was told that he was going to Israel with the agent, the guy was pleading not to be sent and was spilling his guts out. Such is the specter of Israel in eyes of fundies. India is simply not a significant threat.
If Al-Qaeda has decided to get involved, this is more of a cry for attention as their attempts in Canada, USA have all come apart and its increasing difficult for them to attack. And of course whatever moral justification many of them have for answering the call to Jihad died along with the last Russian tank to face the wrath of a RPG, now its all about finding new targets and making sure their presence in the world is felt and what better target than the pagan country in the east that they never paid much attention to.
Guys,
You should read.
Anyone else feeling rather alone in dealing with this? I grew up in the US and most of my close family is here, but I have been “back” to Bombay every year for the past 25, so I feel a strong connection to the country, the city and its people. And yet, it seems like everyone I know has forgotten that I’m Indian, and expects me to go about my daily business normally. Other than my family, I haven’t talked to anyone about it (no one’s asked, and its hard to bring up terrorism as a lunchtime conversation topic), not even the few Indians I work with, not even my Indian friends! It’s weird how that happens…
Deafening sounds,and shreiks, Go away, we don’t want you here, Pouring of love and compassion, Come here and stay, A field of million red roses you make this seem.
Tears that flowed yesterday, May they be replaced by smiles today, Prayers that you heard yesterday, O Almighty, Please answer them today…
Keep loved ones close, And their love closer, Keep their smiles and their souls intact, And their grief — Away.
If the Indian government had any balls they would:
Short of all this, an Indian’s life is worth shit in the eyes of his government and many of the “love thy neighbor” morons on this board
Vikram, your point of view is valued here but ONLY if you are courteous enough to refrain from invalidating other people. Please calm down. We are all upset, whether we “love our neighbor” or not.
Our old friend, Arzan has open mic @ Metroblogging Mumbai. Please visit him.
In case no one put this up already: The Mumbai Police have posted lists of casualties with names. A lot of the lists are written in Devanagari script. I, as well as other people, would certainly be willing to help someone read if need be.
Ranjit, that is so kind of you. Thank you for posting such a useful comment; AFAIK, no one had contributed it yet.
If anyone has additional links or resources (or heartwarming stories of tiny bits of goodness piercing the darkness), please leave them.
hail mogambo
ANNA: in response to your query :-): Amit Varma has a host of excellent links and resources, including heartwrenching and warming stories from the ground, including a few from Dilip d’Souza. My thoughts and prayers are with all Mumbaikers.
toll is up to 190 and counting…i pray for peace and love– i pray for the end of bitterness, sorrow, and the pain of my people– ALL of my people. Know this, my brown sisters and brothers– nothing can truly separate us– all are one in the eyes of Love. “Oh Lord, lead me from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality”
alone:
Yea.
I’ve read a number of comments that criticize the Indian police force / justice system for ineffectiveness at finding and punishing the perpetrators. And I’ve read a number of comments that remind us that a) there are many Muslims who are against terrorist acts, b) deplore what happened, and say that c) the terrorists are the exception to civil Muslim society, not the rule. What all these comments consistently do is deny the culture and community of any role whatsoever in fundamentalist Islamic terrorism. What this rhetoric does is glosses over the fact that a community is a collection of people with a structure of relationships, and those relationships are not homogeneous but often are specialized. Understanding that structure–its elements and relationships–can help us understand better where the problems (and hence solutions) lie.
Since the ineffectiveness of the Indian police force and judicial system has been mentioned, I’d like to first contrast that with the American system, which is generally considered very efficient. If in America someone commits a crime, the police are pretty good at figuring out who did it and catching up with him–why? From the criminal’s point of view, after he commits a crime (and let’s say we’re talking about blue-collar, violent crime, not white-collar dipping into the company-till-type crime)–beats up someone, kidnaps, or kills someone–in the society he doesn’t have anywhere to go, realistically. He might evade law enforcement for a short while, but the general public is against him. There are alerts out for him–his face is on TV, in the newspapers, in the postoffice. Of course, he may find sympathetic family members or an occaisional long-time acquaintence to shelter him, but that is the extent of help he might get. In America, when a criminal commits a crime, it is a society versus an individual.
But what if there existed a series of safe-houses established to shelter the criminal? Safe-houses, of course, implies that there are some people–enough–in society who sympathize with the activities of our criminal and who would give him a safe harbor from law enforcement. People who keep and own these safe houses themselves may not directly participate in the crime, but they certainly are supporting it. The existence of a network of safe-houses implies that the people who provide them likely do not see the criminal’s acts as being criminal acts at all. As such, here we have a group of people who have values that differ from the values behind the law enforcement agency that is looking for the person they are sheltering. Since these values differ and are held by a number of people who likely have relationships with each other, we are now speaking of a society. So for law enforcement, terrorism is a much harder nut to crack because it is no longer a question of a society against an individual but a society against a society.
Since societies are not homogeneous entities but are hierarchical and have specialized nodes, it is entirely possible for a small portion of society to be radically different (but not too different) in its values and functions from the mainstream society it is attached to. Take for example the clergy that represent any religion–they are typically very few and stand apart from society in terms of their education, dress, speech, and occupation. While the vast majority of the other fellow citizens that patronize their places of worship are not about to take up the life of a cleric, a few from the crowd eventually will. A cleric’s expertise is being able to minister, or appeal, to a wide audience that exhibits levels of committment from minimal to superlative. The vast majority of congregants will be from minimal to moderate in their committments, but the clerics are most interested in those who will answer to a higher calling.
For example, people who are minimally faithful to Islam may consider it a good thing to propagate Islam all around the world. People who are moderately faithful believe that there needs to be some action with that lipservice and give money or time in support of Islam’s conquest. And then there are the minority of people who will be on the front line who will be implementing the conquest. What they all share in common is a basic idea that at various levels of society differs in its implementation but itself remains the same.
And implementation of an idea itself is also a kind of idea, too. If violence has legitimacy in the tradition (as in, that’s how the great religious leaders in the past did it), then violence can never be completely ruled out as a legitimate means of achieving ends for which the tradition has given sanction. The Mahabharata and the Ramayana–the two great Hindu epics–closely tie violence and religion. According to them there is such a thing as a dharma-yuddha, or a holy war, a fight on the grounds of religion. Islam also has an extensive provision for the use of violence in achieving its ends. (This is not to argue some theological equivalency between Hinduism and Islam in the matter of violence. If in both tradions we look closely at the conditions and rationales underwhich violence is sanctioned within each, we will see important differences.) What this means is that the religion itself, as it has been historically practiced, is a source for values in the community, and the swamis, sadhus, druids, priests, clerics, mullahs, etc., are the gatekeepers of that source.
It is one thing to deplore violence, as many fine Muslims do, yet it would be quite another thing for them to repudiate their tradition. Repudiating tradition means practically repudiating one’s own identity–something the vast majority of Muslims who sincerely condemn terrorism are unlikely to do. Hence, there will always be a space within Muslim society at large for a small, minority to superlatively follow the tradition. Otherwise, to repudiate one’s tradition would put one outside of his tradition and the community that is more or less founded on it. But who is to say what notion of tradition is authentic and what is inauthentic? That comes back to the heads of the religion–the priests, the clerics, etc. They are therefore the gatekeepers of a very important source of values for the community.
Although terrorism is conducted by a minority, it is an elite minority of clerics that has the allegience and legitimacy of the people they lead. This elite minority (including terrorists – they are elite even if we don’t like them) is cultivated from a majority who will likely never become extremists. This elite minority, however, retains a general sense of legitimacy from its majority, non-extremeist members who are faced with either condemning violence officially and generally but who also choose not to challenge or break with the tradition.
What this all suggests is that if we really want to do something about Islamic terrorism, we must first recognize that it is indeed a problem at the societal level. Then the “gate keepers” of Islamic tradition–the Mullahs–will have to be seriously altered in their understanding of Islam or outright shut down. I don’t think that this will happen without significant interference from forces that are outside of Islamic culture. But the clerics are the disseminators of ideas, recruiters, and maintainers of what we know today as Islam.
If you can change them, the Muslim clerics, then you will make much progress in controlling terrorism. But if you cannot change them, then no matter how much we beef up security and law enforcement, terrorism will recur just as a hydra’s heads grow back after they are cut off.
I have not read all the comments but apologize if somebody has already put this information on earlier.
There is a website, http://www.mumbaipolice.org, that has a list of all the casulaties. The poeple who are wounded are listed by name and which hospital they have been admitted. Also, per Zee News Network, there is no shortage of blood anymore. People donated blood in droves and the doctor being interviewed opined that he does not see a need for more blood donations.
Also, there were numerous stories of how Mumbaikars helped each other thru these trying times, just the way they did during the flooding last year. Hats off to them!!! They are not going a bunch of cowards beat them.
LET says its not them – historically they claim responsibility for attacks.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-07-12T070258Z_01_ISL75944_RTRUKOC_0_US-INDIA-BLAST-MILITANTS.xml&archived=False
DUBAI DAVE: Nice one, mate. ‘Cos what the world needs now is MORE violence! Of course! I can’t believe it took us so long to see it, thanks for stepping in there.
And Vikram too, brilliant brilliant analysis of postcolonial international politics and security issues.
I am so relieved that there are people like you guys out there posting your comforting comments for us all to see.
Particularly for those who have family members directly affected by these blasts, or who have been frantically trying to get in touch with them to see if they are alright. I mean if it wasn’t well wishes, your sentiments would have certainly warmed their hearts as much as they have warmed mine.
Nice one, guys. As others have said, it would be nice if this thread at least could be a space for us to come together and share our grief.
Yes, we’re all angry about what’s happened but may I suggest you set up your own blog if you want to take over a thread with a post about a national tragedy with the topic of Muslim hatred.
How about, um, ifuckinghatethoseturbanheads.com? Or nukesachievepeace.net? I for one promise to pay it a visit and leave you comments that are about as intelligent and insightful as the ones you chose to leave today.
Flygirl, we’re Bombayites and always will be. If anyone’s noticed the discussions being had today between Indians, or even on the title of this post, we’ve slipped back into familiar ‘Bombay’ and all the emotion it evokes.
For all those directly affected by the attacks, heartfelt condolences. It’s not about politics, or religion or sectarian whatever, today just made me realise the importance of family. Peace to all
RC and alone: yeah, I so know what you mean.
Sorry for outburst against Vikram, DubaiDave et al, I guess I’m still not that great at troll-spotting…SM intern, you were right in your calls for peace. What the world needs now is <3
LOVE
tashie: touche 🙂 kiwi sista. good on you for calling out the trolls.
Numbers:
Dead:195 Injured: 625 (So Far) Hope the numbers stop here.
“Dropping a nuke on mecca” is going too far, i understand your sentiment though. Pakistanis use terror as a form of negotiation, a tool for bringing us to the table. If our govt doesn’t take any action this time, we may as well hand the Pakis our piece of Kashmir. Whats the worst that could happen by taking some sort of action, we have already been invaded once (kargil), our parliament has been attacked, our cities and religious sites have been attacked, the only thing left is getting bombed in an all out war. Lets just hope we pull a U.S rather than a Spain (remember how they retreated from Iraq after the madrid bombings).
Pray for Mumbai Jai Maharashtra!
Shri Dubai Dave, you are really turning me on!
Hail Mogambo!
A good suggestion.. You might want to add “Hadiths” and related stuff too..
Jatin
“After condemning the Mumbai train blasts, Pakistan has said the ‘best way’ of dealing with extremism in South Asia is to tackle ‘real issue’ of Jammu and Kashmir.” “We need to take steps in which extremism is discouraged. Extremism in one religion leads to extremism in the other,”Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmoud Kasuri
Really? Some people are too predictable. I’m against riots, revenge killings, etc. etc. But I’m all for doing something about our pesky neighbors and their “moral support” and aid to terrorists. Really, they’re a menace! More at: Solve real issues to counter extremism: Kasuri
I know that I should be more tolerant. I know I should value free speech more, but tell me SM interns and administrators, what’s the point of threatening to ban IP addresses when you then leave the users with hate speech comments(e.g., “I am all for dropping a nuke on Mecca”) unbanned? If anything, the lack of enforcement is now allowing every Muslim-hater to be more daring. Good going.
Maybe because they have seen “real” bombs on Varanasi temples.. and ignore the “empty threats”..