We The People

One week after the Mumbai bomb blasts, the terrorists stay at large with the police still clueless finally making headway. If the Lashqar-e-Qahhar hadn't claimed responsibility for the attack (yep, I too went "who?"), they'd still be clueless ten years from now- with nobody indicted on any charges.

I am very interested in seeing the ramifications of this declaration by the LeQ (affiliated with the Lashqar-e-Taiba, which in turn has now been exposed to be the masterminds of the attack). Specifically, since both the Shiv Sena and SIMI have presumably been proven innocent, the politicians have run out of accusations, and now have to take cohesive action against a known enemy.

Luckily for them, they probably won't have to. Mumbai's spirit and its media seem to have moved on to other things. I particularly enjoyed these snippets:

Farce #1: A brilliant piece of investigative journalism from the Times Of India.

(about the Vile Parle bomb scare)... "The station is never so empty on working days, but everyone ran helter-skelter after police asked people to leave," said bhelpuri seller Basant Kumar.

... Mumbaikars who were returning home from work as well as those who had stepped out for a quick round of shopping, poured onto the streets and scrambled into the already-packed BEST buses. Working women clutching their tiffin boxes waited at bus stops, trying to hitch a ride on passing vehicles.

Farce #2: Another human interest story brought to you by the People's Champion, ToI.

14-year old fears to travel in Mumbai trains

"I do not want to travel by Mumbai trains anymore. I do not even want to go near them," says Mohammed Mahroof, a 14-year old worker in a local bakery.

... His dad is a casual labourer in the Gulf and his stepmother is in his native village in Sultanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. "I have four brothers and two sisters and want to get back to them as soon as possible," he said.

Farce #3: Good old Manmohan Singh is headed to the G-8 summit with one slogan: "Isolate and condemn terrorism! Zero tolerance for violence!"

Manmohan's watch seems to have stopped permanently at 12:00 these days. His infamous address to the nation after the blasts is already well documented... in terms of sheer incompetence, it ranks alongside Bush's school-room reaction to 9/11. Now when the need of the hour is to crack down on terrorists, show them that they can't get away with such heinous crimes in India, why does Manmohan go begging for international shoulders to cry on? What will "diplomatic gains" really achieve for India?

I'd venture a guess at the G-8's reaction: "Yawn. Been there. Heard that. At least when Bush said it pre-Iraq, we knew he meant serious business." Manmohan's message is simply too cliched and too hollow, and so will be the responses.

Incidentally, what are Bush & Blair busy doing at the G-8? Sharing concerns about the Middle East crisis, where fire is met with retaliatory fire.


Farce #4: The vote-bank power play. Arjun Singh, the master of Parseltongue, gets at it again. On another side, Mulayam Singh still tries to defend SIMI with mind-bending logic hitherto only seen in a Mithun movie. How low can these men sink?


Farce #5: Bomb hoaxes at India Gate, Vile Parle & Dadar stations and other places in Mumbai, and a Madurai prison.


... And so, life goes on, right?

Hail the Mumbai spirit? Give me a break.

I have always been cynical of the so-called spirit of Indian people, Mumbai or elsewhere. Aside from the proactive actions of Mumbaikars on the blast day, and the empathy shown by some of them, the city has pretty much said "Ok, Back to Business". This smacks not of spirit, but of apathy.

In an earlier post I had mentioned that our system works, despite its massive flaws, because the ordinary people simply accept those flaws as their lot. "What can anyone do? It's been like this always." With this impotent cry we accept bad governance, lack of infrastructure, poverty and corruption with equal aplomb. "Chalta hai". Is this spirit?

Mumbai promptly got back on its feet because it simply had to. The daily wage labourer went to work because if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to feed his family. The taxi driver and the thelawala had to do the same. Low-income blue collar workers couldn't afford to stay home if the factory was open- their masters can replace them in a snap. What was happening was not about spirit, but a sheer survival instinct.

True spirit means a sense of pride in self and community. When such a thing as 7/11 happens, true spirit lies not only in helping the victims, but also in rising with indignity against whoever tries to take advantage of the community's distress. Be it local leaders inciting communal riots (police arrested 2 of them), or Modi-Mulayam-Arjun extracting political mileage, or even Rajdeep Sardesai's despicable antics... a spirited city would've wrung their proverbial necks. A spirited nation would've lambasted the helplessness of our PM's office in crisis. Can you imagine the response in USA if Bush had just sat back after 9/11 and asked the world to condemn terrorism?

What Bush eventually did may have been wrong on many levels but it was right in spirit. You cannot just let these things happen to you- as a proud people, you have to take action. You have to be a strong nation from within.

Instead, when the #1 fear after the blasts is of communal tensions everywhere, it just says what has become of us. We have let our leaders tell us how to think as a society... and as a consequence, the rifts will just grow further.

I say this as a warning, because of three things:

1. It was what the terrorists wanted- to divide the country along communal lines.
2. It is what some vested interests want- gives them political leverage.
3. This has happened before- in Spain, after the Madrid bombings.

A little history.

Mumbai 7/11 comes in a long string of attacks on major cities starting with New York (9/11/2001), Madrid (3/11/2004) and London (7/7/2005). There are startling similarities between all the attacks-

• The theme is communication. Train lines in Mumbai, London & Madrid; local bus in London; airplanes in USA.


• In London, "Forensic examiners had originally determined the explosives to have been military grade plastic explosive, and... that timed detonators of equivalent sophistication were employed. This all changed as the real story emerged."
  
  In Mumbai's case too, despite an initial guess on RDX, nobody knows yet.


• All the attacks were intricately planned with "knowledge of the terrain". i.e. plenty of inside support.


• A cautionary observation: In London, two weeks after the July 7th attacks, a second bomb attack was attempted on the 21st July. Luckily the bombs never exploded- only the detonators on them did. Can this happen in India too? Is there a link between all the bomb scares and a second attempt?
  
  One clue as to the possibility: the 9/11 attacks were planned in coordination with simultaneous airplane crashes into London's Westminster Abbey and Tower Bridge (Wikipedia article- look under Other Planned Attacks). Those attacks didn't materialize, but that doesn't mean they may not in the future. We would do well to stay alert.
  


• What about the aftermath?
  

  The bombings in Madrid have led to a sharp political and social fracture in Spain. This result stands in sharp contrast to other large scale terrorist attacks such as those of New York and London, which galvanized society and political forces.
  
  Perhaps the worst examples of Spain's political division are the extremely serious accusations launched by members of the Partido Popular and a number of conservative media outlets regarding the responsibility for the bombings.

History thus says that in US & UK, where strong positive steps were taken to nail the bad guys, the society has stood united and prospered as a result. On the other hand, weak-willed attempts in Spain combined with vested interests have torn the society apart.

Which way will India go? I seriously believe that the decision lies squarely on our- the people's- shoulders. Politicians will try to sway us, communal leaders will try to flare our sentiments, all in the hope of diverting attention from the true culprits and pursuing their agendas. Will we bite the bait?

Or will we demand from them what is our right-Security, Responsibility, and Justice.

[Update]
Has it started already? Read the comments on this story.

[Update #2]
As predicted, Lashqar-e-Qahar warns of more blasts. Bluff?