Mumbai Attacks, November 26, 2008

[pahar ka gulab]

Here's a link to NDTV coverage of a press conference Aamir Khan gave on occasion of his non-celebrating of Eid on regards of the attacks:

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/video/video.aspx?id=46872

It's about 28 minutes long.

I'm still debating with myself if it's a good idea of him to do it like this, but I certainly think he talks very good sense!
But as ususal, he just does what he feels is the right thing out of the moment!

[wannabe]

Several stars have given interviews about the attack.  Here is an interview excerpt from SRK:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/islam-does-not-preach-terror-shah-rukh-khan/79834-3.html

I can't find the link for the video of that interview now, but it may have been posted in the SRK discussion thread.

Salman has been out of the country, but returned a day or two ago and gave interviews to various networks, where he signed the  "pledge against terrorism."  Here are the videos (they're in Hindi):

http://ibnlive.in.com/videos/80154/salman-slams-terrorism-says-follow-the-koran.html

and an article which translates his comments into English:

http://movies.ndtv.com/newstory.asp?section=Movies&id=ENTEN20080075864

I believe Sanjay Dutt also gave a statement.

H'mm, it just struck me, were they deliberately seeking out those Muslim actors who have a mixed religious background?

[Spencer]

I guess I'm in the minority but I wish the media would stop focusing on celebrities and I wish the celebrities would refuse to comment.  We don't need to know how they feel about the attacks.  It all just seems so trivial to me.  Where was the big hue and cry for other attacks at less prestigious sites?  There are much more important concerns and issues right now.

[wannabe]

I guess I'm in the minority but I wish the media would stop focusing on celebrities and I wish the celebrities would refuse to comment.  We don't need to know how they feel about the attacks.  It all just seems so trivial to me.  Where was the big hue and cry for other attacks at less prestigious sites?  There are much more important concerns and issues right now.

Well, to be fair, these celebrities are not speaking about "how they feel", but to condemn the attacks, protest the official ineptness, and caution against sweeping blame.  Salman, for instance, signed something called "Pledge to fight terrorism" on camera, and invited others to do so as well.  I believe Aamir also signed this pledge, something that is being propagated by the India Today group.  It seems pretty cosmetic to me, but maybe it makes some people feel like they're doing something.  I just saw an interview with Preity where she was vigorously complaining about the substandard protective equipment issued to the police and army personnel, and saying the victims of the attack should not be forgotten.  She is from an army family herself (both her father and brother are in the army), so no doubt this issue resonates particularly with her.

But I am troubled by a common theme running through the comments of the three Khans.  It seems a bit disingenuous to keep saying, "Terrorism has no religion" when these particular terrorist acts were committed specifically in the name of a religion.  It's fine to say that these terrorists do  not represent all Muslims, and distort the essence of Islam.  But when Salman says, for example, "No Muslim supports them," well he begins to lose credibility with me.  Similarly, when Aamir overgeneralizes the issue to be just like a conflict between any two groups, "whether they are majority or minority, whether it's about caste or something else," he is again spinning this matter out of all recognition. All such conflicts are not equivalent, and to my knowledge, no other group has taken these kinds of actions to air their grievances (there are of course many other terrorist groups operating in India, which are not related to Muslims at all, but they are not motivated by religion).  As for SRK, he keeps saying, after every attack, that these are the actions of "uneducated Muslims", and if they were educated, they would know better than to act this way.  But this completely overlooks the point that many of today's Islamic terrorists are highly educated. So what happens to this theory then?  As for offering himself as an example of a "liberal" Muslim, with a Hindu wife, the kind of people who do these things would consider him to be not a Muslim at all, precisely because of his Hindu wife.  So  how can he communicate with them?  From that point of view, all their statements seem quite futile.

[tabula rasa]

  As for SRK, he keeps saying, after every attack, that these are the actions of "uneducated Muslims", and if they were educated, they would know better than to act this way.  But this completely overlooks the point that many of today's Islamic terrorists are highly educated. So what happens to this theory then?  As for offering himself as an example of a "liberal" Muslim, with a Hindu wife, the kind of people who do these things would consider him to be not a Muslim at all, precisely because of his Hindu wife.  So  how can he communicate with them?  From that point of view, all their statements seem quite futile.

I have an inkling he meant that they were uneducated as to the meaning of the religion, not uneducated in a general, scholarly, academic kind of way.

[wannabe]

I have an inkling he meant that they were uneducated as to the meaning of the religion, not uneducated in a general, scholarly, academic kind of way.

There is that aspect, which he made clearer this time by talking about the "Islam of Allah vs. the Islam of the Mullahs", but he also does mean just education of the academic kind, as in previous incidents and this time, he also talks a lot about how education will lead to a better life for poor Muslims (through better economic opportunities).

[wannabe]

Crackdown hints at Faridkot-Mumbai link



Dawn Special Report


KARACHI, Dec 11: The targeting of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaatud Dawa and the rounding up of the activists belonging to the two jihadi organisations appear to have been triggered by information originating in India following the capture of one of the 10 men who attacked several targets in Mumbai towards the end of last month.

During the course of Dawn’s own investigations last week our reporters were able to locate a family who claimed to be the kin of the arrested young man in Mumbai.

The sole survivor among the 10 attackers was named as Ajmal Kasab and was supposed to belong to the village Faridkot in the Punjab. Media organisations such as the BBC and now the British newspaper Observer have done reports trying to ascertain the veracity of claims appearing in the media that the young man had a home there.

On Friday last, the BBC reported unusual activity in Faridkot near Deepalpur. A BBC correspondent located a house in the village, the then inhabitants of which carried the surname of Kasab (or Qasab as the word is often spelt here). But the residents denied any link with either Ajmal or with any Amir Kasab, the name of Ajmal’s father as reported by some of the media.

At the weekend, the Observer in England claimed that it had managed to locate the house everyone was looking for so desperately. Its correspondent said he had got hold of the voters’ roll which had the names of Amir Kasab and his wife, identified as Noor, as well as the numbers on the identity cards the couple carried.

Even though the news stories by both BBC and the Observer made a mention of the LeT, some television channels in Pakistan suggested that a connection between Mumbai and Faridkot could not be established beyond a shadow of doubt.

However, the man who said he was Amir Kasab confirmed to Dawn that the young man whose face had been beamed over the media was his son.

For the next few minutes, the fifty-something man of medium build agonized over the reality that took time sinking in, amid sobs complaining about the raw deal the fate had given him and his family.

“I was in denial for the first couple of days, saying to myself it could not have been my son,” he told Dawn in the courtyard of his house in Faridkot, a village of about 2,500 people just a few kilometres from Deepalpur on the way to Kasur. “Now I have accepted it.

“This is the truth. I have seen the picture in the newspaper. This is my son Ajmal.”

Variously addressed as Azam, Iman, Kamal and Kasav, the young man, apparently in his 20s, is being kept in custody at an undisclosed place in Mumbai.

Indian media reports ‘based on intelligence sources’ said the man was said to be a former Faridkot resident who left home a frustrated teenager about four years ago and went to Lahore.

After his brush with crime and criminals in Lahore, he is said to have run into and joined a religious group during a visit to Rawalpindi.

Along with others, claimed the Indian media, he was trained in fighting. And after a crash course in navigation, said Amir Kasab, a father of three sons and two daughters, Ajmal disappeared from home four years ago.

“He had asked me for new clothes on Eid that I couldn’t provide him. He got angry and left.”

While Amir was talking, Ajmal’s two “sisters and a younger brother” were lurking about. To Amir’s right, on a nearby charpoy, sat their mother, wrapped in a chador and in a world of her own. Her trance was broken as the small picture of Ajmal lying in a Mumbai hospital was shown around. They appeared to have identified their son. The mother shrunk back in her chador but the father said he had no problem in talking about the subject.

Amir Kasab said he had settled in Faridkot after arriving from the nearby Haveli Lakha many years ago. He owned the house and made his earnings by selling pakoras in the streets of the village.

He modestly pointed to a hand-cart in one corner of the courtyard. “This is all I have. I shifted back to the village after doing the same job in Lahore.

“My eldest son, Afzal, is also back after a stint in Lahore. He is out working in the fields.”

Faridkot is far from the urbanites’ idea of a remote village. It is located right off a busy road and bears all the characteristics of a lower-middle class locality in a big city.

It has two middle-level schools, one for girls and the other for boys which Ajmal attended as a young boy. For higher standards, the students have to enroll in schools in Deepalpur which is not as far off as the word remote tends to indicate.

It by no means qualifies as Punjab’s backwaters, which makes the young Ajmal’s graduation to an international “fearmonger” even more difficult to understand. The area can do with cleaner streets and a better sewage system but the brick houses towards the side of the Kasur-Deepalpur road have a more organised look to them than is the case with most Pakistani villages.

The Observer newspaper reports that some locals seeking anonymity say the area is a hunting ground for the recruiters of LeT and provides the organisation with rich pickings.

The approach to Faridkot also points to at least some opportunities for those looking for a job. There are some factories in the surroundings, rice mills et al, interspersed with fertile land. But for the gravity of the situation, with its mellowed and welcoming ambience, the picture could be serene.

It is not and Amir Kasab repeats how little role he has had in the scheme since the day his son walked out on him. He calls the people who snatched Ajmal from him his enemies but has no clue who these enemies are. Asked why he didn’t look for his son all this while, he counters: “What could I do with the few resources that I had?”

Otherwise quite forthcoming in his answers, Amir Kasab, a mild-mannered soul, is a bit agitated at the mention of the link between his son’s actions and money. Indian media has claimed that Ajmal’s handlers had promised him that his family will be compensated with Rs150,000 (one and a half lakh) after the completion of the Mumbai mission.

“I don’t sell my sons,” he retorts.

Journalists visiting Faridkot since Dawn reporters were at the village say the family has moved from their home and some relatives now live in the house. Perhaps fearing a media invasion, nobody is willing to say where the family has gone.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/12/12/top6.htm

[etu]

Thanks for posting this, wannabe. I found the father saying, "I don't sell my sons" was especially moving.

[Anamika]

I don't want to sidetrack this thread, which has been very educating for me, but this article is something that I'be been itching to post all afternoon:

Mumbai on film: Bad taste or true drama?
_{By Prachi Pinglay}
BBC News, Mumbai

"Taj Terror", "Taj to Oberoi", "48 hours at Taj", "Operation Five Star Mumbai", "26/11- Mumbai under Terror", "Shootout at Oberoi" and "Operation Cyclone".
These might seem like newspaper headlines of the recent Mumbai attacks but they are in fact some of the 20 titles waiting for approval for possible movies based on the events of last month.
To some, the rush to register the titles seems like appalling bad taste coming so soon after so many funerals.

"It always happens. People jump on every tragedy. It is like ambulance chasing," says well-known documentary film-maker Anand Patwardhan.
"A tiny percentage of these film-makers may be sincere. A film should be genuine and sensitive. If it tries to reduce violence and communal hatred - which is the underlying reason for such violence - then it should be made and is good for society.
"But the chances are that it is an attempt to exploit the misery of people."
Accusations of bad taste were certainly levelled at former Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh after he visited the Taj Mahal Palace hotel with film-maker Ram Gopal Varma.

Few made

Several films have been made in the past couple of years with terror as their backdrop - such as Mumbai Meri Jaan (Mumbai my love), A Wednesday and Shoot on sight - and more are in production.
 
Sushma Shiromanee, vice-president of the Indian Motion Pictures and Producers' Association, a body that deals with title registration for Hindi films in Mumbai, confirmed that several producers had applied for titles related to the Mumbai attacks.
However, experts say that despite the registration numbers, few films are actually made and released.
"When an event like this happens, several producers and writers want to tell the story. Many have applied for titles pertaining to the attacks. These applications will be studied by our committee and if anything is inappropriate, we'll advise them to change it. These procedures take almost a month," Ms Shiromanee said.

Cinema trade analysts say the unprecedented manner in which 10 gunmen entered the city and opened fire, held hostages for more than two days and left more than 170 people dead, is valuable film material.
Film-makers want to depict different aspects of those 60 hours. Two of the most popular hotels of India's financial capital were held under siege, while gunmen opened fire at the famous Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), the Leopold cafe and other well-known places.

Emotional story

B Subhash, producer and writer of several commercial Hindi films, has applied for a title called "Bird's point of view of the Taj Terror." He says that far from being in bad taste, the film aims to bring out the impact of terror on innocent lives.
 "A bird is a symbol of innocence," he says, "and I want to show what happened in Mumbai from that point of view.
"Terrorism is a horrifying thing. There will be some action as well but basically it will be an emotional story. We should complete writing within a month and early next year it should go on the recording floors."

Jug Mundra, whose film Shoot on Sight was based on the lives of people after the London bombings of 2005, said a fresh perspective was required.
"We all saw what happened. So if I were to make a film on the 26 November attack it would be about people.
"It should show how a random act of violence changes people's lives, how serendipity in adverse circumstances brings people together. I feel that an incident such as the Mumbai attack can offer an insight into the human psyche.
"Filmmakers are always looking for drama which often comes from conflict situations such as this."

[latishya]

I really enjoyed Arundhati Roy's article in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/12/mumbai-arundhati-roy (excerpt follows)

Mumbai was not our 9/11
November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

It's odd how in the last week of November thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India's richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara – one of Kashmir's most ravaged districts.

The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all Indian nationals, it obviously indicates that something's going very badly wrong in this country.

If you were watching television you may not have heard that ordinary people too died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich. They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness. The Indian media, however, was transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering barricades of India Shining and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies and crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish centre.

We're told one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That's absolutely true. It's an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary Indians endure every day. On a day when the newspapers were full of moving obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, the gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically one was called Kandahar), and the staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner in the inner pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company I think) said "Hungry, kya?" (Hungry eh?). It then, with the best of intentions I'm sure, informed its readers that on the international hunger index, India ranked below Sudan and Somalia. But of course this isn't that war. That one's still being fought in the Dalit bastis of our villages, on the banks of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Lalgarh in West Bengal and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic cities.

That war isn't on TV. Yet.

[wannabe]

An expected article from an expected source in an expected publication. 

[melbguy]

arundhati roy is almost always anti everything when it comes to india...she is even willing to give up kashmir...when it comes to politics one cant be a saint like gandhi and human rights should take a back seat, national interest should be always first and foremost...

[Ashish]

Human Right needn't take a back seat but should be equally applied to civilians/soldiers and terrorists and not just later. Plus, long term human rights implication (good/bad) of current human rights violations needs to be considered.

arundhati roy is almost always anti everything when it comes to india...she is even willing to give up kashmir...when it comes to politics one cant be a saint like gandhi and human rights should take a back seat, national interest should be always first and foremost...

[indigal]

lots of outrage towards A. Roy's attitude

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/19slide1-understanding-the-mumbai-attacks.htm


http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081219&fname=abhinav&sid=1

[derketchup]

lots of outrage towards A. Roy's attitude

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/19slide1-understanding-the-mumbai-attacks.htm


http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081219&fname=abhinav&sid=1

She should really stick to writing fiction.

Let me rephrase that.

She should really stick to writing fiction but not as news stories.

[tabula rasa]

Regarding the first article, on Rediff.

I'd like to take issue with Rushdie too, the way he's self-righteously taking umbrage at Roy's article. I support Roy's thoughts in The Guardian - I see it as a reaction to the Indian media, which, as has been much discussed here, has been running after the Taj incidents, and covering the trauma of the rich, and scattering scant images of VT and the events there. I will also not turn a blind eye at this time of mourning at the issue of the mistreatment of Muslims in India, and I maintain this despite the rebuttals I know this statement will receive. I have seen it myself, and it was a revelation for me since I grew up as a minority in a Muslim country, being used to Hindu/Indian rights not given any say whatsoever in anything, and presumed it would be the same in India, before realising the issue is not Hindu/Muslim, but the latent dominion of the political majority over the political minority, which is evident in various forms and layers in every country.

And lastly, I find it farcical that such contempt comes from the globe-trotting, supermodel-marrying, Bridget-Jones-cameoing Rushdie, who is rushed to by the Western (particularly UK) media the second any issue regarding South Asia comes up, as if he is the sole valid spokesperson when it comes to anything remotely postcolonial. Roy has constantly stayed at the grassroots level, and spoken from the POV of the impoverished, the neglected, the dismissed (left or not). It's a far cry from the occasional urban celebrity visits Rushdie makes to the country, hob-nobbing with the very kind who would stay at Tajs and Oberois.

I'm not saying the life of the elite were not valuable, and I don't think Roy was saying that either, as Rushdie insinuates. I think the nameless dead have been made even more nameless in the wake of this, and lest we forget, God we need more Roys to make noise about it.

[Parallel_Worlds]

Regarding the first article, on Rediff.

I'd like to take issue with Rushdie too, the way he's self-righteously taking umbrage at Roy's article. I support Roy's thoughts in The Guardian - I see it as a reaction to the Indian media, which, as has been much discussed here, has been running after the Taj incidents, and covering the trauma of the rich, and scattering scant images of VT and the events there. I will also not turn a blind eye at this time of mourning at the issue of the mistreatment of Muslims in India, and I maintain this despite the rebuttals I know this statement will receive. I have seen it myself, and it was a revelation for me since I grew up as a minority in a Muslim country, being used to Hindu/Indian rights not given any say whatsoever in anything, and presumed it would be the same in India, before realising the issue is not Hindu/Muslim, but the latent dominion of the political majority over the political minority, which is evident in various forms and layers in every country.

And lastly, I find it farcical that such contempt comes from the globe-trotting, supermodel-marrying, Bridget-Jones-cameoing Rushdie, who is rushed to by the Western (particularly UK) media the second any issue regarding South Asia comes up, as if he is the sole valid spokesperson when it comes to anything remotely postcolonial. Roy has constantly stayed at the grassroots level, and spoken from the POV of the impoverished, the neglected, the dismissed (left or not). It's a far cry from the occasional urban celebrity visits Rushdie makes to the country, hob-nobbing with the very kind who would stay at Tajs and Oberois.

I'm not saying the life of the elite were not valuable, and I don't think Roy was saying that either, as Rushdie insinuates. I think the nameless dead have been made even more nameless in the wake of this, and lest we forget, God we need more Roys to make noise about it.

And because the man has a supermodel wife he is less genuine? I sense a certain hostility against models in your comment, perhaps it's influencing your perception of the man.

I personally think he made an excellent remark. If all poverty/conflicts in the world are erased, would terrorism at the hand of Al-Qaida cease to exist? I think he rightly states that this will never happen as these are power hungry organizations. And besides, how is AR assessment of the media's selective treatment of the attacks any different from the responses in this thread. Most people here remarked how such and so hip and happening tourist hang-out spot they used to frequent got attacked, I didn't read that many remarks about VT station where many Indians travel through dailly. My apologies beforehand if this is due to selective reading on my behalf.

[v9y]

lots of outrage towards A. Roy's attitude

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/19slide1-understanding-the-mumbai-attacks.htm


http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081219&fname=abhinav&sid=1

A very well articulated response to Arundhati from an IPS officer Abhinav Kumar. I am pasting the text here in case people have trouble with Outlook's registration.

Web| Dec 19, 2008

Response

An Open Letter To Arundhati Roy

To call the foreign funded insurgency in Kashmir and the terror attacks across the country as justified blowback for the failures of the Indian state and civil society is both false and callous. It implies a failure of the imagination and the intellect and the complete abdication of moral responsibility by you.

ABHINAV KUMAR ON ARUNDHATI ROY

Dear Ms Roy,

For many years now you have enriched the public life of our nation. First, as a Booker winning novelist with a meteoric debut on the literary firmament, and then as an essayist, persistently pricking the conscience of a sometimes indifferent and ignorant nation, highlighting wide ranging issues of urgent concern. Over the years your provocative essays in the pages of Outlook magazine amount to a substantial intellectual achievement in their own right. One has not always agreed with you, but from big dams to the nuclear bomb, from the vagaries of capitalism to the dangers of American Imperialism, your writings on these important issues have left no one in any doubt about where you stand. Disagree with them as one might, your views occupied an intellectually coherent and morally compelling space in our public life. Until recently, when one read your two pieces on Kashmir and Mumbai with a growing sense of shock, anger, pity and dismay.

As a literary device, self loathing has its uses; the God of Small Things was a splendid lesson in the use of this sentiment. However I am not sure that nations and civilizations can organize their policies around this self indulgent mood. Your two pieces, 'Azadi' and '9 is Not 11' see you as usual in top form as far as style and rhetoric are concerned, but as far as substance goes, I think you have fallen into the trap of being in love with the sound and significance of your own voice. It is still a powerful voice, a seductive voice too, but because it chooses to amplify only those other voices that are prepared to sing in chorus, it is a voice bereft of any sense of moral responsibility. I am sure once again your latest writings will bring you further international recognition as a writer of conscience and conviction, striving tirelessly to expose the monstrosities of the Indian state and civilization. Dare I suggest that the Magsaysay and the Nobel Peace Prize, the Holy Grails of the seemingly rootless international intellectual might not be too far behind? But Madam, despite your great charm and greater intellect, this is a Faustian bargain. For in doing so you are doing irreparable harm to the very idea of the intellectual as a defender of virtue and morality in public life who too, like the problems you write about, much as he or she would want to, cannot be removed from the context (your favourite word) that created her, nurtured her and accorded the civic and intellectual space for her to articulate and propagate her views.

As someone who for the past 12 years has worn the Khaki uniform, as a servant of your favourite object of hate, the Indian state, I confess to a persistent sense of ambivalence and despair about the manner in which I am expected to serve. At the same time I cannot deny an equally abiding sense of pride in the importance of what we are supposed to do and of the importance of institutions in general in giving meaning and protection to what would otherwise be a society ruthless and brutal, beyond even your considerable powers of comprehension and description.Therefore, I am offended and disgusted by your incomplete, incoherent and therefore immoral portrayal of the recent upheavals of Indian history. I used to think that you articulate the pain of the silent, marginalized, oppressed masses of our country. I had no idea that you held a brief for all those who never felt anything at all not just for India in particular, but who also actively profess violent rage at the shared values of the entire human race.

According to you, everything that the police and security forces do or say whether in Kashmir, or in the war on terror, or against Naxalism, is a falsehood, where as everything that is said by 'Kashmiri Freedom Fighters', or by the harmless theologians of the Lashkar-e-Toiba and their ideological cousins of the Al Qaeda, or by the peace loving disciples of Marx and Mao living a bucolic existence in the jungles of central India, constitutes sufficient grounds to indict the Indian state and civil society in perpetuity. The people of India have always had a tradition to look up to men and woman of the arts and culture to serve as their moral compass. One really wonders what lines of logic and ethics shape your sense of moral direction.

You seem to passionately believe in and defend the 'right' of the Kashmiris to ethnic, cultural, religious and geographical exclusivism. If this is correct than why should we vilify Raj Thackeray or any other chauvinist who seeks to preserve the purity (however defined) of his people (however defined) from outsiders (also however defined)? If the Kashmiris are justified in picking up the gun to safeguard their exclusive identity, then every part of India is justified in doing so. I do hope you have taken the trouble to examine the fundamental assumptions underlying all such movements based on an assertion of a cultural identity. The creation of a hated outsider, in the case of Kashmir, the Indian; in the case of Raj Thackeray, the bhaiya of UP and Bihar; and in the case of the jihadists, anyone and everyone who does not subscribe to their virulent strain of Islam, including Muslims, is common to all these ideologies but you seem to pick and choose the bigotries you will demonize and the bigotries you will defend. Is it possible to freeze identity to a moment in time and on the basis of this demand recognition, retribution and rights for all time to come?

In your world view, the wrongs of Indian security forces of the last twenty years, and the failures of Indian state craft before it, are sufficient justifications for Kashmiri grievances, just as the wrongs of Babri Masjid, the Mumbai riots of 1993, the Gujarat riots of 2002, will justify Islamist terror against India, and the wrongs of corrupt governance and poor administration will justify Naxalite violence, in all perpetuity. Why should only these events be accepted as justification for settling scores by shedding the blood of innocents? By this logic, the Crucifixion of Christ amply justifies the Holocaust. We non white societies must all be allowed eternal rights to slaughter the Europeans for the sins of colonialism and slavery. Islam itself had a long history of violent conquest and forcible conversions, perhaps that should justify an eternal crusade or dharmyudhh against Islam? The Greeks and Romans have their own scores to settle with the Christian Church. The Latin Americans have their own grievances with Spain and Portugal.Seen this way, human history is merely a parody of the eternal theme of perpetrators and victims, and all present violence, no matter how barbaric or senseless, can be justified with reference to some past grievance, and we must allow these grievances full expression no matter what. Only then would we return to a state of original purity where all historical sins of the past and present have been fully avenged and the moral ledger as you see it stands perfectly balanced. The only thing is that after this bloody book-keeping, there may not be anyone left to enjoy the fruits of such a 'just' society.

The Indian state, whose sworn servant I am, is by no means a perfect entity. It is certainly corrupt, it is sometimes brutal and it is often indifferent to the sufferings of the weak and the powerless. But it does have a vision and aim based on certain civilizational values that are uniquely Indian. Demography and history dictates that these values have a prominently Hindu flavour. It is undeniable that these values have come under attack at times from the Hindu right as well. But even the most rabid of the Hindutva forces do not see the world united under the saffron flag by force of arms, as is the Islamist project of one world under the Green Crescent, or the Naxal project of one world under the Red Star. It would take a pretty breathless and brainless leap of logic to equate violent, local outbursts of Hindu chauvinism, abetted by the sins of commission and omission of the state apparatus, in themselves however repugnant and indefensible, with the atrocities on a global scale that were inflicted by Communism in the 20th century or the outrages that are now threatened across all parts of the world by jihadi Islam. To call the foreign funded insurgency in Kashmir and the terror attacks across the country as justified blowback for the failures of the Indian state and civil society is both false and callous. It implies a failure of the imagination and the intellect and the complete abdication of moral responsibility by you.

One could indeed forgive you, Ma'am, if you were purely an artist. Art has at the best of times a complicated relationship with truth and life. But in your avatar as a public intellectual, you cannot abandon your commitment to the demands of truth, accuracy and the ability to discriminate between the varieties of human experience and action. The liberties you have exercised in the past and continue to do today, however gratuitously and offensively, do not exist in a vacuum. I am not sure if any of these liberties would have a place in a Naxalite Utopia or a Jihadi Caliphate or even in a self-determined Kashmiri paradise that you eloquently espoused. As visions of human perfectability they are far more flawed than the vision of India that you love to denigrate. In any case, the liberties that you have recently taken with the sensibilities of proud Indians too exist in a cultural, political and constitutional context, a context that is ultimately safeguarded by men such as Hemant Karkare and Major Unnikrishnan with disregard for their own life. Remember that the next time you use your poisoned pen to vent your twisted logic on a polity that deserves better from its intellectuals.

Warm regards
Abhinav Kumar

[Abhinav Kumar is a serving IPS officer. Though these are his personal views, he hopes that they also reflect the anguish of an entire fraternity of proud Indians in uniform]

[Ashish]

This is derailing the thread but here is also great in greatbong's inimitable style: http://greatbong.net/2008/12/16/the-algebra-of-infinite-fundamentalism/

Unfortunately, for or against, it will be all be preaching to the choir.

[tabula rasa]

And because the man has a supermodel wife he is less genuine? I sense a certain hostility against models in your comment, perhaps it's influencing your perception of the man.

  My comments are more angled at Rushdie's platform and pedestal given by others in the media, despite the fact that, like many Indian writers in English, he resides abroad, so much so his views can sometimes be called an outsider's view. The supermodel bit is one of many attributes I've mentioned that illustrate his ultra-elite lifestyle. It is not an attitude of hostility to the models themselves, which is irrelevant.

I've been studying Rushdie and other postcolonial writers for my course, and there are several writers who've been accused of 'not being Indian enough' by literary analysts from within India. I've been trying to argue against that, but I cannot ignore that it is a very valid statement. And this is just on a literary platform. You can imagine how the issue takes up a whole other layer of dispute of authenticity when the comments are overtly political.

I personally think he made an excellent remark. If all poverty/conflicts in the world are erased, would terrorism at the hand of Al-Qaida cease to exist? I think he rightly states that this will never happen as these are power hungry organizations. And besides, how is AR assessment of the media's selective treatment of the attacks any different from the responses in this thread. Most people here remarked how such and so hip and happening tourist hang-out spot they used to frequent got attacked, I didn't read that many remarks about VT station where many Indians travel through dailly. My apologies beforehand if this is due to selective reading on my behalf.

1. There were many remarks here about the places people have visited, because many members here are from Western countries who have visited Mumbai as tourists. And this is a message board where there is discussion of subjective perspectives, not a media outlet where the writing is expected to be objective.

2. Even so, there have been many who have pointed out (through posting articles from various media, and their own opinion) that there hasn't been sufficient coverage of the number of average Indians who've been affected.

I'm not saying Rushdie has no right to talk against terrorism etc. What I'm saying is I find his criticism of Roy a view that has no value, given their relative positions. Roy may have her faults (she reminds me of Germaine Greer) but she has been constantly within the milieu, and has always spoken up on very relevant issues that the media and government just doesn't want to touch - she's like a thorn that doesn't want to go away on the small issues, and IMO we all need a bit more of that.

[Darshana]

I appreciate your perspective, TR, and I really appreciate your always explaining where you are coming from, so if you have an opinion I know what your thoughts, feelings, stances, etc. are.

[tabula rasa]

I appreciate your perspective, TR, and I really appreciate your always explaining where you are coming from, so if you have an opinion I know what your thoughts, feelings, stances, etc. are.

Thanks Darshana - and I'm presuming you're asking that if I have certain opinions, could I please share them?

*sigh*. To be honest, that's really difficult for me to do right now. Not just on Roy/Rushdie, but this whole entire Mumbai thing. It's why I've stayed away from contributing to this thread. I don't think I can really post in the manner that I attempt to post on this board on matters like this, ie in an overall view. Due to my course, I've been researching lot of Indian literature, and postcolonial fiction which is inextricably linked to Indian history so that crops up a lot in my research as well. So of course when this happened, it really hit me hard, and because I was chasing a deadline at the time, and looking after my visiting parents, I kept having sporadic reactions to images and articles that I could only grab snatches of during breaks at work, checking emails before bed etc. I read, I see, I react, then I turn away before the reaction starts to overwhelm, because I could not afford to get overwhelmed.

And now that I'm able to, the issue has just surmounted so much into so many different fragments and permutations and blame-games and a daily clocking of related news stories that I don't really know where to even begin.

All I know (and deeply fear) is that the Indian reaction to this is and will be soo vastly different from the Western reaction to similar sudden acts of terrorism, mainly due to its incredibly intricate history and links with a. Islam b. Pakistan c. Indian Muslims d. Secular national identity.

It's all such a quagmire, but for some odd reason I cannot get the image of that guy holding the guns walking in VT out of my head.

So no Darshana, at this moment, I really have no clear opinions. Sorry.

[shalini]

I will also not turn a blind eye at this time of mourning at the issue of the mistreatment of Muslims in India, and I maintain this despite the rebuttals I know this statement will receive. I have seen it myself, and it was a revelation for me

I don't mean to be patronizing or dismissive, but personal experience is a very unreliable basis for forming conclusions or making claims about such intractably complex issues as the power balance and state of relations between religious communities in India.  I am a Kashmiri Hindu who can recount at length the mistreatment I personally (we won't even go into what my kith and kin have endured) have suffered at the hands of Muslims in India.  I don't think that means that Hindus are mistreated in India.

Despite my personal history, I'm continuously riddled with doubt about my assumptions and perceptions of how things are in India and struggle to maintain perspective.  As such, I am constantly amazed at the certitude and glibness with which folks (Rushdie & Roy for ex.) declare XYZ to be the truth and ABC to be an oppressed group.  I have also gone weary of all the one-sided sermons of tolerance directed at Hindus in India.  And as long as people are bent on playing this childish game of casting this or that group as victim or villain, I won't consider any voice in this discussion to be credible.

[bollyking]

People like Arundati Roy have made millions getting her name in the paper by being against everything and creating nothing-and contributing nothing to society.  Zero.  She's the 'complainer in chief' of India but the only welfare she is interested in her own.   

First of all her scholarship in the mumbai piece is very shoddy. She just uses the attack as a platform to vent her rubbish ideas about indias newfound embrace of neoliberal economics. She doesnt say it outloud but she's basically saying, why should you make a big deal because this time rich people were killed? Well im sorry you dumb kutiya, but when the train bombings killed aam aadmian then you basically blamed the attacks on security forces in kashmir.

If she was really interested in helping and not just complaining, she'd start a development bank or do something which puts money into poor peoples pockets, not just writing articles to put money in her own.

[etu]

Thanks, TR, for your thoughts. I really appreciate them.

I don't know if Arundhati Roy or Salman Rushdie or some other person has the firmest grasp on the truth, honestly. In fact, I had assumed that no one was going to be able to give me the full picture but only what they see from their own perspective, with their personal biases noted.

I have done a fair amount of reading on select communal topics in India, including hundreds of news articles from the 1990s and 2000s, for a separate project not totally related to this event. Even so, I feel my grasp of India's history and current situation is more or less superficial.

That said, I also feel it's important for people here and everywhere not to classify or invalidate others' impressions and assessments as either insider, outsider, or not-insider-enough. Take, for example, Deepak Chopra, whom people dismissed as just a shiny media personality until he spoke so eloquently about how he has been personally affected by these acts.

As an official outsider, I am going out on a limb here to share my impressions:

• The vast majority of Indians have been extraordinarily open to people of different faiths.
• It seems to me that through the course of India's history, no religious group has escaped terrible abuse by whomever was in power. If you look back over the decades and centuries, every group has suffered brutal attacks, especially Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs, but others too.
• Many politicians are quick to remind citizens of these abuses in order to whip up support for their positions. Occasionally, they resort to stirring up local violence and looking the other way, as in Gujarat, New Delhi, Kashmir and other places.
• The terrorist acts in a large way are separate and different from local communal strife. However, there has been mention of Gujarat 2002 as part of the latest attackers' motivation (which could be just talk) and often the word "terrorist" has been used to also mean Indian Muslims. The relationship is tangential but it still exists.
• The news media sometimes takes sides and makes matters worse, at least in the heat of the moment.

Feel free to disabuse me of my impressions, which I'm sure folks here will.