Mumbai terror attacks—An unbiased dissection

Dt:27,December 2008


It’s been exactly a month since the biggest terrorist attack on India. Eight terrorists holding the city of Mumbai captive for over 36 hours ,a fact which seems highly impractical on the face of it. Now exactly after a month of the incident, which was followed by arrests, speculation, constant international intervention and accusations , what is the situation on ground today .What is it that we have learnt from this tragic incident? How have we changed ourselves in the past month, or have we? Well the questions are endless and the answers seem to be minimal.

Well I have been prodding over this issue for the past few days and decided that I may as well share my views with you. With all the media intervention and political commentary on the incident it is highly possible that we the general public may as well be kept away from the truth. The TRUTH, which may be contrastingly different from what we have been fed by our daily news channels, which I am not sure always have the right news with them as well. Having said that, what are the tools that we have at our disposal for analyzing the attack, nothing but common sense and our knowledge of the world which may or may not be complete? The effort is to try and come up with an opinion that is not influenced by the media inputs and at the same time come up with a solution for the same.


ATTACK POSTMORTEM

What we know

• Two men started firing randomly at CST .There was an air of casual confidence in the way they moved around killing people.
• We have on record these two terrorists moving around hijacking peoples cars.
• It is alleged that these two guys were responsible for killing 3 of the best Policemen by shockingly appearing in front of them when they least expected them.(Already a lot of controversy has been created by one of our MPs regarding this theory ..but this is one of the things that only eye witnesses can confirm. and we surprisingly don’t have any of our news channels having an inside story about this incident. Strange!!) .
• Also we know that terrorists entered Trident , Taj and Nariman house and held people captive, especially foreign nationals.

What we don’t know

• Exactly how many terrorists were involved in all in this entire episode.
• How many had landed in Mumbai on that fateful day and have gone undercover.
• What is the sort of local support that these guys had since it would have been highly impossible for them to carry out this large scale mission just by watching a few maps on Google Earth.

Well I could have continued adding to this list for another hour but we may as well read our newspapers for that. Continuing the discussion forward let us have a look at the accusations mad in the International community.


INTERNAL JOB --CONSPIRACY Theory (Pak’s Accusation)

Long after the 9/11 attacks in the US, I was shocked to see a documentary doing the rounds in internet. A documentary claiming the existence of a secret community which controls the US banking system, the Federal Reserve as well as many banking organizations across the world. A community which consists of the worlds richest people (Rockfellar,Bush family etc.) who are planning to take over the world by uniting the entire world under a single government and a single banking system. I shall elaborate about this conspiracy theory in one of the other articles.
But it is speculated that these guys are carrying out terror attacks with internal help so that people surrender to fear and accept some of the strict laws (POTA,TADA etc.) which will strictly deter the privacy of an individual in a free democratic rule and also allow him to be arrested and his house to be searched without proof or Search Warrant. Whilst these may as well be what they are that is Conspiracies—we must keep a strict watch and knowledge about what is going around us.
Now a few people in Pakistan have alleged that the 26/11 attacks were a part of an internal Indian job. As far as India is concerned, we were going through recession and a severe inflation problem when the attacks happened. So the government was in knee deep problem itself and would not have been stupid enough to create trouble for themselves. Elections were nearing and the opposition also had enough points on which it could have brought this government down. Hence influencing polls might not be a reason if it indeed were an internal job. The only other reason which explains the internal job theory would be enforcing of strict Anti –terror,anti human laws(whilst you and I are happy that the government has implemented stricter laws ,we have been kept in the dark as to what provisions are there in these laws).Also it might be worth noticing that in India there is only one political party which is highly pro-antiterrorism laws. and it may highly be possible that they may be a part of the secret ‘World Acquisition community’.



SHIFTING ATTENTION/FORCE FROM AFGHAN BORDER (India’s Accusation)

Whilst Pakistan accused India of the internal hand. India accused that Pakistan (ISI/LASHKAR/Army or whoever) conducted the terror attacks in India so that they could instigate India into a war .This would give Pakistan a chance to move troops away from their North western front were they were made to fight their Taliban brothers whom the ISI has been supporting since ages.Whilst Washington had forced Pakistan to act against the Taliban extremists as partners of the war on terror ,Pakistan itself has been reluctant to go hard on these extremists.
The thing that has been supporting this theory is the fact that Pakistan has been moving out all its troops from its north western border to the Indian border ,even though India has clearly stated that war would not be pursued against Pakistan.


OUR CONCLUSIONS.

While assuming that India and Pakistan had never been and in the future will never be good friends. It is assumed that one of them has played mischief. Whilst it is quite evident sitting in India that it is Pakistan who is the culprit, I would not be surprised if the average common man in Pakistan has started believing that India has done this shameful act to get the better of Pakistan. The sad part of the story being that You and I will never come to know what the truth is .Even as we watch our media revealing new facts daily and getting swayed away by them, we must pause for a while and think on our own. Is this the truth? Am I being exposed to reality? Or am I making a fool out of myself by reacting to something which was just designed to get a reaction out of me.


PUBLIC REACTION

I have long been hearing about the never say die spirit of Mumbai, the fact that mumbaikars just rock back out of any situation and carry on with life as usual. While I salute this spirit of Mumbai .In the past few weeks I have started doubting that theory.
Rather than calling this a never say die spirit I would call it the insensitive nature of Mumbai. True that the people here have gone through a lot .True that every Mumbaikar is experienced enough to handle any adverse situation.But the fact remains that we are plain INSENSITIVE.
Common it could have been you or me who would have been the first person to be shot at CST.What would have been your response to the situation then.Well a large number of people attended the peace rally held and many of them were young college going students.But I somewhat was shocked by the indifference shown by the working class.
Just 24 hours into the attack , the terrorists still holding your fellowmen captive and where are you, OHH!! attending office so that you don’t lose a days salary.BIZZARE!!.While I had intended to keep this article precise ,I just cant help add a couple of dialogues that people I know came up with during this tragic Incident.

One of my friend’s boss :Why do you need an off day.the firing is not happening at your house.

One of my friend : Tu kyu tension leta hain ? jo bhi Taj me fase hain who sab bade log hi hain. [Why are you worrying, people who are stuck up in TAJ are financially well to do] …GREAT !!!!

This attitude of our working class, of essentially people who are knowledgeable shocks me to a great extent.Why cant we as a nation demand a few things from our government.Why do we turn a blind eye to all the danger that’s surrounding us.Tragedies have come and hit us all the time, be it earthquakes ,riots ,floods ,or terror attacks,or for that matter even reservations .But after an initial hoopla the public just tends to forget about it.We are so insecure about getting into politics, but even by staying out of the system we can bring about change.We can force the government to think about it.But are we as people of a democratic country doing it enough. Are we not letting our own nation down by taking all that is thrown at us lying down.

Common guys we pay our taxes to the government so that we get our rights and security has to be the biggest thing that an Individual can demand of a democratic government. I shall not go on lecturing about how we can change because then the obvious question that is backfired to you is that “What have you done to change the scenario?” Nothing. I am as much guilty of inaction as all of us are. And that my dear friends is the only thing that has provoked me into writing this article.


WHAT CAN WE DO

Well the answer again is simple but the implementation is not. There are enough people in India who are learned enough to understand and run the politics of this nation. You cannot bring about major changes by staying out of the system. Despite being just another movie, RDB has shown that what would happen if you try to change the system from outside. You would inadvertently fail.You have to be a part of the system and when you decide to be a part of it ,you should be a strong part of it so that your voice is heard.

I may come across as a movie buff but one of the movies that I strictly recommend for all those who have a vision to change the nation is Yuva.The movie describes that how in the current scenario a student movement can remove the rot in our existing system.Imagine the number of students studying in colleges across the nation. If we manage to draw even half of that population into a nationalized student movement and make them identify and create competition for the current tainted candidates standing in our elections, we can change. A few days back I read about a gentleman forming a Peoples party (I don’t remember its name).I would suggest that we should try to get a many young people into this movement. A revolution is all we need and unlike Bhagat Singh and Chandreshekar, we are not fighting a foreign rule but our own people.

Believe me ,if we have the will then we can go a long way in achieving it.You don’t need to give up your career plans as we will have new students rolling out every year. But the idea is to instill the feeling of rebellion in the student community.I would have appreciated if Raghu could have given some gyaan to our college dudes ,who would prefer watching MTV roadies than watch national news.I recollect one of the contestants saying and I quote “Newspaper padhkar main kya karu” and that too with an air of arrogance.There is lot of zeal and enthusiasm in our youth the only thing is that it is not directed properly.

Our resolve

Should be to come up with a national movement by getting together the entire literate working class of the nation on one platform.
Build a propaganda to tackle terrorism not by making vague remarks but by forming a national group which would simultaneously contest elections and question the establishment, if not replace the existing government .

If a few of us come together and have a peace rally it is not gonna have any change in the tactics of the government.We need a resolve to make this bigger,let our voice be heard and for that we need firm determination and belief in our ability.I don’t know if you guys have it in you to make this happen but I am sure I DO.