Bombay Burning

Posted November 27, 2008

The gun battle between terrorists and Indian commandos is still going on in two of Bombay's premier hotels as I write this. The full-scale of the tragedy is not yet known. It will a while before we find out who is behind this outrageous assault on India's commercial capital. Leaders—international and India's own—have issued boilerplate condemnations.

This morning, newspapers have been delivered, joggers, flower-sellers and hawkers are on the streets and buses are running on the city's typically misty late autumn morning, and the milk delivery has not been disrupted. Men and women are back at work, while schools remain closed.

For a long time, many of us, myself included, have praised this resilience as a symbol of the city's indomitable spirit. It has been attacked often—in 1993, a series of bomb blasts exploded at the stock exchange, the passport office, and the Air India Building, killing 257 people. In 2003, two blasts killed 46 people. In 2006, coordinated blasts destroyed the city's suburban trains, killing over 200 people. And now, this.

The city, also known as Mumbai, has always risen from these assaults, with Sisyphean determination, carrying on as if it is business as usual, that life must go on. Indeed, that spirit persists, and it is admirable. It would not be Bombay if it took out its rage on those who had nothing to do with the atrocities. To understand that attitude, turn to words that anyone who has spent some time in Bombay understands: bindas (brave) or khadoos (stubborn). (After the 1993 blasts in which the explosive Semtex was used, and the Sensex, the stock market index, stabilized quickly, Bombay's brokers joked: it takes more than Semtex to shake Sensex.)

But it is different this time. There is raw anger—at the helplessness of it all. What else does one do, except go to work, friends have asked me. We aren't making a statement against terrorism; we are doing what we know best. Don't use us as poster-children to prove a political point.

Fair point. Indeed, what can a day-wage labourer do, except to look for a job? In spite of wider economic growth in many parts of India, it is this city that continues to attract thousands of people daily from all parts of the country, who go there to seek their fortune. Poor and wounded it may be; it remains the city of opportunities. The arrival of outsiders has spawned an ugly nativist movement, which wants to restrict opportunities to those born in the city, or those who speak Marathi. But the movement is dismissed as politically motivated because its residents know that what makes it attractive is its openness.

And it is that openness that the terrorists want to attack. In his 1995 novel, "The Moor's Last Sigh," Salman Rushdie wrote: "Those who hated India, those who sought to ruin it, would need to ruin Bombay…"

Bombay's citizens will probably demonstrate, once again, their humanity. (Friends stranded near Ground Zero, the Taj Mahal Hotel, found that a hotel where they had to stay the night refused to charge them for the room). Over the next few hours and days there will be many more similar stories, of that there is no doubt.

But what about its leaders? Granted, that in a democratic society you cannot have a surveillance mechanism that keeps track of everyone who enters the city, and you cannot inspect every box, every boat, every packet, and every car that comes in. But this is colossal intelligence failure. The resignation of a politician or two, the removal of an intelligence chief or two, can hardly be the answer. Systematic changes will be needed. It means longer security queues, better weapons for the city's police (and more important, better training when to use them), superior surveillance techniques, and accountability.

New York has been attacked, London has faced—and avoided—attacks. Israelis are used to dealing with terror. And yet, the perception about India is that it takes these attacks in, as if nothing has happened. Returning to normalcy is an important part of dealing with terror. Preventing terror, and making people feel secured without imposing arbitrary restrictions on their lives, without suspecting individuals because of the collective they may belong to—religion, caste, language—and inspiring a sense of security among those who want to trust the law: these are the things a government must do. And it is in that area that the state has failed its people.

Fixing that also requires greater political participation. South Bombay, the epicenter of the attacks, is among the wealthiest parts of the country. And yet, that parliamentary constituency routinely has low turnout during elections. Voters don't turn out for municipal elections as well. They must register their voice, they must protest, through the power the Indian constitution gives them, and elect a government that delivers, and not one that gets in through default, due to overall apathy. India has a phrase—chalta hai—this will go on. That must not do. Bombay's citizens cannot, and should not, go about being vigilantes. But they can be vigilant about their rights, through their right to vote.

If Bombay maintains its stride, if it continues to exude its characteristic warmth, it is in spite of those who rule it, and not because of them. The spirit of Bombay is a cliché—I have used it in the past, but I mean it as a compliment—and its citizens have earned it, and deserve to wear that medal. The shame is its politicians'.

Salil Tripathi, former REVIEW correspondent in Singapore, was born in Bombay. He is a writer based in London.