Watching the response of the authorities, the media, the common man and those in the line of fire made me realise that the Indian reply is made up of the good the bad and the ugly.
Let me start with something that really made me VERY happy. The statement issued by Taj Group of Hotels. Their premier hotel in Mumbai, operating out of a heritage building has sufferred a lot of damage. But even as the army operations are in progress to flush out the terrorists Taj Group issued the following statement:
“….we will rebuild every inch that has been damaged in this attack and bring back the Taj to its full glory,”
Amazing!
At the other end we find the Government shutting down the city. Wanting people to hide in their homes scared and terrified instead of going about doing normal days work. They pretend as if life is otherwise so normal and safe.
This has also shown how news hungry our media is. If media had their way they would stick a camera right up the ass of the injured and the army people and ask ‘apko kaisa lag raha hai’ (how are you feeling now). The silliest bit was when Barkha Dutt tried to approach a foreigner (a diplomat from the Canadian High Commission) again and again using ‘sir’ and almost ready to lick the persons feet for a sound-byte.
This has also shown how deeply are the Mumbai underworld, the Police and the Government are connected. Three senior police officers being targetted all of whome with a connection with the underworld. Police says that the terrorists came by boat. No way can you land on a boat in a busy city like Mumbai without anyone noticing. I am 100% sure terrorists had help from the authorities.
In this case I think the terrorists made use of the fact that many objectives converged into one big mission. Dealing with cops who attack the underworld, killing cops involved in investigating major crimes (like Malegon blasts), causing chaos, targetting foreigners, destroying a few more buildings and making some silly demands to launch the Kashmir Issue onto the World Stage.
Who knows, maybe Hindus and Muslims are cooperating in terrorism as well! Who benefits from all this? Only the hardline organisations. The Muslims will feel threatened and would increase hostility. The Hindu hardline organisations will use this to spread ‘Hindutva’.
They picked a very bad time though. The world is reeling under the weight of a financial crisis. No one has time for terror. In fact maybe that is why they combined so many operations into one. Maybe terrorists get affected by recession too!
Fish Eye View 